Napa didn't give any measurements on their website so I called my local store and had them order two different ones that looked close. The first ended up being about half the size in diameter that I needed, but the second one was as close as I could have hoped for. Here is the old shape on the right and the new on the left.
I think it's a pretty close fit. Here's a piece of the old and a piece of the new installed in the track.
Using the sand blaster meant I had to go to Lowe's one more time and buy some play sand to use in the sand blaster. I got this bag half off since it had a hole in it, which I then patched with duct tape.
After sand blasting, primer and paint the track ended up sealed and protected.
This is how the original weatherstripping was supposed to lay.
The new weatherstripping was coiled into a circle in the box it came in. When I took it out, part of it unraveled and knocked one of the screws for the weatherstrip track down into the tailgate. I eventually had to remove this access panel to retrieve it. The screws to this panel were very difficult to remove and it took quite a while and involved several different tools, including an impact driver.
As I began to test fit the new weatherstripping I found that the driver's side of the window was not meeting with the rubber. After determining that the tailgate was raised as far as it needed to be and that the weatherstripping was adjusted as it needed to be I found that the window itself was the problem. It was not lowering far enough on the driver's side, though the passenger side was fine.
I found that I could take the window and pull it down by hand to where it needed to be, but there was play at the end of its travel that doesn't allow it to close completely. The first picture shows where the window rolls down to and the second picture shows where it should roll down to.
It was getting dark and dinner was ready so I had to give up on the window for the day. The next day I moved on to a more pressing issue, the engine noise.
Because the engine had begun making a ticking noise which was getting worse I went ahead and installed the starter brace, hoping that might remedy the problem.
Pictures I found on the internet showed the brace going from the starter to the motor mount. Because the bolt to the motor mount is right next to the rubber of the mount it took a very, very long time to get it out. I then found out that the brace was not supposed to use this bolt, but rather the hole next to it, which is seen in this picture, to the left of the motor mount bolt. This hole did not have a bolt in it when I first looked, so it was difficult to tell there was an empty bolt hole in this location.
The starter brace didn't solve the problem. After crawling under the car while it was running I determined the noise was definitely coming from the dustpan cover area. I checked the converter bolts and they were tight. I wasn't able to check the flywheel bolts because the converter was in the way. I couldn't get the converter back far enough so I had to take the transmission loose and pull it back to check the flywheel bolts. They were also all tight. I called Gary and explained to him the issue I've been having with the transmission not going into gear when it is first started and about the noise. Hearing about the problems with the transmission and hearing that it was a Pontiac 400 transmission, he said it was time for a rebuild. Given the noise and the shifting problems I decided to go ahead and pull the transmission. If I am going to have to spend money on a transmission rebuild I decided to go ahead and put an overdrive in the car. It was supposed to be a future plan, but given the circumstances, it makes much more sense to go ahead and do it now. I was really, really looking forward to being done with this car, but now it appears the finish date has been prolonged.
For the transmission to come out, first, the brand new exhaust system had to come out. It was made so that it could be unbolted in front of the mufflers, however I wasn't able to separate the pieces where they were bolted together so I had to cut the hangers and drop the entire assembly. Getting this piece shoved under the '37 in the garage by myself was a chore.
I spent the morning crawling under the car and checking converter bolts and flywheel bolts. When I did finally decide to pull the transmission and got to the transmission lines, they were frozen solid with age and even with a line wrench were trying to round off. I soaked them a few times with PB Blaster and went to lunch. When I returned the lines came loose and I continued working on the transmission removal. Dad happened to stop by and he helped me. It's a good thing he did because as most transmissions tend to be, this one was messy and tricky to deal with.
After crawling in and out of the car the day before and all morning long the concrete started to make my arms and back feel as though they had been rubbed down with 40 grit sandpaper.
I removed the driveshaft, thinking it might be tilted far enough back to not leak any fluid, however I was wrong. Fluid poured all over the driveway. I put a bucket under the tailshaft and dad and I worked on removing the yoke. Neither of us had experienced a U-joint such as this. We tried and tried and could not hammer it out. Dad called a mechanic at one of the shops and the mechanic told us that these U-joints have plastic in them that must be heated so that it can melt away. We did this and once heated the plastic shot out small holes on each side like a snake-in-the-candy-jar prank.
First we heated, then we hammered. I almost lost an eye when part of the U-joint broke, so I got the old safety goggles out.
It had been raining on and off all day and I actually got caught in the rain on the motorcycle when I went to lunch. It finally cleared away, but right as were were getting the transmission on the ground it began to come a flood out of nowhere. It only last long enough for us to get the transmission securely on the ground and out from under the car, but by that time we were already soaked. Then it stopped raining as quickly as it started.
Now I have a lot of research to do to see what type of transmission I should install. It's hard to know because some people swear by the 700R4 and others swear by the 200R4 (or 200 4R as some call it). I suspect it will take quite a bit of searching and reading to determine which will best suit out needs.
