John S's Journal

Got the engine and gearbox back in a couple of weeks ago. New slave cylinder mounted and bled. Tried to bleed it the conventional way but couldn’t get all of the air out. Purchased a couple of 60 ml syringes at the local hardware store and reverse bled them. Bingo! Got the brakes bled with the help of my wife. New positive battery cable made up at Interstate battery and installed. Moved the battery from the driver's side over to the passenger side and installed a battery disconnect on the parcel shelf. Drained about 3 gallons of old gas from the tank and inspected the tank with a boroscope. Looked pretty clean so the plan is to give it a go and order new if I start having problems with contaminants. Everything underneath the car all buttoned up so i moved on to the engine bay. All electrics hooked up, cleaned up carbs installed, radiator suport installed, oil cooler lines run through new grommets, new radiator, hoses and clamps installed and water added to check for leaks. New bottom hose was leaking and had to double clamp to get it to stop. Added a couple gallons of fresh gas, new plugs,
oil and filter. With the car still up on jacks it was time to see if the car was going to run. The engine ran when I had it towed home almost 3 years ago so with the distributor unchanged and the engine wasn't touched, in theory it should fire. And it did but carburettors need some fine tuning.Time to check the clutch work that I did which was how I purchased the car. The owner needed his garage space and the clutch was gone so with the engine running I was able to run it through a couple of gears while it was still up in the air. All good so one step closer.
Last week it was time to put together some headlight and horns relays since the grill and bumper are still off. I had some aluminum c-channel laying around that was a perfect fit over the radiator support on the passenger side. Gathered up some correct color wire from an old harness, bought some cube relays and worked my way through the process of checking all lights with the help of a battery charger and some jumpers. Got all of them working except the high beams and flash to pass. One horn was dead. Opened up the column to get at the switches and discovered a mess. Wiper switch is beyond saving and the directional switch was better but couldn't get the high beams and the horn push was non-existent so it might be from the wrong model year. New switches ordered. High tone horn dissected and after much cleaning and a new gasket made, reassembled and got it working. Painted and installed.
This weekend it was time to check the valves and the timing. Adjusted the valves and timing and tweaked the HS4's a little and smoothed out the idle quite a bit. Still not great but good enough to take it for my first ever drive in this car. Off the stands, aired up the tires and cautiously checked the brakes and first and reverse gear. Decided to get it out in the sun and since we have a steep driveway, positioned it so that I could drive it forwards down the driveway. Quiet streets because of the shelter at home order so without a hood, expired plates and no turn signal switches it was time to see how it would do. Finally! I have a running, driving and stopping car. But it's not done. Stay tuned.