| Slowly after
Nineteen years owning this old heap it becoming
the car I thought it could be. Of course after a
few needed upgrades. The teardown began at the
end of April and was slowed by a late end of
winter blast by two weeks. The motor and
transmission came out for some general changes in
hope to finding and accessing a few more horses.
The motor had been a fresh rebuild Sixteen years
ago. But after sitting so long it need some new
gaskets. The transmission leaked some fluid out
the seals. As those small issues were addressed a
few new goodies were replaced. The stock TH350
torque converter was replaced by a TPI Saturday
Night Special! The old stock points style
distributor was replaced with a new MSD ready to
run electronic ignition and Blaster SS coil. A
couple of other needed changes were made along
the way white the front clip was off. |
| |
| Once back together
I was very pleased with the changes and upgrades.
A lot of concerns had been addressed which made
the old rod more pleasant to drive, not to
mention fun to! The motor was running cooler,
stronger and shifting into gear was much smoother
from park to reverse or drive. |
| I went to a local show/car cruise in with a
friend of mine who owns a 31 Ford Vicky. While
leaving the event we found a nice flats heading
out of Cooperstown Pa. He was ahead of me by a
few car lengths. He nailed it and so did I. I
wont go on about the whole story other to say I
did fly by him while slapping my B&M ratchet
shifter into drive and chirped the tires. Not bad
since I was not running a very low rear gear! The
down side of that little moment of pure pleasure.
I bent my rear main leaf springs real bad. The
drivers side was wrapped with about a 1” gap
off the second leaf. The passenger side was
wrapped about ½”. Lucky I have a friend who
works at a frame shop and did a good rebuild on
them for me. |
