A few weeks ago I came out of Monza regression and decided to pull my projects out of hibernation. I bought my first Monza 10 years ago, found it in a seizure tow yard in Ukiah, California. It's a 75 Monza Towne Coupe California edition with the factory 350. I think it was a factory auto even though it had manual pedals in it, was grey with white full top and white interior, only 72k original on it. Got towed on a drunk driver arrest and yard eventually took it and sold it, so came with a salvage title, although there was not a ding or rust anywhere on it. Interior had some sun damage from sitting in the yard for 2 years down there and needed guide seals since they had hardened and burned a little oil. I found another in the mean time and got it for $100 as a parts car, a 76 Monza Coupe with the factory 305 auto, red with no vinyl top, didn't run, but got a ton of parts from the guy...he was clearing out his collection. He even had a Mirage that he wanted $800 for, I just didn't have the money at the time or I would have that too, lol. Moved to Washington a year later and brought everything with me, drove the 75 and drove nice. They sat here for 2 years and I happened to find another 75 Towne Coupe California edition with the 350 auto sitting near an old school house in the weeds and bought that for $400, passenger fender knocked in and severe roof rot, but ran and nice interior, except dash pad.
So everything sat after I bought a house 5 years ago and did a major restoration on that...still in progress. Cleaned out one of my storage sheds last week and started finding all these parts I forgot about that were planned for both 75's and decided it was high time I quit being a slacker and get back to working on my treasures.
Plan is the first 75 will stay mostly stock looking, but have all the parts to change it to 5 lug and 7.5 housing for the rear with a truetrac. I have everything to make it a 4 speed again, just not sure if I should or put a TH350 in it...also have the torque arm housing for that too. Have a 509 casting 2 bolt 400 stock bore, a set of iron eagle 208's 230cc runner, and everything else to put down a solid mid 500hp at the tires, a set of weld on sub frame connectors and a set of bolt on that I got prints for, a set of 1 3/4" Don Hardy headers, new motor mounts from v8 H body, dual electric fans, a tilt column from a sunbird and a manual steer vega box I am going to adapt in.
Second 75 will stay bone stock except the motor internals and smog delete, plan on donating the roof structure from the 76 to repair the roof on it, project won't start until I finish the first one though so I don't loose focus again. Will try and post some pictures of starting point and as I go along with project for everyone to see (critique, lol).