Projects '52 Catalina Super DeLuxe Custom Build

HA! I tried that at the DMV with the lady, she didn't even respond. Problem is, they have to inspect the plates for quality before use and after she found out the number sequence couldn't be used it was too late. I'll just have to get custom collector plates later and somehow incorporate these inside the car.

 

So it was "Back to The Fifties" in MN this past weekend. Maybe some of you have heard of it, maybe not. There were over 10,000 registered cars from 1964 and older at the MN State Fair Grounds. I drove my car to the show but didn't pay the registration to drive it in. I will next year. $10 to look at endless, jaw dropping classics. I saw less than 10 Pontiacs from 1950-1954. It's impossible to see all the cars so I'm sure I missed some but there were definitely not a lot there. Here were a couple stand outs.



And, mine. Turned some heads. Felt good.

 

So I noticed about a month ago my 4" driveshaft was rubbing in my X-frame. It kind of has these flared I-beams that it was hitting. Fairly certain it wasn't rubbing on the top of the frame/floor of the car. So I dropped the driveshaft and had to get surgical on my I-beam. I tried to just cut as little as possible and flare it out more. I put blue tape on the driveshaft to see if I have any more rubbing. The driveshaft looks really close to the floor because the floor jacks are on the rear axle, it sits dead center while in normal stance. I did clean up the metal ends more after the photos. Not a fun or easy job with a sawzall laying on your back with metal shaving flying all over.

 

That doesn't sound like a fun sawzall job, but it'll be good to have that out of the way. This reminds me, I'm glad my car lift is arriving today.

 

I was having high frequency feed back on my speakers and I cleaned up and tried multiple grounds with the amp. I added a ground from the block to the body. I would like to have used another hole on the back on the engine but the two available were blocked by the ATF feeder tube. I already have a battery to block and frame to block ground. Hopefully this does the trick. Really eager to get the carpet installed then seats and cruise the rest of the summer.

 

To keep impedance as low as possible try keep everything in that area grounded to the same point.

 

Turning the gain down on the amp along with the additional body ground eliminated any feedback. I loomed all the wires and removed the audio equipment that will go on top of the carpet and started the install. I'm not convinced this Stock Interiors carpet was totally for my 2dr but it certainly fits up front. The back part looks like there's going to be excess over the tunnel. I started trimming it down but stopped before I got to the exact fit so I could come at it with a fresh head. Color: 557-Gunmetal 80-20 Loop. $190.85 shipped

 

Much better to have too much than too little.

 

looks nice, the car is really coming together!

 

Carpet install was ok. I am not super happy with the fit. The tunnel has excess that is kind of floppy and where I bolted down the gas pedal it binded/folded the carpet up higher on the fire wall. I stupidly left the carpet on the firewall peeled back over the 4th of July weekend and sum because I didn't have the gas pedal removed and so to the right of the peddle on the tunnel are wrinkles that are totally my fault. Hopefully they will smooth out. I suppose it looks alright.



I decided to mount the front speakers under the dash temporarily (maybe permanently?) until I can install them in the kicker panels or possibly the doors. I really just wanted them in somewhere so I can put the seat back in and get to cruising. The entire audio install was a lot of hours and time that I didn't quite expect to happen this early in the build but with the carpet install I wanted to lay all the wiring, thus, audio. The sound is incredible. I am super happy with the quality of the music. A little extra gain on the front speakers to make up for the direction they are facing and they cohesively come together with the rear sound like a perfect puzzle piece right at my driver seat.

 

Leave the speakers hidden. They always look like an afterthought in kick and door panels. JMO, YMMV

 

I can second that. Not to mention the feeling of “that’s done” and move on.

 

Need your help HAMBers. When I push my brake pedal, my turn signal indicators light up on my dash and the parking lamps (front turn signals) illuminate. I have an inline brake switch. One wire goes to the harness for power and the brake switch wire runs up into my turn signal switch. My turn signals all around work correctly as well as the brake lights. Either front turn signal will override the front illumination issue. For example, I signal left and the front turn signal is flashing, I press the brake, right front turn signal illuminates while the left keeps flashing. I have a two prong flasher installed and I don't think that is the issue.

Has anyone had this happen?

 

Could be a bad directional switch or a bad grround. I would check all the lighting and signaling grounds first.

 

2nd bad ground

 

LED bulbs?

 

No LEDs in the car except the third brake light, but I disconnected that just to be sure and it had the same issue. I unscrewed my tail light housings and cleaned up the metal and reinstalled the lights. There's no ground wires back there so I'm assuming it grounds through the housing to the body from the two bolts that hold it on the car.

The front parking lamps also just have two wires going to them, turn signal and parking lamp wires. Again, must be grounded through the bolts. The headlights do have a ground and I cleaned that up and those work fine. I don't know where else there would or should be a ground wire?

The brake switch wire goes into my turn signal switch. I wonder if its connected to the wrong wire inside there. Everything else works well so maybe I need to move the brake switch wire to a different wire on the 6 wire switch.

 

here is a thread back in 2012 about the smae issue. It turned out to be a bad bulb but read thru this as it gives a lot of info
1951 Pontiac Brake/Tail Light Troubles.. please help!! | The H.A.M.B. (jalopyjournal.com)

 

Thank you so much for giving me more ammunition to track this down. Checking into this over the weekend. Appreciate it.

 

Wondering if you have the heater and defroster working? Mine parts are a sad state and missing parts form the Previous owners. seems there would have been part of it where the new power brake booster is located on both of out cars.

 

Correct. There was originally a fan that draws in from the left hand air feed tube. It has two outlets, big one for the floor and a smaller one for the defrost.

Intake/block-off connector tube is up under the driver's side wheel arch.

The screen defrost doesn't necessarily need to be on the firewall, the hot air just blew in through a hole into a 1-to-2 adapter and flexible hoses went from there to the screen ducts.
Heater valve would've been attached to the firewall, feeding the two heater matrixes, defrost first, floor second then back to the radiator lower spigot (drivers side).

Air direction via a series of flaps in the intake tube and defrost box.

Phil

 

Thanks Phil for confirming my suspicions
Anyone have some details of how you are doing heat and defrost without the OEM parts after a V8 PB swap?
Maybe i can just go aftermarket and add A/C while I'm at it

 

Hey Bruce, Vintage air has a heater you can install under dash and has defrost ports on them. Likely, under your dash you still have the ports to hook duct hose up to. This was going to be my planned route of heat. I'm skipping AC. It's a hard top anyway! Here is the unit I was looking to buy from Vintate Air.

I still have my heater core that mounts on the firewall, as well as the under seat floor heater core if you ever want to restore let me know.

 

Took a little break on the Chieftain work this fall to work on other projects. I was also getting pretty down on the car and the electrical issue I could not resolve. Which was the illumination of the parking lamps when I pressed the brake pedal. WELL, I'm so damn happy to have finally figured it out. I had a bad turn signal switch. I mock wired up this United Pacific Turn Signal Switch from Summit and all is good. What a long annoying road its been. Now, I need to tidy up the wiring and put it back together. I had to get a 3 prong flasher so I can use the green flashing illumination tip on the stick. I haven't decided if I'm going to wire in the dash turn signal indicator lights yet or not since the tip of the handle flashes.

 

I bet you feel good now. Way to go on the fix.

 

I think you have the dash indicators hooked up to the rear turn lights and not the front. The front ones don't light up when you hit the brakes.

 

Yeah thanks man. You called it long ago. I didn’t wanna have to change out that directional switch but that was the case. Thanks for the insight!

 

And the motor pull begins. Front and rear main seals leaking, compression low on passenger side. Trans leaking. Gonna pull and rebuild from stock to 350HP over the winter. Trans I will likely bring in to get rebuilt somewhere while its out. I figure if I rebuild it completely I’ll get a solid 100k miles out of it before its an issue again. By that time, it’ll probably be 15 years from now. Plenty of other affordable options by then.



Chrome grille and bumpers getting redone too. Currently waiting on a quote from a local shop. Hope its not too outrageous.

 

Have that shop show you the cost for race chrome, often a lot less and would look a lot better than the current condition.