What did you do to your car today?

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Today, was steering and front suspension. This morning I replaced the idler arm bushing. Next set preload in the steering box and centered the steering wheel. All this week before work this morning.

At lunch the alignment rack was open, so I pulled the Mach1 in and believe it or not, every thing came loose with a little help. It aligned with no issues.

Next up is keeping progress on painting the underside of the body.

No pictures today...

 
Big day on the car today, first off we purchased this car in pieces, never was assembled. I really need to get this car on the road for some test drives to see what I have to work with. Stopped by the police station to ask, how much needs to be assembled to avoid citations, they said bumpers and brake lights. I did not think that would be hard as I had the bumpers on the car.

So I headed to work, started mounting the rear bumper, not a big deal, looked for the tail lamp wires, they could not be found along with the tail lamps themselves. Bummer. Off to the front, found one headlamp assembly, said what the heck, put it in and it actually worked! Very rare does anything just work on this car. Proceeded to mount the front bumper, found front marker lamps, installed them, new bulbs and again, seem to be on a roll.

Ran out of parts, made a trip home to locate tail lamp assemblies, found one in the garage, other was hurried under the basement stairs, with you guessed it more mach1 parts...

Loaded tail lamps, grill, front and rear valance panels and back to work I went. Spent a few hours, got all that stuff assembled, lights working except RF turn, brake lamps (the main reason working on the car today) reverse lamps and grill lamps. Stopped by the auto parts store for bulbs as nd tomorrow is a new day.







 
Finally got the car out and cleaned up from it's long winter's rest. Washed, waxed, vacuumed and cleaned the interior. Went for some fresh gas and drove about fifteen miles. I really need to install the new shocks - thees ancient Gas a Justs are simply horrible. Installed a headlight relay kit and a set of Cibie headlight housings - what a difference! The headlights are like driving a newer car. Will probably do a write up on the parts I used in one of the tech sections.

 
Broke my shifter :whistling: , Well it just broke on itself, It was getting sloppier and sloppier, and sometimes the car wouldn't start without playing with the shifter , I'm guessing so the neutral safety switch wasn't sensing the correct location. Now it is REALLY sloppy so time to fix.

Ordered some shifter bushings from CJ and watched a couple YouTube videos on how to replace.

 
Drove to the AACI (American Auto Club International) today. It was good to be amongst fellow enthusiasts. My intention was to just park up but i was directed to where others were showing their cars. So mine neded up being part of the show

 
Didn’t do squat,

But I did spy this nice Mach that had a boatload tied up into Total Control coilovers on all 4. The owner was gone at church so I didn’t get to chat. A nice mix of cars at the local car show and fantastic weather ... minus a few raindrops.



 
Did a bunch of cursing, throwing tools, busting knuckles and almost got my pitman arm off.  :atomic:

I will be getting my 3rd pitman arm puller, this one has cross bolts so the stupid thing doesn't keep slipping off. I will finish cutting into it tommorow and I'll get the new tool Saturday. This is probably the worst job I've done on this car and I've done almost everything else lol. It's seized on there so good I'm not sure there will be splines left if I ever get it off. I'm going slow with the cutting and chiseling away thin sections when I'm close to the shaft. Got one chunk out so far and it got dark and I had enough. Used a whole can of PB blaster so far too.

lnBxoKSl.jpg


 
Did a bunch of cursing, throwing tools, busting knuckles and almost got my pitman arm off.  :atomic:

I will be getting my 3rd pitman arm puller, this one has cross bolts so the stupid thing doesn't keep slipping off. I will finish cutting into it tommorow and I'll get the new tool Saturday. This is probably the worst job I've done on this car and I've done almost everything else lol. It's seized on there so good I'm not sure there will be splines left if I ever get it off. I'm going slow with the cutting and chiseling away thin sections when I'm close to the shaft. Got one chunk out so far and it got dark and I had enough. Used a whole can of PB blaster so far too.

lnBxoKSl.jpg



Get a Snap-on CJ119B and don’t look back.

 
Get a Snap-on CJ119B and don’t look back.
I just got an OTC 7311A from Amazon and it worked like a charm. Granted I already cut it up and doused it in PB but from the time the package was delivered I had it off in about 5 minutes. One good shot with my impact gun and it was off. The side to side bolts were key IMO, the cheapos from Autozone just bent apart and slipped off the pitman arm. The snap-on piece definitely looks more solid but hopefully I won't need another one. 

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Fixed my shifter, replaced the bushings. It is really amazing how solid it feels, not knowing that it was supposed to feel like this. My bushing were entirely gone, not a trace of plastic left.

Also got to use one of my tools that makes a job like this easier. I could get to 3 of the bolts that hold the shifter bucket in place with a socket, but the full length console blocked access to the 4th. The thought of taking the console out was making me shake my head.

Using an open ended wrench was going to take forever, going a degrees and then flipping the wrench to get another bit, and back and forth all day. But this wrench with the ratchet built in made it painless. Still takes some time because you still only get a couple degrees turn per ratchet click. But it I was smiling the whole time.

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Finally a hassle free drive. Tidied up the engine harness and it started right up. The car ran well, took it for a 20 minute spin in the sun.

Garage is ready and car is ready. Nice!

 
My 72 convertible is running again. What a great feeling, with all the things life throws at us, to have my pride and joy almost road worthy! It has been a very long path but right now it just feels "right". Brakes are next. Just don't feel confident rolling on 30+ year old brake parts.

Ray

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

 
Got the Cleveland running again Sunday.  Hope to have it in the car and able to fire (but not drive) in a couple weeks.

[video=youtube]

Ummmm...did you notice that your oil pressure gauge didn't move?

 
Got the Cleveland running again Sunday.  Hope to have it in the car and able to fire (but not drive) in a couple weeks.

[video=youtube]


Yep.  

The engine stand oil pressure gauge is a pain, we had a stand alone one plumbed in, it is hanging off the lower left side of the stand console out of view.  You can see it hanging out (but not the needle) 7 seconds into the video.  That is why the console oil pressure gauge stays at 0

Took a screenshot from a different video.  Loads of oil pressure!



 
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