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Well, after bleeding the brakes (again) on the '58 last night, I woke up this morning to find the pedal to the floor and no leaks. Guess that new master cylinder is bad, which I've certainly experienced before. One problem with classics is getting quality reproduction parts. Sigh. It also took 2.5 hours to fit the front bumper, I came this -><- close to just welding up a whole new set of bumper brackets to get it to fit right. Not sure whether to blame the bumper, the brackets, the reproduction front apron replacement, or the PO who did the work. Either way, it's straight. It's level. And just the top bar is "off", repro-factory bent the shape wrong. Ah well.
Seeing as I was ready to throw heavy tools at the car while swearing terrible things to the people who make ill-fitting parts, I drove it out of the garage on a milk crate...and pulled the rally bug in. I have a long list of things I want to do to prep it for the summer, but just haven't had the space in the garage.
First up, I dropped the motor. Takes less then 30min in the '58, and 1.5 hours in the rally bug...even with the fluid-break fittings. Tore out the rear suspension and replaced both the broken left shock, and the right shock since I figured a new matched set would be nice to have. I'll send the right one back to QA1 for a rebuild and a spare, but it feels the same as the new ones. Next on the list was replacing a leaking oil cooler thermostat. That snowballed pretty quickly. The oil cooler fan switch was flaky, and I found the problem...so off to Radio Shack for some thermopaste to rebuild it. Then the new thermostat had the NPT threads cut not as deep as the old one, which made my assembly wider. Had to make two new oil lines for the car to get it to fit back into place. Finally finished that up, and realized it was a good time to stop for dinner.
Will tear the engine down tonight for it's pre-summer check and hopefully get it built back up for installation tomorrow. Its certainly suffered cosmetically from winter racing and fun, but I'm not sure I want to spend the time repainting stuff this early in the season. Could still end up playing in the snow and salt if we get a last-wind of winter.
Photos off my phone later...
-Dave
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