Saving Forgotten 1966 Pontiac Tempest That Has Been Sitting for 30 Years! | Roadworthy Rescues

and here is the car that we're after 1966 Pontiac Tempest there's two reasons I was really interested in this car one it's a four-door and four-doors wagons are really hot and I've always liked them my whole life to be honest but the biggest reason is what's under This Hood and it's probably not what you're thinking there it is the ohc straight 6 or overhead cam engine this thing is really neat go today get this thing running and I've got to drive this thing 300 miles back to the shop where we can continue working on it I think the first step is we just got to push this thing out of this garage it's really tight in here and we can get a better look at what we got going on yeah not so much [Music] [Applause] rolling what a cool looking car huh looks like the shed's got got some termites maybe Pontiac made the Tempest from 60 to 1970 and a get from 87 to 91 but we'll pretend those newer years don't exist you're welcome this one here is obviously a four-door post but in ' 66 you could get one with out the post so it'd be a hard top it's like a late 80s early 90s restoration here in that's where this is going to get interesting we were told this has been out the road for 30 years so could get a little spicy actually exceptionally clean with the exception of a lifter and actually this is a really good time to explain how this engine works traditional push rod engines have the cam somewhere in the block right and then you have push rods and lifters and Rocket arms that run the valve train well on this unit the cam is on top of the engine and the lobes basically operate off of this and this is what's opening and closing the valve train so this is a little bit concerning that there's just random valve train parts back here either it's missing or maybe it's been replaced I don't I don't know let's jump on the inside and see what we got going on in here smells like a potato sack full of used knee braces it's not good it's not good but headliner is about perfect about 14 different flavors of mold growing in here 15 very reminiscent of the GTO right here here conditioning I'll be dipped doubtful varies that that works am and the FM frequency modulation oh it's one of those bottom exit units I mean it's a pretty solid car oh we got boom booms in the back you know the warng GS got some speakers shift linkage is there blinker stick seems to be doing stick things sure good enough to get [Music] home let's take a closer look under the power Barn here come up with a plan maybe no just going to wing it but yeah this thing is really neat and at first glance I mean everything seems to be here definitely has had a Craigslist rebuild done you know brand new loster receipts this might not be too bad fingers crossed the one huge hiccup we could have here is is a fiberglass reinforced timing belt that runs this whole Contraption so if that thing isn't you know doing the thing the engine doesn't run and that is a mess doing that [Music] job so I got a ratchet down here on the crank I'm going to hold that with one hand so it doesn't interfere with the ratchet try to roll this thing over 360° I'll get my ear meter out extended about 3 mm and then we're going to listen make sure we hear the valve train turning and everything like that then we know the belt's in good condition and the engine's not [Music] stuck oh yeah it's turning it doesn't feel that bad usually you can feel like ring ridges things like that I think we're in good shape there that is fantastic news just move on to the ignition system I don't know start probing things make lights come on and off on the tools and then once we get sparkles to the engine we'll figure out a fuel system at that point I got a very specific battery for this rig cuz it's got a goal handle you know slide this in all right so now we'll go ahead and throw the ignition sticks in park check key on and then we'll go ahead and move towards seeing if we got spark at the old spark lters so here's my little blinky test light thingy all right we're going to crank her over see if we got any spark oh that sounded terrible I'm already about 114 14.2% positive the points you know they're not the contacts aren't pointing did a little bit of rooting around in there you know and this one I don't know it doesn't that's not right so there's a chance of guys thinking this was grounding out on the case of the distributor there got a new contact set here we'll pop this in and should get us going okay light bulb should do light bulb things and it is we've got the spark we got sparks now so we got to move on to fuel now I'm going to run a temporary fuel supply into an NH approved fuel container no definitely just a snowmobile tank and now we can see if the needle and seat work probably not and then uh hopefully this thing just fires off yep yeah wow this stubborn little meal what do you think Randy Travis is doing I don't know this guy he can go up here so now there we go I can hear it filling the balll and that should change Tone If the needle's going to hold I need my carburetor adjuster there it is theoretically if I crank on this it should hopefully make some noise bring the Thunder it kind of did the thing come on starter sounds like a dying dolphin running come on girl it's alive kind of doesn't sound very good I think I'm going to kill it we'll start working through this thing well I think what the guy's going to do here is pull out all the spark lators oh yeah that's richer than opr mil will change on the lightning hoses them are older than all three of my kids combined and then we'll just start working through a tuneup welcome to dereck's non-fictional storytelling time did you know Pontiac developed eight straight six engines between 1926 and 1969 this was the only overhead cam straight six that they made pretty neat yeah lightning storm is brand new we're probably going to have to dig into that fuel make it happen and rebuild on it here we go oh yeah she's pretty dirty we'll uh spray out the exteriors first right into the oil drained pan and then we'll go ahead and pop it apart and see what we can do with thing old Rochester W now it's more like but you know now guy's just going to start spraying everything down and say smart words and then put it back together in the reverse or okay we got this thing all rebuilt and hopefully with new sparkls lightning hoses other do dabs over there and this rebuilt it runs like 17% better clicky clacky let's see what we got but idles now just still you know poorly all right so I was looking down there and I could see the vacuum advance diaphragm putting timing into it basically take out away and well it runs a lot more good or a sure yeah that's fine it'll come around I mean 30 years is a long time for vehicle to sit right so we got to let the Rings come back around and do all sorts of stuff it's time to put some water in this thing see if the radiator even holds water thermostat might be stuck I don't know the biggest biggest thing is I'm going to move because I can't breathe any longer so I got some basically fuel injector carburetor solvent CER stuff here hopefully bring those sticky Rings back around and whatever is wrong with the number three cylinder it'll completely rebuild [Music] that runs like a Swiss watch and I ain't kidding you well that's a pretty good sign we just abused on it pretty good didn't get hot unfortunately it is smoking a little bit I just my belly button tells me it's a number three cylinder but you know a long drive home at sustained RPM is probably just what this thing needs got to stretch its legs out a little bit I think while we got it running here Moz will jump in grabbed on the shift machine and see if it you know shifts neutral of course that's going to work Drive oh yeah reverse oh yeah all right ooh pretty sure I just brew a yeah I just popped a brake line that's fantastic well we have a transmission and no brakes perfect that is just perfect yep so it's bleeding the brakes we're getting fluid to the rear just fine the m Master cylindre is doing its thing unfortunately we've got no fluid at the front at either side here that's supposed to be open in the center to let fluid travel through not even not even [Music] close so I think I determined why the Drinker side front isn't breaking the C clamp over here you know I don't think that's supposed to be there traditionally but I'm not mad I get to take home a new SE clamp well we're losing light so I think we're going to call it for today but listen I know it looks like a mess but we had an awesome first day after 30 years we got the Pontiac fired back up sounded pretty good the transmission works it seems to be staying cool we're just fighting these brakes right now but we're down to one wheel we'll see you guys bright and early tomorrow the goal is to put this thing on the highway so we got all the brake bled here none of them are blowing out right now and we don't have any leaks that's the main thing I'm going to move on to the fuel system here we're going to need the capati if we're going to go 300 mil I think it would be a lot of fuel stops at 2 gallons I'm going to put a fuel filter in line before the pump try to save on that hopefully that one even works and then put another fuel fuel tray over here right before the carb and then we can kind of monitor what kind of debris and rust and who knows what we're going to pull out of that tank so a guy wants to put a water temperature gauge in here weird I know right we want to make sure this thing stays cool not only on the way home but I have some pretty radical ideas to hop this thing up when we get it back to the shop and having a temperature gauge is very very important for that process what I'm going to do here is actually remove the thermostat housing or the water neck here drill and tap that well you can see there's a huge advantage to buying vehicles from Other Fellers that do hot rod stuff well there's the fitting so I can stick my temperature probe right in that guy this is just going to get mounted up in the cab there and of course and then we'll be able to monitor the temperature needle needle [Music] needle here we here we [Music] go well we got our new tires and wheels here biggest difference is we're going from a 205 on a 14 to a 225 6015 all the way around and oh yeah white Letters Out yep kind of gives it that muscle car feel Outlaw I think this will give it a nice attitude it's finally that time the Tempest is ready to hit the road redid the ignition system tuned her up a little bit adjusted the timing rebuilt the fuel make it happen around here brakes and brakes I got to go this way I can't remember and brakes tires and wheels just enough cleaning to see where we're going let's throw this thing on the road see what it [Music] does first few miles is going to tell us a lot W Tire rubbage bad that's all right just got to turn wide power steering works great biggest thing is going to be keeping an eye on this temperature gauge and also this fuel gauge if it happens to work would be absolutely amazing otherwise we'll have to do the calculations and I'm not good with the mathem magicals for some reason the sawdust is staying on the hood how is that happening ain't got no ACS before wait that is is literally blowing right now oil pressure 39 lb of that give or take 39 well speedometer says 60 I don't know how accurate that is I'm going to cruise at this speed for a while doesn't feel like I'm really pushing it we're at 0.7 de on the temperatures and if we do good does it get hot maybe we'll pick up the pace just a little bit

Channel: MotorTrend Channel

Views: 773,813

Keywords: motortrend, motor trend, motor trend channel, automotive, auto, 1966 Pontiac Tempest, Pontiac, Temptest, 1966 Pontiac, 1966 Tempest, Roadworthy Rescues, Roadworthy Rescues New Episode, Roadworthy Rescues full episode, Roadworthy Rescues Full Season, Roadworthy Rescues New Season

Id: pqsHTB4J-e8

Length: 16min 52sec (1012 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 25 2023