I've been talking now for several months with a friend who lives about 3 hours from me to plan a trip to meet in the middle at the Richmond, VA Cars and Coffee cruise-in. I've gotten enough road miles on my car that I was confident in taking the 150 mile round trip that a good portion is on the interstate. In preparation for the trip, I gave the car a once over to make sure everything was in good working order as well as addressing some items I've been putting off. First up was making sure that I had proper functional headlights and some courtesy lights since I was going to be leaving for the cruise-in before the sun rose. I was also tired of all of the interior panels laying around my garage, and decided it was time to install those. I had to have the courtesy lights installed first, before I could install the panels though.
First step was getting the garnish mouldings cleaned up and installed. I used the same process for the door mouldings, sanded it all down, etching primer, high build primer, sand, high build, then topped with SEM Trim Black. Fair amount of sanding, but it turned out great. The trick with the high build is to let it bake in the sun for several hours to fully cure. With the door mouldings, I didn't do that and it would gum up my sandpaper. Didn't do it this time.
Next up was getting the courtesy lights working. Grabbed some #1004 bulbs and fooled around a bit then finally got them working. The original door switches were not rusty, but the passenger side was sticking. I have a tube of dialectical grease and squirted some into the drain holes and was able to free it back up. Now they both work great.
After a bunch of polishing and planning, I was able to get all of the trim pieces back together on the interior panels. Then the easy part was drilling some holes and screwing in the panels. Very satisfying to get these installed after having them moved around my garage for months. These original panels cleaned up surprisingly well. Love using original parts when I can.
Then, before I could install the passenger's side I had to run a new wire for the rear courtesy light switch in the back and swap out the side window. Once the side window was pulled out, I found the felt sliders to be in decent condition, but there was a screw that wasn't fully seated on the bottom which the glass was rubbing on. I got super lucky and was able to break it free with a pair of vice grips and put a new screw in below the felt line so it was a smooth operation now. The upper felt was also in good shape, but was too loose and rattled around while driving. I pulled it out, squeezed it back together and no more rattles and very smooth sliding.
Now that was taken care of I was able to get the passenger side installed. I also sprayed some flat black on the rear garnish mouldings and installed those quickly. I need to pull them back off and sand down and spray with the same Trim Black paint so it all matches, but looks way more complete.
Lastly, I installed the headlights. They straightforward since I already ran the wiring up to them. I bought a set of H4 conversion bulbs a while ago that I had wanted to try out. They were off of some sort of Toyota/Lexus car and have a replaceable H4 bulb in a glass housing. They are very bright and look great. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the flat front, but I don't even notice it now.
Then Friday night, I was giving the car a final once over and realized that in 1955 the headlight switch worked a bit differently. The parking lights in the front shut off when the headlights are on, but the tail lights will stay on when you pull the lights into the first park position. Well I had apparently switched those two wires, so I had front lights, but no tail lights! Not good when you are driving at night. So I had to pull the dash cluster to access the headlight switch. Pretty easy swap, but after I switched them, I didn't have any turn signals! WTF, I didn't even touch that part! Well after chasing my tail, I realized that the ignition switch has to be on before you get signals... With that all fixed, I turned the tail lights on to check signals and nothing. Again, they were working WTF! Well after taking a step back, I realized that I had my wiring switched in when I wired up the tail light sockets. Easy fix, just swapped the wires and we were all good. At about 1am, I finally put the bow on it and it was ready for the trip!
Started out a little after 6am and headed eastbound. Call me crazy, but I had a little conversation with the car right before we pulled onto the interstate haha. Everything was perfect the whole way. We got up to cruise at about 75 and we just hummed along. Couldn't have asked for anything more!
Got to the show and met up with Rich. I've communicated with him for years online, but was great to meet up in person. He's got a beautiful 1975 Trans Am that he's had for years. I remember his car from when I was building my first car; 1976 Trans Am.
It was a great turnout with lots of exotics, Corvette's, and a very really rare cars. This Pantera was gorgeous!
There was also a 1968 Camaro that Caught my eye. Had a BBC with an intake I'd never seen before. I'm told it may have been a Marine intake, but this guy used just about every square inch of his engine bay. Sounded really good too.
Then we headed home and the same deal, car performed perfectly. Got tons of thumbs up and waves on the highway. I rolled the speedometer over to 47k on the way home, but by my estimates I hit just over 1k miles since I got it back together. Really cool milestone.
Then on Sunday I wanted to get the car in the driveway and give it a proper wash, polished the wheels and cleaned all the dust off of the windows. It's true what they say, you really can polish a turd!
I finally installed the last tailgate bar that I bought back in April at Carlisle.
So happy with the way the interior turned out. Not bad for some elbow grease, SEM Vinyl Dye and original parts!
My wife really wanted to get out for a Sunday drive, so we loaded up the family and topped it off with gas. Drives just like any other car I have, and gets about 20mpg when I calculated on the trip. I didn't get a picture, but I also relocated my MAT/IAT sensor from laying on the top of the intake manifold, to installed in the CAI tube. Now it reads actual temps instead of engine heat! Probably should have done that a long time ago.
About a week and a half ago, I also picked up another piece to my turbo puzzle. I spec'd out a new 3200 stall converter from FTI that will work really well with boost, and should wake up the car while I drive it N/A for now. I also picked up their transmission pan that I'm hoping will help drop the temps a few degrees. Thanks Norb for the Summit Coupon! The converter was on sale for labor day, and they knocked an additional 10% off with that coupon. Sweet double savings there!
Hoping to get the converter swapped out soon. Hoping to just remove and replace one night when I get the motivation to tear into a fully functional car haha.
Cheers,
Ryan
