Making Your Classic Muscle Car Project a Reality — Blackout Garage

very nice read! Well done! I resemble that.

These are the steps on how to start building your project car

via Making Your Classic Muscle Car Project a Reality — Blackout Garage

Another day working on the 70

Finishing up the details of the wiring

After working hard and getting the whole lawn done yesterday  I spent the day of me time doing some finishing details of the new wiring. Mostly terminating the front light harness. I put a terminal block in the trunk and that will join the trunk wiring to the main harness. And a bit of under-dash cleanup is in order after this all gets finished.

And since I wasn’t sure about some things so I called on my observant assistant , Scarecrow. He decided to help.

How can he help you ask? He did a “cat scan”!

After his assistance things went along smoothly. He suggested a couple of wiring rearranging and we should be good to go. It’s getting closer every day. And if Scarecrow sticks with me it should go a lot better. That’s it for today.

And so after sharing a well deserved steak dinner with Faye Dean it is time to relax, water all the plants, sit here and chill on the patio with some Eric Clapton cranking on the music box. Nice!

Hope your day went well. Later!

 

Are you done yet?

Scarecrow seems to be my biggest motivator lately!

He was watching very intently from the console as I was doing some wiring on the 70 today

I have been playing catch up the last couple of days. Trying to figure out where I left off in the fall. I have a good idea where I am in the project now.

Scarecrow was pretty much on my shoulder the whole time I was working under the dash. I guess he is my quality monitor. I guess he thinks I need to get finished with the wiring ASAP! I did get a major portion of the dash wiring completed. All the under-dash gauge and gauge lighting wiring is done. Along with the engine gauge feeds. The stop light switch is plumbed. As is the turn signal switch.

The rear harness is in and now it is a matter of connecting the front and back turn signals in. As far as the running lights, sport lights and headlights they are all being plumbed to come on all at the same time. On or Off! That’s it! And I am opting out of high beams all together.  When was the last time you used them? I don’t. So this is easy.

So, after a day of writhing around on my back under the dash of the 70 I took a break and went out for a cruise on Woodward in the 65. It was about 4ish so Woodward was packed with rush hour traffic. But no biggie! I’ve done the Dream Cruise a time or two! So a nice go round from here at 9 mile up to 16 Mile and back down to 9 mile and I was relaxed and the 65 got some exercise.

Now is Captain Morgan time! A bit of Captain Morgan, some peanuts and a big bag of Eric Johnson on the music box. This is nice!

More later! See ya!

 

 

HHR power steering is fixed …

but the exhaust is toast!

Power Steering Assist Motor

The oem GM power steering assist motor which I acquired last week went in without a problem. The only sidebar for the r&r is that the brackets under the dash are frickin sharp! Wear a glove! After “putting a little bit of myself” into the project and patching myself up, THEN putting on a glove, it all went very smoothly. Excellent!

Now for the exhaust

Since I was already rummaging around on the HHR this morning I decided to do some discovery on a new woofing exhaust noise coming from the rear driver quarter. So after dragging out the trusty cardboard work cushion I scooted under that area but nothing appeared to be amiss. Then I went back to the muffler area. That revealed that the mid-mount pin had rotted off. Not a big issue since there is another at the muffler tail and it was intact. But not a good thing. On first viewing I did not see any other issues.

That’s when I decided to go ahead and start it up and see if I could pin it down. Once started the sound began. I crawled back under to locate this aggravating noise.  To make it easier to locate I put my hand over the exhaust outlet to make some back pressure. And that did it! It was bleeding out in a pair of sections but from UNDER the heat shielding that is welded to the tube. Not visible from a simple look. Time for a new exhaust system!

The exhaust system on the HHR is pretty much like any other late model system an a 1-piece welded system. But, sadly, it is not stainless. So it is replaced in pieces parts. I’m not fooling around and just making it all go away. After some quick web searching I was able to locate the needed numbers for the Walker replacement parts. #56154 Exhaust resonator and pipe / #21572 Muffler. Now with the numbers on hand I made a quick call to my local supplier and they are on their way and should be available in a couple of hours. I am sure the bolts on the converter flange are most likely crap. I will just chuck them put in some new SS hardware.

So I guess I have a afternoon job planned. First I will take break for breakfast with Faye Dean and then tackle the rest later on. Not a real big job just awkward. But with  a sawzall and some determination anything is possible! Right?! And , YES!, I will be wearing gloves!

 

 

Squeaky Toy – Just a refreshing update

If you haven’t seen Squeaky Toy in a while then here is your chance to see the project.

Front On

Tail On

Door trim without ABS kick panel

Custom Dash and switch panel

Racing gauge panel

Switch pahel and gauges

Racing seats and 4 point harness

Grant removable wheel installed

Relocated spare and battery

Safety shutoff on thunk support

rRelocated spare

Trunk support at work

tail harness junction block under driver taillight

New B&M Quicksilver shifter

I have spent a lot of time trying to finish up the wiring on the 70. But I have been cleaning up a bunch of stuff as I go along. But this is just a batch of pics of the current state of repairs on this project. Enjoy!

Are you done yet?

Scarecrow seems to be my biggest motivator lately!

He was watching very intently from the console as I was doing some wiring on the 70 today

I have been playing catch up the last couple of days. Trying to figure out where I left off in the fall. I have a good idea where I am in the project now.

Scarecrow was pretty much on my shoulder the whole time I was working under the dash. I guess he is my quality monitor. I guess he thinks I need to get finished with the wiring ASAP! I did get a major portion of the dash wiring completed. All the under-dash gauge and gauge lighting wiring is done. Along with the engine gauge feeds. The stop light switch is plumbed. As is the turn signal switch.

The rear harness is in and now it is a matter of connecting the front and back turn signals in. As far as the running lights, sport lights and headlights they are all being plumbed to come on all at the same time. On or Off! That’s it! And I am opting out of high beams all together.  When was the last time you used them? I don’t. So this is easy.

So, after a day of writhing around on my back under the dash of the 70 I took a break and went out for a cruise on Woodward in the 65. It was about 4ish so Woodward was packed with rush hour traffic. But no biggie! I’ve done the Dream Cruise a time or two! So a nice go round from here at 9 mile up to 16 Mile and back down to 9 mile and I was relaxed and the 65 got some exercise.

Now is Captain Morgan time! A bit of Captain Morgan, some peanuts and a big bag of Eric Johnson on the music box. This is nice!

More later! See ya!

 

 

PT Cruiser up in the air

Faye deans’ PT 2

Getting the PT on a lift to get a closer look at things

Today I was fortunate enough to catch a friend at his shop and he was gracious enough to let me use his hoist to get a better view of the under carriage of the PT. And it was enlightening.

What I found or didn’t find

On the initial glance around I was aware that whoever had worked on it just kinda didn’t bother to put any of the splash shields back on! Both inner liner pieces were missing along with the driver side lower shield. An most of the pinning had been left out. Asshats!

The first discovery was that the muffler had literally broken off at the mid pipe and was simply dangling by its’ mounts. And the mid pipe had issues at the seam to the head pipe. Duly noted. And the side bar issue was that it was bouncing and hitting the track bar so it was the source of the wicked clunking at the back.

And since I was there I turned my attention to the panhard assembly.  I gave the pivot assembly a pry and it was totally gonzo. Another common failure creating another annoying clunk in the rear. Noted!

Moving further forward there was no apparent damage to the power steering cooler attached to the K-member. But the glaring problem of the lower motor mount being gonzo was easily seen. Duly noted.

Then we came to the plumbing at the base of the radiator. It was drippy and wet and on further inspection it appears that the cause may actually be the seal on the servo mech immediately above it. Gravity 101. The car needs a trans service so once that is done I will see if the leak is still precisest. Meaning it is not coming from a pan leak. And then attack it as needed.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

With the inspection done it appears that a big bag of parts is in order. If I am lucky enough maybe Santa will get me what I need! Oh! Wait! I AM Santa Clause! So I guess a quick run at the web should give me a good idea of what this is going to cost “Santa”. I have already done some preliminary parts scouting and what was newly discovered I can rummage around some more.

I can do all of it myself but with winter finally settling in it may be off til spring. We will see. Well, consider yourself updated! More to come!

 

The PT is back!

Front view of PT with blacked out emblem

The PT Cruiser is back at Bob’s Garage!

Just like with any of the other vehicles it was time to take a closer look at just what condition it was in now.And it didn’t take long to see some not-so-good issues.

In it’s time away there had been some front end damage and it appears to have had a wheel hub replaced and some brake work. No biggie. Just normal wear and tear. Kinda sorta.So now it was on to the basics.

Basic Inspection

On pulling the oil dipstick I was kind of confused when it came up dry. So I said “OK, let’s try this again”. And on the second check it was identical. Not good. Then I moved on to the trans dipstick. No way! It was also not showing any thing! Way not good! A quick look under the vehicle showed some obvious evidence of a trans fluid leak. And with the documented front end damage there is a good chance one of the soft lines is gonzo. That explains the low trans fluid level. But 3 quarts down? Not good.

And the power steering felt way tight and it looks like there may be some damaged lines there too. A bit of detective work produced a couple of bottles of PS fluid in the vehicle. he noteworthy part of this was that it was generic PS fluid. Unfortunately the PT actually used a ATF+4 synthetic trans fluid in it’s system. And sadly it is a Chrysler documented fact that if this is not used it will take out the pump. I believe this to be the case. So another project in the making.

Getting it back right

A quick run to the parts store and I picked up an oil change and some trans fluid. No biggie once again. And for good measure I threw in a bottle of Lucas oil stabilizer. Then it was back to the house to make it all good. The trans fluid was not a problem . Fill, start, run through the gears and check!  Sweet!  One down. One to go!.

After getting the car up in the air because these PT’s are way low, I went after the oil drain plug. What is normally a quick twist of the wrench turned into a very aggressive attack with a long bar to get the little bugger loose!  WTF! It took 80 ft pounds to break it loose! Way bad! I was actually fearing the worst of a stripped plug before it released. But the car gods were with me and it came out intact with no damaged threads.

And with that fiasco over I went after the filter. You guessed it! This bugger was frickin jammed tight. It actually spun my cup type remover. So in desperation I  resorted to the stab and turn scenario. It worked but it took two full turns to get this SOB loose! With that out of the way I put the new filter on correctly, touch plus1/2 a turn, and added the oil. Totally uneventful.

Loud Exhaust

A quick trip at the back pretty much confirmed what I already suspected that the big muffler had seen it’s better days so it needs to go. It’s easy to get to and is not that big a project

Rant

But the tattle tale here is that it was a Valvoline filter. That means that the goomba’s at the local quick oil change are nothing but paid gorillas when it comes to oil changing.This is why I have had a long standing distrust about oil change places. Low buck mechanic wanna-bes working on your high dollar car. And, No, my oil plug didn’t just “strip out” and/or fall out after all this time! End of rant!

Conclusion

All being done it actually turned out OK. I will have to chase down the trans line leak but that won’t be that hard just time consuming. And I will probably end up replacing the soft lines of that system. The oil thing may be an issue but I don’t really have a line on that yet. And the PS pump will be a R&R project. And I will replace the lines too if I go to that trouble. Things to do Things to do.

Another day and more 70 progress

70 Mustang Coupe

Not a lot but something none the less

Mirror … Mirror

I spent some time today putting the rear view mirror back on. Well… I managed to knock it off the other day while I was mucking around with the steering wheel swap. Let’s just leave it at that. It was an accident. A bit of cleanup, some mirror adhesive and we are good as new. But I did notice that after a closer look the silver on the mirror section has started to show it’s age.I may replace itt but don’t see a need right now. Maybe later.

Go ahead and vent

I did some rummaging around and since I have an open air cleaner venting the valve cover to the air cleaner is kind of a moot point . So I found a 67 HIPO valve cover breather that twists in and gets the job done and looks right. So a bit of scuff and color and the new black breather twists right in place.

We need more stuff!

I have my laundry list of miscellaneous pieces parts to get from NPD. I will make a trip tomorrow and get the missing pieces and attempt to get this project a bit closer to completion. Most of the pieces are odd and end hardware [ nuts, bolts and screws ] but there are some light housing gaskets in there too. And there is one part that seems to be a bit elusive but they have the vacuum control valve in stock. So I will make a run in the AM tomorrow. And I will be back at it tomorrow.

Truly Electrifying

I will attempt to complete the proofing of the front wiring for the ignition system and some of the switches.  Kind of a warm fuzzy that all my work doesn’t go snap POOF! when I hook up the battery! All the lighting system is checked out and working correctly. Only a few more circuits to go.

Stay tuned! I may do some pics of the whole thing if I remember!

 

 

Getting some work done on the 70

Another productive day on the 70

More progress on a nice day.

Taking the wheel

I got my new steering wheel in so I swapped out the one I was using a 4 1/2″ dish wheel for my new Grant 654 1″ version. It is a great add and moves the wheel to a better arm length. Lots more comfy with the racing seats. It was an easy to swap and feels good.

That sucks!

I got all the new vacuum lines run for the dual advance distributor and the timing valve. As you can see it is not that complicated but is a bit of a plumbing job. But all is in and hooked up.

Vacuum plumbing