That is a lot of sludge, I'm glad you cleaned it out!

 

Nice work on the tank. That housing was nasty, sure looks better on the gears after the cleaning.

 

do you do anything to the welds inside the tank to keep them from rusting?

 

I haven't yet, but I had thought about getting a small can of POR15 gas tank sealer and just doing the part I welded in. But I've heard both good and bad things about gas tank coatings, and am not sure just keeping the tank full when storing it wouldn't be the best option.

 

Yeah, I've always worried about how well they adhere...seems like potential to ruin a fuel system but I haven't heard many with first hand experience with it...but now that i think about it, iirc kwizz used something similar on a few of his builds without any problems.

 

Everyone can learn from Eric's projects.......

 

Not much to update lately. I caught a cold and didn't feel like working in the cold garage for the last several days..... But before that, I did manage to get the cross sill under the floor, that was in the way of the fuel line routing, notched out so I have good clearance for the fuel lines.



Apparently my "welding upsidedown in confined spaces" skills need a little honing.....



But I did manage to get it all welded up and ground down. A lot of work that no one will ever see, but I would know it if I just cut it out and left it, and that would bother me.



With the tank back in you can see how the lines will come out. I'll be using nylon lines from the sender to the Corvette filter and back, then hardlining it from the filter up to the engine bay.

 

Did a little more disassembly, and lucky me, I found another mouse nest.....



....and a lot of dirt in the quarter panels. It's no wonder these cars rusted out as bad as they did. If this had been allowed to get wet very often, I'm sure the quarters would have started to rust out. Its a little hard to tell in the pic, but the dirt is about 4 or 5 inches deep.



This is the inner part of the quarter panel just after the right rear tire. I removed the factory installed body plug to find a wall of dirt. I cleaned the quarters out, and don't think I'm going to put the plugs back in, they seem like they just trap dirt and water.



Then they said it was going to get really cold, so I decided I should do something I said I was going to do since I sheetrocked the garage about 12 years ago, insulate the ceiling! I had meant to do it, but just never did. Better late than never I guess.



Also when I re-did the walls in the garage, I had run a dedicated line for an electric heater, and yet again, just never got around to putting one in. Finally got one, but of course the 30 amp breaker and 10-2 wire wasn't big enough, so had to rewire it with 8-2 and put in a 40 amp breaker. The heater looks small, but works surprisingly well, and I apparently couldn't have gone any bigger since when I had it cranked all the way up and the compressor came on it tripped the breaker in the house. I just turned it down a bit and hasn't done it since.



Once it was comfortable in the garage again, I started back on the car. Time to replace all the 57 year old rubber control arm bushings. Some of them looked good, but I wasn't sure what they would look like after a thousand miles or so because of they're age, so just going to put in new and not have to worry about it. I pressed them out with a ball joint press and a home made piece to go in the middle to keep from collapsing the arm.



Got one done....



All pressed out and cleaned up, ready to press the new bushings in.



Got the new bushings pressed in and put some POR15 on them. Not going to win any shows, but better than leaving them all rusty and dirty looking. I just keep reminding myself that this is just a driver....



I hit the rear axle with the wire wheel on an angle grinder to clean it up and put some POR15 on it too. Looking a lot better than it did I think.

 

With the rear arms done, I started on the front. Got one control arm off.



This bushing was starting to go...



Got one side apart.



I got the right lower mostly back together but decided that it was such a pain, I will be taking the other three somewhere to someone with the correct tools to have them done. You have to pick your battles, and this was one I wasn't going to easily win...

 

Insulation and heat will make the long winter days a little more bareable, more progress!

 

Nice progress, and you will enjoy that warm garage

 

Take a torch and set the old rubber bushings on fire. They will smolder like crazy, but will come apart super easily.

Andrew

 

^ thats the way.

just think of it as a Mogadishu-scented candle

 

Once you burn the rubber out you're still left with getting the outer metal sleeve out, which if there wasnt a cross shaft in the way wouldn't be a problem. I actually got them to come out pretty easily, and got the first one back in with the ball joint press. The hard part was the second one with the cross shaft in the way you cant use the ball joint press. I've done this a couple times on my Nova and other cars usually without much trouble, but maybe I'm getting old and tired of messing with some things! So I took the other three to a guy down the street who has every imaginable tool known to man and he did them in 45 minutes, best $50 I could have spent just to not have to mess with them any more!

 

Fifty bucks sounds like money well spent!

Andrew

 

I've got the front of the car about as torn down as you can get now, just the bare frame rails and crossmember. I'm waiting on a front sway bar before I can paint the lower control arms since I will have to weld brackets on them to mount it. Apparently if your car didn't come from the factory with a sway bar you didn't get the provisions for mounting one on the control arms.





Figured out where I am going to mount the PCM. Behind the drivers side fender looks like a decent spot. I wanted to mount it under the dash, but there's just no room under there with the A/C and everything else.....



The down side to this location is you would have to remove the hood hinge to get it out, but how often do you really need to do that any way? I'll just have to deal with that hassle if need be.



Then I had to figure out a way to bolt it in that didn't require removing the fender or inner fender. What I came up with was some brackets to slide the PCM bracket into, then it secures at the top with one nut.



This is the PCM bracket I made, and this shows how it fits the brackets on the firewall.



And with the PCM attached. Works out pretty good, its real solidly mounted and easy to get in and out, well, minus the hood hinge......

 

Nice job. I did a similar mount location on the orange 1963 wagon I did last year.

 

You know there is a S10 ECU mount that is simple and cheap...


https://www.summitracing.com/parts/nal-15995679

Andrew

 

Eric, been a while since I last saw one of your builds - what ever happened to the green wagon truckster? classic and complete with Dinky's leash! I loved it!

 

Damn,
LOL. I never realized Christie Brinklie had such small *****.