It's a simple life

Tonight's dinner. Mrs P made Oysters Rockefeller, I made shrimp in cream and champagne sauce, and one of our neighbors (who happens to be French) supplied a homemade pate. Best not over do it in the new year though eh?

Played the waiting game.

It's been a bit quiet on the car front, I won the instrument cluster and it turned up really quickly. I took my time carefully swapping the temperature and fuel gauges over and used the speedo fascia as it was in better condition than the original one. Then I had to wait for the instrument voltage regulator to arrive, and wait and wait and wait. It took nearly a month to arrive and by the time I got it Christmas was just about here and my 'free' time was all gone.

Pleased to say though that I managed to get it all back together and stuck 3 gallons of gas in it and I've just taken it for a drive. I can report that the temperature gauge and gas gauges now work although the odometer still isn't :-( If I can summon up the patience to take the dash apart again I'll swap in the new speedo and give up on the original one.

I've got a line on a new (used) intake and exhaust manifold for a knock down price. When I started it up today I forgot how loud and smelly it runs with the cracked one.

I received a 5.1 surround sound system for Xmas from Mrs P and although I've only managed to set up the front 3 speakers and the subwoofer I'm mightily impressed by it. We watched Super 8 on it and when the train crashes it was AWESOME. Now deciding how to hide the wires to the rear speakers as they have to navigate a fireplace and an open doorway.

Turkey Run

Yesterday I went to Daytona for the annual Turkey Run held at the International Speedway. There were something like 3500 cars pre-registered and I probably saw a third of those at the very most. I spent the majority of the time hunting around the swap meet trying to find a new (used) exhaust manifold. However after a while one rusty piece of engine looks much like any other and the best I got was a contact for a local(ish) Mopar car part specialist who said he probably had one. He talked like he knew his stuff (well convinced me anyways) and he looked and talked like Uncle Jessie from the Dukes of Hazzard.

My new best friend??

Ended up getting a bit sunburnt too and now have a glorious redneck sun tan ie face, neck and arms being red, rest of me being white.

Still waiting on the new parts to arrive, I won the new instrument cluster and that should be here early next week. Til then not much I can do on the car so Mrs P has me decorating.

An optimist says the tank is half full

The exterior of the gas tank has been treated with Rustoleum Rust Reformer and then painted with gloss black Rustoleum paint. The inside was first blasted with a pressure washer and then using some household cleaner, water and 6 ft of metal chain I shook the hell out of that thing for as long as I could. I plugged the holes with some special gas tank repair putty too. It's still far from perfect but should all last me a bit longer.

The new sender unit has arrived and I hooked it up to the gauge (without re-installing the tank) to see if everything was working correctly. I set the armature of the sender to indicate a full tank (minimum resistance) and checked the gauge. It read 1/2 a tank. I set the armature to 1/2 tank position and the gauge read Empty. Setting the sender unit to empty (and maximum resistance) the gauge hardly moves at all and is well below the Empty marker.
I've bid on a new instrument cluster on a well know online tat bazaar.

Troubled by gas

I'm still troubled by the lack of odometer and fuel gauge and I need one or preferably both working. I swapped out the new instrument voltage regulator for some homebrew solid state electronics but all that did was stop the gauge from reading full. I took the odometer/speedo apart and found that mechanically it appears sound and works on the bench, however when reinstalled in the car the odometer still doesn't move. I've replaced the speedo cable in case that's the problem but I've yet to test it.

For the fuel gauge, I've taken the tank out and ordered a new sender unit. The original below was pretty crusty looking and the resistance across the range was all over the place and inconsistent. I'm hoping that this is what's causing my gauge to read less than empty.

The tank has seen better days and there are 3 small holes in it that i'll be plugging up. The interior of the tank has seen better days too and although it doesn't look rusty it's full of crud. Also looks like a previous owner hit something hard, as the bottom is all beat up and has been repaired with a big patch of solder. A new tank is about $200 but I'm going to see if I can get this one clean and serviceable first. 

On a positive note I managed to get the front bench seats out and using the trusted P B Blaster the tracks are now free and the seat will slide easily.

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.