The Thirteenth Chapter - Award-winning Show Car?

Time flies.  No really, it does.  I don’t know where this Summer went (Actually, I do.  Most of it was spent fixing my rust bucket of a car.), but it’s already August and school is just a few weeks away.  I made a valiant effort poor attempt at writing up my latest accomplishments back in July, but I was stuck between working on the Impala, a crappy lawnmower I rescued from the curb next to my grandmother’s house, and a never-ending servicing of a Rowe AMI TI-2 jukebox that very little happened on the ONEC front for me.  In the last installment, I outlined my plans for the Summer: drive the car to a couple shows and then tear it apart to get it ready for a roadtrip next Summer.  Well, as you may have guessed, that didn’t happen!  What was supposed to be a couple cruise-ins turned into two months of car shows, events, and just general driving.  I never really had a ton of time to drive the Impala last year, since it was only running reliably by the end of August, and most of the shows I’d planned to attend got rained out.  Therefore, I enjoyed driving the car so much that I kept it on the road a little longer than I’d planned.  By the time I finally tore into it, the Fourth of July had passed, and I had rounded the midpoint of my break.  Anyways, that’s a story for a later installment.  I still want to focus on my pre-teardown exploits in this post, as originally planned. 

The first thing I did on my Impala after arriving home for the Summer was adjust the rear brakes and attempt to adjust the parking brake.  I’m still running the original drums in the rear (and plan on doing so for the foreseeable future), so I figured now was as good a time as any to address the car’s proclivity to drift to the right during braking.  I backed the adjuster out on the passenger side, as it was far too tight and likely causing the pulling.  I also noticed how grooved my rear brake shoes had become since I failed to have the drums turned when I went through the brakes two years ago.  Oh well, live and learn.  The grooves aren’t bad, but I will definitely have to get this addressed before next year.  I should have spare replacement shoes in the pile of surplus brake components that came with the car when I bought it.  Next to get adjusted was the parking brake.  I had recently obtained a copy of the factory service manual, so I went through the adjustment procedure step by step and was awarded with… an even weaker parking brake than before!  Seriously, this time my car didn’t even when I’d accidentally left it on, and I made it all the way down my street before I realized my mistake.  After closer inspection of my cables, I realized why the parking brake had never worked properly on this car.  After two years of ownership, I had failed to realize that the passenger side cable was seized solid.  Well, no wonder it doesn’t work!  With this groundbreaking discovery, I did the right thing and decided to abandon the task in its entirety.  Well, I did technically try to free the stuck cable with some puny squirts of PB Blaster, but I was just going through the motions at that point.  Half of me still thinks a pipe torch and some more PB will free the old cable up, but the other half (particularly the one who has been cut/burnt/stabbed endless times by sharp metal on my car) just wants to pay the $24.99 plus shipping for a replacement cable.  Sometimes, it really isn’t worth the effort.  Anyways, I immediately switched gears to fix one of the most crucial and essential instruments in any car: the parking brake light.  One cannot argue against its importance.  How else is the driver supposed to know that he or she is just seconds away from driving off with the brake engaged and may potentially cause permanent hearing loss and other bodily injuries with the noise that is about to follow?  Checkmate.  And what do you mean it won’t make a difference on my car because the parking brake doesn’t work?   Hey, some people like the little flashy light on their dash to remind them that some of the 50+ year old equipment still functions.  Well, unfortunately, it didn’t flash after I got it working again (I need an intermittent bulb for this), but at least the light came on when I applied the brake.  The triggering switch had become inoperable because it was bashed with something in its prior life and was bent out of position.  Unfortunately, the mounting bracket sheared in two from fatigue when I tried to bend it back.  Oh, the dilemma!  Do I buy a new bracket or try and save the one I have?  Fortunately, both halves of my being were in agreement on this one.  I fired up my old Century, and with a couple tacks, I had a complete, functional, and original 1965 Chevy Impala park brake switch.  It was worth the effort this time. 

 After that, I focused on re-routing the vacuum line to my transmission and fixing a major exhaust leak on the passenger side collector (again, something I failed to notice after two years of ownership).  Fortunately, both bolts came out without damaging the studs (one was missing), and I was able to get a new gasket installed and the leak mostly mitigated.  After this repair, and after getting stranded at an A&W show because my carb was running lean (I later solved this problem in 5 minutes at home with a screwdriver to the idle mixture screw), I did a bit more work to the car by patching a rust hole in the driver’s rear wheel well.  This is when I finally pulled the trim off my quarter panels to discover that the bottoms were rotted out on each of them.  So much for rust-free quarters.  

The metamorphosis of my wheel well hole, from "gaping" to "all patched up."

Anyways, I ignored the problem for now and went around to a few more cruise nights, and one show.  The show was the first time I’d ever entered my Impala in a “judged” event.  Well, technically the categories were judged by the spectators, who were given ballots as they entered the show.  I forget some of the categories, but among the ubiquitous “best in show” were awards like “best love machine,” “best fins,” and “most promising.”  “Best love machine” went to a ’57 Edsel wagon, aptly.  The Exner-era Chrysler Newport next to me won “best fins.”  I made friends with the owner of the Chrysler and chatted with him for most of the friends.  He was a really nice guy, and he shared plenty of car-related stories with me throughout the day.  I’m sure you guys are wondering about the title of this entry and have probably put two and two together by now, but if you didn’t, “most promising” went to yours truly.  I wasn’t too surprised by this, given that mine was the only car in the show lacking a real paint job, but I was thrilled nonetheless to actually have won an award.  The show was held at the New England Wireless and Steam Museum, so I received a keychain, museum shirt, mug, and a wonderful book on the history of early wireless transmission in America.  The museum is a great place, and I highly recommend anyone passing through Rhode Island to check it out if it’s open.  They only do tours on Saturdays in the warmer months, and aside from monthly events, everything else is by appointment only.  Anyways, I’m pretty pleased by the fact that I won an award the first show I entered my car in.  I guess the Impala is really shaping up to be an award-winning show car.  Maybe you’ll see me at Pebble next year (doubtful).  I’m going to attempt another entry before I go back to school in two weeks, so stay tuned for that.  It will cover the monumental rust repair I’ve had to perform on the cowl and windshield channel.