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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
Gryphon
Charter Member
22178 posts |
Jan-23-21, 08:31 PM (EST) |
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"Project Impala: Session 11-ish"
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As noted in the "hiatus" thread, my father's started working on the Impala without me, since he can't come up and work on the bathroom project while the virus is afoot. He sent me a few photos of what he's been up to over the last week or so, so I figured I'd put up a little update. First up, long-time viewers may remember that, when we eventually got the engine running, summer before last(!), it promptly overheated and boiled the radiator. We assumed this was because the old radiator was all plugged up with crud (technical phrase), and so, when he got started working on the car again, Dad decided to just replace it rather than fool around trying to get it cleaned out. It'll probably need a better one than the old factory radiator it had in it anyway, if and when we get around to building a higher-performance engine for it than the one that's in it now. So, shiny new rad it is! 


It doesn't look stock, but what it does do is work. Also, particularly in picture #2, there's a good view of the shiny new dual brake master cylinder and the front/rear bias valve that goes with the new front brakes we were in the middle of putting on when we suspended operations in 2019. Also, as noted in the previous post, he's torn down the rear differential: 
His original plan was to replace the seals and gaskets (most of which were leaking), but keep the original bearings. That plan lasted until he got it apart, cleaned up the old gear oil, and got a good look at the races of the pinion shaft bearings: 
Yeah. For reference, if you are not mechanically inclined, those are supposed to be glassy smooth. No wonder it was making that noise. OK, new bearings all around. This requires some more parts and a special tool, so those are now on order. --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
22178 posts |
Apr-07-21, 08:18 PM (EST) |
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4. "another small update"
In response to message #3
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Dad's been doing a lot of work on the car over the past few weeks. In addition to completing the repairs and mods to the running gear (replacing the rear end bearings and seals, finishing the front brake conversion), he's finally bitten the bullet and done the car repair job he likes the least: removing the rest of the old paint from the body. 
(Check out that front brake! Sweet!) With the rest of the paint off, it's pretty clear that this car was hit on the right side at some point in its life, and whoever repaired it didn't have a lot of time or money (or possibly skill, but let's not be too unkind) to work with. There is a heck of a lot of Bondo* there. Now for the punch line. Dad doesn't paint cars any more, and anyway, he was never good enough at it that he'd have been willing to paint this particular car himself. But it's been sitting in his garage in need of paint long enough for-- and I am only just barely exaggerating, here-- one of his wife's grandchildren to be born, grow up, go to school, and become a professional auto body and paint technician. I shit you not. That is a thing that has happened. (He was actually born two months before I bought the car, but I mean, come on.) So, uh, the plan is for him to fix the damaged panels (you can get replacement skins for pretty much any panel on one of these cars from a number of classic-repro-parts companies) and paint the whole thing Ditzler 12525 (Twilight Blue Poly), which was an official Chevrolet color that year (and we think the main color it was painted when I bought it). We don't plan to re-do the two-tone. Exactly when this will be happening, I'm not sure, but Dad's making active plans for it. Now that the chassis rolls again, he's planning to trailer it up to where the kid works so that they can cut out that piece of the passenger side rear quarter and weld in the replacement, figure out whether the door skin on that side can be salvaged or if it needs to be replaced, and so on, and then paint. Which is pretty exciting. --G. * other body fillers are available -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Eyrie Productions,
Unlimited
Benjamin
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