Carl 61 Fleetwood Phyllis

[David King (kz78hy)]

I had custom dyed leather for my '55 Eldo and it took 6 hides.  With shipping and dying charges, it was just a little less than $3000.  They matched the color perfectly to the sample...twice as I ended up being one hide short and had to get it after the other 5 were shipped.

If any one would want the supplier, send me a note.

David

[Clewisiii]

I contacted SMS to ask about the rest of my order from last April.  She said it will still be a while.  I asked does that mean 6 months.  Or truly unknown.    I said I have it scheduled to check back every two months.   She said just keep checking. 

[Clewisiii]

After six years of sitting on a cart my trans is now on a stand and ready to be cleaned and really looked over.

[Clewisiii]

I opened my trans. A little dirt/sludge. But I did find one piece of metal.

Third picture down shows the metal piece pushed up the wall.

[Clewisiii]

Well maybe it is nothing. I tested that chunk with a magnet and it is not metal.  None of the fluid looked like it had shavings.

[Roger Zimmermann]

The 4th picture is showing a clean transmission. However, with the filter, there is maybe less sludge than with a screen as it was the rule till mid-1959.
If you don't know the story from your transmission, you should open it to replace the rubber seals and friction disks.
The piece of metal could be aluminum; there are several internal parts made with that metal; the cover for the front unit coupling, the accumulator, the valve body and the piston for the reverse clutch are made with aluminum. The part you found can be "nothing" but it must come from somewhere.

[Clewisiii]

Nuts and bolts.    Clean and inventory.

Going through all of my oily rusty bags of bolts as I removed them from my car.  Cleaning and bead blasting them all. 

Ok one thing I need is a foot pedal valve for by blaster.  Right now my air blasts constantly as I work around the cabinet.  That is overworking my air compressor.  I do one bag at a time to keep them separate.  I can do about six bags back to back before my compressor overheats and I have to let it cool down and hit the rest button. 

[Clewisiii]

So one thing then another. 

I got my foot pedal air valve for my blasting cabinet.  Much better.  Far easier to control and only blasting on command now. I even put on a pressure regulator for control at the cabinet.

But I was running out of blasting media so I had to drive a couple of towns over to buy a 50 pound bucket.   But in cleaning out the old material I broke the glass window on the cabinet. So now I need to go to a glass shop to get some good tempered glass cut for the blaster.  I figure I will pick up at least three to have spares. 

But for the hardware the blasting and cleaning has gone well.  This has really helped me to inventory and understand where I need to replace hardware that I lost, is to rusty, or I had to cut to remove. 

I am now into Jason Edge for about $250 in replacement bolts and hardware from his great work in having all of his collected hardware cleaned and recadmium coated.  I at least want to have all good clean stuff for the under hood visible hardware. 

[Clewisiii]

Clean up.  I got through a lot of my under hood nuts and bolts. 

I switched over to cleaning the parts inside my doors.  I started with the passenger front.   My passenger front door was the worst area on my car for rust and rot.  I replaced the door itself.  But now I am going through all of the internals. 

Most cleaned up nice. There are a lot of bolts I will need to replace. The main window motor cleaned up and is now working well.  The vent window motor is another problem.  Lots of corrosion in the motor. And I am surprised the motor torqued out do high and messed up the gear.  I will need to look into. New motor.

[Roger Zimmermann]

I believe that it was an issue at that time, the pinion was eaten easily. There were once repro in brass.

[David Greenburg]

Repro vent window gears are still available.  I replaced my fronts recently; got them from OPGI.

[Clewisiii]

It took more then half the day to bead blast this air cleaner lid. I kept having to stop to let my air compressor cool. 

While I was waiting I did some hammering on the air cleaner itself.  I had a heavy dent and kink.  Took a little while to flatter back out.  The elevated filter holder in the air cleaner made it difficult to hammer. I am going to sand the area to find the low spots to fine tune some more.

[Clewisiii]

It won't be as perfect as fresh stamped steel.  But it should be better then driver.

[Clewisiii]

This air cleaner is right on the edge of being to big for my sand blasting cabinet.  Hard to be able to move it and work around it to get all areas.   It is going to take a while until I am ready for paint on this.

[Clewisiii]

Just because pictures are fun.

[Clewisiii]

For working on my under hood part restorations piece meal I have been using rattle cans for the paint.

Most of the black parts are called "Semi Gloss".  But the sheen does not really match to what is semi gloss today. 

Thanks to Dan LaBlancs suggestion I used VHT Gloss chassis roll bar paint. 

For the actual gloss parts I have used Rust-oleum gloss engine enamel.  Or Krylon Industrial gloss. 

I say all that to say this.  The air cleaner is being painted with Rust-oleum engine gloss.  And I ran out after spraying the inside of the air cleaner.  I went to three auto parts stores today looking for more and no one had any.   So I ordered four cans from Amazon. I should be able to finish this next week.

[Clewisiii]

I think the air cleaner turned out nice.   

[rsms]

Carl, Do you know if you have the original carb on your engine?  If you do think it is and if your car is an original A/C car, do you think you could snap me a picture of your choke cover plate, possibly a close up so I can get the proper part#.  Mine car has a non-A/C choke cover and it has a crack in it.
thanks  Scott

[Clewisiii]

Rebuilt original carb with AC.  The choke plate was replaced but I have the original.  The only difference I see is the part number stamped on the new one.

[rsms]

thanks for the pictures, I should have thought to ask if you had a Carter AFB or a Rochester.  Unfortunately I have the Carter AFB.  Looks like they did a nice job on the plating.  Thanks for the quick response