Tubing troubles

Since I decided  to put a Turbo 350 transmission in place of the original powerglide, the cooling lines to the radiator don't match up. I probably could've purchased some prefab lines, but I've had good luck bending my brake lines so I decided to make my own transmission cooling lines. Keeping in line with the whole do -it-yourself theme. What could go wrong?
Plenty!

Radiator mounted, but no fan blade

My lovely wife is out of town this week, so I have the evenings all to myself. With the God-awful temperatures we've been having, I can't do anything in the afternoons anyway, so I thought it would be nice to spend the evenings in the shop happily making my cooling lines, listening to the radio and quaffing a beer or two.
First, I had to purchase my parts. I stopped in at my local NAPA store and ordered a 25' roll of 5/16" tubing and associated fittings. It was going to take a couple of days for the parts to come in, so in the meantime I busied myself with getting the radiator support and radiator mounted. For some reason, I couldn't slide the radiator down between the support and the fan blade. I thought I might have it in backwards, but no, that wasn't possible. I knew the radiator had come out of the car decades ago, so why wouldn't it go back in?
I took the support off and laid it on the floor, thinking I could put the whole thing together and mount it in place. To my surprise, when I set the assembly up on the frame, the fan blade prevented the support from aligning with the mounting holes. Finally, a light bulb went off and I realized that the fan spacer on the water pump was too long. This is not the original engine! I took the fan blade off and victory! Now I have to find a shorter fan spacer.

The correct tubing, finally!

Feeling rejuvenated, I picked up my tubing Thursday afternoon, bought a pizza, and headed for the shop. It didn't take long to realize that the tubing, which was nicely packaged in a wrapper with the 5/16" measurement printed on it, was in fact 3/8" tubing. Another roadblock!
So, Friday morning I went back to NAPA and swapped the tubing out for the correct size. Flush with more confidence, I returned to the scene of the crime Friday night to get the job done! The new tubing was clamped into the flaring block for the first fitting. All good. I took my handy little el cheapo tubing bender, made more for 3/16" brake lines than this bigger stuff, and made my first bend. Snap! The bender broke! Shot down again!
I went home and did some reading on what other benders were available out there. It seems that the most popular is one that requires two hands to operate, with one half of the tool wrapping the tubing around the bending block. The other option was a pliers-type which got some positive comments, and looked more manageable, especially with one hand. O'Reilly had one on their shelf, so I committed to picking it up Saturday afternoon.

Bender one--broken

Picked up the new tool this afternoon and headed back to the shop. My confidence was beginning to wane, but hope springs eternal. I unwrapped the pliers and, wisely tried them out on the other end of the roll. These pliers have a roller that supposedly works for either 5/16" or 3/8" tubing. It does not! 
Maybe I was using it wrong, but the wider groove allows the narrower tubing to kink, and the outer rollers of the tool actually dented the outer side of the tubing. A total bomb!
Back to the store, this time Autozone. They had only one tool on their rack. The unwieldy two-handed tool. It was actually cheaper than the pliers, as well as being my last option.
I returned to the shop felling really deflated. It didn't help that it was still 95 degrees outside and the 6PM sun was blazing in the shop. Undaunted, and determined to get this project at least started, I made my first bend. The tool was a little difficult to manage, by made beautiful bends.
Totally focused now, I bent and fitted, fitted and bent, until I had a reasonably nice line from one fitting on the radiator, to one fitting on the tranny. It took about an hour.

Bender two--total junk!

I thought it would work best to pull it out and use it as a template for the other line, which runs the
same route for 80% of the way. Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as I hoped, but still, after another hour, I had a somewhat decent second line. On the home stretch!
With the second line in place, all I had left to do was put one final bend at the end where it meets the transmission. It worked well bending in in place on the first line, so I went at it again. One more snafu!
I wasn't paying attention, and laid the tubing in the 3/8" groove instead of the 5/16" groove. I
 realized it a second too late, which means I put a kink in the line. It's a small kink, and no one but me will ever know, so I left it. Odyssey over!

Bender three--finally, one that works!

New lines connected up

Not too bad for a rookie

Kink? What kink?

Bits and pieces

One of the many joys I derive from working on this old car is taking old rusty, bent or broken parts and rehabilitating them, making them look and function like new again.
I've been working this week on mounting the radiator frame and radiator, to allow completion of the transmission cooling lines, water hoses and basically tightening up all of the loose ends in the engine area before I cover it up for a while, to turn my attention to the body.
In the meantime, here's a few pics of some of the little parts and pieces that have enjoyed a second lease on life. Looking at completed things like these are what inspire me to keep going in the dregs of summer heat.

Oh my, it's hot!

The heat has beaten me down.
I got a flurry of work done before I left on vacation on June 22. Namely, got the underside of the trunk lid sandblasted and primed, knowing that it might sit for a few weeks before I could get back on it. I was right.
Since I've returned, we've had an unbearable heat wave here in central Florida. By the time I get some free time every day, the sun has come across and is blasting right into my shop, making it like a furnace. It's pretty much impossible to do any metal work or painting when one is dripping sweat everywhere.
In the meantime, I've continued to search for a decent turbo 350 transmission for the car. They seem to pop up in batches on Craigslist, but for the last couple of months there have been no good selections.

All clean and ready to install

Two weekends ago, I went to look at one about 40 miles from my house. A bit of a drive, but worth it if it was a good find. It turned out that the seller even had paperwork showing that it had been rebuilt, but it had also been siting in his garage for many, many years, so I was leery of it. It was also missing some external components. I made him an offer that I felt was within my risk tolerance, which he declined.

Adapter mounts from Danchuk

The same weekend, another tranny popped up in the same town, so three days later I drove back to almost the same neighborhood to look at it. It turned out that the guy had pulled it from an Impala, fairly recently, but didn't know anything about the history. An outer inspection showed that the vacuum modulator was fairly new, the seals looked like replacements, and the torque converter was also newer. The pump also looked like it had been replaced. I can't say for sure why, but I felt better about taking a gamble on this one, so a deal was made for $250 and I brought it home.
I spent last weekend washing it off, replacing the front and rear seals, filter and pan gasket. The fluid in the pan looked really good, and there was a minimal amount of gunk in the bottom of the pan. I'm a gambling man by heart, so I'm gonna hook it up and hope for the best. Unfortunately, I won't know what I really have until that day in the future when I finally pull the shifter into drive.

Bolted in and ready for the future

Praying for cooler weather!

Fender resto part 2

Driver's side done, time for the other side

Although work has slowed down due to business and family obligations, not to mention the Florida summer finally rearing it's steamy head, I've still been chipping away.
Lately, I've turned my attention to the passenger fender. Overall, the fender is in better shape than the driver's side. The headlight brow was gone, of course. There's less heavy pitting, which was a pain to resolve on the other fender. The lower quarter, however, was a little worse, requiring some fabrication to create a new edge.
When I cut the lower quarter rust away, I found the inner brace pretty pitted, but it seemed pretty sturdy so I decided to clean it up and work with it. The back edge of the fender was gone as well, but the inner brace made a good template to cut a new piece of sheet metal for the edge.

Rust cut out. Inner brace looks worse than it is.

I don't have a brake, or any way to bend a good edge on metal, so I ended up lightly tapping the edge with a body hammer until I created something of a rolled edge. I then welded my little strip of edge metal to the inner brace, and then welded the lower patch panel to the rolled edge. Once I ground my welds down, it looked pretty much like one piece of sheet metal.
The headlight brow was a piece of cake after that. I also had to replace the inner headlight brow sheet metal, but since I'd done this on the first side, it went quick and smoothly.

New edge and patch panel

I've laid down a layer of all metal bondo and begun the first stage of sanding. I hope by next weekend the fender will be prepped for paint with a smooth top coat of filler primer. I probably won't paint it yellow until I get the hood and trunk ready, to avoid wasting paint.

And the finished product

Now to focus on the headlight brow

More cutting...

More welding....

And more grinding. Ready for primer

Postus Interruptus

Had lots of family commitments over the past couple of weeks that have slowed the work progress down. I've stil been making headway and hope to post a new entry in the next couple of days.

And now for this short break...

Going out of the country for eight days. This will be the longest stretch of time that I've not worked on Ol' Yeller since January.
In the meantime, here's a couple of before and afters of the drivers fender vs. the passenger side.

 

A little color...

Rims ready for color

I've been working towards getting the chassis in rolling shape so I can put it away and start on the body. To that end, I needed to repaint the wheels--I had painted two of them back in '99, and blasted the other two a couple of months ago. Since I had to mix up some paint, it made sense to mix enough to paint a few body parts, so that's why I've been working on some of the sheet metal.

Paint day has arrived!

I posted some photos of my fender repairs a while back. Whenever I needed a break from the motor, or I was waiting on this or that part, I would give some attention to the fender and front splash pans. All of the sheet metal on the car is badly pitted, so my work consisted of laying down multiple layers of filler primer and guide coats, until I got to a point where I was ready to top coat.
This past Sunday, I pulled out my VERY expensive gallon of Harvest Gold and mixed up a batch. It was a cool dry day here in Florida, so I took the chance and sprayed with the door open. As expected, I picked up a few specks, mostly
on the fender, but nothing that I can't buff out.

One hour later...

After setting up for two days, I took the rims and my new Coker wide whitewalls to the tire shop this morning. The guys at the shop know what I'm working on, so they're very respectful of my parts and carried each rim like a newborn baby. A couple of hours later and I was back in my own shop mounting them up. It was a little bright this afternoon, so my photo is a bit washed out, but I think it looks damned good!

...and things look a little brighter

My plan for the fender is to reassemble it using the passenger fender as a guide for correct bolts and screws. Once that is done, I can disassemble that one and begin welding again.
My wife doesn't know it, but the upstairs guest bedroom is becoming the safe storage area for finished pieces!

Ready for rubber

Baby's got new shoes!