Freddie comes alive!

[Luva65wagon]

Could they be too far open? (Or too far closed?)

Could be. As much as was done to it, and why it was done, should show itself once I get it running again. I was just so overrun by my OCD I wasn't willing to do anything with the running condition before I did a thorough investigation and rework of all the things I saw staring me down. I am pretty confident at this point it will end up being the carburetor, so I will look at it closely. I'll replace it with something else if I can't make it behave.

Almost done with the Dynamat and the new carpet arrived today, so as soon as I get the firewall pad I'll be going in the reassemble direction.

[Luva65wagon]

Making progress on Freddie. Dynamat is in the passenger compartment all the way from the trunk to up under the dash. Still plan to do the trunk and doors.

dynamat2.jpg

Then I set the carpet in to let it relax a couple days.

carpet1.jpg

The new firewall pad came on Thursday so yesterday I got that put in along with all the carpet.

firewall.jpg

carpet2.jpg

I'm going to rework the gas pedal. This is a cable setup, but for some reason it seems to be at a pretty extreme angle when you press on it. May use a stock pedal to push the metal part. Still pondering that. It does sort-of interfere with the newer, thicker, carpet.

Of course, because it is part of Freddie's back-story, the pyramids stay.

pyramids.jpg

Today I spent all day cleaning and prepping the engine bay for paint, and sprayed it satin black. In a couple days I'll reverse the masking and paint the blue around this that didn't get painted when Gary painted the car. Gary supplied me with a pint of interior blue and a pint of exterior blue. The blue I'm struggling with is the color to spray kick panels and other vinyl.

paint_Ebay.jpg

Also assembled the heater box to ready it for installation.

I did determine the cause of some of the steering clunk being the draglink being loose in the idler arm. Had another link, so will pull that apart and hopefully I can pull it all tight again without cost. Though the plan was to do a V8 suspension, things have changed, so that phase is going onto the back burner for a while.

More to come.

[MacDee]

Of course, because it is part of Freddie's back-story, the pyramids stay.

The pyramids were actually under the REAR seat when I got the car. I didn't discover them until I did the seat cover replacement.
I just put them back under the front seats because, by that time, I was too burned out to remove the rear....

The BEST luck will be had, I'm sure, with the pyramids under the rear seat!

[MacDee]

I'm going to rework the gas pedal. This is a cable setup, but for some reason it seems to be at a pretty extreme angle when you press on it. May use a stock pedal to push the metal part. Still pondering that. It does sort-of interfere with the newer, thicker, carpet.

That gas pedal came out of a mid-'70's Galaxie. I'm guessing the Galaxie had a shallower slope to the floorboard. I always thought it felt wierd....
It interfered with the old carpet too. On the "swap weekend" Pat adjusted the throttle cable and determined it was just reaching wide-open throttle with the pedal to the floor. However, the carpet was pulled back at the time. When we put the carpet back down, it wouldn't reach wide-open anymore....
And I never did anything about that.

[Luva65wagon]

That gas pedal came out of a mid-'70's Galaxie. I always thought it felt wierd....It interfered with the old carpet too.

I took the pedal back out and drove the pin out, flipped the pedal over after doing some underside mods, and it's perfect now - I think. Will know more when I have it all hooked up, but it's at a better angle to the floor now, and has the longer side down.

pedal.jpg

Have been at this now almost 3 weeks and am amazed at all the little things I'm fixing. Pure lack of attention I'm sure wasn't Gary (or hope not). Nearly every fitting, pan, plug, everywhere was leaking. The transmission was leaking in 3 places, so it got a new pan gasket and o-ring in the filler and a rather interesting leak caused by a torn gasket on the modulator.

fitting1.jpg

filleryuck.jpg (Really? This is how Pro's seal up a dipstick tube?)

mod1.jpg

What tore the gasket on the modulator (though I don't belive it was the correct gasket) was this little nubbin you see near the top of the machined surface. It was brass colored when I filed it away, so I think it was a brazing blob from when they brazed the can to the nut. It would have never sealed and was the cause for the steady drip onto my floor.

mod2.jpg

There was significant evidence of tranny fluid spraying back onto the exhaust, so I hope this is all resolved. When I pulled the pan gasket, they only (seemed to) have taken a sanding disc and used it to flatten the pan as opposed to using a hammer and dolly to flatten where all the bolts went in.

I also repaired the steering. All the nuts at the idler arm were loose, so I pulled it all apart, cleaned it up, reassembled with a really decent center link, and all tight now.

idler.jpg

When I pulled the motor mount to paint everything up, found one bolt was too long. Replaced all 4 with Grade 8 replacements.

toolongbolt.jpg

Getting a lot of the other parts going back on. New freeze plugs and header gasket shown. This picture doesn't show the mounts on, or the fact I added a belly bar underneath. Water pump, 180* thermostat instead of the 160* version that was in there, reworked all the fittings on intake and head, heater box installed, fuel pump and distributor body.

altbracket3.jpg

Tomorrow Gene's coming over to have a look at pulling/swapping the rear leaf springs using a set I got from Larry Smith - assuming they are the same. Fingers crossed.

[dhbfaster]

Holy CR@P that engine compartment is looking sweet.

[Luva65wagon]

As I mentioned, Gene was coming over today to swap out the leaf springs, but as it turns out the round body and square body hardtops used different springs. So will have to live with the ones in there for a while. I have a set of Monroe SensaTrac shocks with helper springs on it I'll probably throw in for now.

I then diverted Gene towards removing the exhaust system. I knew going in that it was a temporary thing, so will be reworking it somehow - if just to weld everything instead of 12 sets of clamps. But I really want this to have a more throaty sound, so I'm definitely getting new mufflers. I like the sound of Borla's, but they are expensive and don't do anything smaller than 2.25" pipe. So, we'll be looking around.

While crawling around down-under I noticed the rear brake hose/line connection, which is supposed to be on a hanger, was flapping around in the breeze. Almost looked like it was removed to clear either the exhaust or the rear seat belt mount bolt. Anyway, that got fixed.

The greatest discovery of the day was my investigation into why one cylinder was not just sooty, but very wet/oily too. So I popped the valve cover and had a look. It appears that the valve stem seals on #2 were both off their guides allowing the intake vacuum to suck oil down the guide. As was the intake on #5. So I pulled the rocker rail and pulled the springs and pushed them back down and over the guide. I suspect this is going to be short-lived, but if it happens again I'll be replacing all of those. I think, or so it seems, the inner spring is too small for these to fully clear and they are getting grabbed and lifted up.

Spent the rest of the day working to get the new master cylinder in, but I need a new line to the passenger front after finding what looked like a deep gouge in it in the center. And I need to get a new 3-way tee as I'm converting to an inside brake switch.

The fun continues next week.

[MacDee]

...the inner spring is too small for these to fully clear and they are getting grabbed and lifted up.

Inner spring??
I had compound (dual) valve springs in it, and I think that may have contributed to the cam/lifter failure. I don't know what was done in the Long's rebuild, but I had assumed they had just put in conventional (single) springs. The receipts show new valve springs. Randy Long's machinist did the head rebuild. I don't know if Randy assembled the head, or if his machinist did.
In any case, if it still has dual springs... I would be very anxious about continuing with them... If I were you....