25 replies to this topic

[76Bluesmobile]

Hello All!

I have been away from the site for quite a while. I've been quite busy with several projects including working with my brother to produce a ChicagoLand style show here in Pennsylvania. It has been a little slow going getting paperwork and meetings put together, but we are looking at a lot of interest and a very nice show either later this year for Fire Prevention Week or next summer. The first year is always the hardest.

As many may know, I tried to sell my 1976 Monaco earlier this year and ran into some issues with family. However, I did manage to sell my 440-powered 1974 Chrysler New Yorker Blumo and it is on its way to Parker Fabrication in Morton, Illinois. They plan to use it as a chase vehicle for events that benefit the St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital. As for the 76 Monaco, it has been parked since March 2010 and I will be beginning a complete teardown of the car after the July 4th holiday and I will be posting ALL of the parts here for you.

There are pics of the car here: http://www.bluesbrotherscentral.com/forum/bluesmobiles/7321-nathans-bluesmobile.html

The unibody itself is still solid, but the body panels are pretty well rusted out and it will not pass another vehicle inspection. The car has tons of usuable parts, including front and rear dashboards that are still pliable and uncracked. All the beige plastic trim inside and the door panels are still in good shape too. All the gauges and systems work. It even has brand new front brake calipers with less than 20 miles on them (the originals locked up and had to be changed so the car could be driven to storage). The car can actually still be driven and it still runs well, but it would take tons more money than it is worth to make it road legal again.

I plan to sell parts wholesale (example - taillights are entire units not just lenses, headlights with flip-up covers and motor, door handles with linkage, etc...) so that you have everything you need to help build up your cars. I'm not leaving the movie car hobby entirely, but I am entering a new phase. I assist a local police seargent with a non-profit child safety program based upon the TV show Knight Rider. As such, I recently bought a 1982 Trans-Am with the desirable 305 CrossFire V-8 that will be converted to a KITT replica car. I put together a page about the program here: Sgt. Glenn Young Child Safety Program | Facebook. It is the only program in the world that has been supported by David Hasselhoff. I'm just glad to be staying in the movie car business. I also have a page with pictures of my Trans-Am here: Sgt. Glenn Young Child Safety Program | Facebook. Watch for the pic of the Trans-Am and my Blumo together.

I am very glad to be able to help this wonderful hobby out and I am looking forward to providing an entire carload worth of parts to all of the wonderful people I have met on this site.

All the best and enjoy the upcoming parts,
Nathan

[TI4438]

BluMo or no BluMo,ya gotta stick around the forum for sure.Good luck on the new projects.

[starlifter]

good meeting you today nathan!!


scott

[76Bluesmobile]

Same here Scott - your car looked great. This is such a wonderful and strong hobby and I can tell you are going to have tons of fun. Thanks for keeping the Bluesmobile tradition alive and well. If I can find out any info about the suspension for you, I'll pass it along.

Anyone on here have any ideas for lifting a Monaco a couple of inches to original ride height? Seems Starlifter's car had been slightly lowered in its past. Can adjusting torsion bars or changing shocks help?

Hey there TI - I'll be on this forum for a long time to come. Blumos are in my blood, and I don't expect that to ever change. Below is a pic of my now sold Blumo with my newest acquisition. My work with a non-profit child safety program based on Knight Rider has led me to invest in a Trans-Am. Links to what I do are above - protecting children has become so very important in our world and I hope to do my part. Since Knight Rider Trans-Ams are largely vacant from ChicagoLand, don't be surprised to someday see me park my ride next to the Blumos.

[yellowrr]

Adjusting the torsion bars up a little in the front is easy enough, but it'll change the front end alignment. More than likely (just like MY car) the front end needs to be rebuilt (new control arm bushings, etc.) and when you do that it'll bring it back up to proper ride height when you get the alignment done, assuming that it is done at a competent shop.
Bringing the rear up is as simple as adding air shocks. Putting new factory style shock absorbers on it won't help. They are there only to keep the car from bouncing up and down until you hit the next bump. You could put longer rear spring shackles on it, but rumor has it that it'll make the car handle a little worse.
Get a factory service manual for the car - one from nearly any 73-78 "C" body (Fury, Monaco, New Yorker, etc.) will help if you can't find the exact one for your year of Monaco. I avoid the "Haynes" or "Chiltons" books though. They don't go into nearly enough detail as much as the factory service manuals do.

[Shotgun Blues]

There's a guy in Springfield named Ed Mierecki who builds Sci-Fi props. He built ships for ST-TNG and some other series. Back in the 70's and 80's, he had access to the Universal lot, and made replica props for BSG and Buck Rogers. He also made a replica KITT from a TA, complete with they cylon light, and a dash from one of the stunt cars. He could probably help you with the details, and maybe even some fabrication. Look him up!

[sigmfsk]

76Bluesmobile said:

Anyone on here have any ideas for lifting a Monaco a couple of inches to original ride height? Seems Starlifter's car had been slightly lowered in its past. Can adjusting torsion bars or changing shocks help?

I think yellowrr has the best idea - take it to a competent alignment shop and see what they say. I'm way out of my league here - my only thought is an article that I read on-line about rebuilding the front end of a mopar. They had a picture, and the caption was something like "do you see what we're about to do wrong?" And it showed them about to insert the torsion bar with the lower a-arm at ride height. It needs to be installed with the a-arm at full droop, so that the torsion bar can "wind up" when the a-arm is at proper ride height. Installing in this improper manner would seem to cause the front end to ride low. But that wouldn't explain about the rear. Just throwing out an idea.
/arthur

[TK826]

I'm no expert, but off the top of my head I know "they" sell spacers that insert into the shock springs to increase their length.

I've also read about people who have flipped one of the rear leaf springs upside down, to increase the rear height.

(Not something I would want to attempt on my own)

[scatpack01]

Hey Nathan I added you on FB. I am working on a KR car also. check out the KR sites for a ton of info on KR parts.
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[Bismo]

Good luck, Nathan! Keep me in mind if you part with the rear fuel door panel...

[sigmfsk]

I'm excited about front and rear dashboards, and driver-side door mirror!

your friend in non-cracked, non-chrome-bubbled parts,
arthur

[76Bluesmobile]

OK Folks!! It has finally happened - here are the parts from my 76 Blumo that are now available for you to buy. It has taken far too long, but here they are. Just PM me if you are interested in something, and please leave your zip code so that shipping can be calculated. I'd expect as little as $15 to as much as $50 for most smaller items such as trim, lights and the grille. Seats would run much more. If you don't see something you are interested in, I may not have gotten it off the car yet so just let me know. Want more pics of a specific part - PM me. Now, without further wait --

The Grille and trim pieces - all metal with some pitting but solid. All posts on back intact.

Complete headlight system with working motor and trim. Driver's fiberglass headlight housing has two cracked screw holes but is still usable. Driver's sidemarker lens is cracked but does not leak. Motor works and all lights worked when removed. You'll receive everything you see.

COMPLETE tail light system includes complete wiring harness. This system can be simply plug and play. The rear sidemarker lights have one broken lense and one broken outer trim piece - make one good one out of the two. Sidemarkers were damaged when car was hit in rear. All tail lights work and a third housing with metal trim is included.

Complete sunvisor set - not cracked, torn or damaged in any way.

Front metal dash trim panel - complete with clips and 100% rust free.

Original AM only radio in working condition. I doubt anyone would need an AM only radio, but its here anyway.

Rear Fuel Door complete with bolts. This door shows some surface rust on the rear but is perfectly usable. I do not know what happened to the missing letters - I can only assume they fell off while driving.

A very highly desirable set of upper door panels in the beige color. The drivers upper panel has a 1 inch tear near the bottom rear (I can send pic) and one clip started to tug on and separate the backing, but is not major (got pic of that too). All others in very good condition. I have the window guides from the two front doors if you would like those. Bottom door panels are below.

Here are the bottom door panels. I would prefer to sell these with the upper panels if possible. They are slightly faded from the sun (seems to be common) but they can be recolored easily. The driver's arm rest will need checked (have close up pic), but all doors are intact with no cracks and I believe I salvaged all the clips.


These pieces connect the header panel to the radiator mount and include a working horn still attached - all may have only surface rust but are in very good condition.
http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh478/ndg1979/Bracket1.jpg
These are some of the trim pieces I have removed so far. I have others off but don't have pictures of them yet. The rear sail panels are a very brittle type of plastic and as such, two screw clips cracked off but they are behind other trim so they are not visible in the car. They may be shipped separately to prevent further damage. The pic below includes the A-pillar trim, the metal trim above all four doors, windshield interior upper trim and rear sail panels. Don't see a piece you need - let me know.
http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh478/ndg1979/Trim2.jpg

Other parts I have removed from the car but not photographed yet include the rear seat, other interior trim pieces and A-pillar outer trim. Front seat is coming out soon, and I am currently working on the dashboard gauges, door handles and all four door windows and cranks and will post all of this soon. I even plan to try to remove the headliner as it is in 100% perfect condition. Sorry, the front padded dash and rear dash have already been claimed.

I also have 3 sets of hubcaps I'll be posting - one set is the hard to find original Monaco caps - all are 15 inch. And I also have two very difficult to find original 1976 Monaco service manuals - one for electrical, one for all else. Those books will be available once I've finished with the car.

Enjoy everyone!!

Nathan

[sigmfsk]

Hi Nathan:
Nicely advertised and well organized! I'm checking my parts against your pictures as yours are in such good condition.

If you have the info, may I ask if you could log the K number of each of the twelve seat belt bolts? I have a thread going here:
http://www.bluesbrotherscentral.com/forum/bluesmobiles/10330-seatbelt-replacement.html#post112147
in my attempt to log the correct bolts for each seat belt location.

The bolts in my car were loose/missing/wrong. I hope to shed some light on this with a parts car I have showing up, but if you have the info (or even some of the info) without too much trouble it would be good verification. And I might end up being in the market for some bolts.

thanks,
arthur

[Shotgun Blues]

Bismo will take that fuel door...

[TI4438]

What kind of condition is the dashpad in?

[Bagman]

I'm interested in at least the front seatbelts.

[Bismo]

Shotgun Blues said:

Bismo will take that fuel door...

Agreed, sending PM....

[76Bluesmobile]

I sent PM's back to everyone who requested parts - so far I have been very fortunate that I have not had too many requests for the same parts, except for A-pillar trim and seat belts. Everyone thankfully is interested in something different and I will make every effort to accommodate every single request.

Shipping is the biggest cost for all of this and I am trying to keep costs low by calculating shipping first, then pricing parts reasonably after that.

I do ask that you please bear with me as the weather is supposed to be a little up and down the next few days (it has been very humid here), but I will be working on the car constantly and will be making a lot of trips to the UPS store. It will take me a few days to get everything sorted out for everyone and on its way. Thanks for the patience.

[TI4438]

I could use the dome light if it is still intact.The clips on my light are cracked,so it's literally just hanging around.

[TI4438]

What color are your door lock/unlock thingies?
If they are tan,I could use those too.