Brake rebuild, new 30 year old mirror

I have been pretty busy doing work on the '58. The brake master cylinder was leaking real bad when I got the car. So basically, no brakes. I have been weighing lots of options for repairing this, most of them centered around upgrading the brake system as well. I was pretty set on going for a brand new front disc brake conversion with a power boosted dual master cylinder. This would be a really fantastic upgrade, but it would run about $500. My last $500. I was about to settle on a new stock master cylinder ($100) when I found a rebuild kit for only $20! This is the stock master cylinder, rebuilt at home. I disassembled the unit, cleaned it thoroughly, and honed out the bore. I found that the compensating port (sort of a bypass port) was completely clogged and the bore was filled with gooky gunk. I assembled it with new parts, filled it with new fluid, and bled the air out. So far, so good; no leaks. I mounted it back on the car without even repainting it. Two things:
1. People, you can put all the teflon tape you like on the threads of the main brake line fitting (that's it there coming out and going to the right) but THIS WILL DO NOTHING. Brake lines seal by the compression of the cone on the line sealing against a conical seat. The fitting's threads just provide the force to accomplish this, they do not seal anything. This is not house plumbing. The previous owner clearly did not know this.
2. Normally bleeding brakes involves forcing fluid all the way through the lines to expel any air.
In this case, since only the MC was leaking, there should be no air anywhere else in the brake system. The only air should be right at this same fitting. I used a trick I learned from my brother Dave. I left this fitting slightly loose, and had an assistant pump the brake pedal. This forced fluid out of the fitting, but it pushed the air out as well. By catching the forced leak with some rags, we were able to bleed the air out right at this fitting, and we did not have to bleed the entire system. This worked great, and the pedal feels rock hard. I think we have brakes.

I needed an outside mirror. The reproduction stock ones are expensive, and I'm not sure I like the look of them anyway. I bought this replacement mirror at K-mart about the time I had my first car. I don't know what it was for, since I clearly did not use it on that car. Now I have had it, still in the box, ever since. Didn't think I'd ever use it, so I have dutifully brought it to every swap meet I have ever vended at, and nobody ever bought it, for like five bucks. It must be destiny, so I dug it out and installed it, a brand new, 30 year old, five dollar, K-mart mirror. See, you cannot buy that fun kind of history if you buy a car that already has the mirror on it. I like it. Oh, the extra hole was already there.


Finally, for no reason, I'll show you this pic of a dog taking a ride on a '58 Impala convertible. Photo: The HAMB, of course.

Seat install in the '58

It seemed like a good time to install the front seats in the car. These are used seats from a car I scrapped. They are only temporary; they're in great condition, but are too modern for this car. They are also free.

I could only get one bolt out of four through the floor and into a clear area underneath. The other three will need nuts welded into the floor. Drill clearance holes through the floor where they will go. I welded nuts onto thick plates that also have holes in them. I had a couple of welds that were not good. They looked like fat blobs just laying on the metal. I ground them off and turned up the heat. Now they are nice and melty looking. You want welds to look melty, because that's what they are; melted (and fused) metal. A small bracket like this will go bright red hot from the heat!

How hot do you want your welds? Here's a bolt I was using to hold the nut to the plate while welding, and I carelessly tossed it onto my garbage can lid. It melted into the lid and is stuck there. Yes, I use the top of my garbage can as an impromptu workbench.

I welded the plates over the clearance holes in the floor. This much will do. Incidentally the seat was in and out a dozen times getting and checking the fit. All part of custom fabrication.

Here's one seat bracket secured, using a small cutoff of round tubing as a vertical spacer.

One seat in, one to go. It's functional and comfy, and good enough for now. Doing just one seat probably took me 2-3 hours total. There's a lot of fussy fab work, and each corner is different, so they must be fit individually.

The car did not come with a gas pedal. The stock style is available, but to add a racy flavor, I used this competition style pedal from Moon. It's a beautiful piece, and a pretty easy install. It really is necessary, as it is one of the signature pieces of the car. Tell me that is not totally cool. See, you can't.

Believe it or not, there was a time before cars came with 100 airbags in them. And before that, there was a time when cars came without seat belts. Really. Of course that was 50 years ago. Since I wanted to add some seat belts to the '58, I furthered the race car vibe with these competition style lap belts. If you're going to add seat belts, make sure you have thick, wide washers installed beneath the floor to resist the bolts from pulling through the comparitively thin floor skin in an accident. I actually welded small washers over much larger washers to achieve this.

One last thing. I have my excellent wiper arms here, and some brand new reproduction wiper blade assemblies. Well, for what I saved on the arms, I spent to get the blade assemblies; they were $40. They are stainless steel, and what can I say, you just can't go to your local auto parts store for these babies. At least they should last a long time, since I don't plan on abusing the car in bad weather.

Snap, snap, click, click, and they are done. Simple and neat. Good looking too.

Finals week

I have finals this week at college, so my stress meter is pegged. I have been taking a couple of the toughest classes in my major concurrently, since that's the only time they are available, and that has been limiting my time lately, including time for blogging. I knew you would understand.
-

The Rhinebeck show was mediocre, and true to form, it eventually rained on us. It's too bad, I have so many good memories of my younger days there, but it has rained on that weekend for probably the last 10 years, so now I almost dread it. Amazingly I did not buy any parts I do not need for a project I do not have. It's a good place to get supplies, like grinding wheels, and sanding discs, etc, pretty cheaply, so that's what I got. I have really been getting the bug lately to get back to my EV project. If you remember, about a year ago I kicked off this blog to document the construction of a battery powered electric vehicle. For various reasons, the project has been temporarily shelved, but the fire still burns within to do this project. Lately I have been convinced that my original idea, a classic truck converted to EV, is still the coolest way to go (better than the buggy). I have had a lot of time to think about this, and the one major thing I would do differently is to start with only a solid cab and doors for a 53-55 Ford pickup. Buying a whole truck in good condition seemed like the way to go last year, but so many body parts for these are available in lightweight fiberglass, that I would rather use them then the heavier original steel parts. By the time I decided on a full frame swap, there was not much of the original truck I really needed. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no funding in place for this, and no prospect of any, anytime soon. Perhaps if someone wanted to offer a no-interest loan, or better yet a grant, that would be great.

I have also want to build a new dragster, based upon this 1963 Tony Nancy car. I would do the complete fabrication on this one. I've been hot on this idea for about 6 months now. Again, no funding or reason, it's just a desire.

I hope to get to the '58 Biscayne soon. I plan to spend the last of my car fund on a new brake system for it, since there's no reason to get it driving if I can't get it stopped. I already have this leaky brake master cylinder out of there, just waiting for something better. Unfortunately, that is the lasty-last of my car money, so I hope nothing else big needs replaced.

-

So I've been pretty busy, but not making money, so not much is getting done. At least dreaming about car projects is still free.