This was my first car after I turned 18 years old. From what I can tell, it actually IS my car, right down to the small dent in the rear of the gas tank, the over-axle traction bars, and the bumble bee paint. I bought it off a guy who lived on a houseboat near the Duwamish River in the Seattle area in 1976 for $1800. Although, it had a 290 cu.in. 4 spd when I bought it, I swapped in a 1970 390 with "dog-leg" exhaust ports. It was named "Bytor". If I am correct, then it is the one I sold to an AMC nut who had a junkyard full of old AMCs in the South Seattle area, and I haven't seen it in about 40 years... I could be wrong though.
WHY don't you show the number plate? {You Did, later} Having owned these before I know it was just something AMC slapped on the dash, with a few put on the glove box, but we like to SEE it, even though it "doesn't matter." --Sorry, NOT a stock horn. I'd NEED A/C for Az, to drive earlier than 8:00Pm, 9 months of the yr.. The Air cleaner top is a '70. I didn't see front disc-brakes--those should be stock, dual piston. It's rare for the Am radio to NOT work--send it out to a Specialist and add $200.00 to your price. Is that simply a "fuse" that maybe doesn't have the radio working? the headliner was vinyl over paper--yours didn't seem to sag much. I know what happened to the 390 you put in. Unless you had put a dry-sump system in {--you haven't }, it spun a bearing, but don't feel bad. "Hot Rod Magazine" spun a bearing on a NEW crate 401, that they had swapped with the 360 on a '73-74 Hornet hatchback, back in '74 when they were entered in the "Cannonball-Baker-Coast-coast Race." Before I got "learned", if you "got into it", your mains could become "toast"--the "Heartbreak" of an AMC. AMC knew about it, and instead of wasting development time finding the "fix", they simply cast 15,000 360 blocks for warranty claims {--the 360 had the same bore as a 401, which was slightly stroked to be a 401 as opposed to a 360.}. When Penske-Donohue was running Javelins in the "Trans-Am series", they suffered 23 consecutive mains FAILURES on the race-prepped 304, until they:--1) got a "custom" 304 from their old vendor, Traco, and, went "dry-sump" in their engine oiling. It didn't matter so much with those "drag-racing", because they frequently rebuilt, anyway. So unless you put a "dry-sump" system on your AMX, you own a "hand grenade." I think Automatics last longer before a mains-failure. You have a pretty unit, but if I bought yours, I'd either "LS-it" or fit a dry-sump. Dry-sumps are WAY Kool, anyway. Still, --a great, fun, car, until the mains fail. Hope you make your price and more.
I just got an IDEA. Get a similar-era Buick 350 from a junkyard. Put a Steel cam-plate on, and throw the aluminum cam-plate away so the cam doesn't "walk," lunching that engine. Late-60s had 280Hp{--5 hp MORE/LESS than a stock AMC 360?}, the distributor's in the front, and those Buicks were among the lightest small-blocks around. They "ran" like a '70 350 Rallye Cutlass/Pontiac350 "HO", and their mains'll last unless you're beating it to death every night. See if you can get aluminum heads, and you'll end-up with 325Hp, the same output as the fragile '70 AMC 390s. Hand-stamp 360 on the block? If you save the customer a re-build he might not want @ that moment, you've done him a BIG favor. Don't mis-represent, but you simply don't "Know"/need to know what engine's in it, now. Believe me, people buy an AMX for styling,--NOT a 290, 343, 360, 390, 401 that it may have been built with. I once saw a '68 AMX with a 390-4spd, just like one I owned, except that the 390 was a Ford "FE"--a little heavier engine. I SHOULD have bought that car,--that Ford could've been taken out to 427, and it Still would have held together Better than my AMC. Years later, it HAD to be rebuilt, and I spent thousands more than rebuilding even a 427 Ford, and then, I just turned the "Mains-failure-clock" back a little.
This was my first car after I turned 18 years old. From what I can tell, it actually IS my car, right down to the small dent in the rear of the gas tank, the over-axle traction bars, and the bumble bee paint. I bought it off a guy who lived on a houseboat near the Duwamish River in the Seattle area in 1976 for $1800. Although, it had a 290 cu.in. 4 spd when I bought it, I swapped in a 1970 390 with "dog-leg" exhaust ports. It was named "Bytor". If I am correct, then it is the one I sold to an AMC nut who had a junkyard full of old AMCs in the South Seattle area, and I haven't seen it in about 40 years...
I could be wrong though.
WHY don't you show the number plate? {You Did, later} Having owned these before I know it was just something AMC slapped on the dash, with a few put on the glove box, but we like to SEE it, even though it "doesn't matter." --Sorry, NOT a stock horn. I'd NEED A/C for Az, to drive earlier than 8:00Pm, 9 months of the yr.. The Air cleaner top is a '70. I didn't see front disc-brakes--those should be stock, dual piston. It's rare for the Am radio to NOT work--send it out to a Specialist and add $200.00 to your price. Is that simply a "fuse" that maybe doesn't have the radio working? the headliner was vinyl over paper--yours didn't seem to sag much. I know what happened to the 390 you put in. Unless you had put a dry-sump system in {--you haven't }, it spun a bearing, but don't feel bad. "Hot Rod Magazine" spun a bearing on a NEW crate 401, that they had swapped with the 360 on a '73-74 Hornet hatchback, back in '74 when they were entered in the "Cannonball-Baker-Coast-coast Race." Before I got "learned", if you "got into it", your mains could become "toast"--the "Heartbreak" of an AMC. AMC knew about it, and instead of wasting development time finding the "fix", they simply cast 15,000 360 blocks for warranty claims {--the 360 had the same bore as a 401, which was slightly stroked to be a 401 as opposed to a 360.}. When Penske-Donohue was running Javelins in the "Trans-Am series", they suffered 23 consecutive mains FAILURES on the race-prepped 304, until they:--1) got a "custom" 304 from their old vendor, Traco, and, went "dry-sump" in their engine oiling. It didn't matter so much with those "drag-racing", because they frequently rebuilt, anyway. So unless you put a "dry-sump" system on your AMX, you own a "hand grenade." I think Automatics last longer before a mains-failure. You have a pretty unit, but if I bought yours, I'd either "LS-it" or fit a dry-sump. Dry-sumps are WAY Kool, anyway. Still, --a great, fun, car, until the mains fail. Hope you make your price and more.
I just got an IDEA. Get a similar-era Buick 350 from a junkyard. Put a Steel cam-plate on, and throw the aluminum cam-plate away so the cam doesn't "walk," lunching that engine. Late-60s had 280Hp{--5 hp MORE/LESS than a stock AMC 360?}, the distributor's in the front, and those Buicks were among the lightest small-blocks around. They "ran" like a '70 350 Rallye Cutlass/Pontiac350 "HO", and their mains'll last unless you're beating it to death every night. See if you can get aluminum heads, and you'll end-up with 325Hp, the same output as the fragile '70 AMC 390s. Hand-stamp 360 on the block? If you save the customer a re-build he might not want @ that moment, you've done him a BIG favor. Don't mis-represent, but you simply don't "Know"/need to know what engine's in it, now. Believe me, people buy an AMX for styling,--NOT a 290, 343, 360, 390, 401 that it may have been built with. I once saw a '68 AMX with a 390-4spd, just like one I owned, except that the 390 was a Ford "FE"--a little heavier engine. I SHOULD have bought that car,--that Ford could've been taken out to 427, and it Still would have held together Better than my AMC. Years later, it HAD to be rebuilt, and I spent thousands more than rebuilding even a 427 Ford, and then, I just turned the "Mains-failure-clock" back a little.