Wiped the dust off from the Phoenix Project hood so I could take a picture of the railroad anvil I made from the piece of railroad track I used as a jig when shortening the drive shaft.

Yesterday I replaced the upper and lower radiator hoses after the lower one sprung a leak. And checked the front wheel bearings grease. Today I'll finish it and check the rear end oil.

Today:  Drove the new tars to a nice little car show about 60 miles from here.  Had 180 cars attend and I saw a few I hadn't seen before. The Heap seemed to be happy too although I think the tire mounters musta put about 40 lbs in them...I meant to check 'em before I left but brain farted that.  Boy, it sure steers easy....too easy.  I'll get 'em checked a haired down tomorrow.

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I have spent four days working inside the dashboard of my 66.  I replaced the single speed wiper motor with a 67-69 two speed wiper motor and used a late 70's F100 intermittent switch and module.  The intermittent wipers work great!  Built a new harness for that.  WYAIT, of course,

I redid a bunch of other old wiring that had been cobbled together due to never taking the time to take everything apart and route the wires correctly.  My car has vintage air in it.  Anyone that has one of those systems understands the difficulty in getting the duct hoses connected to the plenum and routed to their outlets.  While working on the wipers, I managed to pull three of the four ducts loose from the plenum.  MAJOR PITA.  Had to pull the console to get access to one duct, then it mushroomed from there. 

Putting the ducts back in place managed to disconnect the taillights from their plug in the side of the light switch.  Add troubleshoot and repair time to the job.  Then decided a new radio and wiring for it was in order. Add more time. (Can you say.. MUSTANGSTEVE'S LAW?)  Managed to break off one of the old brake light switch wires that was barely hanging on, but still managed to work. Fixed that.  Replaced several fuses along the way, blown as part of the work at hand.  Found the fuse connection for the choke had fallen apart, so that explains why the electric choke had not worked right for a while. Somehow managed to disconnect backup lights in the process.  MORE troubleshoot and repair...  You get the idea. 

Worked from rear bumper backup lights all the way to the electric choke on the carb, all to install a new windshield wiper system. 

As some of you may know, I have had wipers that would not PARK unless I killed the engine for the last five years or so, and that makes for interesting wiper use on bash trips on the highway.  A new pair of classic series stainless steel wiper blades from OReilly's makes it all look correct on the outside.  

Also installed a new air/fuel ratio gauge in the glove box that is visible from the driver seat when the glove box is opened.  Next step is to fine tune the carb jetting.  Hopefully just one more day's worth of work should get the dash back together where I don't have to mess with it again for a long time. (Apply MUSTANGSTEVE'S LAW to THAT)

Bought a new Optima battery charger, the big one.  That thing is cool.  It actually tells you battery condition before and after and during charging.  I have ruined several Optima batteries trying to recharge them with a normal type charger. Money well spent.

For my final session of the 2019 BASH THRASH, there is carb jetting, A/C purge and recharge, front end alignment and remove/reinstall the fold down rear seat and side panels, looking for that elusive 75mph vibration that persists after 27 years of ownership.

Brushed on 2k epoxi around the windshield and rear window openings:


And painted the instrument panel:

It looks like it's gloss black, but it will turn satin when it dries.



Meanwhile this stuff is waiting on the workbench. There is something wrong with this picture, but the question is what?:

Fired up the car, it was time to burn some fuel.


https://youtu.be/xTkdocOVHmo

Also finally making progress on improving my sheetmetal welding enough that I might try welding the panels on the car.  Borrowed a buddies 120V Hobart wire feed, put a fresh liner and tip on it with some .024" wire.  Welds are much better with that machine, I can get a much smaller bead than I could with my machine - and still have excellent penetration.

Last edited by Bentworker (5/12/2019 3:41 PM)

Checked the tire pressure....yup, they had 40 psi in there.  Bled them down to 28.  Will try to test drive it again tomorrow.

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Last edited by Bullet Bob (5/12/2019 8:55 PM)

I had our first car show of the year for our club, so I had to get her out of the garage and do a detail job. In cleaning everything inside and out and top to bottom, I found that my Toyo Proxes radials that are on the car are 12 years old! I haven't probably put 6000 miles on them and they look like new. They are garaged 90 per cent of the time and out of the sun in a heated garage. It hurts to think that I need to replace them.....  I know that the consensus of opinion is that they should be replaced butt.......... any thoughts on this? Seems a shame to throw out tires that look like new.....
 

I tried to find Red351's old post about his older BFG Radial T/A coming apart at speed...didn't do his left fender any good at all...but I couldn't find it.  Maybe Rich will chime in and re-post that pic. 
From what I read, age of the compound is the problem and keeping them in a sealed environment doesn't necessarily help.

I just figure that if a set of tires every five or six years is going to keep me from eating, I really have no bidness owning a classic car in the first place.  I'll buy the insurance (new tires) and minimize the risk of having one come apart at 70 mph.

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Discount Tire has a posted policy that they will not work on a tire (repair flats, balance, etc) that is more than six years old. There is probably a good reason for that.

I life cycled a set of Goodyear Eagles from my 66 and they had less than 2000 miles. I heard the tire monkeys arguing over who was going to get to take those tires home for their car. So did one of the managers. He ordered the guy working on my tires to slit the sidewalls so none of them could use my old tires.

car is on the ground after the AOD going in and new rad ,and fan , and new bilstein shocks in front, and 1" spacer on the front springs ..

ready to drive to exhaust shop

Didn't like how the instrument panel came out in black, so today I sanded it down and repainted it in steel gray metallic:

Oh, and, as usual your work is absolutely beeeeee-ut-eee-full, Hakan.

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