Hi Mark, The wheel you sent had everything with it that was needed to install it, it's all up and running.
The california cars used a Carter AFB......not a 4GC.....i ain't eat'in nothing....the parts i sent were correct :grin: Peace WildBill
This project should have come earlier, but you all know how that goes.. The previous owner said the brakes were dicey, and that something had to be done about them when he sold me the car. The problem is that it locks up the rear brakes before the font which can create some serious situations pretty quickly. I've always been aware of this and taken it easy when driving it, but it has never felt right, since you're knowingly playing some low level Russian roulette. So finally it was time to sort this situation out once and for all hopefully, and install a new master cylinder and booster with a new proportioning valve. The old master cylinder is sort of an unknown, It must have been installed with the front disc brakes, which he put on there after the car had been hit in the front. Kind of the wrong order, but that's how it was done. It has two proportioning valves attached to it (or maybe one is a metering block someone mentioned?), and I did manage to buy a new gasket for it at Kragen where they have pictures of all the parts in their computers. Out it went, the hardest part was to get the brake pedal pin out of the hole on the peg which connects the booster, not sure why they have to make it that tricky..
I had previously been preparing the new master cylinder ('68 Wildcat w/ front disc brakes version), and the proportioning valve ('73 455 LeSabre w/ front disc brakes) with some plumbing. The idea was to get parts from cars close in size, weight, wheelbase as my '66 cat, which would be similarly set up from the factory. The tube bender and flare kit now came in handy.
I was lucky that this setup fit ok in there, I had been trying to eyeball the location of where the proportioning valve could be located. Most cars have the proportioning valve mounted on the frame, but there is no chance for that when the steering box is sitting right below it. There was some issues with some leakage from some of the connections, but I had read here that if you loosened connections up and re-tightened them it might help. Everything finally came out ok.
I think I started this at ten in the morning, and of course it wasn't finished until midnight, with only a banana and a diet coke for lunch and dinner.. I don't know how it works out, but if you're constantly working, sometimes hunger just doesn't set in. There was also a heavy duty wire routed for an upcoming alternator upgrade, which should eliminate the external voltage regulator.
The neighbors looked a little perplexed when they returned and saw that the car was still on stands at 10:30pm outside their window.. oh well.. sometimes you just got to do it.
I had to take out the master cylinder for an extra round of bench bleeding since I ran the rear reservoir dry (it's tiny), which slowed the progress a bit. The brakes now feel very solid after doing some testing in the back yard, and you don't get that tug from the rear any more. hopefully everything will be ok once we take it out on the road to do some more testing, and that I don't have to worry about this any more.
Amazing that you're still at it after all this time. Congrats to you for doing so. Kee[ it going. I like your focus on one car rather than collecting like I did and losing track. Keep your focus and you'll have a great car.
Thanks for keeping this going Kimson, your making great progress! :beer I wish I could say the same for my car.
Check out what happened to park outside the office building today. Unfortunately the owner managed to sneak away in it before I could have a word with him. Otherwise I've installed a glove box liner in the cat, and will soon have to get serious with the body work, since that's kind of what's left now.
We've started a little side project at work, where on every payday Friday (every other Friday), we try to bring our enthusiast cars into work and go for a short cruise and lunch somewhere nearby. This first one was two weeks ago and we scraped together a couple of rides.. Unfortunately this past Friday it was forecast rain, so it was cancelled. Hopefully we can keep it going..
Small update with a tach installed. This has been on the shelf for like two years, and finally it found its place. I'm waiting for OPG to come out with the Wildcat catalog so I can get hold of some black tips for the levers..
I got hold of an extra set of exhaust manifolds that I'll try to polish up and exchange for the ones on the car. (Or should I go straight to shorty headers?) The passenger side has this pipe that going through it to send hot air for the choke. The choke is disconnected anyway on the car, and I don't think I'll need it around here in SoCal. Since the pipe is restricting the airflow should I just drill out the ends, take out the pipe, and weld it up? Anything to think about when welding on exhaust manifolds? I've heard something about issues when cracked, but is there anything to think about otherwise?
The pipe is cracked hmm.. The plan is to blast these and give them a coat of the POR-15 exhaust manifold grey paint.
I also plan on getting some exhaust manifold gaskets and doing some porting.. We'll see how that works out.
After some issues with the fuel delivery we're now back in business. The hose between the tank and the steel line was badly rotted which caused the car to randomly want to shut itself off. Last weekend we participated in the Car Craft Anti-Tour which took us up to Morro Bay and back- a cool 400 mile round trip. The car performed well, and now that the kick-down and switch pitch function is up and running the car drove better than ever. The removal of the exhaust manifold butterfly valve has also made the car roll better downhill, you can really tell that there's less back pressure. This was the real first test to take the car out of town... I brought my wife and mom who was visiting from Sweden + camping gear for the Anti-Tour, so the car was fully loaded. The low rear was even lower and on the way home we bottomed out pretty good on a dip and the exhaust hangers went out on one side. One of the pipes is just laying on the axle tube now ou: . I think it's just the weld that broke on two of the hangers, so hopefully it will just require a re-weld of those. The MPG was around 14.5, which seems to be not too bad? Also considering there was some heavy gas foot work at times. just a quick update..
Good grief man, I love the photo and so glad you've come so far and did so much since "then". KUDOS. Devon
