knuckleharley

And let's be honest,$3700 ain't what it used to be.

I gotta admit I shouted out a "YIKES!" at the cost,but I haven't had an engine redone at a machine shop in 10+ years,so that might even be a reasonable price these days for all I know. What I do know is that once you get it back in the car and get the car back on the road and start enjoying it that the expense will mean less with each time you drive it.

Replace the tank. There is no question about this. While you are at it,replace the fuel line with the new copper/nickel lines that you can bend with your hands and not kink it,and then never have to worry about the gas line rusting inside. Replace all the hoses with new rubber rated to handle ethanol,and replace any gas filters with new filters rated for ethanol,too. Try to find the original parts numbers for your wheel cylinders if you have already tossed them. If you still have the old ones,the parts number and manufacturer will be cast right on them. Get the numbers off of all of them along with the manufacturers (Lockheed,etc,etc,etc) name. Do a web search using the name and numbers,and you may be surprised at what pops up. I was doing a brake job on my 39 IHC PU,and IHC parts are hard to find and stupid expensive. I got prices of 90 bucks each after checking with the IHC vendors. So I pulled the drums,got the numbers,and did a search on amazon. IIRC,I got them for $4.95 each,and all 4 were new Lockheed wheel cylinders. I've done the same with other cars since,with similar results. If your master cylinder is Chinese,I would recommend taking the same approach to finding a US made brake cylinder. If you can't,but a rebuilt one that has been sleeved by someone like White Post Restorations. Do a web search for "master cylinder rebuilders". You might even find one close to home. OR......,you might want to consider one of the under the floor dual outlet master cylinder kits. They cost more,but are much safer. While at it,replace all the brake hoses and the brake lines with copper/nickel brake lines.

PLEASE don't scrap that car after you have pulled what you want from it. It seems to have a lot of parts that some people here would surely want,and AFATG's,somebody might want to buy the whole car to put on the road. Legal titles aren't that hard to get in most states.

Are you sure of that? Shocks and springs affect the ride height,which would affect the alignment also because the suspension would travel further than it was designed to travel.

Sounds to me like new shocks should be the next thing on your shopping list,and you might want to put them on before you go to the alignment shop.

I am a traditionalist when it comes to style,but I gotta admit that thing is SLICK!

You have a single outlet master cylinder. Chances are your other 3 wheel cylinders and your master cylinder are as old as the wheel cylinder that has already gone bad. Do yourself a favor and buy 3 new wheel cylinders (cheaper to buy new than rebuild),and a new master cylinder. If it were me,I would also replace the brake lines and hoses. Look around and see what a replacement grille alone costs for your car,and then compare that to the price of a total brake rebuild. And that is assuming the grille would be all you would trash.

Anything that doesn't need to be done. I would definitely consider a dual-outlet master cylinder that mounts below the floor,and all new brake parts and lines for safety reasons,but unless you are planning on racing the car or pulling a trailer over mountains at highway speed,if your car is in good mechanical condition it will handle any normal driving with ease. When your uncle and your gramps were talking about modifying the car it was probably 20 + years ago,the car was worth 20 bucks,and the woods were full of them. Original cars that run and drive are worth considerably more money than that and are as desirable to most people as the modern street rods these days. Doctors have a slogan that states "Do no harm". MY slogan is "If it ain't broke,don't fix it."

Adjust your brake shoes and flush,refill,and bleed your master cylinder.

Yeah,but the difference is you don't care about the Monte Carlo.

WOW! I am in awe of the stock factory chrome and trim still being shiny on that red truck. From an appearance POV,in MY opinion that thing is perfect just as it sits. If it were mine,I would do what I needed to do to make it safe and reliable,and then drive it the way it is.

Any reason you can't just use copper tubing from the gauge to the sending unit?

As far as I can tell,spring hasn't sprung anywhere in the country. Here it is the end of the first week in April,and it's like the first week of March usually is.

It sure is a beauty,and about as rare as rooster lips,too.

" If a warrant is issued then the police might serve the warrant." Correct me if I'm wrong bubba,but doesn't that mean the police get involved? Who comes to your house if there is a disturbance complaint made? Who arrests you if they determine the complaint was valid? Who goes to your house to arrest you if you miss a court appearance?

I always made it mandatory that I carry a dist cap,points,rotor,and condenser in my trunk of any points car I drove. As it happened I never once needed them,but it was a great comfort to know they were there. Especially back in the pre-cell phone dark ages of the 1960's. I usually carried a spare coil,too. I still do it today,though. Cheap insurance. Especially compared to what roll-back rides cost these days.

Where did I ever claim that *I* would do that? My personal modes are a little more unorthodox. AND....,if it is an imagined error,it is IMAGINED. You say "I THINK.......|" And since when has there had to be an actual crime before the police get involved. Isn't it a part of their job to invistigate POSSIBLE "crimes",including stuff like parking violations and littering?

This is my last post on this subject,but anybody that thinks politics doesn't have anything to do with old cars has his head stuck in a hole in the ground. Politics controls every aspect of our lives.

I was wishing for a hoist the last time I pulled one,and that was 40 years ago. Damn things are half of the heads.

Ahhh,but the charm was IIRC the Cobra Jets used aluminum intakes. If there was ever an engine that needed an aluminum intake,it was a FE Ford.

None of those doctors came out of that machine to help him?

The number 1 cause of death is life. You are going to die anyhow,so you might as well try to enjoy living while you can.

There was a guy that retired from the Navy and moved to the next county over a few years ago that wanted to make it his life's mission to make sure everybody kept their lawns cut to a uniform height,had no unlicensed cars on their property,kept their houses painted,etc,etc,etc. This is a rural area that had pretty lax zoning because in most cases nobody really lived next door to anybody else. Everybody had room to breathe. Then this guy started driving all around the county with his camera and his notebook,and insisting the zoning department follow up on his leads and take action. He even appeared on local tv bragging about how "I am determined to clean up this county." He even caused trouble for one guy I know who had been running a welding business next door to his house for maybe 40 years,and his father ran it there before him. He wasn't up to code. No handicapped parking,no public restrooms,too much scrap metal laying around in plain view,grass needed cutting out back,etc,etc,etc. Keep in mind this guy owned a small farm,and had no close neighbors to complain. In addition to all that,this was the first time anybody complained. It cost him several hundred dollars and several lost days of work to bring things up to code to avoid the fines. I'm not exactly sure what happened to the Navy guy after the tv appearance,where he vowed to start driving around the adjoining counties and clean them up after cleaning up the county he just moved to. He literally disappeared. Nobody has seen or heard from him since,and his property was sold to someone else. I asked the people I know that live in that county,and none of them know what happened to him,although everybody is happy he is gone. I strongly suspect somebody he knew wasn't kidding whispered some words of wisdom in his ear,though.

Could be they are already burnt out on him after dealing with him twice already. Sometimes if the guy is a real nutcase,they just want to avoid him. You could always try to file a suit against the code enforcement office,but you REALLY need to make sure all YOUR ducks are lined up in a row before you do that.