63 Pinner Hightop

[John ED Renstrom]

So it's back to work today. Finished cleaning up the back door and upper lights. Found a little more rust under the right tunnel lights. Got that cleaned out. I'm not sure if I can spray the rust converter. Without pulling the headliner. It's clean and doesn't need a rust stain on it. Cleaned up around the Handel and exposed the edges of the rust problem. We got a decent game plan to make a decent repair there. We need to find some tracing paper to trace out the letters before we mess them up, if we are going to have a chance of recreating them. However, let's remove the trim and assess what needs to be done for repairs at this time. So far, not much on this one. It's in pretty good shape. The back door has more filler than steel in it right now. However, there are only a couple of pinholes on the right front door. The trim is stored out in the PVC pipe. Next time, it will be 4-inch stuff, which doesn't take long to fill up a 3-inch pipe.

 

[Paul Steinberg]

The car was painted once before, so the lettering on it isn't the original. The original was done in gold leaf, and I'm not sure if you will be able to find any remnants of it when you strip down the rest of the paint.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

Most likely not. What we are thing of is getting them reproduced in a vinyl. There is a place in Rapid that does that and they have a gold leaf design. If I trace it out we can get the size and shape correct.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

Since we need to run up tomorrow we will stop in a visit with the people at Summit Signs. Found a drop cover that was transparent it worked well for what we needed. They can make the transfers off from a picture. But they need to know how big to make them a direct copy should answer all questions.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

Got the transfers and pictures up to the sign people. They will get back to you with a price. They do have a gold leaf pattern.

 

[Paul Steinberg]

If it is to be a full restoration, I would strongly recommend using the original gold leaf lettering. The vinyl gold leaf lettering doesn't look good unless you are 10 feet away. Up close, it looks tacky. Even painted letters would be a better choice than vinyl lettering.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

Finely discover the car is real a pro car. Dog out the first mouse nest today. Uncovered a little more then I thought I would getting the trim off the wood under the sill plate is in rough shape. But then it is over 50 years old. So not bad for untreated plywood. We salvaged enough for a decent pattern. Experimented with the needle scaler for cleaning off the tunnels. That will help from tearing up the lead holding them in. That double hump was not going to be fun by hand. Using the chipper will speed that up a lot but the first thing we did was put some stops on the back glass. Last thing we need is to have it pop out and break when closing the door. With out them very little holding it in place. I don't believe the bolted that molding on but it looks like we will be taking off some interior pieces to un-bolt it.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

We'll see what Nick wants to; it's his car. But I did get a sample of the two they have. Made it down the left side today. Got all the cancer exposed. It's in the same place as the right, just a little more of it on the left. So two bad places on the car, the top and the bottom. I was having some trouble rolling up the driver's door, so I fixed the divider sash and lubricated the runners and gear. With no help available, I took one last chance and drilled a hole in the back of the drive gear, added some white grease, and freed it up. The idea of rebuilding another one was not my idea of fun. Getting it in and out would be the hard part. Both the inside top trim pieces are rusty in the same place. It has to be water leaking in the top seal. Don't forget to remind me they are in the blast cabinet. Out of sight is out of mind. The driver has a proper stop for the glass. The 2x4 must have been added after the wreck on that side.

 

[Paul Steinberg]

The block of wood might have been to keep the window from going down too far and coming off the track. It might have been added when the glass was replaced. It cracked while I was driving the car to the pick up point to have it shipped to Nick in Texas. I also sent him a family of New England mice that took up residence after he purchased it and I stopped driving the car.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

Yes as I got the story it got hit in the right side at a intersection. The glass stop must have been crushed then. I wondered why the right glass went down more then the left they must not have had a 4x4 scrap to use.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

Re-learned a lesson today. If you get into a hurry to take a car out to see how it runs put at least one inside door handle back on. Makes getting out a lot easer. Lucky i still had one up front. But since we got the carb overhauled i wanted to run the car some to make sure it is ok. Will it didn't flood out. i could get it started with out priming, sat there running ok but still had no pick up, shifted funny and didn't brake right. Wouldn't go up a slight rise with out bogging down and popping up in the carb. Pulled it into the shop and it felt like it was glowing red hot. Checked it out it was getting a 40 deg drop from the top of the radiator 190 at the thermostat but over 200 at the water pump and front of the block. The only other thing changed was the distributor. So lets check the timming. Looked is up in my book it as 12.7 before tdc. Found it on the block and painted the mark on the crank. Man that thing is hard to find when running. It was set at 1/4 of the pulley past the mark in advance. Droped it close to were is should be it picked up another 200 rpm. The distributor was so tight i had to use the ratchet to loosen it. So it didn't shift it was set there.took it out again and what a difference. It shifted right, the brakes worked it ran smooth you could puck up speed going up hill. But most of all it ran cooler. Took it out the same rout had it easily up to 80 at less them half throttle with out trying. You could gain speed up hill. Like a different car completly. Restarted it when i got back. It fired on the first roll with a crack. Think we found the problem. I'll sehow easly if fires tomorrow when its cold.