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

Cleaned up her rear end a little bit.
Eventually Everything will be taken apart, rebuilt and painted properly. Right now we’re just putting all the pieces together to get her back on the road. Pretty comes later…

 

good job ive done the same

 

I ordered the new fuel tank the other day…
The price had risen $150 over night.

 

If you don't already know, Roger's alternator was chargrilled yesterday afternoon. This evening, after finally getting a ride out to it, I put a fully-charged group 65 in it, and was able to drive Roger home without any problems. He also has a crack or a bad seal in the radiator. So I need to start getting parts together, get him fixed. I need to check the fan clutch also.

 

Just put in a new power seat transmission. Now I don't have to sit so high and close to the steering wheel. Such luxury!

Here's the old (busted up) one:


And the new:


This was also a great time to clean and regrease all the tracks and pivots, and vacuum out underneath the seat since it was out of the car.

 

My late brother Geoff, back in the early '80s, had a mid-60s Imperial sedan, and the seat was stuck all the way forward. I think he mentioned the old man he bought it from was short. Anyway, we're overall, so driving it (and me riding in it) was excruciating, to say the least.

 

This morning, I installed the new alternator and regulator on Roger, and discovered the AMP light now works. Makes me wonder if the old regulator was going out. Tees me off, though, that when I tested the system a few weeks ago, everything was working. But the AMP light might've been a clue the regulator was faulting back then. It just didn't show a problem when I tested it.

 

After several hours over the past few weeks of troubleshooting, I finally got my wipers and washers to work correctly -- delay works, mist works, low/high speed works, and the washer pump sprays. It's an odd mix of mechanical and electronic componentry that does all those things. Previously I could get some of these functions working, but never all at the same time. At one point the wipers, once on, wouldn't shut off until the ignition was turned off.

I had found just the circuit board on eBay (apparently called a "pulse board") but replacing that introduced other strange problems. Finally I found a complete washer pump/pulse board assembly, and swapping all that out did the trick! The motor itself is still original. Also replaced one of the sprayer nozzles that was busted off.



I think this was the last thing the car needed fixed to pass Pennsylvania inspection.

 

My new radiator arrived this morning, so a new radiator and fan clutch for Roger tomorrow, plus a decent flush-out.

 

There is no decent flush unless you blow a freeze plug on either side, but failing that you can remove the block plugs and flush it, then install pet cocks so you don't have to next time. So called "radiator flushes" are one of the biggest rip-offs in the industry.

 

Fuel tank arrived! $700.00 and they forgot to put the straps in the box. Only a $49.00 screwup….

 

I installed a cleaned engine, but I was referring to the heater core and whatever small amount of junk that left the radiator over the year and 10K I've driven Roger. But you do make a good point. Worst engine I've cleaned out was a Heep (it was that bad) 4.0L, which sprang a leak from the rear coolant passage plug. When I popped it out, there had to be 2-3 inches deep casting sand in the block. We called the customer, who wanted it cleaned out (he was too cheap for a replacement engine). So, 2 1/2 hours of a long hanger wire straightened out, with a hook on the end, a garden hose, a big drain pan and a very sore back later, I got as much of that crap out as I could, put in the replacement plug, put it all back together, and the customer stated it ran too cool. My boss Dave had to explain why it would do that.

 

Tank is painted and waiting for those $50 pieces of tin that hold it in…

 

Tonight we’re converting our old oil bath air cleaner to new ways…

 

Sounds like fun!