Joshua Paul

Heard that!

floor boards are definitely on the radar. hopefully sooner rather than later!

ha! we'll see about the windows, the regulators are in pretty bad shape. I was lucky enough to get the driver's side down so I could take it for a spin to....

Joshua Paul

The EXHAUST SHOP!!!

got an exhaust put on today. Contract went to the lowest bidder, as I do not have a pipe bender and my only access to a welder is about 30-40 minutes away. which is too far to drive with open headers and holes in the floors. I know this from experience...





unfortunately I have bad news though, You remember that shitty muffler I said HAD to go? well, turns out. this is a budget build... so it went right back on the car. the 12" glass pack just wasn't going to be quiet enough. so I had the guy at the shop put this thing back on, and he did an excellent job tucking it up into the quarter panel so it's WAY more out of sight, and the 28" THRUSH glass pack really takes a lot out of the sound to keep it from sounding too 97' Honda Civic. It's still one part Honda to three parts Datsun, shaken NOT stirred of course, but I can live with that for now.
at least until I can score a magna flow off eBay for dirt cheap.




Two things, I don't know if it's just showing up this way on my computer or on everyone's but a lot of my photos get flipped. I apologize, I've tried to fix it. no joy. but if you click on the photos attached to each post it will open the photo in the proper orientation. FYI.

also, I have some more posts on an iG account I started for this build @Dats_hoon so if you want to hear some exhaust tones go check that out. it's easier than posting videos on here cause i haven't figured that out yet.

Joshua Paul

vinyls were pretty cheap. turned out pretty cool. I think i'll get more eventually.
trouble shooting fuel delivery problems right now. should have it sorted tomorrow.

Also, rubbed a hole in my radiator hose, cause I drove it to the Exhaust shop without checking the clearances. LOL. this aftermarket radiator is what i'm assuming is way thicker than the stock radiator, and it's pushing the stock radiator hose back into the serpentine belt.

Joshua Paul

Apparently what you think is "about ten gallons" in these old cars, is more like "a gallon and a half" and running out of fuel gives pretty much the same symptoms as a bad fuel pump and clogged filter...

so like 3 hours later and 10 gallons of gas,

No more fuel problems...


; )

the more I take this thing for short spins the more I notice the problems with the brakes and suspension. The brakes are DEFINITELY the top priority now.

beg3yrs

A wise choice.

During my restoration I paid attention to the brakes. I didn't have any decent history on either car so all the hardware in the rear drums was replaced (more than once due to a stupid mistake) and I put new calipers and pads on the front.

Got things rolling and there was a pulsing coming from the front brakes. Decided to turn the rotors and when I pulled them off, lo and behold for some unknown reason the inside of the rotors looked like someone had dragged them across concrete. The guys at the shop suggested just getting new ones as turning them was $15 and new ones was just over $30. Being of Scottish ancestry I attempted turning them. Yeah, they looked ok and met spec (barely) but the pulsing was worse! Seems the metal had hard and soft spots, the old rotors were worthless. Got some new rotors and everything is good.

Long story short, don't try to save money on brakes by reusing old parts of unknown heritage.

Joshua Paul

I completely agree. My dad has always said "don't skimp on steering or brakes!".
Those are really the only two systems on a car that will kill you. If anything brakes in any other system as long as your brakes and steering are good you can just pull over to the side of the road and come to a stop!



Flo says I can swap this puppy to Four wheel discs for just under $1000, and while I don't think it's completely necessary, I do think the braking system is pretty shot, and if i'm going to spend $500 replacing everything that's on there for new parts, I mind as well spent $900 to make this thing discs now and not worry about it later.

also, because Hydraulic Hand Brake...

I'm looking to have the parts ordered in the next week or so, we'll see how it turns out!

Joshua Paul

having idle problems. still diagnosing. very stumbley. My gut says it's electrical.

I'm concentrating on re wiring the car next. i've been putting it off.

today I made a boot for the shifter.
I used two layers of Herculite, which is this super awesome resistant synthetic material. the first layer I just put down flush with the transmission hump.



I made a second layer of Herculite and wrapped it in Nubuck. which is a suede type leather.


cut off the excesses, which was a lot, because I didn't take the measurements correctly. and bolted the cover plate back down. turned out pretty cool.






I also rewrapped the sun visors. cut them down to the frame. put a fancy stitch across the front and wrapped them in Nubuck. I broke the center bracket though when I took them off so I can't put them back on yet, i'll have to bend a new one first.






turned out alright, I've never done any interior work so these designs were pretty new to me, if I made a second boot cover it would probably turn out much better, but oh well, this one's not terrible.

Joshua Paul

not a whole lot done today, bent a quick bracket for the sun visors. and installed.



cut the old bracket to make it a spacer so the mirror wont mount correctly.



installed and put the visors in





also cut all the foam off the steering wheel. put a layer of duct tape around it. not really sure why i did that. it just seemed right. and then I started wrapping 3 .0z foam batting that i cut into 3" strips around the wheel. I ran out so I'll need to get more tomorrow, the inside of the wheel was a smaller diameter than i anticipated.

Joshua Paul

Finished the steering wheel. it feels nicer in your hand than it looks, but it looks pretty cool too.






for those of you interested in this, be forewarned. I have a small business doing leather work so I hand stitch and machine stitch a fair amount. and this steering wheel took me 10+ hours to finish. it would take a lot less if you took the wheel off the car, but i wasn't really pressed for time, some things that I learned doing this wheel, as i've never wrapped a steering wheel before, are to make sure you have the right size and type of pliers to push the needle through, believe it or not, channel locks work much better than needle nose, they put your wrist in a better position to push and pull through the fabric, just get the correct size, because all i had were larger pairs for mechanic type work. also, if you put a piece of masking tap or duct tap along the inside of the foam (underneath where your stitch will be) as you stitch the leather together, the foam will not stick out through the seam and you'll get a much better finished look, I figured this out about half way through, so you can still see a little white foam sticking out in some spots, you can burn most of it off with a lighter, it just makes your life easier.




not to toot my own horn, I'm trying not to do that very much on this thread, but if someone were interested, I would consider wrapping their steering wheel for them. I can do any color you want, and also, if you're willing to spring for the parts, I can put squeeze switches under the leather, which you can wire to you horn circuit so you can honk your horn by squeezing the steering wheel like in a Ferrari. lol.



it's not atrocious.

beg3yrs

With all that leather you need a racoon tail to hang from your mirror. Maybe some fringe hanging from the seats ...

Seriously now, you've got a nice skill. Can't wait to see the rest of the car when you're finished. Are you going to carry the theme through the rest of the interior?

Joshua Paul

nah, I was thinking more like some giant black fuzzy dice... ; )