Let me start off with a little history, I have always loved Chevelle’s. Back in ’92 ( I was 18 at the time) I picked up a ’72 Malibu that had the original 307, the car was pretty beat up, major floor rot, and the LR fender was punched in pretty hard. The engine would barely run. Well a short tow ride, and $300 later it was in my driveway. It cost me about $150 (a starter and a complete tuneup) to get the car in a drive-able condition, I said drive-able, not safe!. At this point I was very young, had little money, and was just starting a family, needless to say the project got put on the back burner. About 2 or 3 years later, (the car still sitting in my driveway, not having moved much) a friend of the family ran his off the road and wrecked everything in the LF of his ’72. He needed a donor car, and I needing $$$, sold it to him with the mindset of “When I have the money, I’ll be able to find another easily”, NOT!
Well one day (about a 2 moths ago) while reading through HOT ROD Magazine, a person wrote to them asking about ways to find project cars, and they referred him to Hemmings Motor News. So I decided to look and see if the had a web site, and sure enough they do, Hemmings.com. And on that site they have an online auction, I searched for Chevelle, and there was 1 hit, a ’68 Malibu that currently had a 305 with a TH350 trans. Current bid was $700, I thought no problem, and bid $750, someone immediately overbid me. At this point I decided to wait until the last minutes of the auction. By the time the auction was getting ready to close, the bidding had gone up to $1400, and I thought to myself, I can afford $1500, so I did a proxy bid for $1600 (just to make sure) with $15 increments, I ended up winning it for $1415! To me this was still a steal. The person who was selling the car lived in Philly, PA and I was in New Hampshire, not too far of a ride.
After all the arrangements were made, One of my friends and I, with a tow dolly, (All the local rental yards wouldn’t rent a car carrier without one of their trucks!) made the 7 hour drive down to Philly. The car was in better shape than what I had expected! It had a serious rap in the engine (actually it sounds like a frozen lifter), this didn’t surprise me as the car has been sitting for months without being run. I was happy anyway, and we pushed the car up on the dolly. Since it is an automatic, I decided to disconnect the driveshaft, and tie it up so I didn’t have to worry about it leaking ATF all the way back to NH.
After we crossed the George Washington bridge, we hit a serious bump, and I swore I saw the car jump on the dolly. So I had my friend pull over on the highway to make sure the car was still cinched down fully. While I was making sure all of the chains and binders were still tight, my friend says to me “Hey whats that rope dragging under the car?” Doh! In my excitement to get the car home, I used rope to tie the shaft up, instead of wire. The rope chaffed through, broke, and the driveshaft is now somewhere between the start of the Jersey turnpike and just north of the GW bridge.
I decided to write to Hot Rod, and tell them my story, they sent me back a response with a great lead on driveshaft’s! Denny’s Driveshafts. I can get all I need from them, including a new slip yoke, for a really great deal.