| 02-17-2012 |
Well, today the car was in another mood. She was nice at first and then gave me a a whole lot of trouble. I finally got that pesky steering column out that had been giving me so much trouble. I took the steering gear apart and slide the column and partial steering gear out the bottom.
I was very fortunate that I was able to maneuver the pitman arm through hole in the bracket because I don't have a pitman arm puller and I don't have anything even close I could make one with.
After I got it out I reassembled it and put it in the growing pile of used-to-be-a-'37-Chevy pile
Next I moved on to the brake and clutch pedals and then on to the master cylinder. The master cylinder originally mounted under the floorboard. The reservoir was filled by removing a rubber plug under the drivers feet. The new power master cylinder will mount under the floorboard, but will have a new bracket to accommodate the new power brake booster.
I moved on to the interior after this. The seats came out without much trouble. Sill plate screws are always trouble. They are either stripped out or rusted together like they were welded. A few gave me a real fit. I broke a drill bit trying to drill one out. The screw heads were strong enough that I couldn't get a hole chiseled on them.
Fortunately I have an impact driver. These things are absolutely priceless. The way the body is made on the bottom it's impossible to get to the bottom of the screws. You just simply hit the driver while applying a downward and turning force. It has internal parts which apply the torque to the screw and back it out when a screwdriver simply can't get the job done.
Near the end of the day my friend Nick stopped by. He helped me rid the interior of all of it's old material. It was an absolutely nasty job. There's about two inches between where the headliner was and where the roof is. The mice had crawled up in this area and deposited mice bed material consisting of seat stuffing and old pink receipts that had apparently been left in the car. The window trim was a little bit difficult to remove. We wanted to be careful and not break or bend anything. One of the screws holding the rear hand straps stripped out and then when I finally got vise grips on it it broke off. I'll have to deal with that later.
The muscle I pulled in my chest the other day got aggravated today with some strange movement. It was really bad by the end of the day and I was having difficulty breathing. I was hoping to be able to get the rear end mocked up since I now have it and the new kit to mount it, but I may have to take tomorrow off and let it heal up a bit. I have read that the Chassis Engineering kits can be off by a few inches so I will need to mock it up and locate it with the body on the frame and the rear fenders on. Once I get everything lined up I can then take the rear fenders off and begin removing the body from the frame.
