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With the Carlisle Chevrolet Nationals coming up this weekend, I thought it fitting that our Home-Built Hero for this week be a highlight from last year’s event. That’s where I met Donald Kline and learned about his ’66 Impala.
When I asked him where he found his car, his answer was a real surprise, “I found it at a flea market,” he stated. “It had a little bit of rust on the fenders and quarter-panels and definitely needed some work.”
A few upgrades adorn this stock looking cruiser. The five speed is a great addition to improve drivability.
After the bodywork was completed and the refurbished sheetmetal covered in a slathering of the original Regal Red, Don set his sights on sprucing-up the interior. “The seats and the carpet were already done when I found it, but dash pad was badly cracked. I had to replace the dash pad and headliner,” Don affirmed.
When Ron bought the car, it was all original, and even had the correct 327ci engine and four-speed transmission. Don had the small block’s cylinder bores opened up .030-inch and added new pistons. He then installed an Edelbrock top-end kit, featuring a hydraulic-roller cam and lifters, aluminum heads, an aluminum intake, and carburetor. The original four-speed was lacking an overdrive gear, so Don opted to install a Legend LGT-700 manual-shift five-speed behind the small block. Following that is a 10-bolt with Moser axles, a posi differential, and a set of Richmond gears.
Currently, Don spend as much time as possible driving his ’66 Impala and hopes to eventually upgrade the suspension with a few tubular items to improve the already decent handling.
Do you want to read about more Home-Built Heroes? All you need to do is click here. If you own a Home-Built Hero, we want to hear about it. Since we’ve started the series, we have received more than a few candidates, but we still want to see more – we can never get enough. If you want to see more cars built by you the readers, send us a few pictures of your car showing the engine, interior, and exterior, along with all of the pertinent information, and we’ll make you Internet famous. You can send your submissions to [email protected].
