a long wait

well it's been a long old winter and what hassle i've had with the car too. after much annoyance with things going wrong i've had to change the alternator, a little rewiring rebuilding the carb, and got gaskets that don't fit. after playing around i came to a dead end and the car wouldn't even start.

i found a guy not to far away in whicam. a place called 'pauls place' how is a V8 specailst. i got my car towed to him and he took a look for me, after waiting for parts and the weather, a new electronic igintion, fuel pump and various other bits the car works and runs sweet.

now i got to get used to the car and how it drives, the indicators are playing up a little and the fuel gauge keeps going down.

the rear window leaks so much it may as well not be there so i gots to get that done too.

after a couple of dirves i think i may have to see if theres anything i can do to make it a little more stable. don;t get me wrong i would love to put some money on the engine but i think upgrades to that will come last.

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