Steering 2

I’m looking forward to getting the front wheels back on. The other cars need some maintenance, so being able to move Pandora would be nice – maybe even drive her again! Plus having the wheels to support the front end while I get the subframe connectors installed would be helpful. My intent was to have at least that part done by the end of the weekend. I got one lower arm installed, then did a test fit on an upper and felt something just wasn’t quite right.

I took some pictures to send back to BMR asking what I was doing wrong. Getting email composed and ready, I grabbed the invoice paper to get my order number and found the problem. I got lower arms for my car, but the uppers were one part number off, so I got uppers for an A-body (Chevelles and other GM midsize cars). Fortunately, the guys at BMR were really cool about it and cross shipped new arms out. They should be here by the end of the week – just in time for me to leave town.

Fortunately, there are a couple more things to do. I managed to find the brackets and bolts for the power steering pump and got that test mounted. I also re-familiarized myself with how heavy a power steering gearbox is and how much fun it is to hold up with one arm while trying to get bolts lined up with the other. It didn’t take me too long to remember that I have tools designed to lift heavy things for me, which made the whole process go faster.

I have a list of smaller things I wanted to get done this summer. The headlight doors, which worked when I parked her, are frozen shut. The windshield wipers, which also worked, are now non-functional. I bought a set of fitted spark plug wires, but they are waaay too long, but they worked and I’m lazy. Now I have a new, correct length set waiting in the pile of parts. I need to get the plugs out and see what they look like after a couple hundred miles. I’d like to pretend I’ll read them and adjust things to run better, but I know I’ll just be scraping oil off of them.

Getting these to work has always been high on my list of things to fix. Originally, they were manually set to be open because the vacuum lines were all missing. I replaced all of that with color-correct lines from NPD and, surprisingly, the rest of the stuff just worked. They were working when she was parked. But at some point in that time, they’ve mostly disappeared. Since they aren’t something I would have scavenged off the car for anything else, they either have to have disintegrated or been eaten by rats. I strongly suspect rats.

The weird thing is, this is only part of the car I found evidence of rats other than droppings on the intake manifold. Even the spider webs were limited to some of the undercarriage and the brakes. I don’t know why spiders love to live near brakes so much, but if a car sits for a while, you’ll usually find them there. The trunk and interior were completely critter-free. I should count myself lucky, but it is really strange that nothing tried to move in over the past couple of decades.

So, while waiting for parts to make the car go, I’m taking more apart to make it look neat. With luck, I’ll get everything out and inspected before we leave town tomorrow. I’d like to get anything I can’t repair ordered and on its way. Good thing parts for this car are practically free!