Gary Freelen

Written by Barb van der Veen

Harm and I had been friends with Babs and Brad Hillick for a long time (early 1980s), reconnecting each year at the annual AMO conventions and strengthening our friendship.  Some of the long-term members might remember them as the owners of The Source.  This was a business they started in order to supply AMC owners with NOS and reproduction parts that were, even then, becoming scarce.  I remember our visit with them at the North Carolina meet.  We even spent an extra day touring Charlotte Motor Speedway and Hendrick Racing.  Being a Sunday (race day), Hendrick’s shop was closed but that didn’t stop us from hamming it up in front of their windows.

The following spring, we contacted them to make sure they were still able to come to the next meet.  They had adopted an 18-month old boy, Marc, six months’ before).  We were shocked to learn that Brad had died suddenly in March, leaving Babs to raise Marc alone and deal with the massive inventory of cars and parts.  Brad had restored a number of cars in his day, but his last restoration was the 1970 Trans Am Javelin.  (Note:  this was one of only 100 TAs ever built so AMC could compete in the Trans Am series racing circuit – 100 was the minimum production amount required).  Unfortunately, the TA was sitting outside when Brad passed away, under very sappy Georgia pines and his once pristine TA really suffered.

Harm and I drove down to Atlanta later that year and bought their 1971 Hornet SC 360 which we continue to treasure to this day.  It was at that time that Harm started to hatch the idea of bringing the TA up to Canada to restore it.  No strings attached – we just couldn’t bear to see it sitting outside in that condition.  We are both very sentimental when it comes to cars as they are conduits between people about whom we care deeply.

I hesitate to say how long this labour of love has been in progress but, during the early times, the car was disassembled, stripped and then re-painted.  During this period, we moved three times but now we have arrived at the fun part – re-construction!  Harm had painted it red-white-blue in his previous garage so once we got his new shop set up on our farm, it was moved in and work resumed.  I have been assigned the tasks of sandblasting the smaller parts (those that can fit into the sandblasting cabinet) and detailing the car.  We started installing some of the vital organs in the engine compartment, repairing and re-wrapping the wiring harness (with our youngest son, Hendrik’s, help).  Ken Edwards came over and rebuilt/installed the front suspension components (new bushings and ball joints), and restored/installed the headlight bevels.

This rebuild has been made significantly easier and more enjoyable due to the NOS parts that Babs had in her inventory.  Nothing is more satisfying than opening up an AMC replacement part in its original wrapper!  As well, working in the shop on our 100-acre farm has meant that neighbours are not disturbed by any noise or outside sandblasting. 

Stay tuned for Trans Am Javelin Rebuild – A Labour of Love, Part 2, coming in about two months’ time!

Article and Pictures by Mike Putz

Having retired mid-2014 from a long “office” oriented career, I realized that I would need to keep myself busy and it might as well be something different and something I enjoy.  So when my nephew Randy was moving and needed to unload a 1974 AMC Javelin AMX project car, I said I would try to help him find a buyer since I was in the local AMO+ car club.  Little did I know that I was going to end up being the buyer.  Over the years, I had a 1972 442 restored and did a partial restore on a 1969 Javelin, and once I finished the 69 Javelin to the extent of my capabilities, I decided that it would be the last car I would tackle on my own.

This new project car was my brother’s who passed it along to my nephew, Jason, as a daily driver who then decided to completely disassemble and restore it.  Well, as many car project plans go, the aspirations exceeded the time, budget and enthusiasm.  As the years went by, parts were traded, sold and just plain walked away so that all I was getting with my purchase was the body and maybe 80{9bf56cdcf86fd5e484f7a6c7dd7f10c086072f0abab75d8e87856dbab1800b0f} or less of the parts.  The picture below shows the state in was in when I brought it home to my workshop.

Keeping in mind that I was an office worker all my working life, and not a mechanic or body guy, I was smart enough to seek help from good friends who actually know their way around AMC vehicles.  Two in particular that live nearby me are Harm van der Veen and Ken Edwards.  Together, Harm and I worked out a plan of attack which began with building a rotissorie from two engine hoists and getting the body onto it so that I could spend the next 8 months scraping the undercoating from underneath the car.

The next area to tackle was repairing metal areas that had rusted away.  Thankfully, Harm is an excellent fabricator making partial floor pans and other assorted fabricated pieces. Together, we managed to repair all the holes, replace the pieces we had to cut out and added frame rail connectors built by Harm for additional support for the upgraded horsepower to come.

Knowing that I didn’t have all the parts and because I was going to all this trouble to restore this car, it only made sense to me to add some upgrades.  The first of which was a full front and rear suspension system from Control Freaks.  So I placed my order and arranged to pick it up at the Atlanta International AMC annual car show.

Of course, to make sure everything fit and to position the necessary brackets, Harm, Ken and I assembled the suspension system and did a preliminary alignment.  Then we took it all apart and completed the welding required to finish the bracket installation.  As with most of the work, Harm would spend a day or two professionally welding the parts and then I’d spend the next few weeks grinding the welds and smoothing things out so that everything blended in and looked original.

Getting this far was a lot of work but also a great learning opportunity, not to mention that sense of accomplishment that comes with persistence and hard work, and enjoying the friendship and camaraderie of fellow car lovers.

Recently, we installed all the body parts, doors, fenders, hood and trunk lid and spent a fair bit of time fitting and aligning these parts.  Getting this far has taken about 2 years. Currently, we have primed the body and are in the process of block sanding and prepping for painting.  Meanwhile, I’m having an AMC 360 Stroker built to provide the horsepower this build deserves.  Once painted, all we’ll have left to do is the final assembly, (no small feat), build and install a custom interior and trunk (even a larger feat) and then bring it all to life…….. Stay tuned…….