What have you done to your wagon lately? (Let's keep the thread going!)

That's what I'm talkin' about!

 

I aprove this post...

 

Did this about a month ago. The grommet between the heater hoses and the temperature control unit on the firewall gave out and the passenger side floor filled up with coolant. I apparently deleted the pictures of "Coolant Lake" and the stripping process but after a vinegar bath and stripping the rust and old paint off the floor I brushed on 2 coats of Rustoleum "Rusty Metal Primer" and sprayed it with a Rustoleum rattle can of something kind of close to the body color. It will be covered up by the carpet anyway so who cares? I bypassed the valve until I can locate with another grommet. At least I can drive it again now.

 

spent the weekend giving the wagon a little tlc
1- removed the burned out accuair system and sent it back for service
2- ordered the shock mount which broke on the power tour
3- ordered l.e.d. taillights
4- bought a custom grille
5- built new speaker cabinets for the rear

 

-Went to a junkyard and scored a couple sets of vintage floor mats
-also scored some missing F O R D letters
-Ordered a NOS starter solenoid....mine was stuck 'on'
-ordered rear brake shoes, springs, and wheel cylinder kit
-rebuilt my Autolite 2bbl

 

fuel cell

Sending unit quit working on my 71 lemans, put a 10 gallon fuel cell in the rear storage area..28 gallons of gas X $3.68 a gallon= Don't care just having fun cruising MN in the summer...

 

Okay, found the three center caps for my rally wheels, bought 4 new tires for the ralleys and bought 4 used tires for my stock steel wheels. Tonight I am going to mount tires on the rally wheels, polish rally wheels and get them ready for Saturday's photo shoot. After that I will polish the hubcaps so they will be ready to. Will post pictures after I get the ralley's polished up.

 

Polished the wheels, installed tires and took pictures of all the setups. Here is a sneek peak on the wheels. Saturday I will do the photo shoot with the wheels on the car and will post pictures up once I get done

 

Replaced strut rod bushings and my sway bar links. Taped off and painted the spokes in the mid 70's Z28 wheels on my wagon. I did not care for the all black wheel look. One of the NAPA's that I sell to, can mix the body color and put it in a spray can. It took an hour per wheel to tape them off.

 

Has a Hurst Olds look to it with the wheels painted that way

 

Started preppin' the ol' wagon for engine transplant. My lil' 283 is in dire need of a rebuild. Figured since I'm going to be pulling a trailer occasionally may as well upgrade to a 350. So yesterday I started preppin', pulled several things.. now I need to go under the car and disconnect the remaining crap and pull the dang thing. I figured while I was doing that I'll pickup a rebuilt 700R4 transmission and install that for long hauls.. by the time I get everything back together I should have a nice driver/highway cruiser. Hopefully have everything done by month's end if all those other nasty little household tasks don't get in the way.

 

Now that's some major work 73, but rewarding once you get your hands dirty.

I need to replace the nose seal on my rearend and have been putting that off for a month now...

 

Carrying wagon to a cruise night Friday night. Then Tuesday evening driving to Panama City Beach for a long weekend! Be our first long trip in the wagon. We bought it in March. Looking forward to that.

 

Just finished cleaning up the interior and charging the AC. This thing makes a great daily! I'm loving driving it much more than my corolla.

 

Crazy couple of days. Turns out I did break the flexplate - AND the starter. Crud. I was going to do this myself but just don't have the steam right now so took it to a trans shop and they did the flexplate swap out - took them 5 hours. Rather a tight fit in there. As for the starter I did not want to put a stock one back in so we got it started with the old one and I drove it home, put it on the hoist, and have dropped the old one. The hi-torque shortie version will be here tomorrow afternoon.

Turns out one exhaust pipe was rubbing on the frame and I had a tiny hole. I pulled out the welder and promptly had a big hole . So I removed the pipe, welded it properly on the welding bench and reinstalled it. Added another slight bend to it to clear the frame and ended up doing the same on the other side as it too had been rubbing. I can't seem to get my arms to work above my chest for long so removing and fixing on the bench is the best way and it turns out I weld danged good when my hand isn't wobbling around like a drunken sailor (do sailors even drink?).

Found the last of my engine leaks and fixed that.

By tomorrow night I should be driving it to the local tool guys Friday night car show. Nice fellow (and his wife), they have a '41 Chevy panel and tow a '47 Spartan 25' trailer all over. I try to support them by showing up when ever I can, and they have decent deals on tools (KMS). Nice to see a local guy do well, he has a bunch of locations now in BC and expanded into AB.

Gads I'm beat.

Oh yeah, my 700R4 trans. Mine is a high end unit built using all TCI HD parts for a big torque engine doing lots of towing. The trans shop, good guys who are quite knowledeable are not very impressed with 700R4's behind big block high torque engines. They say they see a lot of high end builds come in for rebuild and replace. Their suggestion is if it is a vintage vehicle with a big engine put a T400 in it and no issues. You lose a few miles per gallon when not towing but they think it is not worth the risk of burning up a tranny on the highway. The other option is to go to the more expensive 4L60 and 80 series tranny's which are much stouter. For small block engines and low torque engines the 700 seems to be a fine transmission. They said they are amazed, hot rodders will spend tens of thousands of dollars over the years getting a neat car together, then they draw the line at putting a proper transmission in place. I kind of agree, I know I was not excited about the cost of the 700R4. Now I'm thinking hard about selling it and putting in an L-series trans and then it comes down to if it comes to that, why not the LS series engine. Oh well, for another day. As of tomorrow it will be back on the road, in a couple of weeks it will be towing the Airstream to a campground for some summer fun.