Opened up the garage for the first time in probably 2 or 3 months yesterday.. love how suede the paint looks in the daylight. Grille looks 10x better than i imagined once the sun hits it.. the chrome/paint blends even better than i imagined. Also got the master cylinder installed. All of the brake lines i purchased fit great. I only have one (drivers side front) that doesnt reach like i would have hoped.. but chances are i routed it incorrectly. I like the way its routed up inside the frame out of the way so im just going to make a little 4" extension with a junction and leave it the way it is. Routing brake lines with the body on is annoying as hell .. A comparison of the new one vs the epic home town original one thats now going to be wall art .. Luke
Got my master cylinder through an online store on ebay .. $140 also got my rubber lines on ebay $35 .. and the hard brake lines i got from pontiacparts.net for something like $120 i think? .. They were prebent and really nice. Luke
car is lookin good,nice work.............now if we could get rid of this crappy weather u can enjoy it
Hey Luke, Your 'Poncho' looks really nice.. I like the color and the grille work came out very well....
Definately .. i just really want a few nice days again that i can roll it outside and work out there .. im getting cabin fever No prob.. shoot me a message if your having a hard time finding anything. Ive been on parts hunt for the last 7 months and have found a bunch of hard to find stuff by stumbling on it. Thanks, I really like the color too.. im glad the finish turned out the way i had hoped.. Its not perfect by any means but its also 60 years old so whatever its still going to be a blast to drive. Got my radiator in wednesday so im going to pop that sucker in tonight if possible. Hopefully by tomorrow evening i can iron out some bugs and get it running on its own .. .. crossing my fingers!! Luke
Got my radiator in the mail from HAMB member "54nomore" on wednesday. Friday evening i spent un wrapping it getting it installed and everything buttoned up. I have to thank Ron for a great shipping job. He put wood sheets on each side of the rad and even rubber plumming plugs on the outlets.. as well as a whole slew of bubble wrap. He took good care of me and the price was right! Cant thank him enough for bailing me out in a pinch. Also I was able to get my 2012 alliance tag on my firewall friday night. Looking good! Left some room below it incase i find other cool tags down the road. That indentation is a perfect place to house them! So that was friday .. Yesterday though was awesome. I got to hooking up the last of the radiator components and filled it up. Wrapped the last bit of my electrical repairs in electrical tape and got them all routed properly. And did my last minute checks. So when everything was good to go Eric "wwauto1" and I decided to give it a go and see what happens. Poured some gas in the tank hooked up the battery and decided to give it a shot. The battery i was given with the car was a Group 1 sized six volt battery that was never intended to be inside the car from the factory. The battery was also dated from East Penn with an '08 date code .. so besides being undersized and old .. it wasnt cranking worth a crap. Luckily for me im the area manager at Batteries Plus so getting the proper setup wasnt a problem. Purchased a group size 3EH battery to fit the factory battery tray and headed back home. After installing the battery we decided to try it again. We still couldnt get the car to fire even with the new battery, though it was actually cranking the car much faster which was good it still wouldnt go. During the process we were able to get it to fire up and run off of starter fluid and some gas in the carburetor for a few seconds at a time so it seemed to be a fuel issue. At this point my concerns were focused on A. the fuel pump and B. the carburetor. I had only ever seen the car run off pouring the gas in the carb when i picked it up. It was clear when we were cranking that the pump wasnt siphoning the gas to the front of the car so we went with plan B. We hooked a funnel to a gas line and ran it directly to the pump right under the hood. At this point we could see the pump was pushing the fuel up into the carb but we still werent getting anything to spray into the depths of the carb so it still wasnt firing. The car has an old Rochestor BC carb on it .. which anyone whos seen one before can tell you has very few parts. After talking on the phone for 30 minutes with my old man i decided we needed to tear the carb down. Didnt have a rebuild kit but we tore it all down and cleaned everything up really well and reassembled it. After reassembly we cranked it up and IT FIRED!! Wahhooo!! Idles really nice .. I have a slight trans fluid leak but the motor is running well and i will deal with that this week. We were able to also get the gas to start flowing from the tank too.. so no more running off the funnel. Shes full stand-alone now crank it and let it run. Now its on to working out the bugs.. Yesterday was awesome .. and im super excited. Getting closer everyday! ..videos of the car running on its own Pretty happy with saturday.. Im taking off sunday to relax.. so back to the grind monday! Til next time .. Luke
Glad to see you got it going! You're welcome on the packaging job, I figured you'd either love it or hate it
Nice work...Is the gas tank clean? I fought mine for while until I had it stripped and sealed? I'm sure a better mechanic than me due to your eduction back ground and you probably know all that but I ran those crappy clear fuel filters like it was my job till it ran clear even after getting it cleaned. Congrats on getting it running!
Oh yeah it was great thanks. I was just happy they didnt destroy it in transit. Yeah we actually dropped the tank last year in the fall and i completely drained it out then poured in some new gas and swished it all around and dumped it again. I had the sending unit out as well so i was able to actually take a look around inside of the tank and it looked surprisingly good in there. Im running those cheapo clear filters as well. Ive got one back by the tank and one up front by the fuel pump just to be safe. So far the gas flow has been great it ended up being something with the floats not being able to go through full travel in the carb i think. So far so good so we'll see what the tranny fluid issue ends up being. Thanks guys! Luke
Also looking for these clips anyone know what they are called? These are the clips that are located on the back side of the "shark fin" trim pieces under the rear windows. As far as i know this is the only trim piece that uses these clips on the car. I ran into a website that had a very similar clip for a 55-57 Chevy Nomad that they were calling "trunk bar clips" or something like that .. but i dont have dimensions on them to know if they are the same size? Any one know a place that sells these that would know they are correct? All the nomad sets but one ive found are for like 20-30 of these things .. i only need like 5 or 10 at most so an $80 bag of 30 isnt really what i had in mind. Any help would be sweet! Thanks! Luke
Maybe check with restoraton world in Huber Heights. You could probably take one in there and if they are the same and they arent dicks maybe they will sell you a few of them! They carry a ton of tri5 parts. Sent from my DROID device using the TJJ mobile app
I like that color. I've chosen very similar hue to paint my O/T but still quite old daily driver. It makes chrome stand out.
well that was an enjoyable read, congratulations on your project, love the color, can't wait for the updates...subscribed..
Thanks! Yeah i really like it.. Well i emailed them my pictures but he said unfortunately he doesnt have anything available.. hmm bummer. Back to the drawing board. Luke
Well got 5 steps forward on the engine.. then took 10 steps back. The trans leak had me worried and left me no options. It had to come out. The leak was coming from the inspection plate weep hole. It would drip slowly as the car was running .. but once i shut the car off it would puke out a little bit of fluid that would leave a decent puddle under the car. After removing the inspection plate it was apparent the leak was coming from the front part of the trans case and leaking down the back side of the torque converter then making its way to the weep hole. It appears i have a bad front seal. Anyways i bit the bullet and started pulling it with a friend. What a pain in the ass. Removed the rear ujoint then slid out the drive shaft.. the flywheel on my car has 30 .. yes 30 bolts holding it to the front part of the torque converter.. yippee . The bellhousing is held on by 6 bolts. Not to mention removing the crossmember below it and all of the linkages .. whew .. time consuming and obviously nothing is easy to get to except the two upper bolts from the interior. And removal is supposed to be the "easier" part.. Got everything disconnected and started to lower it... aanndd!! .. its still too tall to get out from under the frame rails. ugghh.. I only had my floor jack so then i got semi-creative. My friend is laughing at me the whole time confused as hell as to what i was trying to do.. so I set some wood up pulled out my floor jack.. rolled my creeper under it.. and i was able to lower it by hand onto my creeper.. and viola! Jesus .. what a heavy son of a bitch.. After we got it rolled out we threw it up on the table.. i was able to get the snap rings off and pulled the torque converter off and its definately the front seal.. so now i need to order some parts and get it swapped out and pray to lord that there arent any other trans issuses once i re-install it. We'll see how it goes.. once again crossing my fingers. (seems to be a common position for my fingers to be on my hands the last 7 months) I will say the "factory pontiac manual" i purchased last year when i bought the car was absolutely zero help. The images in the manual arent even of my trans.. hence i was extremely confused by everything for the first hour. Nothing was making any sense. Luckily Eric "wwauto1" found a gem at a swap meet for me last year and grabbed it. Its a Chiltons manual for 1951.. not just pontiac .. but virtually every manufacturer in 1951. Wow what clutch piece to own. You can see it in the picture above .. the things like 3 inches thick and its basically an encylopida. Every image was spot on .. and every piece of information made sence and was easy to follow. I really cant see why anyone would sell something like this .. i would never get rid of it even if i let go of the car at some point. Its one of those things you cant replace and never know when someone could else use the help and need to borrow it. Wouldnt have been able to do it without it and im very gratefull he got if for me. Talk about clutch .. (no pun intended ) Anyways we'll wait to go any further until the parts arrive.. Keepin my chin up.. still got a month to work this problem out before the wedding. Until next time ..
You're a productive sun of a gun...but I guess you've got a deadline. I just got an e-mail with a coupon for a 79$ 3 ton race jack from horrible freight and Im gonna go pick it up because my old HF one is a little too short and I would like to have a back up for situations like this. I made a plate to slip onto my jack that can support my trans and it should be pretty sweet! Not that I want to use it any more than necessary...lol And yes those early chiltons and Motors books are priceless I absorbed (stole) my dads and I couldn't live with out it! Sent from my DROID device using the TJJ mobile app
I try .. lol While waiting for my trans parts to come in .. i decided to throw the replacement door glass in the car for the time being. I got the two front glass peices from hamb member "jhutch713" for $50.00 and once again another hamb member saving my butt. Only thing i still need is a drivers side vent window. My passenger side one is still in one peice. The drivers side vent window was cracked so i busted it up and pulled out the peices. If i cant find one ill just have my friend cut me a peice of plexi for the time being but i figured id ask to see if anyone knows someone with a vent window. Below are the dimensions i took of the passenger side window thats in one peice.. if anyone has a lead on one i would be very gratefull! As you can see the previous owner decided painting over the rubber seals was just fine .. so i had to spend about an hour on them last night removing the hardened cracking paint. Ill probably put some rubber treatment on them to hopefully get some black luster back into them because as of now they just look like dull blackish grey dry rotted crap.. I cant bring myself to replace the fuzzies and the seals in the glass right now especially if i decide to chop it this year and replace all the glass anyways.. so for now it will just have to do. Thanks in advance if anyone knows someone with one available..! Luke
For your quarter window look up a member on here called ChrisBlattie he does car window glass, anything you want, he cuts winshields too. I bought all my Buick sedanette side glass from him, cost me basically what the local guys wanted to charge me for one window. Service was awsome price was awsome shipping was awsome and faster than I expected. Definatly my best car part experiance ever. Did you ever source those clips you were looking for? I finally gave up trying to source some for my car and have been experimenting with bonding the trim on with black winshield urethane for putting in newer windshields its becoming one of my new favourite adheasives next to JB weld. Awsome build, now you have me thinking of that colour for my car...
Ill definately shoot him a pm! Thanks.. As for the clips .. i havent found anything that verifys the size but these are the clips i found online that appear to be the same. Just hate to buy them if theyre not .. but i guess for $15.00 i may just have to bite the bullet.. http://www.ebay.com/itm/55-56-57-Ch...Parts_Accessories&hash=item2c69ee2753&vxp=mtr So far those Nomad clips are the only things ive found searching the net that are remotely close. Luke
There's a that goes to the spring field swap meet that has an old catalog and can get all kinds of crazy moulding clips. He's out of Indiana and I have his card somewhere I'll try to find it when I get home. Did you check with these guys their website didn't link to your car so you might have to call them. http://thecliphouse.com/pontiac-car-parts.html I also found this place? http://www.oldride.com/directory/oldsmobile-clipsscrews.html And this one? Sorry I had some time to kill! http://www.northlandfasteners.com/
Got some progress today.. Still waiting on the transmission parts to come in.. should be here monday or tuesday hopefully. So i decided to move on to some of the other parts. Started with the rear deck panel that goes up by the back window behind the rear seat. Never had time to finish it before so today ended up doing it today while i had some down time. Started with a cardboard template. Decided to use the cardboard as the base for this piece and this piece only. Using the cardboard gives me the opportunity to flex this panel around the hard to reach spots until it pops right into place. Using some plastic i was able to push it inside the hard to judge parts and trace a template for the edges with a sharpie. This made trimming the corners a lot easier. All i had left from the interior panels was a bunch of scraps .. so i pieced as much crap together and started rockin'. Double batted the rear so it would be a little more poofy and fill the back window up a decent amount. Then wrapped the rest of the scrap fabric.. disregard the lumps. still havent fully rubbed down the panel yet. .. it even fits! Then since i had the glass installed this week .. i decided to put the door panels and garnish moldings back on the front doors. Not too bad for a poor person.. Lastly decided to tackle the brakes. Got my brake lines finalized went to bleed and ... ughh .. more crap. Bleeders on all of the cylinders are screwed. So i decided i might as well change them while i have some time. Ordering new front and rear wheel cylinders tomorrow. In the mean time eric and i got them torn apart and ready for the new ones to come. Once they're in the only things not replaced in the brake system are the shoes which are in surprisingly good shape and the springs in the drums. .. i removed them .. because the insides were GROSS. They would have never worked right anyways.. So once i get the cylinders they will get bled and hopefully i can walk away from the brakes for now.. Then its back to this pile of crap for new seals and reinstallation.. .. exhausted .. Luke
hey!!yur doin fine!!! don't get too exhausted!! enjoy the build a little....it's a memory in the making....}}}(A){{{
The Jalopy Journal
