Field Find 1959 Chevy El Camino! It's Rusty But Complete! New Project on the Channel! Ep.1 Let's Go!

Welcome to another episode of Country Boy Gas Garage. In this video we introduce a new

channel

project

vehicle and from the thumbnail you probably already know what it is so let's go back to the foreign of the now married task force line to bring you abroad. exciting El Camino The new look of Chevrolet's El Camino El Camino, the most beautiful object ever built to withstand a load The finish of Chevrolet's El Camino hampson and yet very practical for your transportation needs Passenger car interiors every new Chevy comfort and convenience almost every Chevy option including your choice of V8 engines or the six that puts more miles in gallons a new generation but a thoroughbred Chevrolet all beautiful El Camino for

1959

at your Chevrolet dealers, that's right guys , right behind this door is an El Camino 59, now I'm pretty.

I'm excited to bring this one to the

channel

so let's take a look at it yeah yeah and here she is or there there there you can see something or maybe there's some of that oh okay guys well , I'm a little embarrassed. Clutter and this place is a mess, but like most people,

project

s have become storage space and that's what happened here. Well, there's a

1959

Chevy El Camino underneath all this stuff. I've been sitting on this one for about five years. Well, I'd like to take a closer look and show you what we're working with and give you some of the backstory, but I'm going to have to clean this up and clean out this shed. a little bit here and see if I can lay this out a little bit more, not only is it covered and stuff, but it has a bed full of parts and tools and I have other cabinets and things over here that I was going to put here.

Honestly, at the store, they boarded up the entrance there. I have to lower it for this to move. There's not a lot of room here, but I'm going to go ahead and set up the GoPro, get it on time. a while and start cleaning this place once we have cleaned it up a bit. I'll be able to show you El Camino a little better, so let's go abroad, abroad, abroad, abroad, okay guys, take a look at it now. I know she's far from perfect, but definitely a worthy candidate to fix up and get back on the road uh, I know she's got a lot of break and has her fair share of dents and dings, but she's all here, you know, any of the trimmings What do you see are missing, I have them in the bed or there are a couple up there in the rafters too, but it's all here, all the glass, all the lights, you know, the engine and transmission are off, but I have them, uh , the engine I have is not the original. this car, but it came with a Chevy 350. um, but yeah, a lot of rest, but other than that, it's not that bad.

You know the 59 El Caminos is a pretty rare car. You know it's a first-year model and only one year of bodywork. style and they only made about 22,000 of them so they aren't many and in the 1960's they are even rarer. I think they only made about 14,000 of those and they are also a one year only body style. and then they discontinued the El Camino for four years and brought it back in 64 on the Chevelle platform, but and these parts became very expensive, well, right off the bat, you can see I need some headlight housings, you know.

I'll take a closer look at this, but I might take a moment to update you. You know this is more or less a

field

discovery. Well, let me take a moment to update you. You know I bought this. Five years ago I bought it at a couple of stores. um it was his dad's car and he drove it a lot and he customized it and fixed it up you know it doesn't have the original grill anymore it's a custom bar grill and there are some other things I'll show you later but it was this hot rod , but unfortunately he did pass away and the daughter and husband kept him behind the barn in a

field

and he stayed there for many years and the river.

That call along the property had flooded I guess twice over the years and flooded this car so the underside is pretty

rusty

but they finally decided to take it into the house and start working on it themselves and began to dismantle it. That's why most of the ornaments are missing and some of the little ornaments and stuff, or they started taking them apart, of course, it's pretty

rusty

, so I'm sure everything started fighting them and at some point they gave up. expired and that's when I put it on Marketplace for sale and watched the price go down a little bit until I got close to my range and then I made an offer and showed up with the trailer and bought it, now I did, this is about five. years ago and I towed it home, but I took a couple pictures of us, driving it home, so I'll put them there, but yeah, we have it here, we washed it a little and started ordering some. parts for him and then he was standing still for the last five years.

I have some pictures of it, you know, also my beautiful wife's, showing the inside of this car, which is really nice, but we'll do it. I'll look at that in a moment here. I want to take a closer look, but I just wanted to update you and tell you the story. They know I contacted the couple later, maybe two or three years. It's been a while since I tried to get more history or information and they really didn't have any more information to give me. I was hoping to

find

an old photo or something, but they didn't have any, so let's move on. and get this working and get it back up and running, so let's take a few minutes to look at it and I'll show it to you a little bit closer and show you the parts that we're missing and what we have and what I'm going to have to do and I guess that the plan, so let's take a look, so yeah, like I was saying, it has all the glass, all the trim, it was missing the beltline trim and the fender trim, which, as soon as I bought this , I located it and bought it, and as I said, the material for these 59s is not cheap or very expensive, but I was able to get all the trim and the hood trim and, or the fender trim, they give me the only thing I'm missing.

It's an original front grill that I would like to have now. This bar grill is very good, but it has some damage. Towards that end, it's a little modified, but I also really like the look of the original grills, so I'm there. We are looking for an original grille and something else we are going to need are these headlight housings. You know, I have the hubs that are fine, but this casing on both sides is pretty rusty and most of them. they're like that you know it's pretty expensive to

find

a pair that isn't rusty but I'll be looking for a set of housings and maybe an original front grille and you know there are a few dings and dents here and there um that we'll have to try to replace or such Maybe we'll just live with it, but for the most part the front bumper is pretty nice, it's got some little blemishes, but it's not too bad, you know, it's got the front balance, um everything. the glass is pretty good, there may be a chip somewhere on the front windshield.

I remember noticing it, but yes, it now has original steel wheels with, well, at the same time, or smooth wheel covers and some decorative rings, but everything is rusted. I like the look of the steel wheels with those chrome covers, so I can pay homage to the previous owner and just restore them to the way he had them. You know, this thing is very low, I mean, the tires are flat, but I think this thing is already lowered, now the front is a little high because there is no engine, but I'm sure that once we put the weight of that engine and the transmission again in the front, it will lower it and this will be low. which I like, you know, I wouldn't mind putting an airbag system on this and riding in the air, but we'll see where we go down the road with that, but you know, front bumpers in excellent condition, the taillights are there, uh, it's pretty straight, but you could tell there's some Bondo in those lower quarters, which is typical.

I actually saw some spots that look like fiberglass too, so those quarters are pretty rough on the bottom and so is the landing gear, hopefully the frame isn't too bad, but you know, getting in here wasn't so easy as the rear end was locked and I separated the rear wheels and brakes and released the brakes but the rear end was still locked so it's like it had a mind. on its own there, I'm not really sure what's going on there, so we're going to have to lift this off the ground, take those wheels and drums off and try to free the rear end and you know, like I was saying, I've got most of the parts that I need here in the bed, you know, all the decorations and these things are not cheap, I mean, we're talking 100 a piece, every little thing, um, but we have it all there, um, this is actually a tank of fuel for the Nova, I need to put it in the Nova um, but here's a new radiator that I bought Classic Industries, I think it was about five years ago, it's still in the box, all the brakes, um, we have a new clutch, a new steering wheel, there's the radiator cover and headlight, the bezel and some of those hubs, there's a lot of other stuff in here, like some Nova parts, there's a new close ratio steering box for the Nova, I guess that's here too there's new weatherstripping for the Nova, but This parts bin here is also full of parts, so we'll have to go through everything and see what we have and what we're missing and still need them.

Now let's jump in and show you a little. Now, unfortunately, this door is a little stuck and won't open, so I have to go up the other side. I wish I knew more history about the car, like you know about the previous owner, more about it, although I don't even know its name, but you know it's a little strange to take on someone else's hot rod that you know nothing about, but I learned that it has a Impala interior, so I mean, it has the El Camino steering wheel, but it has a stainless steel Impala dash surround on there and I was also told these are Impala door panels even though the passenger one was pretty rotted out.

I think he's somewhere on the bed and I'm not sure what seat we'll have to take. a look, I'm not sure if this is the Impala seat or the El Camino seat, um, but it was pretty moldy and pretty bad in here, but we cleaned it up and I vacuumed it through this blanket over the seat and it's not too much. Bad here, it looks pretty good, it has all the gauges and knobs and even the original stereo and all that, and it's a three on the tree and I have the three speed transmission, although it's been in the ground for less than five years, so I wait.

It's still fine and then, I'm not sure what the original engine was in this car, but when I bought it, it had told me that this engine was in it and came with the car, but upon closer inspection, I know. this engine didn't come out of the car, I mean they may have been putting it in there, but it has a flex plate on the back and they have a set of headers, there's the transmission and a set of headers that were on. this engine um that's the carburetor I sat on there but um that's flex play this was hooked up to an automatic transmission previously and obviously this car is a three on the tree it still has all the linkages and everything is there and it has a set of manifolds and exhaust there, so, well, I'm not even sure about the history or operation of this engine.

He said he was a spinner and that he was a runner, but I never got him out of the rack. I bought it with it on. the stand and we just put it in the bed of the truck like it was hooked to the stand and I unloaded it this way and it's been here for about five years on the stand but when I went to turn it over it doesn't spin and I realized that you can't even see here, but these bolts are actually stuck against the flex plate that goes to this engine mount, so it's actually stuck against the flex plate and not allowing it to rotate, so I don't.

I don't even know if this thing turns or anything, so I looked up the numbers, although it's just a very common block, zero one zero, which puts it on a mid '70s Chevy 350 and then when I looked up the numbers here on head. um, I think it said a '75 Chevy 350 truck, but it's strange that it has an old style intake manifold with the oil breather right here in the front, kind of like the old style, so I'm not sure what Know that this is an Edelbrock aluminum intake. with the old style oil breather and filler neck right there, but it's a mid 70's block so we'll have to see if this engine runs and its running condition, but we'll clean it all up and probably take it out.

Take it apart and let's see what's going on and then we'll bring it here. You know, I'm not planning on restoring this car, but I definitely want to get it. You know, mechanically sound and get it back on the road. We're probably going to roll with the patina look and we're going to have to clean it up and maybe rub it down with a little bit of patina oil solution and, you know, I'll refinish the wheels and clean everything up in detail. Put the trim back on, start the engine and transmission and get them back in there.

Now I don't think the hood springs were connected. Let me open the hood andsee how it looks. Hey, she didn't even know she had it. a battery in there um but yeah I'm saying there's two ram horn style exhaust manifolds with dual exhaust with glass packs and it's got all the linkages and the column shifter for three speed manual and that's what It came with it, it was a three speed manual, so this automatic flexplate engine setup was not originally on this car, so I like to run the numbers and see what it originally came with.

I'm saying I bought a new radiator and got the radiator cover. and you know, I have all new tie rod ends and new brakes and everything for this, so we should be able to get this back on the road without too much trouble, along with all the parts that came with the car and that I've been collecting, I also took some things from the wrecking yard, oh, you saw in that video, you know, we took the roof off one, you know, I may not need all these parts, but they were delivered to me, so I gladly took them and I also got a rear glass which is quite expensive even though ours is fine.

Picking up another free of charge from Chuck is definitely a score. You know, we have the hindquarters and the fins. Now those are pretty rough but they had a lot. of pieces that I needed that I'm missing, like these interior bed panels, you know, I was missing those on this one, so that's what I originally went for and then Chuck ended up giving me the rest of this, so that was nice, but you I know they're pretty rough, these rooms are probably in worse shape than mine. Some actually cut the wheel rim off of these, it looks like they did, and they're pretty rough on the bottom, but you know, if there's anything we need, like a patch panel. or something like that, we have this to take it out and like I said we have these rooms with the bed panels next to the roof, I don't think we need them, but we also have a fuel tank that was pretty rusty. but you know, I took it in case we could patch it.

I'm not sure of the condition of the one on the car, but as rusty as it is underneath, I'm sure we're going to have a problem there and I don't think there are any available online at the moment, but we also have some extra parts from El Camino, some drums and spindles and some miscellaneous pieces, so thanks Chuck, I really appreciate it, but I'll still keep an eye out. Look for anything you can find, you know there are very few parts and they sure are expensive when you find them, so if anyone has any leads on some cheap 59 parts let me know now, working on This car in this shed is going to be a little complicated.

First of all, we're on gravel and I've done it before, but it's not very easy to swap engines in and out of a car with an engine lift in gravel because the wheels don't like to roll. Do you have some plywood that helps? Also, this place is quite narrow. I mean, you can barely open the doors without them hitting the walls, but I would like to have this shed. you know, working in a functional workshop, we're going to need to work on this car here, um, so we're going to need to do some work here as well, so those will be some of the next videos on how to prepare this workshop.

To work on the car here we're going to have to install a subpanel here right now. I just have extension cords and stuff running here so we can have some lights, but we're going to install a subpanel here. with some outlets and some lights put some insulation at least in the ceiling um well maybe even put a wood stove in here or some kind of heat source you know I have a little propane heater that does nothing and doesn't I don't have doors in the front. I've just been hanging a tarp there most of the time, so maybe we'll build a set of barn doors for this and we'll be busy this winter putting this back up. road, um, we'll also be able to break this engine down, like I was saying, figure out if it's good as is or if it needs to be rebuilt or what have you, um, reinstall this engine and transmission here and get that exhaust hooked up, set up the cooling, no I know what the electrical system looks like, we'll have to dig into that and see, um, but you know I got new gaskets and support bearings and stuff for the driveline, but I think there's a problem with the rear end because, like I was saying, He was blocking us.

He said when they brought it home it was free, but at some point it started to crash and when I went to buy it. We had to drag the car to the trailer, the back end was locked and then when I got home and took it off the trailer it started rolling so I thought I had freed it but once we got it out here to this property. It was stuck again so I lifted it up, took the wheels off, took the drums off and released the brakes which I assumed was the problem and put the wheels back on and it was rolling freely for a bit but then when we went to put it on here, they were locked up again.

The neighbor helped me with his tractor and we drug it here, but the rear end was dragging, so if the brakes are free and it's still blocking us, anything was considered. with the rear end, you know especially the fact that this thing had been flooded by a river. I don't know what the back casing looks like in there, so we're going to have to do it. I mean, this thing is low, I can't even get my jack under it, so pump up the tires and put this thing on the jacks, take the wheels off and start running the suspension first, that's what I'm thinking, put it on. the axles and wheels in motion and that's it. through the brakes and part of the suspension and then we will destroy this engine and then we will have another classic back on the road.

I guess we need to dig up all this stuff, go through it and see what we have. because now I'm thinking about it. I don't know if I have hinges on the hood. I don't know if it came with any. That's something I think I may be missing. Still, you know, I need to put them up. on the list, okay guys, that's it for this video. Now I am very excited about this car. I hope you are too. You know we're going to put this back on the road, we're probably going to roll off the patina. look, but get all the mechanics working well, then hopefully we'll have an air suspension system and we'll be cruising now.

Be sure to leave any tips or suggestions on how we should build this and if you have any in the comments. I'm always looking for any clues about parts. You know this is a pretty rare car and I feel very blessed to have one even as rare as this one. We'll get it back on the road and I appreciate everything you watch and do. Sure, if you're not already subscribed to the channel, hit the subscribe button now. I want to say a huge thank you to all my members thank you that's your monthly membership that will help me get this back on track and allow me to do what I do here on the channel so thank you and if you haven't joined the channel yet membership, consider doing so.

I really appreciate it, so be sure to stay tuned for upcoming videos on this car as well as the other projects and us. We are also going to build the garage, so until next time peace abroad, thank you.