Fiasco
What an under used word. Its so fun to say. It just rolls off the tongue. Unfortunately the experiences associated with the word aren’t as enjoyable.
I’ve been working on the brakes on my car. Changing brake pads, and new rotors as well. The good news is, the shudder that I used to get when I pressed the brakes is gone. The bad news is, I can’t get the stupid brake light in my car to go off. I’m just about at my wits end. It’ll be going on day four of messing with this. Gonna try to bleed the brakes and master cylinder one last time. If that doesn’t work. I’m going to tear the whole damn thing apart and start over!
More as it develops.
Long lost older sibling.
Here some pictures we snapped of the Toronado we saw for sale while we were down scoping out the wedding place. Creepy how close the colors are! When I painted my car, I never would have guessed there’d be another one out there almost the same color!
The one up front is an ’83 and was for sale. (Probably would have bought it if I had the cash!)
Not that my car is rare or anything, but just crazy to find one THAT similar!
11.9.07It keeps going…and going…
I don’t know which would be a cooler picture. This one, or the 220,000. But I didn’t want to waste 0.1 miles worth of gas @ 3.18 a gallon just to snap a picture. Ha ha!
Going to re-do the breaks this weekend and put on all new belts. Then next month it’s new shocks and springs and pretty much just odds and ends from there. Just tryin’ fix things faster than they break!
10.27.07sweet new ride!
the Red Corolla ….. for those who havn’t seen it yet =P
It is finished.
It’s hard to believe, but I think I’m done. I had one last marathon weekend. And I couldn’t have done it without Andrea’s help! So without delay, the new look of the Toronado!
Click for larger pictures and to go to the gallery.
Here’s what it looked like the day I bought it:
Here’s how she looks today!
These were taken at 2am. So if the sun comes out this afternoon. I hope to get some nicer (prettier) pictures.
09.7.07F$%# you, Ford!
So I go out get ready to change the spark plugs in Andrea’s car last night since she can’t remember the last time they’d been changed. I just bought some new extensions and swivel heads for my socket set so I can get the job done. And I get the four on the passenger side done fine. Seeing as how her car is a 4 cylinder normally the job would be done at that point. But no!
ONLY at Ford would they decide that a 4 cyl motor needs 8 spark plugs. And ONLY at Ford could you stick a little 2 liter four banger into the SAME SPACE that fits a 5.0 V8 and STILL make it be a bitch to get to things. I ended up getting it done, but not without losing a big chunk of skin trying to get my hand UNDERNEATH the intake manifold to pull the wires off, and a new set of plug wires because one of them just disintegrated in my hand. That and a lot of swearing.
Friggin’ Fords.
09.5.07So I’m getting close.
Just about there! I need to find some more paint because I still need to get a few more coats on the doors for durability. But then it’s off to polishing, waxing, and then just put on the trim back on and I guess it’s done!
Falling behind…
Yesterday I finally started work on the doors. Took me a while to figure out how to get the damn thing off. First door took probably 45 minutes, but once I figured out where all the tabs and clips and screws and crap were, the second one took about 10 minutes. haha!
Got the door handles off and the doors ready to prep, but had some “honey do” items that took priority, so my work was cut short. Without any door handles outside, I couldn’t really roll up the windows. So I put these stylish “window covering apperatuses” over night to keep the outdoors out.
You can actually see the paint shining too! Something this car hasn’t seen in a looong time.
Somebody said in my last thread I’d learn somethings, both good and bad. Yeah, here’s one of the bad. I had a bad feeling about masking around the pinstripe trim, but figured it was better than breaking all the clips. Well after a few coats it started to look like crap. So I said screw it and I pulled the trim. Only broke about HALF the clips. :rolleyes: I’ll figure something out to get ’em back on.
Here’s why I pulled it. Nasterriffic!
So yup more prep work to do there. No biggie. That’s why I’m doing this to an ’85 Toronado. Haha!
Here’s a nice picture of what it looks like riding in the driver’s seat.
And this little project is on hold again until Sunday. I was hoping to get it all done this weekend with my time off, but Andrea’s family is coming to town and we’ll be busy for a lot of the weekend. Maybe Monday I can go balls to the wall and knock it out, but it’s looking like it still might be a couple more weeks before it’s all said and done.
08.11.07Hot damn! Err…cold damn!
I finally decided to get off my duff and mess with my AC in the car again. Since it was oh, 102 today. I had previously thought that the refrigerant was leaking out as fast as I could put it in, but a while ago my compressor would engage and disengage on, off, on, off, when the AC or the defrost was on. So that lead me to believe that the system was actually holding some of the charge I’d put in it quite a while ago.
On my AC system there is a pressure switch that won’t let the compressor come on if the pressure gets too low. If you run the compressor without enough oil and pressure it’ll over heat an seize up. A problem I was running into when I was trying to charge the system last time is the compressor wouldn’t run. It would overcharge the low side, the compressor would kick in and equalize the system, then the pressure would drop, and the compressor would go off. So it was on, off, on, off, a very slow process and it didn’t seem to be helping any. After reading around on oldspower.com I found out I can just jump the pressure switch (so it thinks the pressure is good) and the compressor will run continuously. This way I can keep charging and steadily bring the pressure up.
About 1 1/2 of these cans later and the compressor would run even with the switch hooked up. I hop in the car and lo and behold there’s cool air coming out of those vents! YEEE HAW! It’s not freezing cold. But it was cold enough to make it comfortable in my car for my test drive when it was 97 outside. That’s good enough for me! Hopefully it holds the charge. Since it lost the original charge there’s obviously a leak somewhere. But it seems to have held what I put in there from last year, and even if I have to charge it once a year, I’m okay with that!
08.4.07More progress
Alright, this is quick. Because I’m tired, I’m dirty, and a I have to get up for church tomorrow. Got a lot more done on the car today. Still a lot to do though.
Stripped the paint and as much rust as I could from the lower quarter panel. It wasn’t as bad as I though. I was worried it’d be rusted all the way through, but it wasn’t. It was bad enough that if a guy was doing a real restoration he’d cut the metal out and weld new metal in, but my metalworking skills are even worse than my welding skills. Which is to say, non-exsistant.
Even Andrea got down and dirty!
Here the front is with the bumper gone and most of the trim removed, waiting for me to prep it for paint.
Here’s a shot I took on a frustration break. Got the rear bumper and bumper fillers off. I had to take the back tires off to get the chrome wheel trim off. The screws on the back were more stubborn than the front. I almost had to drill some of the friggin screws out.
A close up of the rust. Here’s what has been hiding beneath that paint…what was left of it. I got it as good as I could with the tools I had.
Finally got the front prepped for paint.
It’s a dirty job.
Rear quarter ready for paint.
Got one coat on. The stuff goes on pretty thin. Tomorrow it’ll look better.
And paint for the front.
And that’s how I left it. By tomorrow, everything but the doors and roof should have new paint on it. Getting close but still a lot to do.