I spent all sunday with satan's Midgets, and have come to the conclusion
that I'm just going to have to bite the big hairy bullit, which means
replace most everything on the '78's front suspension with new parts.
The spare a-arm is %100 better than what is on the car now, but
still too worn anyway.
So, it seems that about a grand will just about do it, and since I left
my last grand in my other pants the '78 will just have to sit.
It runs great though. I kept the non-origional electric fuel pump, and
used a big block Chevy block off plate (it really works!) to replace the
mechanical one. Several people emailed that these mechanical pumps can
wear a grove in the crank shaft, so that swayed my decision too.
I removed the choke from the Stromberg carb. It starts and stalls
once, and on restart runs fine. I'll probably fit another hand cable
when I get to working on the interior of the car, but for now no choke
seems ok.
Which means I made a mistake in thinking that the '78 was closest to
being road worthy. The '78 was sitting in the previous owners driveway
for about a year, but was driven regularly before. The '72 was sitting
in the previous owners back yard approx. three years and was an
unfinished project. It took me a week and a half to get the '78 running
properly, and only three hours for the '72. The previous owner said that
the '72 was hard to start, very low on power, hard to get into gear, and
had a noisy trans.
The 'hard to start' was mainly a faulty starter relay, I replaced it
with a generic 'big american car' relay from NAPA. Alot of the
connections needed to be cleaned also. A big battery helped too, as the
heater is missing so I have lots of room for a big battery.
The 'low on power', honest to god, was a misadjusted throttle cable. It
had about two inches of slack. I figured this out because the gas pedal
felt funny, as it was so low to the floor. Before, in first gear, I
could only go to about 1500RPM, after the adjustment I could shift into
higher gears and everything!
The 'hard to get into gear' I think was just mainly lack of use. I
couldn't easily get any gear other than 1st and 2nd, but after my off
roading test drive it shifted nicely into all gears.
But, the trans is still noisy. It brings back memories of riding the bus
to school. The trans is very buzzy, especially in 1st gear. I'm planning
on getting a used trans, rebuilding it, and then swapping them out.
The '72 should be actually on the road soon, but it's tires are awful
and I still haven't checked 'minor' things like lights, wipers, etc.
If I had known that the '72 was so good (potentially), I wouldn't have
spent so much time on the '78.
I also decided to go with the 'square hole' rostyle wheels, rather than
the 'star' ones. Even though a few of you emailed me that the 'star'
ones were correct, I think that the other ones are really the correct
ones. The build date on the '72 is August of '71, so it's earlier than
I thought. Plus the owners manual shows the square hole, and many
catalogs show the same for that year. I have three of the 'squares' and
only two 'stars', and personally like the 'square' style anyway.
The '72 was origionally orange, but is now painted a good BRG. I plan
to leave it that way.
In case you all are wondering, both cars have near perfect bodys, which
is why I didn't check the mechanicals very closely.
-Aron Travis-
"always in a automotive frenzy"
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