Progress Journal - last update July 25, 2002

These are the pages I plan to use to document work as it is complete, take stock of what's left to do, and vent frustrations that are sure to occur :-)

So far, since getting the car home these are the items that have been completed:

June - July 2002

• Rebuilt fuel/vacuum pump - There was a kit amoung the parts that came with the car, so Tim and I rebuilt the pump by replacing all of the valves and diaphrams. We still could not get the car to run on it's own. The sediment bowls were not filling and we could find no apparent vacuum leaks, so we took the pump back out and checked our work. Everything looked good so we reassembled it and put it back on. We eventually found a vacuum hose that had come off, clear at the rear of the engine, between the firewall and the back of the intake manifold. Once connected the car started right up, ran for about 5 minutes and then died. There is a dead spot in the carb that kills the car. Once past it the car runs smooth. Maybe another vac leak, or possibly bad gas. There was a small amount of gas in the tank (almost certainly less than a gallon), and I added 5 gallons of fresh gas, but perhaps there was enough old gas to cause the problems we are seeing. Oh, well, there are other things needing completed before I have to explore this issue further.
• Brakes - Dad had the brake shoes relined years ago, and they all look very good. The wheel cylinders are a different story though. All of them had a powdery substance filling them! Fortunately there was a good supply of new wheel cylinders (rears) and repair kits (front) in the parts supply. I've rebuilt the fronts, the rears still need to be done.
• Tim and I took it around the block. It was a scary ride with no brakes. The emergency brake works fine and that would have been enough for a short trip like this, but I had failed to factor in the fact that the door latches are all removed. What with steering, operating the hand brake, and constantly flutter stepping the accelerator to get past the dead spot in the carburaetor, I just didn't need one more thing... like the door flying open while cornering!
• Removed master cylinder and broke the brake line in the process :-( I also don't have a repair kit and it needs one. Will have to find one before I can proceed here.
• Installed drivers side running board. All of the flathead bolts that attach the chrome moulding to the body above the running board were missing. They weren't exactly carriage head bolts, but that was my chosen substitute and they worked.