'58 Skyliner Resurrection

I think I'm going to start keeping a thread of the restoration of my in-laws' '58 Skyliner. I'm already more than a year into it, so I think I should start now before I have too much backstory to ever catch up.

The history:
My father and mother-in-law bought their Colonial White '58 Skyliner in Norfolk, VA, used, somewhere around 1963, probably as the second owners. My mother in-law used it to commute from Norfolk to Baltimore whenever my father-in-law's ship was at sea, and they also used it to tow a 25 foot Yellowstone travel trailer on a few occasions as well.

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I heard the story that one time they had new tires put on it and one of the rear wheels fell off when my mother in-law was driving it. While working on the car, I found the damage from that incident in the drivers rear wheel well when I was rebuilding the brakes. I also noticed that the spare wheel isn't original, probably a replacement after the bolt holes were rounded out of the wheel that fell off. After my father in-law retired from the Navy, they moved to Pasadena, MD, where the car was put in their two car garage sometime in 1967, and the heating system was disassembled. The car sat until November, 2014. My father in-law passed away in 2003, and we were selling my in-laws' house. Both of them were hoarders and the Skyliner was literally buried in the garage. After removing an entire dumpster load of trash out of the other bay (and finding a boat!!!! that my wife didn't even know they still had) I could finally see the Skyliner. I should also mention that my wife could too, since it had been buried in the far garage bay since before she was born and she had never seen it either. All she knew was that part of it was white.

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By the end of the year, we got the car out and I had found a garage in Baltimore City where I could keep it and work on it. I had asked for a flat bed, but the towing company showed up with a standard truck, so I pumped up the old Chrysler tires I found in the garage that I had put on it and it moved for the first time in 47 years.

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Surprisingly, all the tires held air and nothing fell off, and before long it was in its new home.

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Then the work could begin.

Very cool! Thanks for posting the pics along with the story. Great to have that family history along with the car.

Great pictures thanks for sharing and please keep us up to date on progress
Jim

The first thing I decided, was that I needed to get the running gear replaced, so when the engine was running, I could at least drive it. So the first thing was brakes, steering, front suspension, and shocks.

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Since stopping would be good, the Skyliner got new brake cylinders and pads all around, as well as new brake lines and a rebuilt master cylinder.

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The master cylinder gave me a little problem. It was completely seized, and while deciding if I wanted to rebuild or replace, It fell off my workbench and solved the whole issue when the casting cracked. Fortunately, I was going up to New York to get some glass from another Skyliner owner and he had a master cylinder too. I rebuilt that one instead. Since the car doesn't run yet, I don't know if the vacuum booster works or not, but I know it now has brakes. Next came the front suspension, and the first major issue. The lower balljoints flatly refused to separate. I believe they were original. After prying them, heating them, and beating on them for more than a month, I finally had enough and jammed my balljoint separator in and hit it with a 20 lb. sledgehammer. They finally broke loose. Then I had to figure out that you have to partially disassemble the replacement parts (which didn't fit otherwise) to install them. Replacing the front shocks, the bushings, the swaybar bushings, the bumpstops, and the wheel bearings went smoothly after that.

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I also rebuilt the power steering cylinder while I was down there and replaced the hoses. Next I turned to the rear suspension and ran into my next set of problems, specifically, the rear shocks. I posted that picture of the Skyliner towing the trailer and I wondered how it managed to cope with all that weight. I found out. My father in-law had the rear shock mounts cut off, and had new, heavier mounts welded on, so he could put truck shocks on the rear end. Must've rode horribly. Anyway, because of that, the stock shocks don't fit. I got really lucky here. I showed up at Pep Boys with one of the old shocks and told them that I needed something the same length, with the same ends on it. Miraculously, one of the shop guys was there and said he had just worked on a friend's '67 Mustang and the shocks it used looked similar. He went in the back and pulled a set. They fit. Not sure how Mustang shocks will handle the weight of a Skyliner, but they are at least a temporary solution. While I was back there, I decided to drop the gas tank and see how bad it was. It was as bad as I expected, so I ordered a new gas tank. While all this was going on, I was sanding and refinishing the wheels in their original black.

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I also managed to get lucky again. I was rooting round in my basement, which happens to be my mother in-law's parents old house, and looked behind an old chest freezer that I've been too lazy to get rid of, and found 3 of the Skyliner wheel covers. I have no idea how they ever wound up there, 15 miles from the rest of the car.

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One's damaged, but after a quick ebay search, I have 4 wheel covers again. By this time, it was spring 2015 and I decided to see how much of the top worked. The trunk deck was stuck shut so I unbolted it from the body and got it open for the first time since the screw latches at the front both worked.

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The top, however, wouldn't retract. I took apart and cleaned the screw jacks for the trunk and got them working, and after cleaning the connections on a circuit breaker, got the trunk and package shelf operating correctly. I also cleaned an lubricated the roof jacks and all the hinge points in the trunk. I finally figured out that the screw latch motor in the drivers side fender wasn't releasing the bottom edge of the roof. With some effort, I tore apart the interior and was able to put an electric drill on the driveshaft that operated that latch and got it to release, so on Memorial Day, 2015, this happened.

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After that minor miracle, I was out of replacement parts and after procrastinating a few months, started working on getting the engine out to see how bad it was. During my procrastination, my garage was broken into and all my SAE tools were stolen. That set me back another few months while I rebuilt my toolbox. I pulled the engine in December, 2015 and it was much worse than I had hoped. Since all the cooling system hoses were disconnected for almost 50 years, plenty of moisture had gotten in and rusted anything that didn't have oil on it.

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The heads were solid rust inside (one of the valve covers even had a small rust hole from the inside), and everything was seized. So much for a quick refresh. I pulled the pan and the heads to look at the cylinders. They weren't as bad as I had feared, but were definitely rusty. The bottom end still had all its oil though, so I figured it was rebuildable.

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I sent the block off to a machine shop to see if it was salvageable and set to work cleaning and repainting everything I had taken off the engine. After that, I started cleaning all the engine components themselves. They all cleaned up pretty good, with the exception of the heads. The rocker arms were totally rusted to their shafts, and one of the shafts was cracked where it bolted onto the head. Also, both exhaust manifolds had at least one ear broken off.

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The pistons, rods, and the entire valvetrain are going to need to be replaced though, especially since I had to use the sledgehammer to break 2 of them loose from the block.

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With the engine apart, there really wasn't much else I could do. The machine shop eventually called and said the block was good. It took them a full week of soaking to get the camshaft, lifters, and distributor to come out of the block. With a 40 overbore, the cylinders cleaned up and they bought new pistons and freezeplugs to go with the block.

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With the engine out, I used the opportunity to clean up the suspension and frame rails in the engine bay and clean and repaint the inner fenders. After that, I decided to see just how well the paint would clean up, since rust work and a new paintjob are far, far down the financial line at this point. I used a clay bar and some good wax on the firewall and was amazed at how well it came out. I hope the exterior paint comes up as good.

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So that's where I'm at right now. The next step is reassembling the engine, as money allows. The crankshaft was dropped off at the machine shop when I picked up the block, and when I get it back, the heads go in. Right now, I'm looking for a new camshaft. The 352 is one of the early, solid lifter engines, and I understand it has a unique cam. I can find the hydraulic lifter cams everywhere, but haven't found a solid lifter cam yet. The cam, bearings, and seals need to go in before I get the crank back in, so from there, I need main bearings, seals, rods, and rings. I'll keep updating as things happen.

Just a few other pictures I've taken along the way. Sorry about the blurriness. My old phone only liked bright light.

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Thanks again for taking the time to post the pics. The top video was great. Very impressive all the work you've done so far.

That was the first time the top ran its entire cycle. I was having a problem with one of the deck latches so it wasn't locking down, but that turned out to be because the left rear tire had gone flat and it was twisting the body.