The Dark Wob

Great and steady progress as always Phil

You seem to have more mojo with the big Pontiac than with the Renault

I get it though Ive had projects where my heart wasnt fully in it yet others where i put both my heart and soul in and burn myself out on (insert shite black merican pony car here )

Keep it up and keep the updates coming

This car is from a different era. It reminds me more of the cars we had when I was growing up- 40's and 50's designs dragged on through to the 70's.
For the most part, this car is designed so the parts that wear can be refurbished with regular tools, no particular machinery in a lot of cases because post-war not a lot of mechanic shops had big fancy equipment, just a lot of hand tools.
The Renault is designed that the wear items can be replaced but it's much more modular- replace with Renault item 2345238723987 which is a very specific part and was obsolete when the car was being built. The Pontiac is all 40's to 50's GM A-body stuff, quite a lot of which persisted through to later years. Being GM there's a lot of parts-sharing going on also.
Finally what helps is these were, and are popular cars! The Renault was in a way (It was cheap), which means there's a lot less support for it. Plus, I fixed it and drove maybe 50 miles and something else critical to driving the thing would break, or break again. Demoralizing.

So yeah, I have newfound enthusiasm for this car, mostly because it's built in a way that I find more sane.

--Phil

I believed that the epitome were those late 50s - early 60s yanks way too long.
The more I look at that late 40s - early 50s stuff, the more I realise how well they were made.

Well, don't forget 49-55 were real boom years in the USA and manufacturers were still in the "making machinery good for the military effort" mindset.

'56 on began to see a downturn in the economy, as that rather artificial boom began to collapse.

57-59 saw the real exciting designs occur because there had to be a damn good reason to get people to go out and buy a car. Stoic, reliable, boring were out of favor. Flashy, handsome and fast were beginning to gain traction.

Phil

Using a large Persuader, I removed the brake pedal.
Someone had failed at the lubrication schedule.
Cleaned up the clevis pin, cleared the grease nipple.
Cleaned down and painted the brake pedal, rod arm and spring.

I'll clean up the chassis, apply rust converter and paint another evening.

Phil

Hair pins!
There is one in there that fits the brake clevis. Win.

I think tonight will be a bit of cleaning and some rust treatment.

Phil

Slowly going the correct color.


Phil

I need to go to the hardware store and see if there's anything I can find to repurpose as a dual pipe clamp. When taking the lower heater pipe out I saw that there's a screw hole in the frame where the pipes pass through, to stop them chattering.

Also to note, both heater matrices were disconnected when I got the car, with the heater circuit bypassed. Upon removing the rubber hose, I was presented with clean yellow coolant. This is a good thing; means at least the lower matrix has had anti corrosive mixture in and by the looks of it has no major leaks.

The heater valve is all covered in staining, so I'm guessing either the valve or the matrix (or both) are toast.

I am going to remove the defroster heater box, partly because I want to paint around and behind it, partly to replace the seal that's turned to so much tar and the rest to check the matrix, flush it and see if the valve is any more good.

Phil

Heater time! My car was well ahead of it's time- despite the upper heater matrix being on the engine side of the firewall, almost the entire dash had to come out before it can be removed.
Much swearing later (of course the damn vent location nonsense goes THROUGH the heater box) and it's out.
It leaves behind quite an empty space. I'm still trying to figure how to get the heater fan out- that needs to come out so I can replace the motor for a 12V one. It lives behind the wheel well.
I think the heater valve had been leaking for a while.
Took it all to bits.
Flushed the matrix through. It was surprisingly clean. Put my thumb over the end and added a little pressure. No leaks.

I'm going to go look in the catalog for another heater valve. If it's ludicrously expensive I may try repair this one.

Phil

Heater valves are ludicrously expensive.

I may do a core return, about $120 for a rebuilt one. Ugh.

Phil