1968 Chevy Bel Air Wagon Project

[flatbed67]

Thank you for the nice comments on the exhaust sound. It does sound nice
and throaty, but Almost too loud, I'm afraid. We'll see, I have driven the
wagon with no door seals, so it might feel different when those are done.

Must be something with the previous owners of my cars. So many things done
so wrong.
When I removed the door seals, I marked them with masking tape for
orientation and by door ( eg left front door ). I do mistakes, but I remember
taking them off two different days, and the left hand ones were marked with
red marker, and the right hand ones with black, so I'm pretty confident they
were marked right. Of freaking course the PO had put the right hand side front
door seal on the driver's side! When I had done the front door, and was
working on the rear door seal, I noticed that they were inside out, opposed to
eachother. I tried the fit, and decided the front door one was the wrong way around.
Deep sigh, and picking out thirty odd little plastic fasteners, putting them into
the other door seal, and working out how it would mount.

I'll get it sorted, but it's like biking uphill all the time

[flatbed67]

I was so annoyed with those door seals. I know, my own fault for putting one on
the wrong door. Still annoyed the heck out of me, having to pull all the little
plastic fasteners out of the new painted window frame. Easy to blame the PO.

Yesterday we had a cruis in at a local gas station/diner. A guy who took pics of
all the cars at a previous event, April 30, happened to snap one of mine too, so
I asked for promision to use it, so here it is.



With new exhaust and door seals in place, the ride is pretty nice. I just need to
get the front lowered and aligned.

(some additional work may be needed )

[Ol Blue K20]

Looks great out in the sun.

[flatbed67]

It's been some time, and I've been waiting for the driver for the sequential
turn lights. A good friend of mine has made the system, and programmed the
micro controller. I just got it home, and of course there's a lot of work to do
with packaging, mounting of the driver, and getting all the cables and leads to
go to their respective bulbs.

So here's the whole gorgeousness sprawled out on the kitchen table:



Workflow from left to right:

In:
-Left and right front turn signal wires (the original relay will be shorted).
-Brake light wire from pedal switch
-Hazard (also relay removed/shorted)

These signals will be processed by the programmable Arduino micro controller
to send on signals to certain outputs. These signals go to the amplifier card,
so that they get powerful enough to drive the relays on the relay card.
There are eight relays on the relay card. Six for each one of the tail
turn/brake light filaments, and one each for the front turn lights.
The "Low park driver" will supply a lower voltage to the rear park light on the
side to which the turn signals are blinking. This will require another two relays.

I've also planned to put in a panic switch, that gets me brake lights if this
whole system fails for some reason, just as a safety precaution. Normal tail
lights will work even if the system is shut down

The Arduino controller will be powered off a 12V to USB thingy, a bit like a
phone car charger. The relay card and amplifier card will be powered off 12V
when ignition is on. Chevrolets have working brake lights at all times, but in
this case the break lights will work only when the ignition is switched on, like
in most any European car.

The remote is just silly. There's a radio receiver on the relay card, so you can
remotely turn on any one of all tail lights with the remote, if the relay card is
getting its 12V power supply. I have no idea when to use this, but it came
with the system at no cost. Actually the whole shebang was gifted to me.
It's really great to have good friends

[flatbed67]

Video clip with the Arduino powered system tested:

https://youtu.be/JCRBqbIeW9I

[Ol Blue K20]

That's cool! Ilike it a lot

[flatbed67]

Thanks, Ol Blue K20, I'll be back in a bit, there's work with the boat going
on, and midsummer's coming up. Hopefully I'm back on track in a week or so.
I was to the local speed shop today, and bought new bushings for the lower
front control arms, so when I lower it, I assume there will be potential for a bit
better handling. I'm going to put in a good bit of caster, and try to get camber
close to zero. More caster, because I think it's too twitchy now.

Like Arnie said: "I'll be back"

[flatbed67]

Oh, befoe I forget:
We visited an American car meeting this weekend. It doesn't show in this pic, but there
were at least a couple hunded American cars in attendance.



What bugs me, is that the wagon still seems to have this effect on other people and their cars:

[flatbed67]

Finally something happening on the wagon. Some work on the boat has been
done, and some boating, of course.
Anyway, time to work on the altitude in the front of the wagon. After some
measuring and planning, the desired amount of lowering is about three inches. I
measured the coils and decided a bit more than one coil will have to go. When I
got the spring out, though, it was tighter coiled in the ends, than in the middle, so
the amount of coil cutting is still in the open.



The coils are tighter towards the ends. Oh well, it's just a matter of deciding.

The rubber around the lower ball joints were shot, and as the local speed
shop can't get new rubber, I had to order new ball joints too. $150 a pair, if
you care to know.



I was investigating the shims situation in small parts drawer, when it dawned
on me, that the reason for there not being any shims, migt be that you don't
use shims on this kind of car. After some studying I learned how to do it.

On the forward strut on the lower control arm, you adjust caster on this nut:



The nut, of course has some washers and grommets, and another nut on the
other side of what is a mounting point in the frame.

Then the inner bolt that attaches the lower control arm to the frame is
excentrical, and that's what you adjust caster with.



You learn new things every time you work on a car. It's a great part of our
hobby.
Now out to the shop to change all the bushings!

Oh, and I know it's not recommended to lower a car by cutting coils, but it's
worked for me. An old front spring that's a bit soft gets a bit stiffer when
shortened, and I like the firmer ride. A good alignment job usually make the
cars drive decently after.

[mongocanfly]

what ive done in the past was cut one full coil,,(red mark)...then heat the coil...(blue mark)...to replicate the original compressed part of spring..so it sits flat on spring pad...
usually, but not always ,1 coil is about 2in....

[flatbed67]

It took a while to get the wagon back on the road. All kinds of stuff need
attention in the summer.
Anyway, after cutting an undisclosed amount of coils off of the front springs,
the stance is more or less exactly what I wanted. In other words the same
distance between the rim and the top of the wheel opening front and back.
I think that makes for a well balanced, and nicely defined forward rake, just
as I like them



So no, I couldn't resist making the hazard sequence animation. Too bad it's
still only in my imagination. I really hope to get time to splice in the
sequential turn signals into the electrical system soon. Just now, we're
leaving for a one week road trip with the blue wagon. It will only be some 800
miles, but she's old and technically I don't really know her that well yet. I
wasn't going on a trip with only an idiot light, so I mounted a temp gauge
yesterday to be able to keep track of the health of the little 327. There's
going to be a big cruising saturday evening, and my Pontiac has had its only
over heating tendencies in this very cruising in past years.

[mongocanfly]

Looks much better..!

[Ol Blue K20]

It looks sporty now. I like the sequential light idea.

[Clyde65]

Damn nice job! Looks a lot like one my dad had way back

[Getter-Done]

Great Work as always.
Looks Great.
As for your cruzin trip.
Take plently of water for
The Wagon and You and the wife.






.

[flatbed67]

Thank you mongocanfly, Ol Blue K20, Clyde65 and Getter-Done for the kind words!

Back from a 1000 mile trip last night. The wagon ran perfectly all the time.
Total fuel consumption was 17 mpg, which is about what I had expected, a
good chunk, almost one third, being urban driving/commuting.
(327, original Rochester Qjet, points ignition, new rings, bearing shells, and
a bit bigger cam a couple years ago, TH-400 and who-knows-what-cogs)

It ran great, but when we had a hundred miles to go, we noticed a bad smell.
It seemed to come out of the technical end, and sniffing around under the
hood, I found it was the battery that was cooking. I had brought some tools
along, and put the multimeter to work. Over 16 volts. We continued cooking,
and this morning I checked the battery voltage,and it was 13.6Volts(engine off). I put in
another battery, started her up, and got 18 Volts. After some digging around
the regulator, I found that the ground lead was loose. The hole for the sheet
metal screw was too big, which seemed to be the problem. I found a bigger
screw, sanded the connecting surfaces with some emery cloth, and
connected the ground.
Now we have 14,25 Volts, and all is good

I topped up the battery with distilled water, and will try to use it. A lot of the
acid had boiled off, so I guess there's a good risk it's shot.

[Ol Blue K20]

I like simple solutions. I hope the battery is ok. 1000 miles! sounds like a good time.......

[notsolo]

Nice work, Beautiful car. You should see what Ford used for sequencial turn signals in the 60's.Yikes...Stance looks great, 68-72..last of the great looking wagons. Friend's dad had the Olds Vista Cruiser, from my way back when.

[Ol Blue K20]

Originally Posted by notsolo

Nice work, Beautiful car. You should see what Ford used for sequencial turn signals in the 60's.Yikes...Stance looks great, 68-72..last of the great looking wagons. Friend's dad had the Olds Vista Cruiser, from my way back when.

I had 71 Vista Cruiser with a 70 W30 455 engine. Man, I miss that car!

[flatbed67]

Over two years past due I suddenly noticed a mistake I made:



The caption for this pic is wrong, some will probably have caught it. You adjust the CAMBER with this excentical bolt. In other words you adjust the lower ball joint in ot out to the side, relative to the centerline of the car.

The wagon was sold in to gain funds for a new project car, a 1930 Buick Marquette, a hot rod Build.
Follow this link to HAMB to see what I'm up to nowadays:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...moval.1223573/

[Getter-Done]

Good too hear from you

I checked out the Hamb Stuff