The "66 El Camino that I finally own" Thread
Discussion
v8.jimmy said:
regarding the car starting and ending its American life in California, I can tell from the black reg plates that it was never ever registered outside California and that those plates will bear the original number given to the car when new, this is what they mean when you hear anybody mention "California black plate car"
Well - you learn something every day!Just found this thread.
Wow, that is going to make a very fine ride. I love Elks, there were millions of them when I worked in Venezuela. I used to borrow a mate's '86 Gen V running a tuned 350 motor. Damn, that was a good car. He'd done a lot of work to that thing, shame I don't have any photos. It looked really good in red.
A bit like this one.
Wow, that is going to make a very fine ride. I love Elks, there were millions of them when I worked in Venezuela. I used to borrow a mate's '86 Gen V running a tuned 350 motor. Damn, that was a good car. He'd done a lot of work to that thing, shame I don't have any photos. It looked really good in red.
A bit like this one.
Thanks for the update Jim, yes I'm home today, currently waiting at Split airport.
There should be a few boxes of goodies waiting for me upon my return and I have a few more days off so she should be ready for an MOT pretty soon.
Before I left for hols I stripped and rebuilt the wiper motor and tried to fix the washer pump but the plastic cam that operates the pump from the wiper motor had split in two so not much I could do with that.
Re-greased and with an improved earth, the wipers now run about three times quicker than they did!
There should be a few boxes of goodies waiting for me upon my return and I have a few more days off so she should be ready for an MOT pretty soon.
Before I left for hols I stripped and rebuilt the wiper motor and tried to fix the washer pump but the plastic cam that operates the pump from the wiper motor had split in two so not much I could do with that.
Re-greased and with an improved earth, the wipers now run about three times quicker than they did!
Before my holiday I had sorted the rear lights, taking the easy route for now of putting orange bulbs in the reversing lights and swapping the indicator feed to this bulb.
Brake lights remain on the same bulb as the tail lights but are now fed by a fresh wire direct from the brake light switch, thus bypassing the flasher relay that would otherwise give flashing red brake lights when indicating and braking.
This means I have no reversing lights for now, not the end of the world, but I am going to look into dual colour leds (amber / white) for the indicators to see if I can't reinstate them later.
I also decided that the front anti-roll bar bushes had seen better days...
These were dirt-cheap from Rockauto and delivered very quickly too, bit of a difference!
Easiest thing in the world to fit, didn't even need to jack the front up
I had become bored waiting for the correct windscreen washer parts I had ordered in early August, so made some washer jets from some thin brass tube with the end crimped to form an "8" shape and an electric pump I had knocking around. Does the job for MOT purposes and the proper stuff will probably arrive eventually....
With working washers and legal lights I was impatient to get a definitive "to do" list so booked an MOT. I knew the front tyres would probably fail as they look like this
MOT was duly performed this morning and she failed.
Failure list:-
Front tyres
Battery insecure (I had forgotten to refit the clamp which was happily sitting on the workbench in the garage!
)
Headlight aim low (I had forgotten to check the aim after fitting the new ones!
)
So with a little less impatience on my part it would have been a very short list indeed!
Brake lights remain on the same bulb as the tail lights but are now fed by a fresh wire direct from the brake light switch, thus bypassing the flasher relay that would otherwise give flashing red brake lights when indicating and braking.
This means I have no reversing lights for now, not the end of the world, but I am going to look into dual colour leds (amber / white) for the indicators to see if I can't reinstate them later.
I also decided that the front anti-roll bar bushes had seen better days...
These were dirt-cheap from Rockauto and delivered very quickly too, bit of a difference!
Easiest thing in the world to fit, didn't even need to jack the front up
I had become bored waiting for the correct windscreen washer parts I had ordered in early August, so made some washer jets from some thin brass tube with the end crimped to form an "8" shape and an electric pump I had knocking around. Does the job for MOT purposes and the proper stuff will probably arrive eventually....
With working washers and legal lights I was impatient to get a definitive "to do" list so booked an MOT. I knew the front tyres would probably fail as they look like this
MOT was duly performed this morning and she failed.
Failure list:-
Front tyres
Battery insecure (I had forgotten to refit the clamp which was happily sitting on the workbench in the garage!
)Headlight aim low (I had forgotten to check the aim after fitting the new ones!
)So with a little less impatience on my part it would have been a very short list indeed!
99t said:
Before my holiday I had sorted the rear lights, taking the easy route for now of putting orange bulbs in the reversing lights and swapping the indicator feed to this bulb.
Brake lights remain on the same bulb as the tail lights but are now fed by a fresh wire direct from the brake light switch, thus bypassing the flasher relay that would otherwise give flashing red brake lights when indicating and braking.
This means I have no reversing lights for now, not the end of the world, but I am going to look into dual colour leds (amber / white) for the indicators to see if I can't reinstate them later.
I assume from the reg it is pre 65 which means you could have left it as it was.Brake lights remain on the same bulb as the tail lights but are now fed by a fresh wire direct from the brake light switch, thus bypassing the flasher relay that would otherwise give flashing red brake lights when indicating and braking.
This means I have no reversing lights for now, not the end of the world, but I am going to look into dual colour leds (amber / white) for the indicators to see if I can't reinstate them later.
TooMany2cvs said:
Everybody has access to a beam setter...
sorry, I don't have a clear wall in my garage where you can get a car level and not have any interruptions, so NO we don't all have access and that only lets you see if both are equal, it's still guesswork if they are too high or too low unless you are doing that every day and know exactly what is right. I have done it with a sheet of ply in front of a car but it's still guesswork, so rather than take a chance and not get it right, it's far easier if you have a working relationship with your MOT garage who will oblige, or let me do it myself accurately on a proper calibrated beam setter. If the garage wall was an accurate way, then there would be no requirement for an MOT station to buy expensive equipment.Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff