Try this with a new car

Lift it by the bumper and push it along to the shop. I am going to follow Rusty s example with getting his old Merc on the road again. This 62 Classic has been in the family since new but it hasn t been licensed since 1982. I drove it a few miles ten years ago but since then it has been parked. The title is still good and I have new plates for it but it will need a bunch of TLC before it is roadable. The engine misses in one cylinder but it is more than just a bad plug. It might have broken rings in that one hole but I have to do a compression test to find the dead hole and a leak down test after I find it. If it needs a bore job I can get the parts yet but I hope I don t have to go that far. I also hope to get the power brakes, power steering and air conditioning working again so there is some wrenching ahead of me.

The engine is a cast iron 196 Cu 6 cylinder overhead valve made by American Motors. They did make an aluminum engine too believe it or not. When I pop the hood and look down into the engine bay there is almost nothing there, just this little engine with all kinds of room around it. It has three on the tree with the old style overdrive where it free wheels in under drive. When you are getting it up to speed you need to remember to let up on the throttle to let it kick into overdrive or you are howling along wondering with that 4:11 rear end why you can t get up to speed. LOL well that s enough talk, will let you guys know how it works out after awhile.

I believe my youngest brother owned to cars like to yours.
One had an Aluminum 6 cylinder engine...Cast Iron Head...
Second car had a Cast Iron 6 cylinder engine.....Aluminium Head...
One possibly had an Automatic Transmission. The other did have a standard transmission....
My brother built an adapter, installed a four barrel Carb.....
Opened up the intake and exhaust ports.....
Installed a floor shifter....
The 6 cylinder had no problem with attaining high RPM's ....up shaft when the valves start to float....... Bob...North western Alberta Canada..

My mom drove a new 1962 whife Rambler classic like that. It was probably the first car I drove
after getting my driver's license. Ours did not have an overdrive. Hope you get it going, and
thank for reviving some memories.

Bob did the one with the automatic have the push buttons to shift with? My neighbors 59 Ambassador wagon had the push buttons. Back in the day I head of some kids taking the family Rambler out on the road, put the pedal to the metal in neutral and reach down to push a button without looking. He didn t know if he would end up going forward or backward. If it had this six cylinder in it the car probably didn t go rocketing off. Probably just a chirp then blah.

That's a nice looking car! Hope you get it going. Keep us posted.

My folks had a '60 when I was growing up. It was pink. Drove it to high school for a while in my senior year till the engine blew.
We used to make jokes about the lay-down front seats it had, although we never actually used them. I assume your '62 has those also?

Rich,

My family had a 1951 Nash full-sized boat. I don't remember the model name, but it was a four door, torpedo body with the lay down seats in it. Lay
the seats down and you had a full-sized double bed. My brother and I slept in it a few times, but I don't really remember why.

Tom in TN

Why would you try that with a new car?

For one thing, I don't care what your car is made of, moving it like that you stand a good chance of grille and hood damage. If you don't care what the car looks like, fine.

For another thing, a new car would be running and could back in under its own power.

My first car was a '61 like that, got it for $100. They had trunnions instead of ball joints in the front end and were notorious for breaking.

More likely, it has a burned valve. Very common in those days.

Reminds me of a song.
I took my foot off the gas and man alive
I shoved it on down into overdrive

Dave

I had grandpa's white '61 4 door with OD. The front seats laid down flat!

A burned valve would be easier and cheaper to fix for sure. The reason I suspect broken rings is from when I did a ring job on it sometime in the late 70 s. The cylinders had too much taper, should have been bored out back then. The breather puffs too. When I do the leak down, if it hisses like crazy out the exhaust I will have a pretty good idea it s a valve. The sucking sound in the carb is even with no popping. If it blows air out the breather you know what that means.

This post was edited by fixerupper on 07/27/2022 at 04:50 am.

My Dad had a 58 and a 60 and a 67.
They were good cars.

A friend's Dad bought a new 64 like that one with the six. We took it to the concrete bridge a mile south of town to give it a tryout.
Bridge was frost covered...wound it up to 110 miles an hour spinning on the frost and barely moving. Hit the dry pavement and left one
long black mark. Good way to break in the brand new Rambler. Couple weeks later he slid it off the gravel road coming out of another
bridge on a curve and wrecked it. It's a wonder his dad let him live, lol!

Song was Hot Rod Lincoln. The version I grew up with was released in 1960 by Johnny Bond. Borg Warner made the OD transmissions IIRC. Had one in the 1955 Chevy I drove to High School in the late 50's. Believe it or not, it was still available as an option in 1970 Chevy Pickup's. We bought one new and drove it over 250,000 miles.

(quoted from post at 20:00:53 07/26/22) Lift it by the bumper and push it along to the shop. I am going to follow Rusty s example with getting his old Merc on the road again. This 62 Classic has been in the family since new but it hasn t been licensed since 1982.

Click to expand...

Good luck with the Rambler. Will be interesting to see how it progresses. I remember when quite a few of them were still on the road. I think they used a bigger version of that engine in the IH pickups and also my IH 4000 swather. Might have been the 232.
Yours would be in the same class as my 64 Chevy II. The 194 straight six gives mine plenty of power in that light car. I license it for summer driving.

I would love to own that AMC

Popping through the carburetor would indicate a burned intake valve. Intakes rarely burn. If an exhaust valve
burned, that would explain the hissing out the exhaust.

Also note - bad, broken, or otherwise not sealing rings will NOT cause hissing out the exhaust. When rings leak,
the path is down into the crankcase. Bad rings usually manifest themselves by excessive blowby.

I'll give 99% odds that you have a burned valve.

I had a 1960 Rambler Classic 4 door. Only problem it rusted away, The cast engine was a good engine, the alumimn neverr saw one of those, I had the push button on dash, It had the split bumpers. Then I had a 1963 Rambler Classic 4 door, same engine but 3 on the tree. Had problems with shifter sticking in one gear. After several trips to garage I finally figured out what was happing, A piece on the steering column would slip out of place causing that Finally found a simple screw would not hold the threads tight, kept comming loose, just a simple worm drive hose clamp around the steering colum over that screw and never again any shifting problems. Also rusted away. Then I had a 1967 Rambler American 2 door with the 199 inch engine and 3 on the tree. I got it give to me at 11 uears old with 21,000 mile on it and wrecked . I found in repairing it that it was the second time on the right front corner and once in back end. It was my late wifes great aunt that had it and her husband insisted on a stick so he would not mess up on his job as driver of the fire engine with stick. Only engine problem I rember was the distributor kept turning and had to be readjusted. It also rusted out. I used a fence stretcher to straightenthe bent frame in front of the axle and after getting it repaired that I did myself took it to get aligmbent done as I figured after being wrecked it would need it but was in perfect alignment. Later had 2 77 AMC Hornerts, 79 Concord

Leroy that is an interesting story. This Rambler had body putty in the right rear passenger door we didn t know about until a car lightly T boned that same door years later. Later we found out dads step mom had an incident with a gas pump and secretly got the door fixed.

This post was edited by fixerupper on 07/28/2022 at 09:49 am.

My father had this one when I was a child. It was a good car.

Only new car my father ever bought was a '65 660 Classic. I can remember space to stand beside the engine, which he did several times. Rode in my uncle's car and kept fiddling with the radio preset buttons because we didn't have a radio in our car. Grandpa drove the earlier version(s) like the one in the OP, so I guess Dad came by his proclivity honestly.

He finally wore the '65 out and had a series of AMCs after that. One of the reasons I didn't date much in high school...

Saw a '59 Rambler with a For Sale sign on it just tonight in the next town over. Did not stop to look at it up close though.