Well, it’s June 2020, and to say the least it has been a strange spring! I got the car out of storage to do some work on it and took it for a ride.
Hmmmmmmm, will it run okay?
Then it was time to look at the mechanical stuff in the car.
Back in the shop up on jack stands
So I pulled all the tires off, rolled around underneath it, and looked it over. I was still shocked how good shape the car is in considering where it had been sitting all those years!
While I was under the car, I took an air gun and cleaned out all the nooks and crannies. It was a mess
Nuts and leaves and such from the undercarriage
These cars are known for undersized brakes and only having 4 lug wheels. A common upgrade is to put on bigger brakes and to swap it to 5 lug wheels, and in the near future I’m planning to do that. But for the summer, I just wanted to drive it, so we’re fixing what we have.
I started by pulling all the wheels and inspecting the brakes.
The rear brakes are fine, just some spiderwebs and bug stuff in there. Scott had told me that he had fixed them.
The front brakes were a different story. Rust had taken its toll and they’d been badly overheated, as well as one rotor being cracked.
Junk!
Here is the crack in the rotor. They had been very hot at some point.
Before the new tires went on, I cleaned up the rims, which mostly consisted of removing the old leaf material and the corrosion on the inside. They will work for now until the wheel and brake upgrades I have planned!
Before cleaning
After cleaning
Inside before cleaning
After
Old lug nuts & new lug nuts
New tires! When Talking to Sean (Scotts brother) the other tires were about 20 years old.
I ordered a bunch of parts for the car from Late Model Restoration
Nice billet smog pump delete pulley!
Let’s not forget the speakers!
Time to fix the head light problem.
Out with the old…
…in with the new! Fog lights and all.
I also found a door panel and arm rest on eBay.
For Fathers Day, Evan ordered me some floor mats!
Sweet floor mats
I was able to get the door panel installed and the speakers installed in the doors. One problem was that it’s hard to find a door panel for manual windows. I assumed that the panel was the same, but the arm rest is longer so the window crank hits. Still searching for a door panel.
Door panel installed, I had to remove the arm rest due to interference with the window crank.
During the course of the summer, it developed a running issue. It missed without being tuned up. I ordered new spark plugs, plug wires, distributor cap, rotor, and ignition module to start with. Also bought an EGR valve block off plate in case it’s having an issue.
Tune up parts in and she runs great!!
Waltham Garage 