The “2nd Best” ‘60 Chevy wagon build…

Looks like you'll have another winner! I just put aftermarket sway bars on my 60 from POL, and couldn't be happier. Really reduced the body roll. Both the front and rear bars were about an inch in diameter. I had the stock sway bar up front with poly bushings before the swap.

 

Very nice work you two. Methodical persistence can sure get a lot done in a relative hurry. I second the request on more details (original applications) of the dual MC.

 

Hooray, it’s May First and time to go rod running…NOT…!!!

This is sort of a wagon update, we’ll call this one # 7…

Not much happened on the wagon build in the last couple of weeks, but you might enjoy this little story.

As a foreword to this, despite driving my ’55 Cadillac, virtually trouble-free I might add, for the last two summers and logging over 10,000 tires-on-the-road miles, it’s the little things that always cause you to pull out your hair…!!!

I’ve said many times: “If you can’t fix it on the side of the road, better stay home or trailer your car…!!!”

We stopped working on the ’60 wagon in order for Dan and I to get our Cadillacs ready to go to the Stray Kat 500 on May 3, 4 and 5…we were really looking forward to this trip as it had been several years since we’d been to Mick's event at Dewey…and the weather around our place was feeling really good, what with the 80 degree days we had after our last snow storm…I’d read ‘TravisfromKansas’ was leaving from Salina at about 2 Thursday afternoon so I PMed him and asked him if he’d wait in Salina for us, and if we left Denver early, we’d make Salina in 7 hours…and we’d run to Dewey with him. He asked if we’d like to do a couple of shop tours on the way…”Sure, I’m always up for looking a new builds and such.” Kool…he'd set up a couple.

Problem was, for the fourth Monday in a row, the TV weatherman was calling for snow…!!! Sunday, April 28th, it was 80 degrees…Monday it was 60…yep, on Tuesday it was 40 degrees and snowing and Wednesday, the First of May, 20 degrees and snow, lots of it. It’s not unusual for it to snow in May around here…matter of fact, I’ve seen it snow as late as the 24th of June in Denver…it doesn’t stick to the ground much, but it does snow. When we go to Moab, Utah, the end of April for their show, we usually fight snow going over the mountains…or coming back home.

But we forged ahead getting our Cadillacs ready…we planned on leaving Thursday morn, May 2ooth, at 6 AM since it’s a 13 ½ hour trip from here to Dewey…

Sure enuff, the snow showed up Tuesday…temps dropped to 40 degrees…snowed all day Tuesday…and Tuesday nite…and Wednesday it snowed as the temps dropped to 20 degrees-typical ColoRODo…the Oklahoma trip didn’t look good. We got 8 inches all totaled, most of it piled on the grass…the roads were warm from the 80 degree weather we had, snow melted…so we didn’t think the roads would be bad…at least around Denver. At about 7 PM Wednesday, a blizzard warning was issued for eastern ColoRODo so CDoT closed I-70 east between Denver and Burlington, ColoRODo (170 miles). The snow had stopped, in Denver anyway, around 6 PM Wednesday…but to the east, there were blizzard warnings and that was the direction we were to go. To top that off, I-70 was closed to the west as well, between Denver and Breckenridge (100 miles). Snow was heavy, no one was getting out of Denver…

Guess the 6AM departure isn’t going happen. Dan said that was OK because at 6AM it’s cold (it was 21 degrees)…and he doesn’t have a heater/defroster in his car. We decided, IF I-70 was open, we’d leave at 8AM, and maybe the roads would be clear by then. Dan phoned me at 7:30 AM… “We going…??? It’s starting to warm up.”


Here's Dan trying to stay out of the slush...fortunately we didn't allow any eighteen wheelers to pass us, get the windshield dirty and spray sand all over us...

We left about 8AM and we drove in slush to past Limon, the roadway cleared as we drove east and we ran on wet highway for a while. We never saw any 18 wheelers until we were about 10 miles west of Limon, apparently CDoT had just opened the highway to the west.

I had a full tank of gas when we left home...as we approached Burlington (170 miles) I told Dan I was almost out of gas, according to my gauge...the Caddy was using gas fast...eight miles out of Burlington, going up a hill, the car quit. I rolled onto the shoulder and tried to start it...it fired and I chugged the car to an off ramp a block or two up the highway. It was 10:30 AM. Dan carried a gallon can of gas, but we found it was only half full and trying to pump gas up to the carb on a hill wasn't going to work with only half a gallon. We got out the tow strap...just north of I-70 we found a frontage road into Burlington. Dan towed me in and I filled up at the first station...Caddy fired right away, we cleaned the W/S and hit I-70 again...15 miles up the highway, just inside the Kansas state line, and two miles into single lane construction with cars coming at us...my Cad quit again...there was no shoulder because of the construction...I rolled off into wet mud...hit the starter and it fired...at the first opening I got back up on the highway...what’s going on? The car ran for two more miles then died again...now I realize I got a problem...carb's got crap in it, accelerator pump is bad, fuel pump is quitting...something wrong but not electrical.

I dropped off the highway into the mud again and so did Dan. We had about 30 cars behind us and I'm chugging along at 20 mph trying to find a wider spot. I found a highway patrol crossover and whipped in...didn't tell Dan via CB and he stopped mid-lane as I was whipping into the turnout...he almost got clobbered by an 18 wheeler - the truck locked up his air brakes and honked like crazy...Oooops, sorry..!!! After I’d “parked,” I told Dan via the CB the trip to Dewey was off and we'd better, at least, get back to Burlington...figure out what’s wrong with my Cadillac.

With the highway clear of cars in either direction for a minnit or two, the car started and idled, I backed out into the highway and took off west...the car ran fine for the few miles we were in construction and I remembered we'd passed a county road off-ramp, just then the car died again and I rolled onto the off-ramp...started the car and proceeded thru two stop signs. All the time Dan is asking what the Caddy is doing... as I was rolling I'm telling him what's going on with it. It died again, I started it on a roll and it ran fine for 9 miles. Once more time, the car starts faltering…as it was choking, I flipped it into neutral and tried to feather the gas...this time it didn't die...OK...it’s not the fuel pump...carb or filters getting plugged. We made it to Burlington and stopped at an auto parts store, checked the filter - nope, it was clean - now I don’t know what the problem is, can only surmise it’s internal in the carb.

"We should find a place to leave the car, go home, get the trailer and come back," Dan said. I said "no, that's two and a half hours home, two and a half back, then two and a half more home. Maybe I can nurse it home, it wants to run."

"Can we get it home?" Dan asked. “Well, it starts each time and runs for a while...maybe if I don't run 70mph and nurse it along, I can.” We took the two-lane county road out of Burlington, didn't want to get on I-70 what with all the trucks...as we ran along at about 45-50 mph, it seemed to be OK...every once in a while it'd try to die, but if I flipped it into neutral and played with the foot-feed a bit, it wouldn't die and I could keep going. We got to Limon and I had half a tank of fuel left, knew I couldn't get home on that (90 miles)...so filled up and then we had to get on I-70...there aren't any country/county roads going to Denver from Limon. It ran fine for 45 miles before it quit. Completely died this time. I pulled onto the shoulder and started it...it idled fine...got out on the highway and made it all the way to I 4-70 just outside of Denver...it died once more but we finally made it home at 6:30PM...a 10 hour “adventure”…Oh the “FUN with cars”…!!!

I put it in the garage, mud and all. Friday nite at the local cruise, I checked with a few friends on what they thot was the problem...most said it was simply running out of gas, somehow - fuel pump going bad wouldn't do that, it’d just quit…!!! That left only one problem to be sorted thru – fuel: the carb, the in-line filter, in-carb filter, or lines clogged somehow. Saturday morn, while the SK500 guys were getting wet or standing in the rain, I was in my warm garage contemplating my next move. I sure didn’t want to pull the carb so I pulled the plastic in-line filter off the front of the engine and cut it open...nothing. Clean. Then I remembered I had put an in-line metal-cased filter between the tank and the electric fuel pump, in the rear wheel well...jacked up the car, took the skirt and tire off and removed the filter...cut it open and there it was.

Looked like a tan grocery-type plastic bag jammed into the filter. I immediately surmised someone, somewhere last summer had stuffed a plastic bag down the fill tube (I can't fit a locking gas cap on the fill tube), maybe trying to get even with me for who knows what (yes, believe it or not, I do have a few enemies)...or maybe they didn't like the Caddy winning awards everywhere it went - the mind conjures up crazy things trying to figure out "why"...!!! I then pulled the sending unit out of the tank, grabbed a flashlight to see if there was anything floating in the tank –nope, couldn’t see anything floating.

Well, to make a long story longer, we'd taken the '60 Chevy's tank up to get it cleaned and sealed a couple days before we left and I got to wondering if the sealant on the Caddy's tank could be coming off...I'd had the tank cleaned and sealed six-seven-eight years ago by a guy that's now out of business. It was one of the first things I did on the build. We took the clogged up in-line filter up to the tank guy and asked him if that's what he thot it was. "Yep, some of that sealant wasn't that good and with the crappy gas nowadays, the sealant is releasing...obviously whoever did it for you didn't get the tank very clean before they sealed it. Bring it up and I'll do it correctly. The new stuff is so much better." Oh great, now, I get to drop the gas tank...more fun with cars, eh...???

Well, suffice to say I can’t go anywhere if the fuel lines get clogged up…so…guess I’ll pull the tank.

While I had the car up in the air, I took a chisel and hammered off most of the Kansas mud, it was good Kansas clay...and stuck to everything...even the stuff jammed into the bumper was still wet underneath the dry outer part and it'd set since Thursday nite...it was hard as a rock...and wouldn't even dissolve in water. I piled what I chiseled off in one of my flower gardens - got most of it off but will have to let the summer rains clean the undercarriage on our Caddys, and we'll prolly be driving in plenty of that. Didn’t think I’d ever get the whitewalls clean, boy, were the Cadillacs dirty…


Some really good hard-as-a-rock Kansas mud...!!!

Dan said he wasn’t going to bother chiseling the mud off his…he’d just take it to a car wash and try to clean it that way.

FWIW, I only got 10 miles per gallon on that short trip...gotta find some way to get more mileage...don't know if I should put on an 750 cfm Edelbrock...or buy a new Q-jet...Caddy guys tell me a Q-jet is best for the Caddy engine but I’m not a carb guru, I just don’t know which is better...

Anyway, I read on the HAMB and saw pix that it was only 40 degrees and rainy in Dewey all weekend...and that ain't no fun at a car event...at least, my garage is heated.

Gregaustex and Fan Attic, let me see if I can find some part numbers for you on that dual master cylinder...

Back to the wagon build next week…

R-

 

Roger,Sorry of your lost weekend, 6 years you say? hmm

 

Man what a terrible trip, I guess the good news is you got it home. I would have been shocked to see ya guys roll in. It has been a while since I've sen ya...pm me your Address and I will send you a consolation gift..... Love the picture of ya driving the Caddy along the snow. That's the kool thing about ya guys; rain or shine, sleet or snow you guys are always on the go. Good luck with the project and keep us posted. Happy Trails, Mick

 

I came down to OK to pick up a crown vicky but the lady did not have a title, lost the deposit but had a grate time at the show. I should have put in for the long distance award 1586 miles from plymouth mass. Next time I will not belive it when they say they have one. marko43

 

Yeah, that was the whole idea-to shock ya.

Maybe we'll roll into the Starliner in September to see ya...IF you promise me it won't rain there...!!!

R-

 

How about if I promise that it won't snow.....

 

Tnomoldw, Yep, at least six years ago...more like seven or so...

Mick, LOL, that's almost a given for Wichita in September...

Marko, that's the good thing about the SK500, it's always a good time regardless of the weather...we just couldn't get there...!!!

R-

 

Where did I leave my plastic grocery bag? Oops! Hope the new seal fixes the ol girl up!

 

Hey Roger,

That reminds me of a few Metalflake Misfits' road trips back before we lost Charlie. Sounds like you had a few white knuckle moments during that run.

Glad you and Dan got home ok, and the Cadillacs didn't get banged up. You guys are still the original road warriors! E

 

Thank goodness you made it back home safely....sounds like some close calls there. Would have loved to finally meet you in person. One of these days....

Oh, and loving the wagon. Love the work you and Dan do!

 

Earlier I had mentioned the problem with finding window channel big enough for the tailgate. I located a source for 2 5/8's inch wide rubber backed mohair window channel relining material. Had to order a 40' roll so will have lots left.

Sorry about your gas tank problem. We were on our way to the Stray Kat from the other direction---Indy---but lost our brakes in the 49 chevy near Springfield, Missouri. After 5 hours under the car we realized we could not fix the problem on the road. Rental car back, pick up truck and tow dolly, drive back to Mo then turn around again and haul 49 back. We encountered some snow, but mostly driving rain and nothing like you went through. Looking forward to next year's Stray Kat. Hope to have my 60 Brookwood at KKOA in Kansas.

 

Hey Fat47...I could use some of that stuff for my wagon...let me know your price for a section of it...mine is just as bad as yours was...

We're getting close on our Brookwood...the whole bottom of the car is done now (with the exception of exhaust), just put the gas tank back in today...

Sounds like your SK500 weekend was similar to ours but I guess that's the way it is with old cars sometimes...glad you found your problem...

R-

 

Very disappointing that somebody would vandalize the Caddy like that. Still, it does make for an entertaining story .

Guess if you roll so many thousands of roadtrip miles, a certain number of them are bound to be on the B side of the record.

 

it wasnt vandalized.... it was the tank lining coming out

 

That's right, my reading comprehension skills are fading!

 

Thanx Gearhead...and Brer, do like I do, read it (anything) two times or even three times...I learned long ago what the mind's eye reads and what is actually written are two different things...same with proofreading my stories...I have to read them at least three times to make sure everything is spelled correctly, has proper grammar and punctuation to match what I wrote, what I mean and what I see...

And thankfully, there was no vandalism involved...just lots of mud...!!!

R-

 

Hi Rog

Now your new build have one (more?) Swedish follower...
Cool as usual!
Say hi to Dan, please.

 

Another great build and great writing!! This thing is going to look very cool when you get her finished!!

Looks like Dan and I share the same "athletic" build!! I have been used as ballast before too lol!!!

Can't wait to see the finished car/art.

Bill

 

what an ordeal! but an interesting read as usual...have a great season with the caddy...and keep up the good work on the wagon

 

Muller...what's up...??? Billandlori...appreciate it...we're getting close on this one...and Johnnee D....I will have a great season with the Caddy...plan on touring Canada the end of July with it...thanx for posting...

Bottom’s up…!!!

OK…let's get back at it…last we left the wagon build, we’d just finished up the front suspension…so now we can move to the rear and show you how the rest of it got done…

Oh, BTW, this is update number 8…

The first order of business was to finish the rear of the car…get it cleaned up to match the rest of the frame and underside…


Here you can see me sitting under the car…my head is in the space the gas tank used to occupy and I’ve covered the rear end so as not to get Lizardskin on it…that stuff flies all over when spraying. The empty gas tank is sitting on the counter, out of sight, ready to take it up and have it cleaned out and sealed.

It took some maneuvering to get the rear underside of the floor sprayed with Lizardskin working around the coils, rear end and the spare tire carrier, but it got done….

When the bottom was dry enuff, I got out the paint and sprayed the frame and the rear-end…now it’s ALL nice and clean under the car again. However, it certainly isn’t “show car” perfect…matter of fact, a long way from it…but it sure looks better than it did in the last 45-50 years and the last eight months sitting in my garage. My friend Ron B. told me I was wasting my time doing that much work to the bottom of the car…no one would ever see it. I told him it didn’t matter IF no one saw it, or how much time I put into it…it’s a “project,” and ‘projects’ eat up time and that’s the way I was treating it, besides, I KNEW what it looked like and that was good enuff for me…!!!. My time, my labor, oh, and my car…!!! Go away kid, you’re bothering me.


Looks pur-teee clean now , eh…???

The last thing I did was to stick my head up inside the rear wheel wells and scrape all the old very thin undercoating out of the rear wheel wells and brush some rust encapsulator on it in anticipation of spraying undercoat. No, I won’t spray Lizardskin in the wheelwells…it’s not necessary there, plain old undercoating will be fine.

When I finished painting the frame, and Dan had the rear brakes off and cleaned, I sprayed black on the backing plates and proceeded to put them back together…


Looks a lot nicer than ugly used up shoes, rust, dirt and home to a dozen or so spider cocoons, eh…???


And, with the new shoes and new hardware in place…

With that out of the way, it was time to go from the ‘bottom’s up’… time to quit laying on our backs and move UP to the interior of the car. I figured we’d do the interior roof next, get it insulated too. So I called up Lobucrod (LowBuckRod for those of you that can’t figure out how to pronounce his name) here on the HAMB and ordered up some of his insulation. He told me it’d take at least one roll to do the roof and a couple more to do the floor…but I opted out of putting it on the floor so only ordered one roll.


Scraping the roof was almost back breaking…ehr…uhm…arm-breaking…it sure did hurt after a while with arms over my head all the time scraping.


It took Dan and I two full weekends of scraping all the old tar based stuff Chevy put up on the inside of the roof…it was still stuck good, obviously sitting outside all those years didn’t affect it one bit.

Needless to say, we were tired and sore when we got done with that job.


When we got it clean enuff, for us, we laid the insulation out on a table and cut it in strips to go between the roof supports.


I had to e-mail Lobucrod to ask what kind of glue to use to hold it up. He told me 3M 90 would do it…

I found some at Home Depot…and let me tell you that stuff is NOT cheap - 3M is very proud of it…but IF it’ll hold up the insulation in the hot summer sun, I guess it’s worth it. It didn’t take long for us to cut and glue it up…and we used only one roll of insulation and one can of glue on it.

I think I’m going to order a headliner from Classic Industries instead of having my upholstery guy make one…Classic has near stock looking headliners in a variety of colors and the wagon (ne: me) does not need a custom-made headliner.

I still had a small amount of Lizardskin left and decided to use it on the rear floor inside the car.


Here I am spraying the rest of the Lizardskin.

There are metal pieces covering the Lizardskin that go over the Lizardskin here…we’ll get those cleaned up, sealed and painted before they go back in. We’ve found some nice vinyl floor covering, similar to factory stuff we’re going to put down instead of carpet. You’ll just have to wait and see that when we get to it.

It took us a full day to remove all the old dried glue on the metal pieces that was used to glue down the ugly green carpet we removed months ago…and about that long to sand the panels and get them clean enuff so that epoxy sealer would stick to them. We took particular care with the rear seat back cuz that part shows the Champagne color on the edges when the seat is laid down.


After the sealer dried, I started to spray the Champagne.


Here’s the panels with some Champagne sprayed around the edges…

I didn’t spray the complete panel simply because the rest of it is going to be covered with the vinyl material I found and I’ll prolly glue it down. Only the edges of the panels will be seen after they ’re covered with the vinyl.


These are the panels that go alongside the spare tire well…

…and they were surface rusted bad…I had to lay on a couple of coats of sealer and sand them to smooth them out and here you can see they are done in Champagne.

After we’d sprayed the interior metal panels, we realized that the spare tire well needed to be the same color as the panels.


Here’s the spare tire well…it took Dan and hour or so to clean and sand it so I could put sealer down first…

…so we masked it off, sealed it and after it was dry enuff, sprayed it…


Spraying the Champagne in the spare tire well…

With that done we can put in the painted panels…or go back to doing body work (still have to cut up the new repro panel and weld it in…or work on replacing the metal in the rocker…or get the master cylinder and brakes working…or go find and buy some good shocks for all four corners…or get the steering column back and bolt it in and hook it up to the box…or get the exhaust manifolds painted and hung…or put the e-brake cable back in and hook up the speedo cable…or figure out how much the driveshaft needs to be shortened and purchase a new carrier bearing and get that installed…or pull the front clip apart (did that already as you could see in a previous post) and take it down to get it sandblasted (haven’t done that yet) so we can seal and paint it body color…or…well, as you can see, we still have quite a bit to do…

Stay tuned…

R-

 

Awesome

 

Great work ,Roger

 

Good update Roger!

I like how you guys split stuff up into small projects, keeps things moving and helps with the feelings of accomplishing something!! The two of you work together real good, and obviously do great work!!

I get annoyed quickly with guys saying I'm spending too much time detailing something 'cause "Nobody will ever see it", yeah, well, I know its there!!!

Bill

 

Hahaha! Love it! You nailed it Roger.

Great minds think alike.

 

Roger,

I also used the 3M 90 from Home Depot to glue down my flooring material in my 60 wagon last month. Menard's started carrying it last week for 2/3's of what I paid at HD. Never fails.

I have most of the interior back in my wagon. Bought mine from CARS INC in Michigan. I was really satisfied with their work and the quality of the seat covers, door panels, carpet, etc.

Putting the tailgate back together today and spent way to much frustrating time trying to fit up the garnish molding on the inside top of the gate. It was missing from mine when I bought it and finally found one on HAMB, but when it arrived via Fed EX they had bent the heck out of it in transit. A lot of cutting and welding later it still isn't fitting up very well. Think I will have to search for another one.

 

Unfortunately, we don't have Menard's out this way...

I'm doing a bit more of a kustom interior than a stocker...I've already purchased the vinyl and fabric and taken the front seat to my upholsterer...altho I will buy a headliner from Classic Industries...they have a color close to what I'm looking for.

Let me check for you at the yard I go to for you on the top of the tailgate...I know he had a couple of wagons that are pretty far gone and they may still have that piece...I think I'm going down (75 miles from my home) some time this week...I'll let you know...cool...???

R-

 

Who do you have for a stitcher around here? I wanna do the new seats in my unibody, and im not so fond of taking them all the way back to north platte.

 

Ed Banes Interiors, South Wadsworth, near Chatfield. Has done all my interiors (and my brother's). That's about a dozen or sixteen cars...PM me for a phone number.

R-