"Barnacle Bill"

1965 AMC Rambler Marlin aka "Barnacle Bill" (pictures) Performance Information For Gearheads and Thinkers Cutaway View of V8 Engines now featuring Chevrolet vs AMC V8 +etc AMC V8 Oiling System Modifications

Born Again!

This automobile version of the Marlin billfish suffered catastrophic flood damage and was bound for a junkyard when I bought if for one hundred dollars to serve as a parts car for my other incomplete Marlin. Not only was the flood damage mind boggling to describe, with jillions of small snail shells attached to his sides, Barnacle Bill had obviously rammed a steel pole, been hit on both sides causing no minor metal stretching damage to fenders and doors and had a mashed in rear bumper. The hood was smashed in such a way that is was a real puzzle to me on how to get it open without surgery. I figure it took me about fourty hours of tinkering to get it open! What I saw then was stunning; the whole engine compartment looked to be neatly filled with custom fitted moss and other pulverized plant material, concealing nearly everything from recognition. The interior was just as bizzare, where everything looked to be carefully dipped then dried to have a one sixteenth inch thick layer of fine grey colored silt on it... dipped, inside and out, -gauges an all you know, complete with dried material stuck to the -inside- of the windows to allow me to measure a floodwater depth of forty two inches. Needless to say, there was no cutting corners on this one; I couldn't just fix what it needed, put in a new interior and paint job on it and call it "restored". The entire car had to come apart and every single item had to be massaged back into shape. I developed a restoration ritual where each part would go back in water for cleaning, then repair and refinishing -getting all the dabs of unique lubricants in all the right places etc. In some cases, it seemed the silt deposit layers had embalmed some interior parts to preserve them from sunlight damage. Overall, I must have spent at least one thousand dollars at an adjacent car wash, removing dried silt and mud deposits which coated everything. To make a long story shorter, in a moment of victory I threw the first set of pictures of the car which showed all the damage away, also thinking to erase the car's troubled past when I finally realized a fully rebuilt street worthy car.