Unproductive weekend

Sorry, no pictures this time. Unfortunately nothing to show.

I had a big plans for this weekend: install all the brakes. New lines, master cylinder, brake booster everything. I ended up installing the brake booster.

First off, the lines I ordered from Late Model Restoration, which are drop shipped from Classic Tube, had the wrong 'long' brake line. The line from the engine compartment to the rear end was not correct. I think they sent me an 87-93 one, since it is a lot longer and has a different connection on the end. Found this out as I was marking where the existing mounting brackets are on the new lines. It was 5 pm eastern by the time I tried to call them, but everyone was gone for the long weekend!

Next, I went to install the front brake lines and found that the driver's side chassis didn't have the hardline to softline bracket. This is the part that attaches the lines to the frame so they don't hit the tires.

Next I went to install the rear end again. Last time it took me about 30 minutes to do. This time, 3 hours. Including it falling off the jack and needing Deb and Meg to help me get it back on. Before anyone comments about safety, the car is on jack stands on all four corners and have a stack of old tires under the passenger side frame near the front of the car and a tire under the drivers side. So if the CAR had come off the jack stands it would have landed on them.

What happened is the rear end rotated off the jack so the rear end cover was on the floor. No where near where I was trying to position the jack. But loud enough that Deb came out to see if I was okay. (Actually pretty nice that she heard something and came to check on me.) I couldn't lift it myself on to the jack, so Deb and I rotated and lifted the rear end while Meg positioned the jack.

After fighting with the upper control arms, I finally got them installed. The driver's side spring went in pretty easily, but I needed Meg to push down on the passenger's side while I tried to get it it. That took about 10 minutes!

I also did a bunch of minor rust-related cleanup on some brackets. I swear every fastener and bracket on this car is rusted!

The brake booster took 5 seconds to install and 20 minutes to get the top most nut on. But I remember that from taking the old one out, so no frustration.

I did end the weekend on a good note. I bought four '10 hole' rims, a double hump transmission cross member, a starter and a couple of interior parts I need from Jason who did the frame/front end work.

He also gave me an idea for how to deal with the missing brake bracket. I'm going to research it a little more, but I may do what the guys with coil-overs do, since they have to remove the bracket. More on this next week.

(Did I mention that I also finished my spring-break project? Painted the trim on all the upstairs windows, removed the windows from the front of the house, repaired, primered, painted and reinstalled them. I had trouble getting my arms above my shoulders Sunday night from everything I was doing!)