When is it time to send an old car to bed? I am having a hard time with that question the last couple days. My mom has my great grandpa's 66 Galaxie custom. It was nothing fancy, plain jane car with a 240 6 cylinder. My parents had it painted about 25 years ago, not a full reto by any means, just fresh paint. It was mom's daily driver for many years. We would take on an 800 mile one way trip every year to my grand parent's house. Alot of memories with that car. Then about 15 or so years ago, they parked it. It has had a few different storage areas over the years, most of it being outside in the elements. We would start it and run it occasionally, but never drive it. I knew the frame was severly rusted and the brakes rusted a while back. Well, we pulled it out of the weeds last night, first time in atleast 7 years. The frame is way worse than I remember, 2 wheels locked up, and a strong mouse smell if you know what I mean
. We put a battery in it, the key switch did not work. We hot wired the coil, sprayed a little carb cleaner jumped the solenoid and the thing fired up, I thought it was just running on the carb cleaner. But after a few seconds, it stayed running. It was great, ran just like i remembered. But the car is litterally falling apart around the motor.
I just don't think the car is repairable, I have frame off restored my '69 F100 so I know what it takes. And this car is in really bad shape. So when do you get rid of a family heirloom? My thinking is that there a lot of decent parts left and we can part the car out and let parts of it live through a few different cars and someone else will enjoy their car that much more because of great grandpa's car.
