Long Weekend

After getting to the garage, we immediately found a problem: the hood would not open! We pulled the lever, tried using the hole in the wiper pit, pulling the release cable through the alarm switch hole in the fender etc. but nothing worked. Finally we gave up for now as we didn't need to get it open right away.

I started working with the firewall and placed three layers of fiberglass to the bottom of the car and two layers inside. That took care of a lot of holes in the floor. Meanwhile my friend worked with the rear body mounts. The brackets had rotten badly and the body was not really connected to the frame at all from the back. The old bolts had also almost completely turned to dust and broke when trying to turn them. Luckily I had ordered a complete body mounting set with the first delivery so I had all the necessary parts.

Just changing the bushings was not enough. My friend also needed to weld new metal to the brackets. When both sides were done, perhaps the body would stay on the frame when braking heavily :)

After I got the fiberglass installed, I started cleaning the final hole in the driver floor. Like everywhere else, it had been "fixed" by screwing a thin sheet of metal over the hole and then sealing it up with urethane foam. A floor just like Chevy intended...

"Fixed" floor

And what do we have under the metal sheet?

Much better

I wasn't going to use the original seat belts so we removed the pit and just made the floor flat. Much easier and faster to weld. And now we finally had waterproof floors in the car!

Then it was time to tackle the speedometer gear. We removed the driveshaft and pulled the yoke out of the transmission. Next we had to add some support for the transmission so we could remove the frame connector. That allowed us to remove the few bolts keeping casing together. Now the axle was visible and we could install the gear.

When ordering the gear I wasn't quite sure how many tooth it should have. I took one with 10 teeth but later learned that the correct one would have only 8. This meant that the speedometer would show about 10 to 15 mph too much. Oh well, changing the driven gear was really easy so I would correct the error with it after a measurement with GPS. Perhaps I could even change the speedo to show km/h :)

Strangely the gear and the clip holding it in place didn't fit together. The clip was way too wide to fit in the groove in the gear. As the gear was made from plastic, I just trimmed it a bit with a knife until the clip went in. Then the gear was placed over the drive shaft and locked in place. Unfortunately I also noticed that the  yoke seal that I bought was too large. Most likely meant for TH400. After calling a few places I found the correct piece from Soini Car Parts. Phew! Without the correct new seal, transmission fluid would most likely leak out and we couldn't leave the car to the garage.

Reassembling the transmission went quickly now that we had all the parts. We also noticed that the U-joint behind the transmission had been installed incorrectly before. It was little off from the right position. Naturally we corrected this and put everything back in place.

Then we finally had to get the hood open for the oil change. After fighting some time, we finally got it open by loosening the hood bolts through the wheel opening. We checked what was the problem and found that the pin holding the hood release cable had broken off! This was most likely the cause of the strange noise during the drive to the garage. No wonder the locks would not open. We replaced the pin and the hood release cable worked again...

Then it was time for the final small tasks. We poured new oil to the engine and added a few inch risers to the rear spring. Now the exhaust wouldn't hit the ground in every bump in the road...

And then everything was finally done! We couldn't drive the car yet because the temporary plates were for the next day. We went home to relax and barbecue for a while and intended to return after midnight to drive the car back to my friends place.