Long shot on ebay.

The emblems I was watching ended while I was away playing horseshoes. I put in a bid before I left and was the high bidder with $4.00 left on my max bid. I checked when I got home and found I won the emblems. My bid hadn't changed so I was the last bidder too. Anyway the emblems will look nice being a pair of NOS items. One of the pulleys ends tomorrow around 8:30 pm. Still no bidders on either one. The weather is expected to go down hill too. Another 4 to 6 inches of liquid happiness by Monday night. 4 letter expletives galore.

More new stuff.

The fender "El Camino" emblems came in. The GM Restorations parts still sealed bag is marked 71 to 75 emblems. They look real nice. I put them against the fender and the middle peg is about an inch off the hole. I compared the one I had to the new one and the peg is on opposite sides of the letter "a" in Camino. The end pegs fit. I got the drill and now the new ones fit too. The lettering covers the old hole. I installed the new speakers while I was already frozen. High 20's gusting to 40 for 2 days.The new speakers are small but came with their own mounting brackets that fit the existing holes. The wiring pigtail that came with the units is way too short so I cut and soldered the connectors to longer speaker wire. That meant removing the speakers so I could plug the wires into the speakers. I found some repro. wheel well trim on Amazon. $40.00 cheaper than the other places. I also found a 3 groove pulley on ebay and will try to get it as the a/c compressor runs off the 3rd groove. There's a pair of 350 emblems I'm watching too. Maybe today will be warmer.

Tachometer.

The tach arrived today and I spent an hour installing it. The temp. is in the low 30's and the wind is gusting to 40 mph. I found an unused heater wire and it's 12 volts with the switch on so I used it for the tach power.Mounting it on the steering column was a treat as there isn't enough room and the shifter part takes up most of the exposed portion of the column. I attached it at about the 8 o'clock position so when I put it in drive the tach swings up into position. I started the engine and the tach came alive with believable readings. The new speakers came in too but it's too cold to put them in place.

Almost paint.

We decided on a color red for the El Camino and I made a call and got into the system at the auto body shop in New London. I expect a call in a few weeks. I started getting the trim pieces together and some are missing. I figure on having the shop cover the holes in the fenders and not bother with the emblems. Way too expensive to buy from Year One.

Ordering more stuff.

I went through the Year One book and made a list of things for the El Camino. A radio, chrome strips and other odds and ends. The speedometer isn't acting right either. I took the cable asm. apart and it's free and lubed. It acted similiar before the new dash so I figure it's the cable somehow. I ran the car around town a bit yesterday and the heater works fine. Without any weather stripping at all it's quite breezy inside. The new shocks firm up the ride but it still rides better than the other cars.

New shocks.

I went on line the other day and found some air adjustable shocks for the El Camino. 66 and change a piece. I called and asked if they came with the lines to connect them to a fill port. No they said. Where can I get the kit , I dont know they said. I called Richards Service and he got me a pair with the installation kit for 80 bucks. NAPA. Same part number as the Monroe shocks I found on line. I installed them and put the air to them to raise the back end to where it should be. Getting close to paint.

Balancing act.

I've been tinkering with balancing the Fox .29 and .35 stunt engines. They have an iron piston and no counter weighted crank shaft to speak of. Lately most folks say to balance the prop. I say leave it alone and put it to use. The late Duke Fox published a sheet on hopping up the .36 engine. He recommended removing material from the crank shaft near the crank pin. That says to me the little counter weight is too small for the piston/ rod combo. So adding weight to the counterweight is the way to go. Well that is not easy to do. I figure that the props heavy blade in line with the counterweight will hep a bit. I also sawed a prop weight from 2 ounces to 1.1 ounces for plane balance and put it on the prop balancer and found the heavy spot. I put that on in line with the counter weight too. The engine ran much smoother. I will remove more weight from the prop weight and see if it runs smoother yet. Most modern engines, including the newer Foxes have a machined off area near the crank pin for balance purposes. They vibrate but dont have iron pistons to contend with. So they run smoother without any other mods. Still the heavy blade trick will make them run smoother too. I bench tested the engine and used a glass of water near the engine to show vibration. The fuel in the tank had a few ripples but nothing to affect the running of the engine.