More progress a day later. I bought two gallons of evaporust today at the local advance auto. And lo and behold one of them was filled with water. So I am returning that one tomorrow. Nice!

So I dumped out the old used up evaporust and scrubbed the driveshaft again and replaced it back in the tube with the one real gallon I bought.

Here's how they looked today:

And day 3 after an overnight with a fresh gallon. Now that's some progress as compared to the old stuff.

Looks great. Amazing stuff.

The question is what do you do with the nasty liquid with the junk in it when you're done?

The liquid itself is harmless and biodegradable and can legally be dumped down a drain. However, the solids in the waste will dictate disposal. I seperate the solids from the liquid before I dump it.

Good to know. Thanks, Rick.

You can extend the life of the liquid by straining it through a cloth with a magnet in it. It pulls away some of the iron and gives a longer life to the liquid because the liquid will continue to work on any remaining iron residue, 24/7.

Working on the old gal this weekend. I was going to put in the headliner today but it turns out I am missing a single headliner bow clip. UGH! This is the little doo-hickies that the end of the headliner bow sits in. Forensic analysis indicates that this one has been missing since before paint because the primer is covering its mounting location. Anyone got a random one in their tool box? They make them new but I don't need a set of 10 for $25.

I got the headliner padding/insulation glued in though, so that's done.

here's that clip I need.

The saddest photo in the universe. If only I had a time machine to go back and find the broadcast sheet that was taped to this exact spot while it was rolling down the assembly line. You can see the tape and sheet fragments where it was stuck on there back in 1970.

Gradually hooking things up under the hood. Installed a new set of Autolite 65 spark plugs. I like Autolites and the 65 is actually the same application they used in the 426 hemi - I thought they looked familiar. I installed the restored wiper motor, too. I pulled the thermostat out to see what it was and it turned out to be the original Chrysler 2943209 190 degree unit. I am replacing it with a 160 degree thermostat as I like to run my Mopars on the cool side.

How is running a 160* vs. the 190* stat going to make it make it run cooler ? Just curious. Car looks great by the way.


Thanks Mike

From experience, Mopars seem to like cooler thermostats. Pontiacs not so much - you could put a 160 in a 455 and it still runs whatever temperature it wants to.

Got the horns all fixed and painted. Dave had mentioned that they were the original date coded set but non-functional. HA!

The key to fixing non-working horns is to get Jersey Mad at them. First remove the tiny adjuster screw on the side...and not lose it...then spray PB-Blaster or WD-40 inside the tiny hole. Let it soak for a few minutes and reinstall the tiny screw. Then apply positive 12 volts to the horn terminal and negative to the ground bracket and "carefully" whap the heck out of them a couple times against a block of wood on the floor. It will make some weird, dog howl-inducing noises and then you will hear that they are working again fully. It's kind of like jumpstarting Frankenstein's monster. Start with 2 amps, then go to 10 and then higher if your charger has the setting. It's always worked for me in the past and worked on this set as well.

Here's the set all painted up. You can see the date codes on the outer lip One was "37 9" and the other was "39 9". You can also see the "HI" and "LO" indicated on the outer edge area.

Steve, when are you going to write a book/website documenting all of these home restoration "hacks" you've developed or adopted? You are super generous documenting in these threads, but selfishly I'd like them all in a centralized collection:) Thanks to you and Dave for sharing this journey.

Wow, that is going to be so sweet when it's all done, whew.

Looking fabulous! Good Tag Team Duo!
Steve - What markings are on the carb bolts?

They are just regular, modern bolts from what I can tell - not original ones. Got a photo of what the markings should be? I can start digging through my bucket of bolts for similar ones.

More random parts getting refurbished. The ash tray insert for the E-bodies is nicely reproduced and it comes with the three tiny rivets that need to be drilled out and then hammered back into place once you repaint the ash tray door. The ash tray door, upper housing, glove box door and hinge, all get painted in a special suede black paint ($25 a can). Once I get the dash frame out that will be painted in the same paint as will the steering column parts, too. But that's for another episode. I am still waiting on the dash pad to be available again. They are currently on backorder.

I've been working on the headliner this weekend. Slowly making progress and getting the wrinkles out...I've also been painting all the headliner and interior window trim, white.

I found another NOS piece in my closet - an original "SHAKER" decal. Date May 1969. Remarkably, it stuck on there just fine with its half century old adhesive.

Also also found another original, yellow, antifreeze decal that I had signed by Larry Ehnat, the Suburban Dodge mechanic who originally dealer-prepped my old 1970 Hemi Charger R/T-SE in 1970. I had him do two of them around 17 years ago, just in case I needed another. The first one went on the Charger and I held on to the second one til today. I installed that one on the purple car's radiator support this morning. Can't get any more vintage than that!

The wiper transmission bushings finally showed up from the Great White North. There's a guy up in Canada (Silvain Mopar) who makes the brass bushings for the early Mopar wiper levers. They are expensive ($60) for the four bushings and the two steel tools you need to expand and crimp them into place, but he is the only game in town, and they are perfect replacements. https://www.ebay.com/itm/203005565534

You have to grind out the edge of the existing bushing (after marking which way it goes in, so you can match it properly for the install position) and then you place the new bushing in the hole and either use a hammer on the crimping stamps or the press. You press with the #1 tool first and the follow it up with the #2 tool which properly expands and the crimps over the edge to retain it in place.

You can see how worn out the brass bushings were in the first photo. The bushing was completely ovaled out.

The new bushings worked great although it took a few tries to get the arms in the right order once I took it all apart to get the hubs bolted in to place under the cowl. (Ignore the lower bar position in the last photo - it's installed backwards in this photo. The square end should be connected to the pivot, not the round end).

I'll look for a picture - but they are "Highland" bolts with an H on the head.
Zinc phosphate, no washers.

thanks. I'll start looking in the bucket of bolts.

Working towards finishing the week-long headliner project, today but ran in to problems with the crappy reproduction sail panels. The original pressboard sail panels have several compound curves to go around the interior of the C pillar. And it has a bracket for a door panel style clip in the center to hold it against the interior C pillar frame. Of course the repro panels are a flat piece of cardboard with a two-sided taped square to hold the door panel clip in. The fabric is glued onto the cardboard. And as expected, about two seconds after you engage the clip into the C pillar frame, it rips right out of the cardboard, which does not conform to the contours of the C pillar area.

So that was $60 down the drain. I tried peeling off the fabric from the repro panels and then gluing it onto the original pressboard sail panels after removing the original black fabric. But the cardboard delaminated and half of it separated with the fabric and wouldn't peel away cleanly. I tried anyway. No luck - it was a wrinkle-fest and even with steam and an iron I could not get the twists and wrinkles out.

So I contacted the manufacturer of the sail panels and bought two yards of the white headliner material to attempt to recover the original panels myself.

So here is the progress and the current semi-finished result.

Lucky I had the Lincoln's hood to spread the headliner out on. Whole lotta wrinkles in that folded up fabric.

Looks great! That was probably one of the most frustrating part of my resto, was doing the headliner and sail panels on my 69 camaro. Pulling and clamping to get the wrinkles out.

That's why I took my time. And with white fabric I had to make sure the headliner work was the first thing I did each day with surgeon-clean hands. If my hands were dirty from something, I postponed the headliner for the next day. I did the front area one day, the back the next, then one side one day and the other side the next. This one was actually easier than the headliner I did in my 72 black Formula Firebird. That was much harder since the fabric went down the C pillar and caused all sorts of wrinkling problems.

Yowzaa Steve! Looks smashing!!!:worship:

Nice work. Not an easy job!

Thanks! This was by far the hardest part so far. Well, until the seat cover set arrives.

I also have to repaint all the interior moldings. The SEM White is too bright. I have some of "Herbs Parts" Mopar interior paint coming that is the correct off-white, color code for the early 1970's white trim pieces. At least I have a white base coat now...

I had a productive weekend. Spent yesterday razor blading all the old sealant off the back window. I ordered two rolls of 5/16 butyl tape and butyl primer so I can install the back window once I get the headliner all done. After scraping with a dozen razor blades there was still some residue under the areas that the stainless trim covered. So I used a wet Mr. Clean magic eraser and some powdered water spot remover and that got rid of most of the scaly residue.

Here's the back window after cleaning. I also got a good photo of the date code.

And yes, Grampa's Lincoln sure comes in handy...along with my daughter's papasan chair cushion

I also decided to give another try at getting that repro sail panel material onto the original fiber-board molded sail panels. The key was borrowing one of my coworkers portable steamers (for getting wrinkles out of clothing). It worked great! It is designed to be used while it is pointed downwards, so it was a bit hard to use on the actual headliner to get rid of the folding indents that wouldn't initially "pull out". So a lot of flipping and tilting got those pesky last creases out of the actual headliner.

As for the sail panels, I ended up steaming the heck out of the material and then using a lot of the heavy duty clips to temporarily hold the two opposing sides (top and bottom) that are actually glued to the board. After clamping them, I carefully removed each clamp one at a time and applied some adhesive to the board and the overlapping edge and stuck them together and reclamped them. The front edge glues onto the quarter window frame while the back edge tacks onto the spikes around the back window frame. After several hours of massaging the sail panels while watching the Goodwood Festival on TV, I had the sail panels ready for installation.

I test fitted the rear side panels which also served to position the lower edge of the sail panels as well.

It came out pretty well. Now hopefully I can cancel the order for that extra material that they haven't shipped yet.

And while I was at it, I installed the 6x9 Kraco speakers. I tested them beforehand by hooking them to the Gramma's car rear speaker with a couple jumper wires. They worked fine!

And the magic steamer that I borrowed from a friend. I think I owe her a beer (or two) now. Actually, she already drafted the wife and I, along with the car trailer, to help her move in a couple weeks, so I think she's being nice to me in advance.

And I installed the package tray and the rear bulkhead insulation panel. (After removing the interior panels for the third time, because they both go underneath the panels).

BTW, does the black cardboard or the jute insulation side face the interior or the trunk?

I got an answer from the E-bodies.org site: E bodies didn't have jute backing on the cardboard bulkhead panel. So I'll just flip the panel so the black side is visible in the trunk.

Look what arrived today! I found a machinist out in Wisconsin who reproduced the metal Motor Wheel Spyder centercaps several years and has only a few left. He also reproduced the original pointed lug nuts in left and right thread for Mopars.

An NOS set of center caps will run you over a grand. This was about 2/3 that price and better quality than 50 year-old NOS chromed potmetal originals. These are made out of thick brass and chrome plated. They are heavy! Like the weight of a metal coffee cup.

The main problem with the Spyder caps is that they stick out farther than the edge of the rims. So if you accidentally placed the rim face down on the ground once, you crushed the ends of the caps and ruined the cap's point. The other problem is that they were made of cheap pot metal and corroded after a few years.

So now I am 2/3 of the way to a set of 14" Motor Wheel Spyders for the car. Time will tell...

----Love motor Wheels especially Fly's!.....Bill S

Can't find a photo of a Cuda with them so this will have to do:

https://i.postimg.cc/vHMDXYfD/76.jpg

The Spyder was only manufactured between 1968 to 1973 so it is the perfect Day 2 mag for the car. A high school buddy of mine had a set (with no center caps, of course) on his Mustang in the late 70's and they looked so cool.