It's still coming along. I'll go snap some photos and do a new post in the morning. Thanks for the prod....
OK, We've been working on the stuff we need to do before we put the engine back in. I didn't want to pay for a replacement battery box so I fabbed one out of metal laying around the shop. Sorry this image is sideways.... I don't know how to shag it around. It's mostly 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 angle iron . Its hell for stout and the price was right. Mounted the solenoid and regulator to the sidewalls as well. It's just easier when the engine is out. Ran a lot of the brake lines out of the proportioning block. This is a nice little unit I got from Speedway. Proportioning valve, pressure switch and all inlets/outlets positioned conveniently. The dash was installed in the car after Steve did as much as he could with it on the bench. The former speaker grille will hide the fuse box. Wiring kit is a Rebel Wire. I really like the look of the new dash. Now we just have to get Steve to run the remaining rolls of wire forward and back and attach them where they belong. I'm on my 3rd try trying to find a chromer that doesn't have his head up his ass, and I finally found one.!!! Salt Lake Chrome did a great job for me on the chrome around my grille opening. Fairly priced, and on time! I'm still missing that little cover for the center of the lower chrome trim, but I'm sure I can ultimately find one.
I was sidelined for a few weeks,and haven't touched base but I'm happy to see the updates. The dash looks great! HRP
I haven't posted lately because we've really been stuck. The brakes have been killing us. All the components are brand new, but no matter what we did we couldn't get pedal. Bleeding, vacuum bleeding, force bleeding , Master cylinder brake bleeding, New master cylinder, switching feed lines, hell, you name it , we tried it. Finally yesterday after 4 days of work, everything came around. No one thing, lotsa little things. I now consider myself a brake expert. It's impossible to work on brakes without spillage . The majority of the engine compartment has to be repainted. I don't know what is in that shit , but it makes a goddam mess of EVERYTHING. Steve was having similar luck with the electrical . There was a direct short somewhere in the system. He spent the last several weeks checking his shorts! Turns out the gauge mounts were too short and were touching the terminals on the back of the gauges. We welded additional length onto them and replaced them. So, we've finally gotten past these hurdles. There is some other progress to report. The steering is all connected. The steering joints were made by a company called CPP. They are beautifully made and reasonably priced! The nickel plating looks nice as well Finally, the seats are back from the upholsterer. Howie, our usual upholsterer is getting out of the business so we had to go elsewhere. We are pretty satisfied with the results. They should work well. We didn't want anything too fancy since this is after all, a ranchwagon.
Happy to hear the brake problem has been fixed. I really like the seats,very close to the color Brenda originally selected and purchased several years before the car was finished. I will point out the old adage,it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind and when a friend said he liked that color she said sell it to him. When it was time for upholstery she looked at her original choice and opted for the white and green,,,,moral of the story,don't buy upholstery 6 years before you need it. HRP
At the rate this project is going we might have upholstered the seats 6 years before completion as well!
Working on the fuel system. I don't want to buy a new tank if I don't have to because... $400. I pulled the old sender unit so we could look inside the tank with a light. Here's the sender. Not only that, but the sender is not an ohm type, and it is 6 volt.... I ordered a new generic sender to match the SW gauge. We drained the 20 year old gas out of the tank so we could have a look.... eeew.. This stuff was NASTY! Oddly, the inside of the tank was in pretty good condition!!!! The new sender does not match the mounting holes on the tank, so we had to fabricate an adapter. We used 1/8 steel, and drilled and countersunk the holes to fit the larger tank pattern, Then we drilled and tapped holes to mount the new sender. Took us all day to get this, but now we can move on..
looking at the remains of float I am surprised that you did not see the creature from the black lagoon staring back at you.
Not many things smell more putrid than old gas! It's a small wonder that your tank was still clean. Keep at it!
Glad you could salvage the tank,I vatted mine and it looked good until I installed it and filled it up,it leaked like a sieve. HRP
GAWD! It was horrid. I took the bucket outside and I could still smell it the next day when I rounded the corner to my house.
I understand your brake story. I went through that years ago, too. This has been a great read to follow. I hope we meet someday.
Y'know , when you're working on a car there's lots of times when you say "We'll worry about that when we get there." Well, we're there. I don't know why all the photos are rotated to the left, but if you set your monitor on it's right side everything will be spiffy. This week we had to move the gas filler tube to it's new location in the taillight opening. Well, the new tire well we fabricated was in the way so we had to cut an opening for the filler tube to pass through Here's the opening cutout after removal.. Then the filler end of the tube needed to be re-positioned to behind the light. We did this by welding in an elbow (Speedway exhaust pre-bends) to make the appropriate fit Finally a cover was fabricated to hide this whole mess. Well, that killed another day, but it all has to be done. Next week we'll run the gas line to the engine bay.
I am stoked to see some progress. You might find some humor in my screw up with the filler neck on our wagon,I intended to install it in it's original location and never gave it a second thought. It was way down on the list so the day finally arrived and I crawled under the car with the filler neck in my hand,after fighting with it for what seemed to be hours I came to the realization exactly why there is a tab just below the neck that holds the filler to the body. There is no way on Gods green earth the filler neck can be installed with the body mounted to the frame. I ended up going to a muffler shop and buying a couple of small sections of tubing and a trip to NAPA netted me a piece of expensive 3" gas tank connector hose. Forrest Gump moment! HRP
OK, Its been a while since we posted. Here's the latest. We've been getting the engine together as far as possible before we drop it in the car. New waterpump, alternator, dizzy wires ,carb and other stuff. We hit some snags along the way. The distributor refused to set down flush to the block, The engine pulleys wouldn't align and all sorts of other aggravations. But we are pretty well there now. It's looking pretty good, although I still need to find a power steering pump setup. The pumps & resevoirs are very easy to find but just try to find a pulley! Stock ones are made from unobtanium and anything at the big 3 is made of billet and 75 bucks! I'm going to the junkyard in the morning. We used a B&M shifter, and I was surprised at the nice quality and great directions. There's still a few good ones out there. Probably another week before we drop in the engine, but this project is really getting to be fun again!
We're still meeting each week and working on the project. The problem is right now we are working on the "SPACER". That thing that fills up the space between the radiator and the firewall. None of us are great engine guys so we're pretty slow. Figuring out the throttle linkage, tranny kickdown, shifter, power steering, etc. We're trying to get as much on the engine as we can before we drop it in the engine bay. That way we stand less of a chance of scratching up the paint leaning over the front fenders. We did find a power steering setup from a 66 Fairlane, and it is now mounted on the engine. How in the hell do you figure out where all these vacuum lines go to?
I don't figure out the vacuum lines. Smart guys do that. Glad to hear you're still plugging away. I Can't wait to see this one done.
I just remembered all the work y'all did to create the new grill opening. This photos shows that you were right on the money. Man that looks good!
Hopefully one of the crew will post a update this evening,they usually all get together on Sundays. HRP
Your issue with the distributor not seating at first makes me want to suggest that you double check your timing marks between tdc compression and the #1 spark plug wire at the distributor rotor. Those 5/16" distributor drives can be a p.i.t.a to get aligned at first and I've seen engines that would not start because the distributor timing was off. As for the vacuum lines, how many are there? I can see that you'll need one for the distributor, one for the wipers and a big one for the brake vacuum canister. Is there something else?
Well, it's as ready to go as we can make it. We got the power steering mounted. We had to alter the mount to get the pulleys to align, but we got there. We also connected up all the transmission shifting and downshifting cables. Never done this before-hope we got it right. We attached all the cables to the edelbrock carb , just to be sure that everything fits right. We'll then pull the carb and attach the engine hoist plate to set the engine in the car. We figgure the more we can do outside the car the easier it'll be and we stand less of a chance screwing up the paint . We aren't exactly sure what the vacuum line going back to the rear of the transmission is for, but we hooked it up to the rearmost vacuum line on the carb. Looks good to us , but may be way off. we'll see. We've got next week off cause of the holiday, but week after this is goin' in the car!
The vacuum hose to the transmission modulator should be manifold vacuum, below the throttle plates. It tells the trans when to shift by sensing engine load. Just an fyi...
That's not a reverse rotation water pump is it? Originally used a serpentine belt? The fuel pump boss should say no, but the pump doesn't look quite right....
The Jalopy Journal
