Tiring business

I drove the car to the garage on Saturday to have new tires fitted all round including the spare. The existing ones are old and cracked and although most of them have a good amount of tread on them I just don't trust them. 195/75R14 tires are a bit thin on the ground so I didn't have much to choose from but the Uniroyals they had in stock come with a lovely whitewall side.

Spent most of Saturday afternoon, T-Cutting the car and you can see the difference in the shot below. The left hand side has been T-Cut, the right hand side is yet to be done. I haven't done the sides of the car yet and also need to add a coat of polish too, but I'll do that over the coming week.

Swapped out the power steering hoses today. I decided to flush out the old fluid and replace with fresh power steering fluid. I'm guessing that they previously used ATF in the power steering as old stuff was red. It's a common enough thing to do but I decided not to. I ran a couple of quarts of fresh fluid though the system and it no longers leaks.
I also adjusted up the front drum brakes. In my haste to get driving I forgot to do it at the time, it also gave me an excuse to use my new brake adjusting tool. Boy I should have got one of these before cos it's so much easier than digging around with a screwdriver.

Rollin' in my 5.0...

It starts, it idles and it actually moves under it's own power. Today was a momentous day where Mrs P and I actually took to the open roads. But let me back track as I'm getting ahead of myself.

The carb was full of gunk and crud. The float bowl had a sort of grey sludge in it and the brass main jet was green with corrosion. I cleaned, soaked, scrubbed, blew and scraped the carb in all the holes, nooks and crannies I could find. I left the main well and economizer unit soaking in carb cleaner over night as they was a couple of bits I couldn't get to directly. The idle air mixture had been screwed virtually all the way in, the warm (curb) idle screw wasn't being used and the fast (cold) idle adjustment was too strong and being used instead of the curb idle. The wrong thickness gasket had been used to install the carb to the manifold too. Basically it was set up all wrong, which probably explains the black sooted plugs.

I reassembled the carb using a kit from Mike's Carburetors , and I can't recommend these people highly enough. Great kit that arrived super quick (even with free delivery) with good instructions made the job easy.

I took an educated guess where the 3 adjustment screws needed to be positioned, fitted the carb back on the car and turned the key. After a few cranks she fired right up and a quick adjustment of the idle screws and she was sitting pretty. I need to get an old school tacho to set things up properly as I've no idea what she's idling at.

With the car idling when warm, it was time for a drive round the block. Slipped her in gear and we slowly pulled away, and kept going and going and going until we'd gone full circle. It never missed a beat. The brakes are scarily non-existent, due to a combination of not being properly adjusted and none of them having been bedded in. I'm told that the 30 from 30 rule will sort the latter part out. That's 30 stops from 30 mph. Having made a complete circle round the block, everyone wanted a ride and we made another half dozen or so circuits without any problems at all.

Mrs P and I took the car to the grocery store and acheived the heady heights of 45 mph. We just made it home before it started to rain and it's been raining nonstop since. BLOODY TYPICAL.

Oh the high pressure power steering pipe leaks and the exhaust manifold is cracked, but it drives.

If a job's worth doing then do it twice

Turns out there was a leak from the front distribution block, however I was unable to get a spanner on it in such a position that I could tighten it so I had to remove all the other ones and start over. ! managed to tighten it on the bench and then reassembled. Rebled the brakes and touchwood there's no leaks this time.

Also turns out that my soldering technique needs a bit of work. I didn't remove the circuit boards when I soldered on the wires and when I poked the wires through the holes left by removing the pins I left too much exposed. This caused a several shorts with the case below and the dash behaved very strangley when I reconnected it all. Once I trimmed the excess wires the dash lights, indicator lights and high beam lights started working correctly.

The fuel gauge is not working at present but that could be the sender, I need to test it further.

 When I first bought the car it would start but wouldn't idle and the man I bought it off said he'd driven it on to his trailer. Once the dash was back together and the brakes finally reassembled it was time to fire up the engine. To my teeth gnashing the car failed to catch, it turned over fine but wouldn't start. I removed the spark plug and theuy were sooted up but aside from that looked in good overall condition. I cleaned them up and then checked they did indeed spark. One thing I did note was that they had been installed with the crush washer. Apparenty this isn't needed in early Slant 6 engine as it moves the spark further away from the optimum combustion point. I regapped the plugs to 0.035" as they were a little on the tight side and reinstalled them, however the car still wouldn't start.

I bought some Easy Start and squirted that down the carb, and the car did catch but stalled straight away. Time to break down the carb.... rebuild kit ordered and a couple of cans of squirty carb cleaner bought too.

Oh and my parents have been over for that past 3 weeks and my Dad has been assisting me in the garage.

Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy

The new brake lines have been fitted and the brakes are now back together. They have been bled and just need a final adjustment on the shoes and we're good to go. There does not appear to be any leaks, which to be honest surprises and amazes me at the same time.

The fuel and temperature gauges haven't been working when I turn the ignition on. When they both fail this is a sign that voltage regulator on the back of the instrument cluster has likely failed. This unit converts the 12V from the battery to 5V needed for the gauges and a new one is on it's way from RockAuto.com. Boy, those people have just about everything you need at the best price too, they ship it really quickly and don't rape you in delivery fees either.

After struggling for a couple of days I managed to get the instrument cluster out from the dash, the speedo drive was hooked on the wiring loom. In the process I manged to break off and lose, several of the pins from the circuit board. There are 10 pins, 5 on each side that control the various instrument and warning lights and you can't get new ones. Several internet forums suggest the following method to resolve this by soldering flying leads directly to the circuit board in place of the pins and using your own connector to replace the OEM one.

I opted for RadioShack 6 position connectors (part numbers 274-226 for the male and 274-236 for the female). I bought 5 reels of different color 18 gauge wire just to make it easier to match up to the factory wiring. using 12 inch lengths of wire, I soldered the male connector to the instrument cluster and the female to the wiring loom.

Several of the lamp holders and lamps were broken too, NAPA has the holders (part # ECH LS6501). New ones are on order along with new long life lamps.

So this is how Uri does it...

When trying to work with steel brake pipe these 2 tools are invaluable. They take a bit of time to get the hang of them but after a few practice bends you too can achieve the factory look.

Here is the new pipe freshly installed, along with a new hydraulic hose.

The windscreen wiper switch has been fixed. A good squirt and soak with PB Blaster and I could start the turn it. 24 hours later and it was like new. Reinstalled into the car and bingo I now have working wipers. Fitted new blades today, was hoping to get some decent ones but in the end had to get the cheapest brand they had as that's the only ones they had in 15". The last of the brake parts should be arriving this week until they do I'll carry on with the electrics trying to get some dashboard lights working.

Illuminating

Headlights and tail lights are now working. The floor mounted dimmer switch was seized solid and the headlight switch on the dash had seen better days too. The local auto store carried both parts in stock and for less than $30 I replaced both switches.
I've removed the windscreen wiper switch and it was also seized (are you sensing a theme here??? I guess that's what happens when you leave a car standing for several years). A quick squirt with some PB Blaster  (much better at freeing rusty parts that WD40) and some judicious vise action and it's freed up a bit. Whether it works is another matter. You can't get new ones and have to rely on NOS or used parts and both are pretty pricey.
Brakes are coming along, the first set of new parts arrived this week including new front hydraulic hoses and wheel cylinders. I've ordered some new steel 3/16" brake line and a couple of bending tools and expect that to arrive tomorrow. Meanwhile I've started stripping the rear brakes and I'll get the order in for the new parts this weekend too.

Now featuring bonus Dartiness

Not sure where the time has gone since my last post way back in 2010 and i can't be bothered to think about it in order to write it here, afterall if it was that important I'd have blogged it at the time right??? Anyhoo there's a new member of the family that was acquired through the online tat bazaar that is ebay. It was in town and I bid and won it without even going to see it. Thankfully when I did roll up to view it and handover my deposit it was in better shape than I thought. It's a '67 Dodge Dart GT convertible and here it is in it's new home. It needs a bit of work as it's stood for about 3 years. It came with a new convertible roof that need fitting as the current one is shot, which explains all the leaves inside.

It's got a 225 slant 6, shame it's not the V8 but if it had been it would have cost me twice as much. They built this engine in various guises for nearly 40 years so there's plenty of parts available.

I couldn't drive it home because there were no brakes. The seller had fitted a new master cylinder but couldn't get the brakes to bleed as it was leaking. With Mrs P's help we found out there was a leak coming from the front left steel brake line. Obviously the brake nut was seized solid so a pair of newly acquired vise grips and bingo, the nut came lose and cracked the pipe in the process. The trick to getting the driver's side wheel off is to know that the clever engineer's at Dodge used a left hand thread on the wheel nuts. First car I've ever owned with that and again if it wasn't for the mighty internet I'd have been tightening when I should have been loosening!

Spent the rest of the day stripping the front drums (yes you read it correctly no disc brakes here!) to find that the wheel cylinders were shot (no surprise). Ordered the new parts online but now need to beg, borrow or steal a pipe flaring tool and pipe bender so that I can make up some new steel brake lines.

The list of things to fix is growing a plan of attack is forming. Neither front headlamps nor tail lights work so it's likely to be the switch. Also the windscreen wiper switch is seized so need to get that operational, but instead of doing any of those things I cracked out the metal polish and made the chrome bits all shiny/

It does start but won't idle very well but that's probably bad gas where it's been sitting so long. Indicators and brake lights work.

Plan is to get the brake sorted asap and get it basically road worthy then drive it for Fall, then over the winter I can get going on the rust and the floor pan in particular.