Day 18 - 8/17/11

Today is one of those clean and polish days. I was looking at the license plate light lens and decided it needed to be cleaned and polished. Then looking on my parts table, I noticed the window cranks are quite dirty, so I cleaned them as well. Then I remembered the windows are scroungy so I cranked them up, and polished away. It got cooler this evening so I took a break from cleaning and finished dismantling the Monte Carlo roof sections.

Before, a little dirty.

Amazingly, the seal never broke in 40 years!

Washed the dirt off.

First coat of polish.

Before and after, the before is more yellow than the after because they were in the front.

Before steel wool.

After steel wool.

The sun went down some, took off the mounting strips and such.

Unbolting the upper seat belt (overrated).

Almost dark, got the roof stripped in time!

Parts I saved from the roof. I might take them to April swap meet for a few bucks.

Rear body piece by the package tray. A nice reproduction piece form All American. All done for today.

Day 17 - 8/16/11

Well, today is one of the major days of the resto, the roof sections are ready for pickup. This was one of the bigger things that need to be found and bought. Luckily All American is within driving distance, not all cities have older car wrecking yards. All I need to find is an exhaust manifold! That's another day though.

Lots of weeds.

Ready for pickup, we'll give it a better home.

I like the jack stand!

Got them in the truck, the larger roof section was almost to long for the truck!

Tying it down...

Don't want to loose it on the highway.

Last glimpse of All American, The next time the roof is here... well, we don't want to talk about that.

Hey, you got a roof in your backyard!

It's nice that the headliner is still somewhat there, I'll take it apart to figure it out.

The second smaller piece. We wouldn't have need it, but somebody borrowed the quarter on the larger section.

Sun is going down.

Believe it or not, I do work on my own car! It isn't just my dad, I just take all the pictures during the processes.

Trying to figure out how the headliner goes in so we don't have to experiment on the real thing.

Working on the stainless. We have no use for them and they're kind of beat up, so they'll get scarped. I'll finish dismantling the roof sections tomorrow.

Day 16 - 8/13/11

Well in the last few days more researching and locating an exhaust manifold but still no luck. But today we made some progress in other ways. We went back again to our favorite place, All American Classics Auto Wrecking. My dad spent a few hours picking the best roof sections for our little project. The Monte Carlos are a little easier to come by and cheaper, so we stayed with them, the two cars sharing the same roof sections around the windshield and rear glass. Todd had a great selection of Montes for us.

Its just a little sad to see all those old cars rot away.

Soon to be a...Monte CONVERTIBLE!

Here's a better shot of the main car the roof will come out of. Almost no rust, even for a vinyl top car.

Rear shot of the roof, you can see we had to find another car with the other side.

Here's the car the rear window passenger section will come out of. As well as the car my replacement A pillar inner moldings came from.

Nice '55 Chev for $3500, great starter project car!

Back at home, got some little goodies. A pillar inner moldings, headlight switch, driver windshield molding, and a shift knob in the cup soaking. Not shown: rear body piece we'll splice into for above the trunk and package tray. Done with the fun today.

Day 15 - 8/10/11

In the last few days, I've been looking high and low, but no luck on the quest for the exhaust manifold. So, I've been calling around and looking on my friend the internet for a solution. So I called up my buddies at Pick-N-Pull and they didn't know what they had for motors "You would just have to come down here and look under them hoods"

The next day that's just what I did, started looking under them hoods.

Well, about five minutes later, I discovered that they didn't have what I needed. That's a face of disappointment.

Day 14 - 8/7/11

Well today was a motor partial disassembly day. I was curious since day 1 about 'under the hood'. My dad had mentioned there was a exhaust leak somewhere. Guess what? He was right, I'm sorry to say. I'll need to track down a good used exhaust manifold. Not sure how fun that will be.

A preshot of the mess before we dissect it. Just about to pull out the wires for the alternator.

Took off the vacuum line from the intake to the master cylinder booster. Looking closer at it we'll have to take the power steering mess loose.

Took the fuel line off.

Applying some PBlaster on the exhaust pipe nuts.

Got the power steering mess out of the loop and nicely sat it to the side.

Unbolting the intake/exhaust bolts.

There's the dork.

All stripped! Believe it or not that block is orange under the grease!

Trying to figure how to separate the two manifolds.

Took the carb off. Hammers solve all problems.

After a little head scratching, "oh there's a bolt". GM put a bolt to hold the two manifolds together, but then put the heat shield over that.

That's it! All taken apart, now all I need is an exhaust manifold. Done for today.

Day 13 - 8/6/11

Today I spent a few on and off hours polishing my brains out on the rear bumper. You'll see I'm very proud of my bumper. They don't make them like they used to! Then, I kind of didn't want to polish any more for awhile. So, I opened the hood, and got my hands greasy.

Before the polish, I sort of got the larger areas when it was still on the car, but now I can get around the edges and behind the bumper guards.

Crazy comparison! I took off the little wire clips and the little bumpers to get it even more shinny!

In the process...

Chrome...

All done!

Cleaned up pretty nice, nice for 40 years old!

What's also nice is that the bumper has never been seriously hit.

A couple of my best friends.

So I just quick washed them, but didn't want to dry them, so they got hung!

Took the air cleaner off, and looked at the 'manuel choke'. It's just a wire that goes no where! So guess what I did...

Took it out! And what's nice is that when it was in service, he used holes already in the under dash panel. Making it look as if it was never there.

Without the manual choke, cleaned up the mess.

Took off the valve cover and discovered, this! Then later picked of the already broken valve cover gasket. That's why the motor is so greasy. Done for today.