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What did you do to your Monte Carlo today?


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sounds like the start of what could be a very interesting and entertaining(at least for those of us not directly involved)thread..."the snowball effect"  wherein we share how the project was originally framed in our minds and where it ended up...be it monte,other car,bike,whatever...we've all been there and our dear friend Rob's ford is as good a start as any...

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14 minutes ago, Blake350 said:

sounds like the start of what could be a very interesting and entertaining(at least for those of us not directly involved)thread..."the snowball effect"  wherein we share how the project was originally framed in our minds and where it ended up...be it monte,other car,bike,whatever...we've all been there and our dear friend Rob's ford is as good a start as any...

I was going to post the exact same thought. I think there could be a lot of fun involved. We all have more things going on than just the Montes but highjacking the “ what did you do to the monte today “thread wouldn’t be right. That should stay Monte related. And yes I know I’m guilty of it. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Woo hoo I took mine out today. It started right up after I got fuel back in carb. Checked all fluids and took it out around the neighborhood.  Still to much salt on main roads to drive anywhere but everything seems to be working as it should 😀 still needs a good cleaning but that will wait for a bit longer because it'll be back in garage probably for the next few weeks  ☹ but soon my friends :yay:

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She is really looking good sitting there in the (almost) spring sunshine Steve.  I have not been up to my storage garage in several months but can't wait till I can get her back out of her hibernation nap.

rob

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Happy 50th Birthday to my favorite girl, born in the second week of March , 1971, in Kansas - Leeds assembly plant ... she’s a keeper!

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Just an update from my post from February 18th about the work on my Model A.  The new drag link, driver side steering arm, King Pin, Tie Rod, new Brake Linings installed along with new mechanical brake rods and reassembled.

9) New Drag Link and cleaned and painted.jpg10)  New steering arm and drag link painted and installed.jpg11)  reassembly new king pins, steering arm backing plate and brake tube cleaned and painted and installed.jpg

Other things I ordered are a new coil, radiator shell lacing, cowl and gas tank lacing, plugs, points etc so to install the gas tank lacing and radiator shell lacing the hood had to be removed to install so the snowball caused the hood to be removed.  While in the engine compartment I noticed the terminal box cover below the coil was cracked.  and I noticed how much the engine block and head really needed to be freshened up so that has begun.

13) front suspension snowball moves to Engine Compartment.jpg14) New gas tank hood lacing and coil.jpg15) Terminal Box cover broken New one ordered.jpg16) Engine block and head needs freshing.jpg

Back when I first tore the car completely down for my restoration I found that the engine block matched the serial number stamped into the frame.  I have rebuilt the water pump, cleaned brushed and repainted the block, water pump and head and reassembled with new plugs coil and points.

I have now pulled the rear hub and found the emergency brake lining had worn down to the rivets so I have ordered and relined the emergency brake band on the drivers side and on Monday I will take the drum to NAPA and have it turned/resurfaced for the service brakes and emergency brake.  Once this is done I will reassemble the rear hub and adjust the front and rear brake mechanical brake rods and be ready to turn the car around in the garage so I can take care of the passenger side.

17) Emergency Brake worn to rivets Service brakes show no wear.jpg

I can't wait to take it on a test drive.  This is the most major work I have done on the Model A since my original body off frame restoration from 1966 to 1968 so 50 years after the restoration she needed some TLC.  

Sorry this is not Monte related but I really don't need to do any major restoration work on my Monte and this is all I have to share.

rob

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  • 2 weeks later...

Woo hoo was a beautiful 70+ day today here in central new York took my Monte out, cleaned up all the winter dust, filled it up with gas and drove it around all day today. Put around 50 or so miles on it got lots of thumbs up and smiles and nice car comments. Didnt even have to get tool box out. Was a good day 😃

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I drove my 1970 to work today. I put my rebuilt carb on last night and it is running a little better.

Here’s a pic of where I had my lunch.

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  • 2 weeks later...

An update of what I’ve been up to for the last month. A lot of cleaning, painting, powder coating and assembly. Body is back on the chassis. 

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On 3/13/2021 at 10:12 PM, Rob Peters said:

Just an update from my post from February 18th about the work on my Model A.  The new drag link, driver side steering arm, King Pin, Tie Rod, new Brake Linings installed along with new mechanical brake rods and reassembled.

9) New Drag Link and cleaned and painted.jpg10)  New steering arm and drag link painted and installed.jpg11)  reassembly new king pins, steering arm backing plate and brake tube cleaned and painted and installed.jpg

Other things I ordered are a new coil, radiator shell lacing, cowl and gas tank lacing, plugs, points etc so to install the gas tank lacing and radiator shell lacing the hood had to be removed to install so the snowball caused the hood to be removed.  While in the engine compartment I noticed the terminal box cover below the coil was cracked.  and I noticed how much the engine block and head really needed to be freshened up so that has begun.

13) front suspension snowball moves to Engine Compartment.jpg14) New gas tank hood lacing and coil.jpg15) Terminal Box cover broken New one ordered.jpg16) Engine block and head needs freshing.jpg

Back when I first tore the car completely down for my restoration I found that the engine block matched the serial number stamped into the frame.  I have rebuilt the water pump, cleaned brushed and repainted the block, water pump and head and reassembled with new plugs coil and points.

I have now pulled the rear hub and found the emergency brake lining had worn down to the rivets so I have ordered and relined the emergency brake band on the drivers side and on Monday I will take the drum to NAPA and have it turned/resurfaced for the service brakes and emergency brake.  Once this is done I will reassemble the rear hub and adjust the front and rear brake mechanical brake rods and be ready to turn the car around in the garage so I can take care of the passenger side.

17) Emergency Brake worn to rivets Service brakes show no wear.jpg

I can't wait to take it on a test drive.  This is the most major work I have done on the Model A since my original body off frame restoration from 1966 to 1968 so 50 years after the restoration she needed some TLC.  

Sorry this is not Monte related but I really don't need to do any major restoration work on my Monte and this is all I have to share.

rob

Well, as of today, the snowball effect on the work I was doing on my Model A has melted.  I finally wrapped up all of this work.  Here is a list of what was done:

Disassembled, degreased, cleaned and painted all components of the front and rear brakes, including replacing all worn parts.  Removed the brake linings from the front shoes, rear shoes and emergency brake bands and riveted new linings on these shoes.  Replaced all brake rods.  This car does not have hydraulic brakes, it uses steel brake rods to actuate the brakes

Removed steering components and replaced drag link, Tie rod, Tie rod ends, left and right steering arms, pitman arm.  I cleaned all components and repainted them to the factory gloss black colors.

Installed new coil, plugs points and condenser.  I set the plugs and points to the proper gap and set the timing.

I rebuilt the Water Pump and installed new packing and set the water pump packing nut.

Installed all new hood lacing.

Repainted the block and head.

Today I spent all day completing the job.  Today I went through the very time consuming process of adjusting the brakes.  This is a very detailed process of where you adjust each of the brake adjusting wedges on each backing plate to the point where each one starts to drag and then back off on the wedge 3 clicks and once that is done adjusting the length of the brake rods takes place.  You have to adjust the brake rods so that the rear brakes are doing 60% of the braking and the front brakes are doing 40%.  To do this you make a tool out of a couple pieces of plywood, a couple carriage bolts and a couple wing nuts.  You make this tool so it is adjustable so it can depress the brake pedal at 1 inch, 1 1/2 inch and 2 inches.     At 1 inch of pedal depression the rear wheels start to drag but the front does nothing.  At 1 1/2 pedal depression the rear wheels are difficult to turn but not locked and the front brakes just start to drag.  At 2 inches pedal depression the rear brakes will be locked when turned by hand and the front brakes will have a heavy drag but not locked.

For the emergency brake you adjust the brake rods so at the third click of the 3-brake handle the rear brakes are locked.  All of these brake adjustments are very time consuming.

Since I had installed a new tie rod, tie rod arms and steering arms I had to adjust the alignment "Toe-In"  The Model A is supposed to have a 1/8 inch "Toe-In" with the front wheels at the front you measure from wheel rim to wheel rim.  Then you have to move the two wheels to the back at the same heights as you did the measurement at the front.  The way I did this to get the front height of the front wheels and the rear height the same was I took a heavy nut and tied it to one of the spokes or valve stem with the nut hanging down.  Each string was the same length.  I turned the wheels to the front so the nuts  just touched the ground and took my measurement.  Then I moved the wheels to the rear to where the nuts on the string just touched the ground and measured there.  

The first time I measured  I found the wheels in the front position were toe-out almost an inch wider than in the rear position.  So, by turning the tie rod in the tie rod ends I was able to get the 1/8 inch toe in that was required.  

I took the car for a ride and have never had a braking system on this Model A working as they should.  All of the hard work paid off,  Now, maybe I will be able to wash it with all of the melted snow ball water from this job.

rob

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Great Job on the snowball Rob!!!   I would think all those parts would be hard to get. Did you have any problems getting them?  She is now able to do the cross country run!!   Niiiice

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I decided to try installing the copper collector gaskets today to fix the recurring collector gasket blow out and leak. Well the stupid things are too thin and while it surely wont blow out another collector gasket it still leaks a bit at the collectors. Back to the drawing board..... 

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15 minutes ago, cbolt said:

I decided to try installing the copper collector gaskets today to fix the recurring collector gasket blow out and leak. Well the stupid things are too thin and while it surely wont blow out another collector gasket it still leaks a bit at the collectors. Back to the drawing board..... 

I've had good luck with the Fel-Pro gaskets. They have a metal core, but were thick enough to seal. I also usually use Ultra-Copper RTV on both sides to seal it up good.

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3 minutes ago, jft69z said:

I've had good luck with the Fel-Pro gaskets. They have a metal core, but were thick enough to seal. I also usually use Ultra-Copper RTV on both sides to seal it up good.

That’s one reason I stay away from headers. PITA. 

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Went out to change center link today, cotter pins came out nicely nuts came off nicely but couldn't get the tie rod ends to break free. Not enough room to swing a hammer at pickle fork. So I went out today and got an air chisel with the pickle fork end. Will try again tomorrow. But it is a beautiful day out there anyhow.

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