Technical What are you working on?

Fixing this.

 

Ouch !.. I bet that took the wrinkles out of your forehead.

Thankfully the quarter appears to have escaped any carnage.

 

You need to look for a 64=67 nova 4 door to rob the front spindles and 10 bolt c clip rear end from ...

 

I have a rear end. Will be ordering discs for front. Didn't want to have to do this right now.

 

How much power are you putting out? Looks like you needed C Clip eliminators to keep the shafts in the axle. I have a 10 bolt rear end from a 68 Camaro set up with locker, good 28 spline shafts, 3.55 gears, and disk brakes that is just sitting in the shop now that it won't hold up with the engine power increase on my 51. How far away are you searching?

 

It's a 194 6 cyl. I have the old out and the new going in. Thanks.

 

Have you got this thing back home? Do you need any help with anything?

 

^That's bad, but I'm glad it wasn't worse for you.

 

It's home. Only thing hurt was backing plate and brakes. Besides my pride.
Old is out and new going in.
Ordering brakes tomorrow.
I checked these bearings and they are good.
I will have to see what wheel and tire fits now that I'm going 15 inch.
I have a pair of 15x6 with 195/65/15 tires . Will check the fit when it's back in.
Installing new studs also. Gears all look good.
I got the axles out and old mounts off plus new mounts tacked in place.
Very long day in shop.

 

We have a break in the weather so it's back to work on the Salt Shaker.
It's like rinse and repeat on the drivers side now.

 

Building one of my least favorite small blocks at the moment...doing a 383 for a friend , spent the afternoon grinding the block

 

been cleanin up this mess...

 

what was the price per ton?--that looks clean!

 

what mess...thats heaven on earth...lol

 

now you have room to buy more cars,,problem solved..he he he

 

Cleaning up is what I need to do too @rusty1

 

Since I got my truck done, I figured my 48 Plymouth coupe would be pretty much sitting around while I enjoyed the new toy.
We put the car up for sale, and parked it out at my son's place because he lives in a high traffic location. The car was a turn key cruiser, ready to go. I did a tune up, installed a new battery, manually inspected the brakes, and repacked the front wheel bearings. Got nothing! No phone calls, no tire kickers, nothing. At the end of last summer, I brought the coupe back home. This spring, we listed it again at a lower price, and the only call I got was some guy on the phone offering me less then 1/2 my asking price. We decided to just keep the car.

In IL, if you have expired plates on a car, if you want to plate it again, you pretty much just reactivate your old plates unless they have been expired for more then a year. The plates on the coupe expired at the end of last April. Had I reactivated them, they would have expired at the end of this April, then in May, I would have had to renew them again. Regular automotive plates are $151 a year. IL has Extended Antique plates you can buy for cars over 25 years old, they are just like regular plates between May 1st and Sept 31, the rest of the year the use is VERY restricted, but those plates are only $60 a year. To put them on the coupe, the old plates had to be expired for a full year. What a racket eh?

In July, I bought the Extended Antique plates. Since the car has only been started up and moved from point A to point B so we could mow the grass under it for the last year, there wasn't much gas in the tank. After installing the new plates, the 1st trip down the road (after adding insurance) was to the gas station. I put about 10 gallons in it (all the cash I had in my pocket). As I pulled away from the gas pump, the car promptly died. It was a nice hot 95 degree day, and I had no tools. I called my wife, and she came and got me took me home to get a few tools, and went back to the gas station. A quick check (all I wanted to do on that hot day, out in the sun) reveled nothing. I had the car towed the 8-10 blocks home (thank you AAA). The next morning, when I had time, to look into it, the car started right up. I was putting everything back together, when it died again. I was loosing power to the coil. I had the car running reading voltage at the +coil, then the voltage dropped to zero and the car quit running. I pealed back the wiring and looked for maybe a broken wire or something like that. Of course, about 1/2 way through the process, I suddenly had power to the coil again, and the motor started.
I called my buddy to get his thoughts on the subject. The car has an electric fuel pump in the gas tank. My buddy suggested maybe there was a relay that was messing up, or possibly wiring going to the fuel pump that was maybe bad.
The next day, I pulled the wire harness loose and started looking for anything that could be the problem. I searched the entire wiring from the ignition switch to the fuel pump. I found a couple things that could be suspect, including a very old relay that had a pretty funky electrical connection. I fixed those things and put it back together.
The next day, the car started right up and ran a good 20 minutes. I figured I got what ever the problem was. I took it for a test drive (15 miles) and all was good. My wife and I had some errands to run, so we took the coupe. We put another 20 or so miles on it running around, and started heading to another errand stop. When I stopped at a stop sign, the car died and wouldn't start. We coasted backwards into a parking space in a lot, and let it sit about 15 minutes. It fired right up, so we started heading towards home. It ran about 5 minutes, but got us closer to home. My wife decided to walk home and get her car (about a 1/2 hour walk). By the time she got back, I thought maybe I could try it again, but it only made it a few blocks. It died and I rolled into a parking place. We left the coupe there and went to lunch, and finished our errands. Since it had been a couple hours, we thought maybe we could get the car home, but we got within a couple blocks when I rolled into another parking lot with a dead car. The unfortunate part was there was a major traffic light between where the car was and home. If I could make it through the light, I could roll down hill into my driveway. We elected to get it towed home the 2nd time in 3 days.

It was determined the fuel pump in the tank was dead, or dying. The fuel tank would have to come out from under the car. The pump was replaced when the car was built, in 2011, and has 100,000 miles on it.

Then everything got put on hold for a month.

On Monday (this week), I ordered a replacement fuel pump and a replacement fuel filter, some replacement fuel hoses and clamps, put the car on jack stands, and lubed the gas tank strap bolts. I'm getting old and slow, I figured if I got the tank out and on the floor, that was probably going to be a good day, and then the 2nd day would be replace the pomp and start putting the tank back in the car. A third day was available if needed. The pump was in Monday afternoon.

Tuesday was day one. I got my floor jack into position (at this point I was pretty happy I only got 10 gallons of gas, the gas gauge showed there was just under a 1/2 the tank of gas left in the tank).
Over all it went pretty good. I had to cut the end off one of the gas tank strap bolts, and the other came out of the frame. The gas tank straps were paper thin with a few extra holes in both of them. When I put the coupe together, I had long enough hoses I could easily disconnect them. I did drop the driveshaft because it was pretty close to the tank and I didn't want to fight that. The tank was actually on the floor in about an hour and a half. It was on the bench, and the pump was out of the tank before lunch.

There is a strainer on the bottom of the fuel pump. I was told that as long as the screen was clean, I could reuse it, so I didn't buy a new strainer. Dumb move. The old strainer was never coming off the old pump.
Shopping list time. More hose (3 more feet of it to be exact), hose clamps (I had to cut the old clamps off) , the strainer, new gas tank straps, and new bolts for the gas tank straps (I really didn't expect to be able to get the straps or the bolts).

So while you are under the car, there are those things that should be taken care of but have been let slide. 5 or 6 years ago, the rear main oil seal started to leak. Back then at my budy's shop with the hoist, I pulled the oil pan (it needs to stand nearly straight up and down to come out of the hole), and replaced the rear seal. When I got done, it had a bigger oil leak then before (it would leak a quart in about 700 miles). I've been living with it since then. Well by golly, the car is high enough off the ground to get the pan off. When I get this fuel pump replaced, if I have time, I'm fixing that rear seal too. Since I was ordering parts, I got the pan gasket and rear seal too.

To my surprise, new gas tank straps were available. I improvised with the bolts, I used threaded rod and replaced the captured nuts. All the parts were suppose to be in Tuesday morning, and they were.
I got the pump replaced, and the tank is back in the coupe. I started the car (still on jack stands) and left it run while I mowed the lawn (about an hour), and it didn't die. I believe I have that part fixed.

This morning, bright and early (that would be around 9 am for me), I started on the rear seal. A bit of the back story. The motor sits back on the chassis about 7". That means there is almost nothing under the oil pan. Its wide open spaces, except for about the front 2" of the pan. The front crossmember sits under the front of the pan, so after its unbolted, as it slides back, the rear sump pan has to drop nearly straight down, and the front of the pan barely clears the block. This is one of those where you bond the front gaskets to the pan and make sure its set up before you try to slide it back in. The very worst part of the entire deal is that front pan bolt on each side. The steel fuel lines (a supply and a return) both are attached to brackets bolted to the front of the motor.
Those brackets are in the way of gaining access to those front two oil pan bolts. The fact that the oil pan is about 3.5" high, and the pan only clears the crossmember by just over an inch, doesn't help.. This project starts with the loosening of those two brackets so there can be removal of those two pan bolts, and ends with the tightening of those two brackets after the pan bolts are in.

I don't have a lot of tools here. On top of that, there are a few sockets that have ran away, or are hiding really well. I spent 2 hours this morning gaining access to, and removing those front two oil pan bolts. It took another trip to the parts store after the pan was off, for a fresh tube of form a gasket, and a can of carb cleaner to clean everything up. After the two front oil pan bolts were removed, the rear seal, clean up, and reinstalling the oil pan took another 2 hours (not counting the parts store run). Those two front oil pan bolts and the brackets that hid them only took an hour to reassemble. Fresh oil and a new oil filter, and the few minute run was good enough to puck up the mess and call it a day. I'm beat.

There is one more of those "should fix" things under the car while it up on the jack stands. Maybe it will happen tomorrow, or maybe not. I will see what I feel like tomorrow. We have a busy weekend coming up, and I should probably be preparing for it rather then laying under the coupe another day.

 

scrap was $140 per ton, had over 2 tons,
kept a lot of this stuff, just relocated it, sold some, gave some away, scrap'd the rest.
...feel lots better now.

 

Well, I spend a couple hours this morning fixing that last thing under the car.
The old frame had a soft spot. Wasn't a safety issue at all, just something that bugged me every time I looked at it. (I have been repairing this kind of stuff for the last 30 or so years). I retired 5 years ago, and haven't done any welding under a car during that 5 years.

The weak spot was just the bottom section of the boxed frame, about 4" wide and about 11" long. the weak part was around a factory drain hole that was partially plugged with debris laying on top of it (probably the reason for it being a weak point).
I cut the bottom out with a 3" cutoff wheel on my air cutoff tool. After the offending part was on the floor, and all the debris was cleaned out of the frame as far as my magnet would reach, the new piece was fitted and trimmed. Since its the bottom section, and the patch is going to be the lowest point, I over lapped the original frame by about a 1/4" all the way around. I also cut a 1.5" hole in the center of the patch panel. While the bottom was removed, and the debris was removed, a careful inspection of the remaining boxed frame was done. The side walls and the top appeared to be still sound, so the bottom patch should make it good for several more years. The car will not see salted roads, unless some freak snow storm rolls through. The new plates are only good May through Sept.
The patch has been welded in, and the car is on the ground (we took it for our Friday evening out drive). The shop has been cleaned up, we will see how well I did with that rear seal this time.

Tomorrow night is a big event in our little town, so its going to be car clean up day.

Years ago, the popular thing for us teenagers to was was cruise the down town area. Like most things like that that went away for many years. About 28 years ago, a local car club started a thing the called "Cruise Night". Essentially, they worked a deal with the city to have a one night event where the down town streets would be blocked off on the original loop we used to drive. Then they would sell the parking spaces in the lighted parking lots for $10 a space from 4pm until 9 pm, on one Saturday evening a year, while the streets were blocked off. The club, with extra volunteers, would man the street corners to keep things orderly (with police back up). The event was hugely popular. Over the years, the city got involved and added craft and food vendors, and then added kids activities, and a band, that was a great time. But then the city got greedy, and pretty much took over the event, and started charging for everything you can imagine. After a few years of that, the city took over the weekend we had been doing the Cruise on, and wouldn't let us even do the car thing. That flopped big time. The next year, we started over with the Cruise Night, on a different weekend, which was an instant success. The city moved their event, to a different date, and altered how they did their event. These days there are two big summer events, the city one (which is pretty decent now) and The Cruise Night, which is now backed by the largest local car dealership. Their money and their interest in old cars has made the event much better. The cruise route has been altered over the last few years (Covid, anyone?), The cruise loop actually covers a larger circuit then the original down town cruise loop, it got too crowded. The last couple years the cruise loop was detached from the down town parking because the city was redoing the down town streets. This year they have brought the actual cruise past the parking lots again.
Anyway, we are expecting around 1,200 cars parking in the lighted down town parking lots, and another couple hundred cruising the streets. It has been estimated that nearly 10,000 people come to town for the Freeport Cruise Night. Down town activities includes a muffler wrapping contest (now more like the loudest vehicle then muffler wrapping, but there are still a few rappers there), a safe tire smoking show (on a steel plate) sponsored by a local repair shop, food vendors, a live band, and 6 parking lots full of vehicles people were willing to pay $10 or $12 to park in (including one lot with cars built in Freeport, and other historic cars, like some restored from our local dirt track from the coupe era), If you don't want to pay, you can park along the streets and cruise on the cruise circuit for free.

I'll see if i can remember to take my camera and get some pictures.

 

Gaps, still....

 

Set the new 4 row radiator and made up the cowl lace. Set the steering column and brake pedal

 

It was lawn tractor repair and generator old gas rehab.

 

Fixing up a butchered fender skirt for a '56 Thunderbird.

 

Had a disaster avoided. My buddy with the White Lighting 62 Chevy was changing rear tires and decided to change the rear gear from the 4.30 to a 4.88. Well when he pulled the third member out all but 2 of the ring gear bolts were tight.



Should be good now.

 

When I find something like that it raises the hair on the back of my neck. Next to impossible to drill those Grade 8s for wire but the right loc-tite should do the job.

 

There was no loc-tite on these bolts and not even ring gear bolts. It's loaded up with 7/16 and 1/2 inch ring gear bolts now with red loc-tite.

 

How many passes do you figure?

 

Took a break from body work and decided to get the splash apron and running boards on. Took a while to get things lined up, but I got it. Now back to body work.

 

Block sanding a land yacht for @scofflaw that's going black. Finished a Mercedes, about finished on a Chevelle, about finished on a 39 Chevy, and pounding out work on my wagon in the evening.

 

Rebuilt an old Q jet that was laying around along with a performer intake and put em on the 307, fired right up from it's 30 yr slumber and sounded pretty darn good.