Go for it! Nice car too. What a find in this day and age. There are several running up this way. Some with an inline Ford sixes and others with an earlier Yblock V-8. Have fun too! Keep us updated. Normbc9
No offense, but around here repairing the heater core would at a minimum charge(1 hour) cost you close to the cost of the reproduction part.....Labor ain't cheap. BTW awesome car.
Thanks for the compliments everyone. I ordered my heater core from Mac's tonight. I know I would of been around the same price to get my old one repaired, but getting it repaired would of allowed me to install it quicker.
In case you haven't noticed, I am using this thread as a blog to track my experiences and progress with the car. As such... My wife went out of town and took the kids and dog with her since I had to go on a business trip. That meant that on this nice cold rainy day, I get to drive the wagon. My heater core is in transit which means I don't have defrost. Aside from that and the wiper motor sucking (or not sucking? HA!) things weren't to bad. On a good note, I hadn't had the car out in the rain much until today. After I got home from work I inspected for leaks and only found a couple. The big one is the rear quarter window, although it doesn't seem to be leaking bad, it does drain into the spare tire area and collect in the back of the spare tire tub. The other area it leaked was aroud the tailgate. I figured it would leak at the tailgate as the seal is missing, so that wasn't a big surprise. My wipers weren't working to great so I think either I have a vacuum leak or my wiper motor is just getting worn out.
I love old cars, I just hate the people who worked on mine before me. My heater core showed up in the mail yesterday, it was a day of much rejoicing as I was so happy not to have to freeze my way into work anymore. This afternoon I go to change the hot water valve from my old heater core to my new one. Here is where my heart sank, I now realize that my old hot water valve is only a piece of copper pipe soldered to the old heater core. I refuse to move the copper pipe from the old heater core to the new one, so now I have to find a new hot water valve. Very frustrated that I didn't notice this before today. Side note... I got a lot of goodies that have been piling up waiting for an extended day in the garage. At least I have something to look forward to.
We too have a lot of parts stacking up in the rear area of our '58 Del Rio. The main log jam seems to be a new windshield. You just can't put a used windshield in a '58 if your goal is a first rate ride. It really bites that a new windshield for the wifes Yukon is less than $150 installed while just to get a new glass here for the '58 is just over $400.00. Our wagon was driven to OKC from Long Beach about 1990. It then went into a 19 year nap in a wooden one car (Model A) garage, it sat there for 19 yrs because it dropped an idler arm. The fellow we bought it from said it ran, just from the looks of it I didn't believe him. Surprised me when I got a new tank in it, it did fire up and dosen't sound bad. My goal for this summer is the Good Guy's Heartland Nationals Jul 4th weekend in Des Moine. If my confidence in the 352 grows we'll be dragging our '56 Airstream.
i like wagons,and yours is lookin good.we have 2 runnin wagos my 53 and my sons ot 65 falcon wagon. his is set up for young guns, bags!! and them compressers are loud. anyway having a wagon and a growing family is way cool. keep at it and enjoy that big ol girl.
Thanks guys, I honestly haven't done anything except drive. I still have the same big pile of parts. Now that is is warmer out, the heater core is less of an issue. graybearded - I too need a front windshield, mine has a crack in the middle, but it is low on my priority list. outlaw - I really like the look of wagons on air bags, someday I may do that. Went to a car show this afternoon that I didnt even know about. I was on my way to church and saw a bunch of hot rods going the other way, so after church I found out where it was and stopped in for a while. Lots of fun, I am glad car show season is back. I will be attending the Springfield NSRA show this year.
Thank you for the compliment. So I had a pretty scary experience on my way home from work tonight in the wagon. It had nothing to do with the car or its reliability (which has been rock solid) nor did it have anything to do with traffic. I always park and drive with my windows down, and apparently a giant yellow jacket decided to take a snooze on the inside of my windshield. He did not make his presence known to me until I was in motion and unable to pull over. By the time I was able to get off the road, he was quite irate. I watched him try to sting the windshield several times. I was able to pull off into a gas station and get my new found friend out of the car, but it was a bit scary until I did.
Cool ride, I'm biased however, in that I owned a '59 that will remain one of my favorite cars ever, and I've owned lots. And, I'm jealous that it's yellow-jacket season down there, we're still a ways from that where I'm from.
Thanks for the compliments. Brad, you could of had my yellow jacket, him and I weren't getting along to well. Well folks, it looks like I will have heat just in time for summer! I found a valve for $15 on eBay with a buy it now link. I still don't have the little vacuum regulator piece, so I think I will put a full vacuum to the heater valve and use a cable operated valve to modulate flow through the heater core. The full vacuum to the valve will force it to be always open.
With the heater core still sitting on the workbench, I decided to tackle an issue that has been robbing me of money since I put this car back on the road. The issue of the persistant oil leak. I have a pretty good feeling that the oil was coming out of the pushrod cover on the side of the engine. It took a bit more to get the cover off than I had anticipated, but with some not so smooth finess I got it off. It turns out that the old gasket was almost non existant, brittle, and crumbling away. While putting the cover back on I discovered why it was so hard to get off. There is a recessed area of the cover to clear the distributor on one side, whoever did this last put the cover on upside down so there wasn't much clearance for the distributor. I feel sorry for the guy working so hard to get that thing in there. Time will tell if this slows my leak down, but judging from the condition of the old seal, it has to.
Well I spent all day Saturday working on the car with the help of my dad and my 3 year old. I think I found a major source of my oil leak, the oil pan bolts were extremely loose. Each one had about 1/4-1/2 turn before I felt any resistance. I also discovered that two of my front sway bar bushings were missing. Accomplishments for the weekend: Torqued oil pan bolts Changed transmission fluid Installed heater core Oil Change Fixed sway bar Mounted radiator catch can Greased front end Fixed defrost vent (wasn't connected to heater plenum) Unfortunately, I spent the bulk of my day working on the sway bar, which I didn;t even know was messed up when I started the day. I guess that's the joy of working on old cars.
Drove the car into work today. Once I got here I did my usual check for oil drips coming off the car, and nothing seemed to be leaking! I will check when I leave tonight to see if there are any puddles, but this is very exciting. As a side note, it is amazing how much better the car handles when the sway bar is hooked up properly.
Well my sway bar bushings came back out, I think it is time to order a new set, Mac's has them for about $25 so that isn't to bad. Also, my leak situation popped back up. It seems the oil pressure sender went bad and oil was leaking through the sending unit. This may of been a main culprit all along. Cought a clearance on Rockauto.com for $7 shipped and put it in last night, no leaks again. I am going to have to give it a couple days to really say if I am leak free though.
66Newport -- Thanks! It has been a real joy driving the car daily. My biggest headache has been tracking down this oil leak, and I think I am finally in the home stretch. The no heat thing was annoying, but leaking oil in everyone's driveway is embarrassing.
Hey Jason, Are you and your Dad thinking of going to the NSRA event over the Memorial Day weekend? I believe some of us will travel together Friday morning, and would love to have you join us. Roger
Roger, We are heading out sometime on Friday. I took the day off work, but I don't know Dad's schedule is yet. Would be great to ride together. I'll do my best to keep up with you guys in my straight 6!
Thank you halloween, I like yours too, still can't believe you "found" a third seat in your wagon. I found a used up old bias ply spare tire and a bumper jack, which is cool but not as cool as a third seat. Went out to look at the car at lunch to check for oil spots, and there was only one small spot under the drain plug, I think I can live with that for now. Good thing too, cause I was starting to run out of clean parking spaces at work to check for oil leaks.
Lesson learned this weekend: If it ain't broke, don't fix it! I was over at my Dad's house Saturday killing some time while my wife drove around in our minivan putting our 11 month old to sleep. While I was there I had the bright idea "hey I got a bit of time, why don't I put that Pertronix ignition in?" Installed it just how the instructions said and I couldnt get any spark. I decided to put the points back in to get the car home, figured the Pertronix must be bad. The problem was there was no spark with the points either. We couldn't figure anything out so we decided to throw in the towel and start fresh in the morning. Sunday Dad ended up putting new points, condensor, coil, rotor, and even a ballast resistor in while I was at church and still no spark. Dad and I were really confused since everything was set right, voltages were right, the dwell was right. I called a mechanic buddy who came and checked things out. It turns out the spark plug wires I put in a few months ago had decided to stop making contact to the distributor cap. A tweak to the existing wires to provide better contact and the car was running again. Put in a new set of wires to fix the problem and the car runs great now! God does do things for a reason, and I believe that had I not tried to "fix" my ignition this weekend I could of had the same issue while I was on the road with my family next weekend. Praise God for finding problems while I am still close to home. Also, the Pertronix is probably still good. I think I will wait until after I get back from Springfield to put that in though. So I guess my update this time is: New points New condensor New coil New plug wires New ballast resistor
Just got back from the Mid America Street Rod Nationals in Springfield, MO. Had a great time, and no issues with the wagon. A big highlight from the trip was taking over the gas station on the way home! <iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=F542BDAD7CE19A92&resid=F542BDAD7CE19A92%212289&authkey=AFqXn4N_f11qMCE" width="320" height="240" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=F542BDAD7CE19A92&resid=F542BDAD7CE19A92%212290&authkey=ANqjDKtVoV2YL40" width="320" height="240" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=F542BDAD7CE19A92&resid=F542BDAD7CE19A92%212291&authkey=AFGA8QS5RJVlsVM" width="320" height="240" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=F542BDAD7CE19A92&resid=F542BDAD7CE19A92%212292&authkey=AFXmvA8ixofPCoQ" width="320" height="240" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Outlaw, thank you, car still is running great. Went to a local show today and I think somebody counted wrong because they gave me a trophy! I am not a big trophy guy, but I have to admit I am pretty stoked about it. <iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=F542BDAD7CE19A92&resid=F542BDAD7CE19A92%212376&authkey=AHf6QUHTWtf39vo" width="320" height="240" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
The Jalopy Journal
