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Will it Run?
When we last left off, I'd finally bought the Impala I'd bee lusting after all year and had it delivered to my house. Now that the interior was out, it was time to go through the car and make a list of everything it needed (oof). I also decided to keep a running total of every single dollar and part invested in this car since purchase (OOF!) Needless to say, I'm still afraid to total up everything I've spent on it this past year. After a (long) list had been made detailing everything that needed to be done on my car, I went through and made a smaller list of the more important "next steps" to do to get the car running and driving again. One of them, as I mentioned in the last post, was replacing the weatherstripping to prevent any more water damage from occurring in the interior. The other, more important thing was getting the car to run. Now, the previous owners had told me that the car ran and didn't smoke, but I needed to see this for myself before I sank tons of money into a car with a fog machine for an engine. For this, I enlisted the help of another of my auto enthusiast friends, Anthony, and his friend, Brian. David's work schedule didn't line up this weekend, so he unfortunately was unable to make it, but he did manage to drop by two days before the "first start" and see the car with its freshly-recharged battery. (We also made a really shitty remake of the "Show Me" scene from Christine, but that's a story for another day). Speaking of the battery, here's a shot of the taillights glowing for the first time in likely 10+ years.
Rear end shot, courtesy of David. The dead taillight has since been fixed.
Miraculously, most of the lights still worked, with the exception of a dead taillight and no front blinkers (which are kind of important). Oh, well! At least the brake lights still work. The next day, I made the trip to O-Reilly's to pick up a new oil filter and the 5 quarts of 10 W 30 the 283 needed to be happy. I also grabbed a bottle of STP oil treatment to make up for the lower amounts of zinc in modern engine oil. Someone in the past had installed an adapter on the motor in place of the original cannister filter, which allowed me to buy a screw-on Wix to replace the old Fram stuck on the car when I got it. When Anthony and Brian showed up the next day, I had the car up on jacks and was just starting to remove the old oil filter. This was my first time under the car, so let's say I was just a tiny bit unnerved to be crawling under two and a half tons of steel, with the frame inches above my face. The problem with the old Fram was that it had fused itself to the block, leaving me no choice but to drive a screwdriver through it and whack the handle with a hammer until it broke loose. With what was likely the most labor intensive tasks of the day done, I went on to prefill and reinstall the new filter, leaving the first of many spots on the previously-clean driveway. Next, let's put the new oil in, but only after I almost forget to reinstall the drain plug. That would have led to an even bigger spot.
"Ok, show me."
The old Fram finally out after putting up a struggle.
With the oil changed (and drain plug installed), we put the car back on the ground and prepared for the first fireup. The first time I tried to start the car, everything on it died, including the dome lights. I thought the battery was toast, but a few seconds later, the lights came back on full-force. Clearly, there was a loose connection somewhere. After lots of searching, Brian noticed that the battery cables were a bit rusty and weren't making good contact with their clamps. After disassembling and sanding them, we gave it another go. This time, the car gave a good healthy crank, yet it made no attempt to run off the carb cleaner we'd sprayed down the intake moments before. When pulling the distributor cap, we found the points had a bit of corrosion on them. After sanding them down with a piece of sandpaper, we tried again, still with no luck. I ended up disconnecting the points and manually grounding the coil to rule it out as the culprit. It wasn't making any spark (which could have been due to corroded plug wires), so I decided to replace it. With the new coil installed, there was a faint spark when manually grounding it out. Hooking it back up to the points made no difference until I decided to give them a couple more flicks with my screwdriver. For whatever reason, there must have still been some corrosion keeping them from contacting that my final pass with the screwdriver removed. With this, we reassembled the distributor, and the car immediately tried to fire.
The car wouldn't stay running off the small amount of carb cleaner we'd given it, so we had to devise another plan. Somewhere in the past, a previous owner had installed a fuel filter right before the fuel pump on the side of the engine. By removing the filter's connection to the tank and attaching a spare piece of hose to it, we were able to use the still-functional fuel pump to pull gas from a plastic quart container up to the carburetor. It took a few failed attempts, but I could tell we were getting closer. On the last time I turned the key, I was greeted with crank*crank*crank*rev*rev*rev*crank*reVROOM*VROOM*scah before the container emptied and the car ran out of gas. I didn't care the car only ran for a few seconds, all that mattered was that it ran. My car actually ran!
Totally not another clickbait YouTube first start video.
After getting a bigger piece of hose and sticking it in the two-gallon gas can we use to fill our lawnmower, I was able to get the car running for longer and confirm the engine didn't smoke. Everything ran great, other than the carb with its occasional tendency to flood when the nitrophyl float stuck. The car also had a really sweet sound with its custom dual glass-pack exhaust. This was exactly the news I needed to continue with my project, so without hesitation, I plunged forward. Get ready for even more car craziness next time when I realize how much fun eBay disc brake kits can be.
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