Freddie comes alive!

[Luva65wagon]

I was most surprised that you were able to use it, and I am very sorry (and embarrassed) that it doesn't match.

Color matching is tough when you have paint that has mostly dried up. Some pigments would have settled out of the mix just sitting there. I'm surprised it was even as close as it was. And yes, it mixed up and sprayed just fine. Sealed as it was.

I'm OK with it, but not so much to use it to paint the whole under-hood. I'd probably go get a color match from off the car. Maybe... if it gets another full respray to make it all the same.

Again, appreciate the history.

[Luva65wagon]

Oh my gosh; and pardon my language, but these seats are kicking my butt!
What a pain! Getting the covers off of just one set took about 2 hours - mostly just to find all the hidden hog-rings. Once you get the covers off, this is what you see...

seat1.jpg seat2.jpg seat4.jpg

Also noticed one seat hinge had been repaired by someone making a whole new hinge. Seems OK, so not going to do anything with it at this point.

seat3.jpg

I then ran some new burlap strips over the each piece.

seat5.jpg seat7.jpg

These are my first seat cushion replacements, so wasn't sure how they'd go, but getting hog-rings onto the listing wires was impossible. The new foam isn't made the same way as the originals, so I made these long tie-wires to hook over the listing wires on the inside of the covers and pull them into the cracks of the seat foam.

seatfoam.jpg seat8.jpg

I then gently pulled the vinyl over the cushions and then came the fun of compressing the (I'm sure it is extra-thick) foam enough to get the hog-rings installed. The seat-base was easier than the seat-back was - by a long-shot, but eventually got it all on. After I took the picture of the seat-back I found I needed to stretch the cover a bit more, so I'm still about an hour away from finishing one set and get it into the car. 9 hours and counting!

seat6.jpg seat9.jpg

[Luva65wagon]

Did I mention how these seats are kicking my butt? Killing my hands, fingers! But I am learning some secrets should I ever want to take on upholstery again. Won't be my first choice for a new career.

To give y'all an idea of what I'm working with here are a couple pictures of the seat-back foam - old and new:

foamoldnew.jpg foamnewold.jpg

The foam, you see, is very thick. The seat bottom isn't too much different, though a bit thicker, the seat back nearly negates the springs by compressing them fully. To get the cover on I needed to fully tie-down the springs and once the covers were on and hog-ringed I then cut the tie wires. And using my heat gun to soften the covers really helped too.

So here is the driver seat in and I should have the other seat assembled and installed tomorrow.

aseataway.jpg aseataway2.jpg

Though technically that nearly completes the list, I noticed when I drove it home, and when I reinstalled the steering wheel, the alignment for steering wheel centering was off quite a bit. So while it's still in the air I'm going to shift the wheels to the right while maintaining steering wheel center. Oh, and I still have to do the fuel tank fill modification, which is all done, just not installed. These two things should go pretty quick.

[Luva65wagon]

Well... it's fully assembled again. That much is true, though not with a little two-steps forward, one step back thrown my way a couple times; the most recent being the water pump leaking. So that got swapped this morning.

waterpump1.jpg

Last night I added the trunk fill and put the stock gas cap on, but you can't unscrew it from the outside.

tankfill1.jpg tankfill2.jpg

Of course, though I'm sure these seat hinge covers can be bought new - I forgot to order anything for these. So instead I mended a couple cracks and sprayed them. They look pretty good.

seat_hinge_covers.jpg

Seats feel really firm now. Quite a difference between sitting on the floor as the old seat foam didn't do a bit towards eliminating that.

Am_I_done.jpg

So, am I done? Not quite. Though Freddie starts quickly and runs really well - there is something not quite right yet. Though it idles beautifully... when I drop it into reverse, or drive, it's both a pretty hard shift, and then stumbles and dies. I can feather the gas and keep it running, but I've not spent enough time checking other things yet. I'm not yet sure why there is such a harsh shift into gear though. That concerns me. It almost seems wrong to me. I'm going to call Hughes (the torque converter maker) on Monday to get some specs on the part they made for Gary. I couldn't find anything in what he provided other than a part number. There may be something in the notes given me, but have to read those again to see if there was anything pertaining to the transmission issues. The way that transmission leaked like a sieve, I hope the internals were done better. Would not be able to afford a transmission right now. And if I could it would not be an automatic.

But she sounds and looks good. If I can only get the going part working now!

[Luva65wagon]

Having nearly no working experience with performance automatics - apart from adding a few shift kits to improve shifting - the concept of what a stall converter does, and doesn't do, has as many interpretations as there are web sites. I found the following explanation I believe may be one of the most logical I've read. So it gives me some things to try while I await a call from Hughes Performance who made the torque converter.

http://www.onallcylinders.com/2015/1...ter-selection/

[BadBird]

I read that material. I already knew all of that.
Just kidding. I now have a headache.
I am really amazed at what engineering goes into these parts and usage. In rebuilding the C4 that I originally had in my Falcon, it fascinated me to no end. Larry

[Luva65wagon]

After chatting with the Hughes guy (though he didn't offer any help, only specs) - I now know it has a 2500 stall converter.

I used the information from that page I posted yesterday and a timing 101 sheet Gary had in his files, and after a few tweaks Freddie appears to be running as I would have expected all along. I then checked timing curves. Though shifting is still somewhat harsh into reverse, I believe that is just a condition of the rear-end taking up play. Going into drive is not harsh at all. It no longer stalls when going from park or neutral into gear and only drops a couple hundred RPM and not the 500 RPM as before, then dying.

So what I initially did was just to increase base timing to 15 and that allowed it to go into gear. Vacuum is hovering only around 15 inches max, but drops to about 7 in gear. But it ran!

I also noticed total mechanical advance was up into the high 40's, which would be a bad thing. And mechanical advance was coming in at a very low RPM, like below idle it was having an effect. So I pulled the distributor apart and found the mechanical weight stop in the 18L spot (you double that to deter what the max advance will be, or in this case 36 degrees mechanical). Add that to a base of 15 (or even 10) and you have 46-51 total advance! Yikes! So I rotated everthing to the 13L side, pulled the distributor flipped the rotor around 180 degrees (you have to do this when you change the max advance stops) and now I can see normal peak advance with mechanical limited to only 26. With the 10 baseline that's 36 total advance. Also had two light springs allowing very quick ramp up to max mechanical advance; like max reached by 2500 RPM. So put back in one heavy spring to see how that was.

Seems very normal now, but driving it may cause some adjustments to happen.

Plus, there is a huge debate about using manifold versus ported vacuum for vacuum advance. Shifting into gear with a base timing near 10 will only happen right when using manifold vacuum, which increases timing at idle to about 20 degrees. So that's where it is. From what I've read these differ only at idle, so we'll see.

Next comes a road test. Maybe tomorrow if I can get cars swapped around.