Took the Wildcat to the exhaust shop; - going to cost a fortune to put duals on, but that's what's happening. Could have kept the original Y pipe (it is in remarkably good shape and solid) and gone with a single, but, well,...a Wildcat deserves dual exhaust to make that Kitty purr. If it would have had the 401 I'd have gone with the single, but it's got the 425 and the quadrajet on it, so it deserves one better.
Oh yes good move.. I remember around 1981 ish or so when Meineke first opened, at least the first one I saw in MA. I only saw one employee then in that shop. The prices were fantastic.. I kept putting these generic mufflers on with a clamp and one kept falling off every now and then and had no tail pipes on my 66 Skylark GS. He welded the mufflers on and custom bent and made 2 tail pipes for it. I remember it being around $120 and after that he put 2 generic mufflers and again custom tail pipes on my 73 Riv for around $180. I know it was in the early 80's but that was still very cheap back then. They had cheap prices for a while but now that they grew they are more expensive than Midas last time I checked for a car. Good things don't last As you know, wait to see how much your Wildcat wakes up with duals.. My GS went from spinning the sticky recaps rear tires for 20 to 30 feet to maby 5 feet just by the added tail pipes. Thats how taxed the exhaust is on the Nailheads. I was kinda shocked..
And I got it back today and was able to drive it "normally", with no concern for waking up the dead. Boy, does that car move!
Rebel Wire wiring harness kit came in the mail. I think I need to get the car painted soon so I can bolt pieces back onto it. But I've been mulling over picking a color for years now- not sure I'm any closer.
I ordered more parts for mine... used stock lower control arms (thanks Dave), control arm bushings, and steering linkage parts.
Been a few days but I swapped out my oil pan for one that had not been the victim of sudden impact. I suspect the car had landed in a ditch as the pan had been brazed and “gracefully” adjusted with a hammer and screwdriver, to remove some serious dents. It never leaked but it was not a work of art. I needed to change the leaking gasket and clean the pickup screen so it was time to replace the pan too. Pretty miserable as it required removing the center link, starter, and dust shield. Then unbolt motor mounts and jack up the engine… having a replacement (used) pan let me glue on the gaskets in advance so reinstall was not too fussy. Then had to reinstall everything else, after I fixed a fusible link wire that had some insulation damage and did 5 other little things. Glad it’s done!
After taking my distributor out and and putting in back in 1378 times trying to line it up with the oil pump shaft, I found out that it needs to be at 6 o'clock when the rotor is pointed at the #1 cylinder spot on the cap by searching this site. I also discovered that the steel fuel line is 100% easier to install into the carb if the fuel pump end is threaded in first and the fuel pump is bolted in place.
One burned dash-light quickly escalated to cleaning the underside, and fixing the almost always? broken speaker grills. Here they are waiting for glue to dry until morning. And of course got all 3 bulbs changed on dash
And today gauge lights and all rear lights. I hadnt even noticed until now, but we had an old law prohibiting red light showing to sides of cars. Same did go for orange light minus turn signals. So the four corner tail-lamps were simply removed. Now theyre lighted.. Nice to have all lights working. Also changed new, made in Taiwan flasher-relay to old one It may be slow, and noisy, but the new one worked until now since winter, and it went wild, sometimes slow, sometimes on heroine, never knew what it did. **** spares are ****.
I cleaned off the benches in the shop this morning / early afternoon. Spent the rest of the day taking apart , cleaning and reassembling the Tomahawk. Only source I found for the material in the filter and oil pan was 6 deep rub marks in the support that holds the windage tray. Looks like the rod bolts were hitting lightly.Pulled off a couple of springs to test tomorrow.
Since rain put a big hole in my effort to mow the lawn this evening, I started making my crude alignment system by cutting a 1 x 1 x 48 square steel stock into 3, 16" sections, then painted them black so they won't rust. These will go across a wheel on each side, to support a bubble gauge. I really needed only 2, but 48 / 3 = 16, so I ended up with an extra one. Also started measuring and assembling the new steering parts (center link and inner and out tie rod ends) between coats of paint. It's way easier to measure and put them together on the work bench!
