On The Level
On The Level
On The Level
Good day today, got a lot of little things done and started some things that I wanted to tear into...
First of all, I wanted to check the fuel gauge sender since I knew it wasn’t working. While I’ve only put maybe 30 miles on the car since I got it, I figured that the level in the tank had gone down enough that I could pull the gauge sender without making a mess.
So out it came, with the fuel level in the tank being nearly full. I realized that if I was leaning on the trunk floor I was pressing down on the tank, raising the level and making fuel spill out, so I stopped that immediately. I knew the sender was the problem the minute I started to raise it out of the tank, as the float was locked in position. Took a bit of an effort to thread it out of the opening, but I prevailed.
Put the sender on a workspace and removed the cover from the electrical portion. Nothing surprising here, but it did give me access to the pin that the float pivoted on, to which I applied some Kroil penetrating oil. In a matter of a couple of minutes the pivot pin was free and the float was moving like it was new again. I also applied some DeOxIt slider cleaner to the resistive element and wiper to clean them up as well.
Installed the sender and tightened everything up. Original gasket looked sketchy so I put that on my stock parts order list. Went up front to the cabin and turned the key.
Success!!
With that out of the way, I moved on to the cleaning of the trunk mats. Sprayed them down with Simple Green and then scrubbed them with a stiff brush. A good hosing down and they were done.
Before.
After.
Done with the trunk I headed for the cabin. I’ve really wanted to get started on the the windshield surround and dashboard wood pieces. I was feeling lucky, so I tried prying the speaker grille out of the dash pad. Success!! Even better, the original speaker was still intact!
So under the dash I went with the glove compartment liner removed and the speaker out. With that out I could remove the wood at the base of the windshield. Within about 30 minutes I had all of the wood around the windshield removed.
I was feeling pretty lucky at this point, so I kept going....
Next I went after the clock, which was not running. Squeezing the spring clamps on each side, I was able to remove it from the dash. I unplugged it from the wiring harness and took it over to my workspace. I knew there was nothing I could do for it from the outside, so I broke the warranty seal on the it and removed the cover.
I got out my needle oiler for clocks and went to it. Every pivot point I could get to got a tiny, tiny drop of clock oil. I spun the escapement by hand and it began to turn. Then I cleaned and gapped the contacts for the charging coil and powered it up. It ran! At that point I wanted to to clean the case up so I went after it with a full Martha. Here’s how it turned out:
Not factory new, but certainly an improvement. I left it on the bench, setting it for the hour since Studio 360 had just come on the air. Two hours later the time was spot on.
Next I went after the chrome rail on the top of the glovebox door, since it was low hanging fruit as far as cleaning up. Tough to see in the picture, but it cleaned up nicely. Right side, clean, left side, not yet cleaned.
Next was the ash tray. Yuck Here’s the before:
Here’s the after:
At this point I put the clock back in the dash and called it a day. Here’s a final shot with the cleaned up clock and ash tray back in the dash:
Sunday, December 30, 2018