Old car fun: More progress

     Progress isn't always a highly visible thing. And, when you have parts spread all over the garage, sometimes sub assembly work needs to be done to reduce the clutter. It's been quite cold for the past week or so and I've opted to forgo the car work in order to get taxes done for my family members as well as keep up with my computer repair business. Yesterday, the temps climbed into the low 40's and the garage heater made things a comfy 62° in the garage.
     I had primered the shims I had fabricated for mounting under the master cylinder adapter on Tues and figured I could paint the visible parts once they were installed. The master cylinder is now mounted to the adapter along with the brake pedal and arm as well as the return spring. The transmission cross member is still a bit tight under the master cylinder and I may dimple the interference point on the cross member before final installation. The fuel filter/shut off device that mounts directly to the gas tank had been disassembled on the bench. The glass bowl looked like something that could easily drop and break so those pieces were cleaned and reassembled before an accident could happen. The passenger side exhaust pipe is going to need reworking so I cut off the tail pipe a foot behind the muffler and removed the stub piece of pipe from the muffler. I can run the 41 to the muffler shop with one full pipe and the short one for the passenger side. Last week, I made a couple of brackets for the brake system. One will mount the proportioning valve for the rear and the other will relocate the flexible line running from the rear end to the frame. Moving the brake lines from the passenger side of the car to the driver's side and adding all the various hardware is taking some time to calculate. I realized a couple days ago that the master cylinder has to be plumbed in reverse. By that I mean that the reservoir pointing to the rear of the car is actually for the front brakes and the front reservoir is for the rear. This master cylinder was originally designed to mount to the firewall and face forward. Turned it around and mounting under the floor reverses the reservoirs.
     The Lecarra steering wheel is still on back order from Summit Racing and scheduled now for the 23rd. I called Lecarra on the 3rd and they confirmed they had previously had issues with these wheels cracking and the process was being changed to prevent that from happening. With that in mind, I decided to go ahead and paint the rest of the steering column and mounting hardware. Painting the firewall with a spray gun had proved to be a messy job so last week I took the remainder of the black paint and the special beige paint NAPA had mixed for me and took them back to the store. The NAPA paint store offers a service to put paint in spray cans and that's what I had done. I had masked and primered the steering column last week. Yesterday those parts got 3 nice coats of the beige paint that was specially mixed to match the stock column and wheel.

I had been wondering how the seats would be removed from the car and didn't fully understand the brief description in the service manual. However, yesterday the method of removal became quite obvious. The front seat bottom lifts out of the frame like a couch cushion and the seat backs are held in with a couple cotter keys and a center bolt. Then the frame and adjuster are unbolted from the floor. The rear seat bottom is similarly held in by the frame work and simply lifts out. Then the seat back is pulled out from the bottom until a couple of retaining brackets at the top slide down and allow the entire seat back to be moved forward and out the door. The rear frame is then unscrewed from the raised area in the rear. Once I had the seats out, the stock rear carpet and floor padding was removed. Next was vacuuming out all the loose debris. I found some evidence of mice habitation long ago under the rear seat but the rest of the under seat area was fairly tidy. The stock floor padding will be replaced with a more modern form of adhesive backed, foil faced insulation designed for the heating and cooling industry. The padding will be applied over a fresh coat of POR-15 (Paint Over Rust) that will cover the entire interior floor and trunk area. I had previously been amazed at the condition of the floor as viewed from under the car. Now that the interior is exposed, I'm equally amazed at how solid this car is after being around for over 70 years!

Front seat removed.