Tuesday evening we drove to Ft. Smith and met up with Mike Roman, "mr.chevrolet" here on the boards, he had posted a new Vintage Air cool heat & defrost unit for sale in the classifieds. He had business in Spiro this week and brought it with him from Canonsburg, PA. He said that it was among a bunch of Chevy parts that he had bought and he had no use for it. Saved me a couple hundred bucks and we didn't have to mess with shipping. It was missing a few parts, a couple of vents and hoses, but all in all it was a good deal.
Yesterday, after a lot of cussing and such, plus a couple wasted days, I finally got the steering box out. Like most things that I tackle, I do a lot of research both on the web and with my repair manuals when I haven't done a certain repair or it has been so long ago that I have forgotten. In this case, I had never removed a steering box from a 1956 Ford Fairlane before so I researched it. 75% of the info that I found said to remove it through the floorboard and the other 25% said that you had to drop it out the bottom. I figured that I would go with the percentages and take it out through the interior. This is where the "couple of wasted days" comes in, after removing the front seat and twisting the steering box every way that I could imagine, I realized that the only way it was going to come out through the top would be if I removed the spin on oil filter and the left exhaust manifold. Not ready to go that route just yet, I crawled under the car and took a look... ... either way, it was obvious that the oil filter was in the way and had to come out. Once the filter was out of the way, the steering box dropped right down onto the steering linkage. This is where my ah ha moment came in, if I pop the tie rod end off of the spindle and move everything back, that sucker is gonna drop right to the floor! Now, I don't know what that 75% were working on but it sure wasn't a '56 Fairlane with a 312 and dual exhaust! Maybe a six cylinder or maybe there wasn't an engine in it at all, I don't know. What I do know is that that other 25% was right!
This morning, I'm heading back up to Nixa, MO., to Powersteering Inc, with the steering box. Hopefully between the two boxes, I will end up with a useable rebuilt box! Time will tell...
Dropped the steering box off in Nixa, hope to have it back week after next. Got the gauge cluster out and swapped out the gauges today and did some parts cleaning. Starting to put back together...
Good looking '56, very tasteful mild custom touches. I'm working on a '55 Fairlane 4 door that my parents bought new. What is the third character in the serial number--it will be a letter that denotes the assembly plant. Let me know if it has an A which denotes Atlanta assembly plant. My father worked at the Atlanta plant from '52-'82. If it's an Atlanta car, my father leaded the seams on it.
D code indicates Dallas TX plant. On a '56 ('55 - '57 follow same format), the first character of the serial number indicates the engine/trans combo, 6=1956 model year, third character indicates assembly plant, and fourth character indicates body style. followed by a sequential production number. My '55 serial number prefix is U5MT which indicates 272 and 3 on the tree, '55 model, Memphis TN assembly plant, and 4 door Fairlane Town Sedan.
Heard from my steering box rebuilder this morning. Good and bad news... Good news is that the steering box is in much better condition than the other one, bad news is that the worm gear is bad so that will add another $100.00 to the bill. Oh well, at least it progress!
I have been rethinking this and I'm considering installing an amp & oil pressure gauge while the gauge cluster is still out. What size gauge did you use, 2 1/8"?
Got a call from my steering box rebuilder last night, said that he would have it ready to go today. Drove up to Nixa this morning and picked up both boxes, true to his word, it cost me $279.00 to rebuild my original box, no charge for checking out the first steering box plus the $94.95 for the new worm gear. It looks and feels great, I'll know more once I get it installed. The first steering box...
Spent the bulk of the day on my back straightening out the wiring under the dash. Installed a fuse block to handle the a/c, electric wipers, stereo and anything else I decide to put in.
Over a month since my last post, man time sure flies when you're having fun! I have been working on her though, really! Since my last post, I have finished up the stereo install, installed the rebuilt steering box, installed the gauge cluster, finished up the new quarter windows install( new glass runs, fuzzies & new glass), have got the door windows out and will be putting in the new stuff soon & just finished up the air shocks install ( compressor and shocks). Went with a Air Lift Controller and Gabriel Hi Jackers... With the air dumped it's 7.5" from the ground to the bottom of the pipes... With maximum recommended 160# air pressure it sits at 11.5" between ground and bottom of pipes. Hard to see the difference from the photo's but 4" is going to help tremendously in the low spots and should I need to change a tire. At driving height, recommended minimum air pressure of 25#, it only raised it a 0.5".
Thanks for the update. I was wondering what you've been up too. Your post reminds me I need to add a compressor to my air shocks. Thanks for the help.
I decided to go with the Air Lift Controller II, it comes with a gauge, on & off switch, dump valve and of course the compressor in a complete kit. Everything to install is included, all I had to buy extra was the shocks! Tryin' to get it done in time for next month! See ya then...
You're making faster progress than me Jim! Love the air shock set up. Both the Merc and the Chevy have air shocks....neither has them hooked up. LOL Guess I should do something about that.....aaaaafter I get the engine and trans working right and dialed in on the Chevy. I assume you'll have the '56 at the SK? I'll have the Chevy there....hopefully as an actual driver. Haha
Yep, another month has come and gone... Been busy taking one step forward and two steps back! As some of you know, I replaced the radiator with an aluminum one and ran into problems with the engine fan hitting the transmission cooling lines. I purchased a smaller diameter steel fan from Speedway but then changed my mind and returned it and got a Spal low profile electric fan. While I had the the radiator back out, I figured I might as well mount the A/C - Alternator brackets and do away with the temporary alt set up... It looks a lot better with the Vintage Air Steel-Eez Bracket System... That was my one step forward, my two steps back is the aluminum pulley that I bought doesn't match the bolt holes in my crank pulley... The bolt holes are on 2" center and the original crank pulley is on 1 3/4" center, no problem right? Just elongate the holes. Wrong! The holes are mis-drilled in the crank pulley, one hole is 1" off of center and the other is 3/4" off of center and up out of alignment. As I see it, I have 3 choices... use one bolt along with the center bolt which seems kind of mickey mouse, weld the bad hole up and re-drill or buy another pulley. $280.00 for a new one, I'll see if I can find a used one in better shape.
I saw them earlier, there are 3 or 4 listed, unfortunately it won't help me with my mis-drilled crank pulley. Thanks...
Man, I'm really getting bad about keeping up with the updates, nearly 2 months have past since my last one! O.k., we last left off with the crank pulley/balancer issue's so we'll start there... got a good one from Bob @Owens Salvage so that's taken care of. Got everything back together with the new Spal fan and Derale controller but we went right back to the one step forward and two steps back routine. The fan wasn't coming on till almost 220 degrees with a 180 degree sensor so I got ahold of Derale's Tech Department, what a waste of time that was! First they had me send them pictures of the installation, a week later they sent me an e-mail saying that that looked fine and would not have caused the overheating. I e-mailed them back and asked what they thought the problem could be. Over a month now and I still haven't heard back from them! Got on the 'ol web and started searching around and found quite a few people having the same problem, turns out that the sensor wasn't designed to work with an aluminum radiator only a oem type. Picked up another sensor, a screw in type and installed it in the water pump (fortunately there was place with a plug in it). After refilling and burping the system, everything is working like it should. Got the Vintage Air unit in but still have to get a compressor, condenser and the hoses installed and get it charged. The chrome wheels that I ordered came in today, so will get the tires mounted this weekend. I decided to get rid of the big cruiser skirts so I listed them on Ebay and sold them for nearly $1600.00, that's why I got two more chrome smoothies. I'll get them on and get some more pictures posted in a week or so. Got all the new glass in and will get the interior back together soon. I'll be heading to Calif. early next week with my nephew Mike (tambasher) to help him load up his shop equipment and his '68 C10 project and move him back here to Arkansas. Cindy, his wife, will be staying there until their house sells and then Mike will go back and move her and the house stuff here to their new home. Still have plenty to do to the '56 but we're getting there...
Dang! That's great money on those skirts! Good for you!!! Bet you will be glad to have your nephew closer than CA. Will he be moving there to Clarksville? Glad the car is coming along and getting the bugs worked out. Got the Chevy back from being tuned and getting the new rear gears in. Been driving it full time the last two weeks and I'm super happy with the new motor and trans. Will you have the 56 ready for Lead aint Dead?
Dave... Yes, very glad to have them closer, they bought a place just a couple of miles from us. We got back last night with the first load, mostly his shop equipment and his '68 C10. I will go over this morning and help him unload. Glad to hear that the Chevy is doing great! I hope to get back on the '56 this week, I've got to put the window & interior stuff back in the passenger door and then finish up the a/c installation. Going to put some "behind the wheel" time on it and take care of any more bugs. I hope to take it to L.A.D., keeping my fingers crossed! Are you driving the Chevy up this year? Maybe we can cruise up together this year!
Sounds like the important stuff got moved first....the shop. Yes, the plan is to drive the Chevy over, should have it all shook down by then. Drove it to the lake this weekend and when I started it to come home on Sunday, one of the exhaust pipes dropped off its header. I'll have to go back this weekend and fix it....guess it either backed the nuts off or broke the bolts somehow. Always something. LOL
Yeah, that's what I said! Important stuff first! Bummer about the exhaust, hopefully it's only that the nuts backed off.
The Jalopy Journal
