Technical A Kid's First Project: 1957 Fairlane 500 Town Victoria.

You mentioned bias ply's at the beginning of this thread and it reminded me of a 69 Camaro I picked up that had them all the way around. I drove it like that for a few and when I switched over to radials it was like the entire suspension was rebuilt. Night & day. Tradition VS ride quality.

 

So ive been working on the front brakes, i had to take the backing plate off to get the wheel cylinder out for some reason...

Remember how earlier i said it was owned by an iron worker?
This is the fun of an iron workers car, slag, at least its not the corrosive kind and theres good parts under it...

 

Putting her back together for the night, rain in the forecast.
Got one new wheel cylinder... lets see how hard the next 3 are... the master wont be too hard once i get it uninstalled.

 

You should clean up and paint those backing plates first.

 

I will when the new hardware arrives, im making "drum puzzles" out of the old ones.

 

So, i decided to try and drop the tank.

It went about as well as you would have expected
Little did i know, the gauge reading empty and nothing coming out of the hole doesnt mean its actually empty.
So I unbolted it, and it fell on me, the top of it was rusted through and I got cut on it when I tried to get it off... it was about 3/4ths full of varnish.

At least i have my tetanus shots!
Speaking of... how did you old guys manage to not get lockjaw when you worked on your car way back when?

 

at least i have a brand new one...

 

Pup, when I worked for Buick that was a common occurrence. So we’re head to toe gas baths. (those were the best arm pits and balls would burn). The smashed fingers and gas filled cuts were fun also. I think after you get cut so many times you build up an immunity to lockjaw and tetanus. Just a theory though. Just some of the joys of old cars. Enjoy!

 

My '59 tank is the same thing. I got that and the sender from Rock Auto. Yours is way worse then mine was. The brass float crumbled to dust in my hand. Oh, and remove the plastic plug at the filler neck FIRST. I had to drop the new tank to fish that out.... fun.

 

Still had the clips in 65. I remember them on my 65 Mustang and dad’s 65 Galaxie.

 

Yea, your tank was pretty much done. I’m enjoying following along as you work through all this stuff. I can somewhat relate as my boys are learning at the same time.

 

Tetanus shots have been around for a long time!

 

Which plastic plug? The rubber ring? Its... seen better days

 

The thing is, the bottom of it is relatively solid, which i find odd... i would have expected it to have rusted through there first.

 

some duct tape'll fix her right up!

im amazed my trunk floor is in as good of condition it is.

 

Tetanus Shots Are Traditional!
I don’t think you could fix that tank with 2 cans of tank sealer.
In new gas tank filler necks there is usually a plastic plug to keep debris out of the tank. More than one person has put the tank in without removing the plug on accident only to get a rude surprise when putting gas in for the first time. Same thing with new radiators.
When you get the engine running longer dump a bottle of Cascade for dishwashers in the radiator before you flush it. It will resolve the crud in the cooling system. I hear CLR works good also. Let it idle for about an hour before flushing with clean water. It also removes some of the crusties from the block water jackets.

 

Question, what do I do with ~10 gallons of varnish. well, it's more like dirty old gas more than varnish. either way, I don't want a letter from the EPA from having this stuff.

 

Guessing there is a difference between what the EPA would approve of and many of us might do...

 

Do y

 

I’d kill the wild berry bushes out in my field if I had it.

 

The new tank comes with a plastic plug in the filler neck, or yours may not. I saved taking mine out until the tank was 100% installed... mistake. I grabbed it with pliers and it shot right into the tank.

 

mines on the outside luckily, not inside

 

I noticed, my Fairlane has "Tiger Ride" shocks all the way around, and they mostly do their job still, the wobble is only a little delayed from stopping. any idea of their age?

ebay image for example.

 

another strange thing on the suspension, the there are weird clamps on the leaves in front of the axle, maybe from getting new springs at some point?

 

Those spring clamps are to stop or reduce wheel hop at launch. See what will happen on launch sometimes is when you dump the clutch the spring will try to wrap up and then unwrap in succession rapidly. Wheel hop.

 

strange... must have been installed by his son...

 

You might want to leave them on or redo them if necessary. It helps in the traction and acceleration in spirited speed contests. I am also partial to pinion snubbers also.

 

They seem to be in good condition, though, they are not evenly spaced.

 

Too wet to work on brakes... but i did have the time to start looking at electrical gremlins... plugged the tails in, but theres nothing happening. Did I mention that the dome light works now (kinda) it's random.
Will top off the fluids in the trans and diff while im under it.

 

Think i should get a new gas cap or cut new rubber for this one?