cloudmaster's Journal: The car, almost done

Well, I fixed the radiator. Unfortunately, the heat I applied to the fitting I braxed on was apparently enough to melt the solder/brass sealing the cooler itself. That resulted in a leak internal to the radiator tank, turning another $7 worth of antifreeze pink. Argh.

So I bought a new radiator - which, surprisingly, O'Reilly just had in stock for about $100. Their regular price beat radiators.com on this one. It also beat radiatorbarn.com, but I would suggest *never* buying anything from radiatorbarn.com. I bought one radiator from them for my 1971 chevelle - I got the 4-core radiator which was intended for the 1970 LS6 454 (you know, most powerful production muscle car built, 500+HP) with air conditioning. In other words, the best heat dissipator that could go into that car. I also was using a Flex-a-lite black magic fan (one that moves more air than the stock engine-driven fan) with a shroud. That POS radiator could not keep the very mild (8.5:1, should be about 300-320HP) 350 cool. On top of that, I now get spam to [e-mail]. Radiators.com has been great to deal with, though (I got the radiator for my cop car there), and they don't spam me. Plus, they shipped faster.

Anyway, I got the new radiator installed, and I got everything painted. I put on the antique plates this weekend, reactivated the insurance, and drove it around a little. It runs well, after the choke opens. I bent the choke spring, though (didn't initially plan to reuse the carb and intake), so it doesn't open quite fast enough. That's annoying. The brakes also aren't working very well - it'll stop, but a panic stop just ain't happening. I'l try bleeding them tonight - that might help - or it could just be something in one of the lines. I wonder if anyone local sells a brake pressure gauge?

Today the amplifier I bought on eBay should get here (after a month of waiting for some guy to ship the last one I won - he made up some crap about his wife having cancer, probably because "who would question that?" and now is no longer an eBay member). It'll complement the two 10" subs I put in a box I already had, and I think that having a little thump in the black Caprice with tinted windows and loud exhaust might attract a few more buyers in the target market - and I can add more to the price than the $75 that stuff cost me. Or maybe it'll work so well that I'll want to keep the box and amp, who knows. I wonder if I should consider getting a CD player for the car, since it just has a tape deck now... :)