New Exhaust and Ignition Upgrades

Its been a bit since I have updated this thing, but we have not been idle. My Borla ProXS muffler and the Pertronix Ignitor came in on Oct 29, and on Oct 30 we put the Ignitor in the car. Really simple installation. You pull the points and condenser, put in the ignitor, put the sleeve on the distributor, and bam. Done. Had to adjust the timing a little after that, but it fired started up on the very first crank. SO much better than points. I had my local garage (Ray's Garage in Batesville) put the exhaust on the car. The old donut gasket was about gone and there was some seriously rotten spots in the old pipe, not to mention that there was no muffler either. Loud, but BAD drone. The Borla fixed that. Now it sounds nice and clean but has a bit of throat to it. Sounds pretty good for a stock 6cyl engine. Drove it over to Amagon and let me aunt see it. She noticed the wheels first thing and thought that it sounded like it ran better than she remembered. She was glad to see it again, and was glad that it was running. Made someone's day anyway. Up next, the front end....

Starter Swan Song

This weekend, which was the last of the warm weather I'm afraid, the starter finally up and quit. It has been on there from the looks of things for years. We pulled it off the car and opened it up to see what was wrong with it, and the brushes on had wore down to the point that they were through the brush holders! After doing a little searching, I found one at the local parts store and voila! Now the beast starts like she's supposed to. I also did some adjustments to the timing and fuel mixture (it was running too rich) and she is purring better now that before I put the new carb on. Life is good.....

Heater Hoses and the tragedy of Double G

Today, two things happened. First, I stopped by my local parts store, Double G Auto Parts here in Newark and found out that they are closing their doors for good. The business has changed hands a couple of times in the past several years, but the fact that they have as many parts as most chain stores (well, they were a Bumper-to-Bumper affiliate) and every hard-to-find part in the world hadn't. Everything in there was slashed down to VERY cheap because a local hospital (Harris) is opening a clinic in the building. So, I stocked up. Scored some Monroe SensaTrac shocks for the front for $20 each along with a few other odds & ends. I am really going to miss that store. Every small town needs a place like that, and now ours is soon to be without. I also decided that today would be the day to change the heater hoses. It looked pretty straightforward. Two hoses from the heater core to the water pump, with nothing in their way. It was rather simple, except for the bottom hose on the water pump. That little bugger has about 8 microns of clearance for a standard screw-type hose clamp. It just barely fits behind the water pump pulley and the fan belt gets in the way of a easy angle with a screwdriver. Of course, I put it on initally so it wouldnt clear, and had to work it around to get it off and flipped over. It took about 15 minutes to arrange that stupid clamp. I suspect that it originally had some other type of clamp, but oh well. I like these better.

Tune-Up

Gave the old bird a tune-up over the last couple of days. Replaced what is probably the original coil along with the distributor cap, points, condensor, rotor, and plugs. The alternator also made funny noises like the bearings were on their way south, so it got replaced with a 60amp model. I think that the one on it was probably like 30amp, which wil help power the A/C when I get it this summer. If anyone is wondering, the correct point gap for this engine is .025 and the dwell is 37-42. I dont have a dwell meter, so mine is off by a hair, which makes the timing a hair off also. I am planning to replace this with a Pertronix Ignitor which oughta help fix this problem.

Cragar Rims

Got some seriously cool Cragar 8/61 SS Chrome Rims installed today to replace the old steel wheels and hubcaps that were on it. Actually, the hubcaps were rarely on it. They loved to spend their time in a ditch playing hide-and-seek.

Autolite 1100

The original carb had a leak around one of the dashpot covers and appeared to maybe have a small crack in the bowl. In any event, it leaked fuel and this worried me. So, I bought a replacement Autolite 1100 (Holley) from AutoZone. I also had to replace the vac advance line. The original one is made of bent tubing like brake line. Problem is, no one makes that line anymore. After talking to more than one person, I got a piece of metal brake line and some reverse-flare adapters to fit them. This works great and cost a total of about $6.50. ClassicTube will bend one for you for about $40 or so. I'll probably get this when I get the engine rebuilt, but for now, this works great. I also think that I will have the original carb refurbished eventually. Lots of the forums on the web say that these guys are the best in the biz when it comes to rebuilding them. Ford put these carbs (along with a Carter YF) on a lot of their 6-cyl engines in the 50's and 60's. Great, simple little carbs. In my scouring the web looking for some information I found diagrams for the Autolite and the Carter, if anyone needs them.