yesterday was a pretty good day for teh life of my bird....i embarked on a simple mission a little less than a year ago to put some new rims and tires on my bird....little did i know then the challenge that laid ahead. my 68 convertible was in pretty good shape. it was far away from restored, but it lookd pretty good and ran nice. i had issues with a tire that always went flat and with work, family, and a touch of just plain laziness i let it sit in the garage for a year on a jack stand cause i didnt want to put a new tire on a car that i planned on changing out the rims and tires once i got going.
so for xmas last year i treated myself to a set of american racing hopster rims fitted with some nice khumo ecsta spt tires. got them mouted and balanced slapped them on the car and pulled out of the drive way to only have the rear springs give out and leave me stranded in the street 10 seconds after speanding 2 grand to give me lady new shoes....after getting it back in the garage and back on the stands it was time to really go to work. i purchased new 6 leaf springs from national parts depot, get them in and realize that some [censored] welded the front eye brackets into the frame rather then find the captive nuts that slid into the frame. now, i am a novice and i dream more about being mechanicaly inclined, than i actually am. my best friend whom is building his 69 cutlass as i work on the bird has basically been my right, and left hand during this process. so to install the new leafs, we were grinding out some real nasty welds, to get fix that issue. at this point after we speant hours under the car, we decided that it was time to rework some other suspension issues. i ordered a front and rear sway bar kit from ST performace, as well as an entire poly-graphite front end kit from PST and koni shocks all around. during the removal of the front end the sprins in the front were in such sore shape, that one actually snapped in half from the rust. so add another delay as i oredered some nice eibach springs to replace the old ones. it took a few days of 10 hours or more to get all this old crap out of the car and new stuff in.
it was now time to get it alligned i take it down to the good year with the original specs and after the tech realized that i forgot to put some shims in the car when putting the upper control arm back on, he was not a happy camper. he was also nice enough to snap one of the bolts that held those pieces in. luckily i had a few extra from when i had to order those and after a day i had an alligned car. i drive to a local shop to have my hooker headers and my super 40 flowmasters in the car, along with some new pipes. while drving home i loose both the alternator and battery, both of which i kinda thought were on the way out, but was hoping i could get a little more life out of. i order a new 100 amp alternator, get a nice powerful cold cranking battery, as well as new belts and a new power-steering pump as i noticed some small issues with that. so after recieving all those parts in and installing that along with a mallory unilite distributor and hyfire ignition system, i was finnaly going to get a decent ride out of her, so last night after finishing the last bit of wiring on the new alternator plug i got, i fired her up and took her for a nice ride. about 30 miles total on some nice winding roads. beautiful....i would highly reccomend the poly-graphite set as it handeled better than any car i have ever driven.
one year in the making....just wanted rims and tires....the headaches, the joys, the ups, and the downs were all worth it as i finally got the satisfaction i have been craving for a long time.....i still have a long trip ahead, but man....what a great step. i didnt right this to brag about anything....just thought that a few of you out there would appreciate this littel journey.