Freddie comes alive!

[MacDee]

After not too much hunting I believe I narrowed it down to flooding. Though I've not looked into the carburetor much, it is pretty evident the car is loading up with fuel.

The primary metering plate has oversized Idle Fuel Restriction ports (IFR). Pat did the mod to the metering plate a long time ago. We did this just to get it rich enough to idle with extremely low idle vacuum due to the old cam. It may not be needed with the current cam. It can be "un-modified"... Pat tapped the ports with a 6-32 thread, screwed in 6-32 set screws, and drilled a holes in them one drill-size larger than the original ports. One would only need to screw in new set screws and drill holes in them one drill-size smaller than the holes in the current plate.

It also has richer main jets. In attempting to improve driveability, quite some time ago, I experimented with the jets. I got the best driveability [with the old cam] using #57 jets. I'm assuming that's what's still in there. The carb came with #51's. The goody bag I included has a variety of jets: #53, #55, #59, and of course the original #51's.

[Luva65wagon]

Thanks Gary. I also noticed, but didn't mention, a lot of "black soot" around the secondaries, but not sure yet it that is evident of anything yet. Gene said (while following it home) it was putting out black smoke, which is an indicator. Will focus on that when it's back together.

Spent Saturday fixing the floor. It was getting thin on the drivers side, which turned out to be caused mostly by a huge gap just above the hi/lo headlight switch. Would'a been pouring water in from the DS tire spray. Fortunately ended up being a pretty easy patch. Today started the Dynamat and should have the rest done in the passenger compartment tomorrow or Wednesday...

dynamat1.jpg

Did open up the heater box and sure enough the heater core was leaking in the strangest location. So core is getting swapped. The rest is all good and redone.

hc1.jpg

Went to crawl under it when working on the floor to see a large puddle of tranny fluid. Seems the pan is leaking like a sieve. Add that to the list.

Still feeling comfortable with this, but lots of things have and are happening elsewhere, so wish me luck.

[MacDee]

There is an adjustment for the secondary throttle plates. They're supposed to be just barely cracked open at idle. I know I messed with that many years ago. I do not remember where they ended up. Or if Randy messed with them any more.
Could they be too far open? (Or too far closed?)

[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.