I will warn you that this is a long-winded, rambling and somewhat shambolic read. Read on at your peril…
I acquired this car in 2013 for a pittance, which is a good thing as it needed heaps of work. It is a 1962 Pontiac Bonneville Vista ordered new with a 303hp 4bbl 389, Super-Hydramatic, air-conditioning, power brakes and power steering. It also has a Safe-T-Trac LSD but I don’t think that’s worked since 1984.
I got this car because a mate bought a different ’62 Bonneville Vista from a bloke in Western Sydney and the brown left-hooker was thrown in as part of the deal (as a parts car). It had solid floors, was all there (except half stripped) and seemed like a solid base.
The bad aspect for my mate was that he had nowhere to store it, so it went to live down the back of my parent’s 5 acres property on the Central Coast. They got jack of it and he wanted to bag his green car so I ended up getting it towed the half-hour down to my place where at least I had a double-garage to store it in.
The floors are rust-free and it's surprisingly straight but it needed a COMPLETE rebuild as every single body rubber was shot, there was surface rust breaking out everywhere and it was just generally in very tatty condition. However, you just don't see these things in Australia, I had next to no purchase budget and I wanted to build something rather than just buy a car.
My goal for "Project Boner-Ville" is for a nice cruiser. This has been tested so far this year by losing my job, losing a mate and pretty much just being flat broke between May and now. Hopefully I'm about to turn a corner financially so that will reduce some of the stress. I might even be a hope of getting it in colour this year...
Speaking of which, paint is Porsche 964 RS mintgruen and roof will be a pearl white. I'm going to hire a booth and spray it myself because I reckon that I've done all the prep and I'd prefer to know that I did as much as I could on the car as I can. I don't care if I screw it up in places because A) it isn't going to be a show car and B) I will just fix it.
The interior will be black/white/mint colour scheme and done in a very basic, OEM style. I'd like to get the A/C working with more modern technology as the original system is apparently useless. Air suspension is definitely on the "want" list for cruising comfort and I'm going to have to work out a way to upgrade to discs and keep old school wheel sizes. Unfortunately there are no bolt-on options in Oz for Pontiacs of this vintage.
Powerplant is looking increasingly like a junkyard LS motor with a turbo strapped to the side. I know that will tick a great deal of you off but hear me out.
The original '62 389 is in a million pieces (as is the Super Hydramatic). Rebuilding it to my power goals is uneconomical in Australia due to the heinous cost of shipping, compared to putting together an LS-based powertrain. I'm going to wrap them up and stick them under a bench until I can afford to do something with them. Besides, would you prefer to see this car sit rotting and hidden in a garage for years or out driving? If you really feel strongly enough to bag me out, instead of sooking about me ruining this car just pony up $20k and you can have the thing and put as many Pontiac motors in it as you like.
On to pics:
Here is how mine looked when I got the keys.
It then spent 6 months in my shed doing nothing while I got on with being distracted by working pretty much 24/7.
One issue has been how crazy dirty this thing was.
Friends and I have spent whole days cleaning parts of this car.
Here is the original Poncho 389 too. I didn't strip it, this is how I got it, unfortunately. It's a genuine 4-barrel motor so 300 (gross) horsepower, or around 220 with air con off (and 150 with it on)
Did a bit of cleaning on the '62 D-port heads:
It came with later model 455 heads and the original ’62 heads (with the original ’62 389, which is in a million bits).
I cleaned up the original Super-Hydramatic using oven cleaner… and garnet. The ’62 Pontiacs have a really dud feature where there is no provision on the engine for a starter. Instead it is on the gearbox, which is poxy if you want to run a lot more power than stock as you need either a new motor and trans, or a very expensive Wilcap adapter that allows fitment of a small Mopar starter.
Come December I had spare time again so I got the thing down to its undies pretty quickly. I wanted to check it for rust so I stripped the tar sheets someone had applied off the floor. No rust or damage meant I could seal them up. I’ve got more sound deadening to go on top of this once the shell is painted.
Through December I pretty much tried to spend an hour a day working on the car, and at least 10hours on a weekend, which led to making good progress. I couldn’t believe how much “stuff” is in these cars – my double garage is FULL of bits.
Got the firewall stripped and primed a couple of days before New Years. Please bear in mind that I am self-taught when it comes to body/paint work and am spraying with gear I bought from Supercheap in a dusty, open-eave shed.
I have spent a fortune with Original Parts Group in Seal Beach, CA but their parts always come really quickly, are easy to order and they offer great after-sales service. I will definitely highly recommend them for any GM restoration.
Chaos. I wasn’t prepared for how much stuff gets everywhere and how much space a full-size US car takes up when blown apart.
Thankfully there isn’t much rust and bodywork to do. The lower rear-quarter, rear sail panel, doglegs, one section of door and the entire boot floor are the sections needing weld-in replacements.
I tackled the doglegs first
I decided to strip the thing completely so I could have the chassis blasted and then paint it (in KBS which is a great Aussie product – I used the 3-stage Rust Blast stuff). The process added a few weeks to the job but I’m glad it’s been done. I also got under and painted the floors while it was all out (in KBS), then fitted new body mounts (all 22 of ‘em). The car has been rebushed throughout and I’ve got new wheel cylinders, new brake lines, new master cylinder (looking ATM for booster), wheel bearings, shocks, tie-rods and steering gear, etc. I stripped, cleaned and painted it in, you guessed it, KBS.
After hand-stripping (and priming) the roof I used chemical paint-stripper on the doors and the rear-guards as I was jack of using the grinder by this point. Using Oxytech’s awesome paint-stripper I lathered it onto the panel really thickly, then using a tip from a coach-builder mate who uses this stuff all the time, I let it go for 15mins (no cover), scraped off the first layers of paint and then applied more stripper. I let that go for 10mins and scrubbed it off using metal wire pot scourers in hot water. It brought the metal up so well and in no time at all.
Stripping/priming roof:
Perimeter frame coming out
Yeah, it's foogin hoooooooj
Blasted at Imperial Blasting in Newcastle
Painted in 3-stage KBS "Rust Blast". It's a cheap, brush-on product made in Australia. Was going to go POR-15 but figured I'd try helping out the Aussie industry where possible.
Getting it rolling again:
Paint stripping:
Jambs done:
Dash glitter going back in:
Nothing makes you feel like you’ve achieved a milestone like putting the doors back on a car – that was my main goal.
I had to make some new tabs/studs to attach the bonnet (one of the perils of buying a partially stripped project is that you discover you're missing important stuff like this at the worst time possible). Yes, I messed up one of the tabs. This is all part of a learning experience for me (after years of writing about guys building cars in sheds, I figure it's time to put up or shut up).
And to shame myself on the internet further, here is a couple of attempts to make a new inner rear guard section. I was playing around with a few different options and trying to make it easy for myself to match the hump in the floor (which is missing due to rust) which is why this one has that ugly kick-up at the rear. I'll keep playing around with this 'til I get it right.
Doors back on, it was time to attack the boot/rear-end rust. I wheeled it outside for some pics in the air after months in the garage. It felt really good at this point even though the front guards and bonnet were only mocked up!
I am now onto fixing the rust in the boot floor, which involves replacing the whole damn thing. I had bought a 2nd hand complete section from the USA (along with a bonnet, boot lid, nosecone and sail panel cut) but it turned out to be FUBAR. In my naïve optimism I thought I could save some sections but a sheety friend informed me of my folly so I cut/hammered the old boot out and have started making a new one with a fresh piece of sheet steel
I was going to get all Clever Dick and make some recessed boxes between the chassis rails and inner guards, then fill them with dry cell batteries, tools and other handy stuff. But I am new to this whole panel-making caper (if you can’t tell by my rougher-than-Mickey-Rourke’s-head cuts) and so I have gone back to just making a simple flat sheet boot floor which I’ll paint in Raptor Liner. It will be plug-welded to the fuel tank mounts to keep drumming down and will be stitched across the four external edges. I am not yet sure if I’ll plug weld or stitch the body mounts to the sheet – the factory mounts were just spot welded not seamed. Happy to take advice/criticism/etc here…
Whole lotta Rosie!
Original floor:
I cut the replacement up
Cutting the original floor
Trying to use bits of the replacement floor (proved futile)
Cut it all out and start again...
New boot floor welded in. Not pretty, just functional. Originality be damned!
Next job is the dented sail panel…
Cheers!
