Rescued From A Field: 63 Chevy Impala Convertible

[vaporlock]

That beautiful car deserves a car cover. I cringe when see that nice paint all dusty

Thank you, yes agreed. It was on there thick. I never planed on it being there for that long and definitely regret not putting a cover over it.

Do you have any rodent issues in storage?
And I know that dust has to be bugging the hell out of you, but be careful to lightly pressure wash it off, then a use a high sudsing foaming car wash soap (not dish soap) with a high quality car wash mitt (not a rag or towel) to float away the remaining dirt While washing gently and rinsing frequently. Good luck, and push to get this thing road worthy again, Id love to see it cruising on the road!

I was really surprised to find only a little bit of mouse stuff, they built a single family sized nest under the rear bench seat but no smell, no dead or alive mice and it cleaned up easily.
Yeah, it was gross seeing it like this. I did get it cleaned up, the dirt wasn't stuck on so it rinsed of pretty easily with some warm water and good water pressure, follow by a bath.

Sweet X frame, I think our Buick will be going to the paint booth after all mechanical is done.

Thanks! Nice, hope it goes much smoother than it did for me!

 

[vaporlock]

After talking with the new property owner, I needed to figure out how to physically move the Impala the 65 miles from old to new space. At the time I didn't have the needed weight class on my drivers license (the combo of my XC90, the Impala and a car trailer is too heavy) so I texted my buddy Mike who is a tow truck driver and asked if he was interested in some extra cash and he said he'd be happy to do it. He towed my K1500HD home when I bought it so I trust the guy. Why do I keep buying broken things?

So on October 3rd I drove down south again and met up with the property owner and Mike, both very fascinated with the Impala, and we drug her out. 3 out of 4 tires still had air in them after 9 years, the 4th was not all the way down and that tire always leaked... this was the first time I seen the color in daylight, of course still insanely dirty... anyways, on to bigger and better things!

Loaded up...

...and on the road again!

... and, after way to long, Belle is home! Thanks Mike!

 

[ZooMad75]

Man the guy running the shop is a complete tool. I'm being very polite too. It seems like he bit off way more than he could chew with your car. Good for you for sticking to your guns and holding his ass to the fire to get your car back.

Wiring a '63 Impala is not like it's rewiring a new car. They have like 8 fused circuits or less. Doing it right takes time to route correctly and cover in conduit, but it's not a complicated job. If he and his crew had a hard time rewiring it they probably have no business working on cars. That's illustrated in the fact they shot primer over the aluminum trim on the quarter panel. So stupid.

I'm glad the car is close to home and allows you the ability to take it to completion. I'll attach a little inspiration. This is my buddy's '63 Impala SS convertible. It's a one family car. His dad bought it new and passed it on to him. It's a 300hp 327 with a factory 4-speed. The car is sitting on lowered springs with disc brakes added to the front and a 2.5" exhaust we installed at the dealership I worked at.

 

[vaporlock]

Man the guy running the shop is a complete tool. I'm being very polite too. It seems like he bit off way more than he could chew with your car. Good for you for sticking to your guns and holding his ass to the fire to get your car back.

Wiring a '63 Impala is not like it's rewiring a new car. They have like 8 fused circuits or less. Doing it right takes time to route correctly and cover in conduit, but it's not a complicated job. If he and his crew had a hard time rewiring it they probably have no business working on cars. That's illustrated in the fact they shot primer over the aluminum trim on the quarter panel. So stupid.

I'm glad the car is close to home and allows you the ability to take it to completion. I'll attach a little inspiration. This is my buddy's '63 Impala SS convertible. It's a one family car. His dad bought it new and passed it on to him. It's a 300hp 327 with a factory 4-speed. The car is sitting on lowered springs with disc brakes added to the front and a 2.5" exhaust we installed at the dealership I worked at.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. He definitely bit of waaay more than he could chew, looking back he treated it like it was a new car and parts where available left and right at practically nothing. I have a list of things he threw away that are either stupid expensive or not possible to get a hold of anymore that I'm simply missing now, we're talking thousands of dollars. He threw away an original 64 rear bumper that was in great condition and my old 307. I didn't know any of this at the time, except the 307, only found out when I brought the car to my shop and could open the trunk, I though all the parts where in there but nope.

I know right! Mine has 14 fused circuits but the instructions are so good and easy anyone capable of reading and isn't colorblind could do it. They didn't have any business doing anything other than collision repair jobs for insurance companies... they should have stuck to that.

Me too! Oh wow, so beautiful! The 63 that made me fall in love with this car was the same color but with black interior and top. I wish we had that kind of tradition here, passing down vehicles, except I'd be the not-so-proud owner of a Dodge van, an OBS Fuuurd truck or an mid 80's 7-series BMW that would have left me stranded somewhere.

 

[vaporlock]

This was at the end of 2019, even tho my shop is only 10 minutes from home I do work full time, we have two Siberian Huskies I bring with me to work and they need their walks and play time too and to top it of I have an autoimmune illness that means I don't have the energy a normal healthy person has and recovery is a biatch. After a day at work and taking the dogs for their walks I'm exhausted. My point is, unfortunately progress is still gonna be slow.
I had a great start to 2020 (heavy on the irony), on the day of NYE I went for a run with my dog and a couple hundred yards in I thought I was gonna die, I could not breath and not because I'm out of shape... the next day I was feeling worse and by the evening I was as sick as can be and it stayed that way for the next month and a half. At the end of February, beginning of Mars we had the first known case of Corona in Sweden, while I've never been so sick in my life that's not what I had and mid Mars we started working from home (which me and the doggos loved) and I had a whole lot more time on my hands. The only problem now was the entire world shut down and I (like everyone else) couldn't get any parts...
Now back to November 2019...

I did what I could with what I had and now that she's home the first order of business was to get her clean. I'm so glad that I have hot and cold water in the shop and a drain (it's under the car). Since she doesn't run and there is no way I'm pushing this outside and back in by myself I have no other option than to wash it indoors. Because the walls are naked sheetrock/drywall and doesn't do well being wet I had to take it extra easy. Also the top was down and I don't want water inside.

Still wet but damn she is purrdy!

Dry, don't laugh but I only cleaned the hood, fenders and windshield at this point. She's gonna need a second bath.

I also cleaned the interior, it was pretty nasty and I'm gonna be spending alot of time in there.

 

[vaporlock]

A few days later, I did give her a complete and proper bath!

 

[vaporlock]

I didn't do anything with the Impala for a few months after New Years, one reason being I was so sick I didn't have the energy and the other being I was waiting for parts.
One of the things I was missing is the trim pieces that go on the side of the front bench seat and since no one reproduces them they're pretty hard to find. Surfing the Evilbay I actually found a set and while they need a good cleaning they're pretty nice. Since mine has a solid black vinyl interior, black carpet and black top all the chrome is extra important to break it of, it also locks extra good! I have a bunch of stuff I wanna rechrome at some point and I might throw these in too.

 

[vaporlock]

By summer 2020 I was finally back to normal and itching to get back to the shop and the Impala. I had obviously been by to check on things but not really done anything. While I already knew about the spiderweb of wires under the hood, I mean, I've been looking right at, have been for years... it's hard to miss. What I didn't know about was the shitshow hidden by 8.63 miles of electric tape, so when I removed some of it and saw the wrong color wire going to one of the headlight connectors, I was a bit confused and concerned. The new and the old harnesses don't have the same colors and I was looking at the papers for the new one, since I bought a new harness I assumed that's what they installed (stupid of me, I know).
Turns out, they did, sort off... I removed the tape to find what they did was twisting the old and new wires together, fold them down and covered them in 96ft of electrical tape. They didn't solder or even use buttconnectors... I did some quick math and figured there is close to a hundred of these "splices" thru out the car and I was gonna have to solder all of them, while in the car...
I had a few wires that had either been damaged or eaten on by mice, when I soldered those I got a little buzz every time my back touched the engine (no battery in the car, faulty pen), it wasn't great... so I wasn't looking forward to do another hundred or so. I've gotten a few proper shocks by 230V in my life and it ain't fun, shit hurts, glad this wasn't as bad! I've even had two 400V wires touch while working in a junctionbox a time or two, scared the hell out of me (we couldn't shut off the power entirely for different reasons, and I know, stupid and dangerous!)

I pretty much use Classic Industries as my go to place for Impala stuff and to my relief I found the correct male and female pins that go inside the plastic connectors, meaning a little less anger and headache for me. I want the car to be safe, look nice, like original and professionally done. Is that too much to ask for?

I ordered the pins right away and while waiting for them, I went thru the entire car front to back, ripped out all of the 7.83 miles of sticky electric tape, cleaned all the wires, identified and verified every wire, marked up everything with numbers (the new harness was divided into 12 or so groups), took notes of connectors and so on. When I had the new pins I went to town with my crimping tool, I did the majority over one weekend and my hands have never hurt so much!

My biggest fear has always been that this car would go up in flames, I'm really glad I started checking the wires before hooking up a battery... ​

 

[vaporlock]

It's been said many times before, by a lot of people, the guy I've been referring to as The Boss is an idiot and he bit of way more than he could chew with this car.
The only why I can "get back" at him is showing the world his fvuk ups so, like always, I've taken a lot of before/after photos to show how badly they did. Let's just say they're definitely a solid contender in the fvck it up-olympics, I hope y'all can see that their crap is on the left and what I consider the correct way is on the right.
I was gonna call this "Retard Ingenuity", like a play on Redneck Ingenuity but.. there is no ingenuity here. Anyways, without any further ado:

VAPOR LOCK GARAGE
(un)proudly presents
"The Great Electric Spagettio"​

Power Convertible Switch
I get not having the correct connector but damn, ya could at least have told me that! This is 1 of 2 connectors I'm missing.

Power Convertible Relay
I found this "thing", one red wire going in to a fist-sized bundle of electric tape and 2 red wires coming out the other side. I removed the tape and found this, the wire in the yellow buttconnector fell out as I unwrapped the tape. I'm gonna put some of the tape I use on the back and sides just to be sure there is no issues, it's mounted behind the captain side kick panel.

Light Switch
Apparently I don't have a before photo but it looked the same as the rest. I've cleaned this up a bit more now, I like to leave a little less than 1" of wire showing so that if I ever have to I can see the color and remove the pin if necessary without unwrapping the tape.

 

[vaporlock]

Ignition Switch
Fire hazard, anyone? I've cleaned this up like the light switch too.

Gauge Cluster
This is from the main harness that connects to the cluster harness, which I replaced with a new one from American Autowire.

Neutral Safety Switch
This is the other connector I'm missing, so this is my solution. I take a buttconnector and remove the plastic, crimp it to the wire and put heatshrink over, looks nice and clean. This switch wasn't even mounted...

Turn Signals
They actually forgot the powerwire for the lightbulb (gray wire) for the shift indicator and 2 of the wires where just hooked to a male buttconnector. Something I didn't know or even consider that the Impala has is that it can feel if a turnsignal lightbulb is out, like a modern vehicle!

Hi/Low Bean Switch & Parking Brake Warning Light
A common thing is the excessive length of the wires, from the manufacturer the wires are longer than needed because you're supposed cut them to length. My harness is the same as a more door version and obviously some of the wires have to be longer then. There is also an other switch in the upper right corner of the before photo which is for the parking brake warning light, I haven't fixed that yet. For that they took whatever scraps they had and buttconnected things together, one of them was 3 different colors. (That might be a 3rd connector I'm missing?)

 

[vaporlock]

Behind the Cluster/Under the dash
They hung the fuse panel in the ground wires! The after photo is the last one I have, I did clean it up a bit more but didn't take a new photo before putting the gauge cluster back in. Unlike on newer vehicles it's more open from the underside so this spagettio mess is easily seen = big no no. You just don't leave it like this!

Trunk & Taillight Harness (Will be updated when done)
Because there are taillights both in the car body and the trunklid the wires are split here, I'd like an extra connector for the darkblue/brown wire (LP light) so it can be disconnected too. I'm gonna replace all the taillight sockets because they are as bad as the rest was, I don't have any photos of those tho.

Headlights, Turnsignals & Parklights (Updated: April, 2023)
New connectors, pins and groundwire for the headlights. I rerouted all the wires going to the lights, horn and battery to run behind the wheelwells and in a space under the grill, it's all hidden now. Both sides are the same but mirrored. I fixed the wire for the horns too.
Unfortunatly I'm still missing the connectors for the parklights/turnsignals, will update when I have them.

Engine Bay (Will be updated when done)
I don't think I mentioned this before but they actually asked if they could have my car on display at car shows... The engine bay is, for obvious reasons, gonna be a little different, other than the wiring I'm also cleaning up the hoses, they are all gonna be replace with black AN hoses and couplings. I have 2 50mm2 happy cables, one on the drinker side going to the starter and one on the captain side going to the amps in the rear. The sad cables will be replaced and shortened, the one on the firewall is unnecessarily long.

Main Power & Grounds (Will be update when done)
I redid the main wires for the starter, soundsystem and convertible pump (it's a seperate harness from the rest). Starter and sound is 50mm2 and the pump is 16mm2, the main grounds are 50mm2 also.

 

[vaporlock]

Mars 2021 and a year into the pandemic, I was bored out of my mind so I decided to start building the sound system.
I looked up what I wanted, what would fit and what would work and found a couple really good deals thanks to Bilsport Performance & Custom Motor Show, one of the biggest car shows in the country, that's hosted during the Easterweekend. I ended up with a head unit, 2 subs, front speakers, rear speakers, 4-channel amp, mono amp and all the wires with a 40% discount. Everything except the HU is from a company called GAS Car Audio which is a Swedish company and the HU is a Kenwood FM/Bluetooth/USB/AUX single din unit.

I’ve had a plan for this system probably as long as I’ve had the car:
1. HU needs to be hidden (glovebox), I have the original AM radio in it's place and I don't want anything modern showing.
2. Sub in the trunk on the "shelf", I want as much free space in the trunk as possible (think taxfree wobble pop shopping space, I can jump a cruise ship to Finland and be back in 24h).
3. Front speakers to NOT, under any circumstances, be mounted in the doors = they need to fit in the kick panels.
4. Rear speakers need to be movable because it's a convertible (top up = speakers in the cab sack, top down = speakers on top of the folded down top).

I looked around but quickly realized I was gonna have to build everything myself so I had to do a bunch of maths because size is important, apparently and then made a blueprint. Once done, I built the sub box, new kick panels and glovebox insert in a few weeks after work, I used the original insert and kick panels as templates and it turned out so good!

As of right now, everything is wired but I still need to build the boxes for the rear speakers. When I'm confident the electro-digitals are safe I can hook up the battery and find out how it sounds.
(I'm no car sound fanatic, don't know what I'm doing, hope it sounds good!)

First delivery, I bought everything from 2 different car stereo companies.

Glovebox: There is a little storage space to the right, a pair of gloves would fit.

Kick Panels: Not installed yet, they will be covered in black vinyl to match the doors. The cut out is for the air vents that are and will stay fully functioning, the speaker will be mounted in the space next to it / above my hand. There is a space in the metal construction perfectly sized for a 556 (5.25") speaker, captain side is the same.

Sub: It's perfectly squished between the "shelf" and the trunklid hold'er in place things, my measuring skills was on point. Trunklid opens, closes and stays open like normal.

Amps: They're mounted behind the rear seat leaning against the sub, it'll be hidden when the cab sack is installed.

 

[76zimmer]

Nice to see the dust knocked off it!
Great upgrade on the wiring!

 

[Capt Ron]

Any progress?

 

[vaporlock]

I apologize for not replying or updating. Life has been... weird, different. I got sick from stress or possibly depressed (because of my job), quit my job in the middle of a worldwide financial crisis, built a loft, got sick, got parts, learned new things, went on vacation, got a new job and got back to my normal happy self.

So, yeah, I quit my job in October with 6 months full pay and while I had plenty of time and money I had no parts. So in early/mid-december I decided it was time to build a loft in my shop, I need more space and better organizing because climbing over seats to get into the shop is not working. I truly have the best parents one could ask for, I wouldn't have been able to do this on my own. At some point I'll paint and make it pretty, my dad gave me an old metal cabinet his had for as long as I can remember that's gonna stand under the stairs and a workbench for the other side.

Worth every penny!


The week before we started building the loft my buddy came home after spending a couple months in the states and he brought parts! Perfect timing because that Monday I had a doctors appointment and my buddy lives in the same area, unfortunately I woke up that morning feeling like absolute death and then spent the following 2 weeks pretty much dead. By new years I was finally feeling better and the first week of January we flew to Gran Canary Island for a week, it was amazing and I hadn't felt that good in a long time! Then we got back home to the cold and dark again and it went downhill fast, I have RA and it was acting up for the next month and a half and in mid-March I started my new job. So I haven't been able to spent much time in the shop.
But in early April I finally got some shop time in and could do some work on the Impala, I re-wired the headlights with new connectors (See post #71 for more), did the happy cables for the starter and soundsystem and one of the sad cables are done too. I also managed to get the front benchseat back in. I started with the doorpanels but realized I need the armrests before installing them so they'll have to wait.

Parts: Wiperarms and blades, hood emblem/insert, connectors for hi/low beams, gaskets for taillights and cowl, temp sensor and fasteners for the doorpanels.

Happy cables, they're 50mm2 I don't know what gauge that is but it's plenty enough.

Benchseat is back where it belongs, that thing is heavy!

Doorpanels, the blue tape is where the metal clips need to be installed to fit the doors.

 

[vaporlock]

And as for my new job, I switched my office for a semitruck! I now spend about 80 hours a week, monday-thursday, driving and operating this thing. It's called an asphalt sprider. The red and black part is a Volvo exchanger truck meaning I can switch the bucket for another type of bed like a container, gravel bucket, flatbed etc. The polished stainless bucket I have is for asphalt and the yellow part is a Sprider, I use that to lay down the asphalt. The whole truck is remote controlled which is probably the coolest thing ever. I can drive the truck (forwards/backwards/left/right), raise/lower the bed and operate the Sprider arm laying down the asphalt exactly where I want it, while standing next to the truck.

I load 14 ton with this setup, weighing in at 32 ton and with a trailer I'm at a max of 75 ton.

 

[fourwheelerjeff]

And as for my new job, I switched my office for a semitruck! I now spend about 80 hours a week, monday-thursday, driving and operating this thing. It's called an asphalt sprider. The red and black part is a Volvo exchanger truck meaning I can switch the bucket for another type of bed like a container, gravel bucket, flatbed etc. The polished stainless bucket I have is for asphalt and the yellow part is a Sprider, I use that to lay down the asphalt. The whole truck is remote controlled which is probably the coolest thing ever. I can drive the truck (forwards/backwards/left/right), raise/lower the bed and operate the Sprider arm laying down the asphalt exactly where I want it, while standing next to the truck.

I load 14 ton with this setup, weighing in at 32 ton and with a trailer I'm at a max of 75 ton.
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that's interesting to me. I like seeing how things are done in different parts of the world.

 

[Wes Harden]

Great up date, sorry you had a rough year, but it sounds like things are looking up.

 

[Chickntrk]

well now that's pretty cool!

 

[Truckman4life]

And as for my new job, I switched my office for a semitruck! I now spend about 80 hours a week, monday-thursday, driving and operating this thing. It's called an asphalt sprider. The red and black part is a Volvo exchanger truck meaning I can switch the bucket for another type of bed like a container, gravel bucket, flatbed etc. The polished stainless bucket I have is for asphalt and the yellow part is a Sprider, I use that to lay down the asphalt. The whole truck is remote controlled which is probably the coolest thing ever. I can drive the truck (forwards/backwards/left/right), raise/lower the bed and operate the Sprider arm laying down the asphalt exactly where I want it, while standing next to the truck.

I load 14 ton with this setup, weighing in at 32 ton and with a trailer I'm at a max of 75 ton.
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Pretty cool truck. I worked for International Trucks for 10 yrs and currently a coal power plant for the last 10 yrs as a mechanic. The difference in semi trucks from the US to Europe always amazes me.