Nearly Ready (progress report)

[Guest Gearheadjohn]

Well I nearly have my 65 Riviera ready for the inspection lane. it has been a brutal 3 weeks of busted knuckles and broken bolts.

So far I have replaced:

Blower Motor

Blower relay

Springs all way round

Shocks all way round

Front brake hard lines

Front brake hoses

Sway bar end links

Sway bar to frame bushings

New hardware for nearly everything I've removed.

Tomorrow is rear brake hard lines and the new tires should be in. Going to clean up and repaint my wheels in the morning before I go to get tires on them. Also going to clean up a surface rust spot on my hood and likely polish as much of the chrome as I can since I'm stuck waiting on parts.

Waiting on the delivery of Rear center brake hose, Strut Rods and bump stops.

So far the best thing other than the car that I have bought is the original service manual on CD it is an excellent resource.

On a side note does anyone know the best thing for getting caked grease and road grime off of concrete? I've made quite the mess out of my driveway .

[JZRIV]

Nice Progress - you have been busy! Spring is coming.

As far as the concrete stains theres a number of specialty concrete cleaners on the market and you could try one of those.

I typically remove the heavy deposits with a scraper and wire brush then use Gumout carb cleaner on the bad areas, then use muriatic acid following the instructions on container. If you have smooth finished concrete it will be a bit easier but if it has a brushed finish you'll need to work at it a little harder.

If you use a wire brush when its wet it should be one with stainless or brass bristles.

Its too late now but I always keep larger pieces of cardboard around to use under the project which minmizes the staining when doing dirty jobs.

[ArtDan]

Always good to hear of progress!

congratulations

Jason has the driveway cleanup pegged pretty well

I like to use a citris based cleaner to cut the grease.

not only cardboard is handy protection

I keep an old shower curtain around when I change oil since it wipes clean

[RivNut]

I use the granular stuff. I spread it around and let it sit awhile. Then I turn on my Chubby Checker album and do the Twist while I grind the granules into the concrete. Then it all sweeps up.

Ed

[Guest rsmalling]

you are doing a great deal of work in a short period of time! Way to go John.

Yeah the grease is pain, I liked Ed's doing the Twist the best! But everyone has there own way I guess. I generally use laundry detergent mixed with hot water and a big street broom and really give it the heave Ho. then just hose it off. The key is to clean up after each day of hard greasy work.

[Guest Gearheadjohn]

Thanks for the inputs on cleanup, my landlord said not to even worry about it but I'm not the kinda guy to leave another mans stuff a mess. I should have cleaned up each day but I have been sweeping up and pre-treating it with de-greaser(the bio-degradable non toxic monster stuff). Come to think of it I may give Dawn dish detergent a shot, they use it to clean up after oil spills after all.

I've been working roughly 9-5 on it every weekday, while I've been on transfer leave. Most of the major progress has been this week though, I spent the first 2 breaking stuff lol.

I have been thoroughly thwarted by the rain today. Got an appointment to get my tires put on though. Going to clean up the wheels and get them prepped for paint and still want to knock out polishing up some of the chrome too.

[Guest Rob J]

Nice progress, but the rules state: No Pics, Didn't Happen

BTW, the best way to clean that concrete is with a high power pressure washer. Preferably one with a cleaning solution nozzle. I recently bought a new pressure washer from Northern Tool, and some concrete cleaning solution, and it does wonders.

Edited March 9, 2012 by Rob J (see edit history)

[Guest Gearheadjohn]

Fair enough Rob lol do need some new pics now that the ride height is back proper anyway. Wondering how the RWL tires are going to look as well.

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[Guest Gearheadjohn]

As required the photos on my new installed parts . The wheels and the hood are pics before I started cleaning them up, figured they could keep me occupied while I wait on my rear rubber brake hose, strut rods, and bump stops. Will get pics of the car on the ground once the wheels are done and back on.

Plan for the wheels is clean all the rust off the back side and hit that with a good coat of primer and paint. On the front side I'm going to polish the chrome and repaint the black.

For the hood I want to clean up that rust and flaky paint and get some primer and paint on it to help keep it from spreading.

I also found a bit more body rot on the underside 3-4 holes and 2 rather nasty spots where some nice fella apparently tried the jack the car up by the floor as well as body support. Thankfully the vast majority of the visible body is pretty solid.

Can't wait to get all set-up in Fallon and get started on the full Resto and customization.

[Guest Gearheadjohn]

Was pretty slack today, I did manage to get my front two wheels cleaned, polished and painted. They are fair from perfect but they are much better than before.

I had to shrink the images a bunch to get them to load .

Edited March 11, 2012 by Gearheadjohn (see edit history)

[Guest Gearheadjohn]

I got the brakes finished plumbed, and bled yesterday.

I am having an issue though, my pedal has almost almost no travel at the moment (about 1/4 inch) and it sticks at the bottom of that leaving my brake lights on if I don't pull it back up.

The car stops like a champ (with as much run way as I could muster in a two car driveway) and it does not seem to be binding on anything. Does anyone have any ideas why I have so little travel and its sticking like that?

[steelman]

Had the same issue with my 63. Brake booster is bad. Spend the money and have Booster Dewey do it. Do a search for his contact info.

[Guest Gearheadjohn]

Steve,

Thanks for the heads up on the brake booster. I did some searching around the net today and came up with more or less the same answer. Going to check the vacuum check valve today while I'm putting the strut rods in, supposed to be the weakest link and easily replaced. I will look up Booster Dewey should that not be the problem.

Thanks again!

EDIT: First thing I did was look at the check valve and sure as heck its actually broken at the vacuum inlet for the booster. Looking online for one now. Anyone know off hand anyone that stocks them, cant find them through CARS, OPGI, or rock auto.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Gearheadjohn (see edit history)

[Guest Rob J]

I had Dewey rebuild two original boosters. Only thing, cosmetically they did an ok job. I ended up sanding the paint they applied off, and re-doing them cosmetically myself. They now look brand new.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Rob J (see edit history)

[Guest Gearheadjohn]

Thanks for the info, I was able to find a reman one through rockauto for 75ish plus core total with shipping was like 140. Hopefully it fits proper, i'm going to pull mine today and go through it with my shop manual and see if I can see where the problem is.

I figured sending mine to those guys would take some time, and I will be needing the second vehicle in a month or so. When I have to ship one out to nevada with my household goods.

I got my new dash circuit board coming in tomorrow so most of my day will be pulling the dash apart. This 85 degree weather is gonna be the death of me lol.

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[Guest Gearheadjohn]

Just an update, tore into the dash today didn't quite get the gauge cluster out yet.

I found out two fairly depressing things, a good bit of what I assume was the original wiring harness was "reconfigured by heat" lots of melted wires, most everything seems to have been re-wired though, which brings up the next half in that the fella doing it left a lot of dead-ended wiring.

Thankfully unlike the guy who had rewired my old 81 Ford off road truck he used proper wires. The fella that did the ford did everything in Green 16ga wire.

Thanks to everyone for the information, I can't wait to get this ole girl out on the road. First stop is the local, cruise in show they have on Saturday's at this diner down the street from my house.

[Guest Gearheadjohn]

I've finally gotten nearly everything done to get the Riv road worthy. Ended up re-wiring a few things nothing too terrible.

Somewhere along the way my ignition system crapped the bed. I replaced the coil and it worked for bout a half hour, then stopped. I pulled the cap and found the rotor button to be rusted, I polished the end of it with some 800 grit paper and it fired right back up. That lasted about 20 minutes. Figured if I was replacing the cap and rotor I might as well do the points, and condenser too and now it starts as easy as my Trans am.

Also got my Retro-sound stereo installed along with new speakers finding a 4x10 was easier than expected, it doesn't look too out of place and I can actually listen to music.

Last few things I need are a new horn, a high beam head light and some hardware for mounting my license plate and she should be ready to pass VA state inspection.

Pic to follow, been rainy the last couple days so I haven't gotten any.

[J3Studio]

That's a lot of work in a short period of time - awesome.