More fun in the sun

I really wasn't too happy with the alignment of the replacement driver's door so I spent an inordinate amount of time twatting about and achieving very little. It looks a tad better and if I pull the catch out on the jamb about a 1/4 inch it should be there. The problem is that the screws that hold the catch on are huge Philips heads and I just know that they are going to have their heads ripped out. Fortunately once again Red has come to my aid as he has an impact screwdriver that he bought to do the same job.

The rest of the evening was spent wet and drying the roof. For some reason Gene felt the need to show me what to do and sensing an opportunity, when he asked if I could see what to do I replied, No not really can you show me again? He smiled and sat down, the git. The main advice that he offered was that I should watch out for the clips that hold the windshield rubber in place. I then sliced my thumb open on the clips that hold the windshield rubber in. I found, under 8 years of crap, several stone chips which will be filled on Saturday and with any luck I will get the first coat of primer on and we will be another step closer.

Finally and with no purpose at all is a picture of the point eliminator kit that I fitted last week.

Happy Days

The Galaxie didn't start this morning which was a bit of a pisser as I had only just installed the new coil. In depth fault finding seemed to point to the fact that I may have run out of fuel. This was surprising as I had only put in 3 gallons last month and that car has not actually been anywhere. Still as Marco said; it takes a gallon just to crank the engine. Well what he actually said was "Dangum Ford 390 take sum gallon just crank some said summer bitch", but you get the point. So I picked up a 5 gallon jerry and drove to the local minimart. Unfortunately in the depths of Henry county gasoline has to be hauled in by a train of mules and in consequence I had to mortgage my left teste to pay for it. Back at the ranch, just as I tipped the last drop into the Galaxie Marco announced that the black 67 was also out of gas. So another trip to the minimart and the loss of my right nut, Such is life at the bodyshop.

On a more exciting note I installed the electronic ignition. Of course all the old boys scorned the modification stating that if their points failed they could fix them by the roadside. I shall enjoy

a) watching them do so as I cruise by, and
b) not cleaning and reseting points every other week.

Fortunately the car restarted first time and this is the first time that I can remember the Galaxie actually cooperating with me.

On a less exciting note that just left the block sanding, which I did all day. Still every day brings me closer to the end. Now I just have brace myself for the phone call to Dearbourne Classics where I drop $2500 for the new interior. I am still awaiting the call from the platers to let me know that the bumpers are ready when I will drop another $1200. This had all better have a happy ending.

Sit Rep

I had three small jobs to do last night but as usual the Galaxie fought me every step of the way so I ran out of time. I am beginning to call this thing Christine.

Job one was to replace the chunk of rusting crap with a real ignition coil. Because the air compressor is where the coil should mount I had to find a new location and the logical place was on top of the compressor which actually had some threaded studs. So after an eon spent looking for some bolts I got it mounted only to find that the hood no longer closed, Bastard ! Eventually I resolved that and replaced the master brake cylinder. Everything went well until I pressed the brake pedal to find that it didn't move, Bastard ! so I took it off and put it back and it worked fine. All this nonsense meant that I ran out of time and did not get to fit the points eliminator that I was keen to see work. Oh well.

Success Stories

After all of the bad things that have happened I finally got a good day on the Galaxie. The engine is in and starts pretty well. It now has a reverse gear so I can drive it around although to keep me in my place on the optimism front the master brake cylinder has developed a leak which I discovered the last time I tried to stop. Still that is no mind as I was going to order a new one anyway. So excitement of excitement, here is a picture of the engine in the car.

What the hell, here is another

You have to admit it looks slick doesn't it? Just one more then,

The day was actually fairly tedious with many hours spent with the loathsome blocksander in hand. The good news is that we are on the home straight and I am now down to the final small chips and scratches. The other good news is that we got the replacement driver's door back on. Before we installed it we needed to spray the leading edge with Viking Blue as it could not be sprayed with the door on. Just look at this.

Isn't that a sharp color? Well as we had a little paint still in the gun (and at $63 a quart I am not wasting any) we sprayed the other jambs as well.

Already you can see the difference in the Viking Blue and the nasty crap that someone had previously sprayed the car. After all the setbacks this was a great day to boost moral. I am so looking forward to seeing it all finished.

Onwards and Upwards

Will this ever end?

Marco my itinerant mechanic failed to show on Saturday. The old boys were all sure that it was because I docked his wages after the crankshaft oil seal debacle. Well life can be cruel can't it? Replacing the oil seal was no problem to a man of my calibre (even though the engine which used to be upside down on a cradle was now swinging from an engine hoist) what was going to be an issue was getting the beast back in the car. Gene has all the knowledge but at 82 years old he can no longer tuck a 390 under his arm and lift it into the engine bay. I had just decided to split the transmission off when Red Weaver turned up. With the two of us on the hoist we were able to get the entire lump in although for some reason we struggled forever to get the engine mounts and brackets aligned. Just as the engine fell into place Gene and my invisible mechanic turned up, so I set Marco on to connecting the transmission mounts whilst I took Gene off for breakfast at the local greasy spoon. When we returned Marco had completely finished underneath including the drives shaft and the emergency brake as well as all the overdrive bits. Hats off to Marco who is so skinny that he doesn't need to jack up the car. (Unlike me as you will see later)

So cutting a long story short we got ready to fire her up and we did. Sadly the only thing that didn't work was the oil pressure lamp and in short order we realized that the oil pump was not working. Thanks to Marco's prior knowledge on this stuff we soon realised that when I had replaced the oil pump I had misaligned the drive shaft and instead of threading it into the distributor I had threaded it into free space. Anticipating removing the engine once again I went off for a manly cry just as Red returned. Red turned out to be my guardian angel that day because he knew that if we removed the distributor and reached in with a very long set of medical tweezers we could extract the dive shaft and re-route it. In my defence, let me say that this is an appalling piece of design (not that there is any excuse for being a cry baby).

So with the pump fixed we tuned the engine and got her sounding good which was my cue to call it a day. Then we discovered that not only was there no reverse gear but the car would not even roll backward. After two hours of not fixing the transmission I put a jack under the differential and dragged it out in reverse so I could drive it into the Galaxie garage. Talk about two steps forward and one back. Now where is my little hanky.

Post script

That night Gene phoned his buddy Ed Macky in New York. Ed said without hesitation that I had not installed the overdrive solenoid properly and if I pulled it out, twisted it pushed it in and then aligned the boltholes I would be fixed. So with a heavy heart I jacked it up 3 feet to accommodate my lardy old arse and got to it. Guess what? Ed is a God amongst mechanics.