All wrapped up

After testing the starter a few different ways i decided to leave it as it was and get the headers all wrapped up. After much swearing and twisting of parts they eventually came out and once they did i noticed a burnt wire going to the starter. i would never have seen it with the headers in because it looks like it may well have touched the pipes and melted, i'll change the wire and see if that makes it work, i hope so.

anyway i ordered some new gaskets to put the headers back on and got a pair of rocker cover gaskets too because the old ones were leaking, i thought they had but in removing the plugs and old header gasket i could see for sure that it was. rocker cover gaskets were nice and easy to install only problem was the old ones were put in with some kind of silicone and i had to get it all off, took me ages.

a couple of nights and the headers were wrapped. lots of fibers off that stuff and as i was doing it in a small room i ended up wearing old aprons, gloves and face mask. i tell you what a little water makes the whole process much easier. a few clips and a little clever wraps and it was all done, heres a pic of the stuff i used

and before and after ones of the headers

All goes well, then....

ordered my heat wrap for my headers and a shield for the starter and that all arrived fine. So i thought to my self before i go about pulling the headers of may as well do an oil change and put them spark plugs in that i got about 2 months ago.

The oil change all went well changed the filter and plugged an oil leak that was there when i got the car. started it up and left it running for 10 mins or so see if anything come out and nothing did so WOOT! i ran out of time that day so i left the plugs for the next day.

7 plugs came out and went in all hunky dory but there's always one that's a pain. i so need to remove whats left of the old air con unit it's just in the way. 15 mins and about 6 cuts to my hands later it was done all ready for the start up. in goes the key, turn and 'click' nothing. i don't drive the car atm got the brakes to finish so the battery is dead again i thought. whipped out the battery and on charge over night.

the next day i put the battery in and try to start it up once again 'click' nothing, again. after a bit of messing around and frantic forum posts i tried to sort out the earths see if that works, well long story short it didn't, i only did the kill switch one but i'll try to find the others. it seems it's probably a bad connection somewhere, either that or the starter is broken. tomorrow i'll see if i can just get the starter to turn but putting an earth to the case, if it spins i'll know it's a bad conection, if not it's another starter.

oh well it's keeping me busy which was the point.

The Beast rides again, sort of.....

after some quick body work patching and light bulbs changing the car finally went in for an MOT. and *drum roll* it passed, awesome *much rejoicing* there was however a couple of problems after getting back. while at the mot station it sounded like the starter was slipping, nice loud crunchy sound* once i got back home i thought i might try to start it again and see if it still made the noise. It was worse in fact it didn't turn over at all.

Hoping it was something simple i left it for a few hours to cool down and try again, it started right up so i hope i just need some heat shielding there to sort it otherwise stopping for fuel will become interesting.

oh well that's my luck once i sort that out no doubt we will get 2 months solid rain, time to get back on and annoy the nice people on the forums hehe.

Shhhhhh don't tell anyone

After a week of waiting my new master cylinder arrived, again. Stuart a mechanic friend of mine popped round to give me a hand installing it. after much bleeding of brake fluid all seemed to work fine, at last I've got a brake pedal again.

the next day i decided to go test it out to see if it really works, got in my car to start it up and *tick* the battery was flat once again. after charging it up for a few hours i turns the baby on and woooo up she started and out i went all seems to work fine now it;s just and mot. i have lost the power steering wobble and no pulling to the left on breaking any more, yay.

bad luck strikes again!

so picture the scene. opened the box of my new shiny MC to get it all bench bled to go into the car all nice and smooth like. read the instructions carefully to make sure i don't do anything stupid. I fill the MC with brake fluid and wait for it to come out the outlet ports as it says. Indeed after a few secs the fluid comes out and i screw in the plugs like it says. Hang on a minute wheres all this fluid come from???

It turns out the internal seals in the new MC are buggered and it's no good. So now I've got to return it and get a new one, however they don't have another one is stock and don't know when they'll get another.

I'll give em till monday to get me a estimated time and then go from there.

Oh i also found another good resource for all Chevy's really it's www.chevytalk.org nice site with tons of info and helpful people, thumbs up :)

I can't beleive it!

What a stroke of luck. while looking for a place to purchase a master cylinder i bought a copy of classic American magazine to check out the adverts. one caught my attention a place called USAutomotive Ltd, so i gave them a call. i couldn't believe it when they said it would only be 24 hours to get it delivered, i was under the impression it would have to be shipped in from the states!

So yesterday it arrived and it looks fine, its a busy weekend work wise for me so it'll probably have to wait to go in the car, I'm just waiting for something to go wrong it always does, fingers crossed it won't tho.

hmmmmm shiny

master cylinder

Whipped out my master cylinder this morning to find the bore size. it definitely looks like it was leaking so need replacing anyway but unless I'm measuring the wrong bit they don;t make them that size. i measured 3/8" but they only come in 1" or 1 1/8 " *shrugs* I'll ask the helpful people at impalas.net see what they think. If anyone is interested or needs help with impala's i must say it's a really good place to go. they have helped me a lot.

Hats off to you, people of impalas.net

here's a couple pics of my master cylinder in it's sorry state and the servo

weather strips done, mostly

Rain rain and more rain, I'm unlucky me. eventually got the door strips in place after many attempts. quarter strips are difficult, i didn't think the chrome was that bad but it is. i might have to buy a new pair.

After fitting the strips i see the windows have fallen a bit so i need to pull them up. having a problem with that, 45 years of algae growth has stuck em good and i don;t wanna push too hard in case i break the glass.

so boot to do last and that needs some serious work. I'm gonna quick fix for now just to get the thing water tight for the winter. P40 the holes and spray black and the silicone seal the old strip in to get it water tight.

but i can't do that till the brakes are working and i get it MOT'd. knowing my luck if i remove the boot lid to do the work the lights will never work again so I'm waiting, for now.

took another look at the brakes, bled them all and checked the wheel cylinders and all seems fine but the brakes still don't work. it seems like the master cylinder is broken ( at least that's the next step) so i got to find where i can get one. my phone is gonna be busy.

when i get a bit of sun and some spare time I'll get some pics up to show my amazing work (pfft yeah right)

i'm jinxed

3 times now i started the door weather strips and every time it starts to rain, who needs to dance for rain eh? anyway i managed to get the driver side finished and all the handles and door card back on but it started rain again (shocker) so i couldn't get any pics.

My mate Dave (everybody knows someone called Dave) who is a body work guy, came round the other day to have a glance over my car. Basically what it boils down to is he reckons to leave the body work as is and drive it until i can get the money together to get it all done at once. i was hoping to do some myself but being completely new to this car thing i reckon I'll have to leave it to the experts.

Oh well i guess I'll have to concentrate on the interior and the stereo, after i got it waterproofed, and running, and MOT'ed lol. so much to do and so little time before the winter starts to kick in. lets hope for the best anyway.

stripped the door

i managed to get the door card off, with the help of a internet search and an old jumper, just wiggle it behing the window winders ant it pulls the clip off, very usefull. the speaker hole i see now was drilled out really badly, oh well, once it stops raining, back onto the rust

The Yellow Beast

OK so here we go, my first ever blog. i bought a 1965 impala SS 2 door hardtop with the intention of doing it up and adding my own little touch to it. it's not got the original 392 Ci engine someone has put a 454 in instead *big grin* here's some pics of it as i got it:

the picture make it look much better than it actually is. here's some internal pics too:

lovely looking car, and i managed to drive it a whole 4 hours before it broke down. that was about 2 months ago and i still haven't got it going yet *slaps head*, it took 3 weeks to get a power steering hose that would actually fit. But thanks to the guys at Earls *plug* and it got working.

now the brakes don't work and the MOT has run out so I've set about replacing the weatherstrips which are totally knackered. started today and damn it if we haven't got a massive rain storm, lucky i got a cover for it, genius is mearly forward planning.

oh yeah here's a pic of the power house and you might be able to make out my shiny new hose:

hopefully tomorrow it won't rain and i can get to putting the strips back on, and take a few more pics. aah no rest for the wicked.