My '66 Hardtop Town Build

[Yadkin]

also need to address this transmission ( i think ) drip

Type F fluid will find the smallest hole. I had three areas for leaks in my '64.

1. Main seal behind the torque converter. Obviously this is the most $$ to fix so you want to diagnose it correctly. It manifests itself by dripping through the bottom of the dust cover at the front of the bell housing. Requires taking the transmission out. I put a new seal in and it immediately started leaking again, so I rebuilt the transmission, finding that the first bushing was badly worn, almost to the point of wearing through and ruining the case.

2. Dip stick tube. Yours might be different, but in '64 the dip stick tube does a 90 degree and screws into the side of the pan as an inverted flare fitting. It didn't matter how much I tightened it it would still leak. So I took it apart, cleaned up the connection as best as I could, dried it, then put a thin smear of RTV copper on the joint before assembly.

3. Pan gasket. The factory bolt torque is 10-13 #-ft which is about twice what the flimsy steel pan flange can handle. Take the pan off and inspect it. If yours is like mine the flange is distorted. I have a large flat steel plate on my work bench so I put the pan on it flange down then used a short length of 1/4 hardwood dowel as a drift to make it flat. Before I reassembled I used a rubber gasket and glued it onto the flange with black RTV, then let it set for at least an hour on my flat plate with a jug of water on the pan to weigh it down. Then I installed the bolts in the gasket holes, used RTV again on the case side of the gasket, then torqued it in several stages, but only to 5 #-ft.

After all this my garage floor is dry.

[jopizz]

Don't forget to check the shift selector o-rings. They are also known to leak.

John

[OUR5T8BIRD]

Don't forget to check the shift selector o-rings. They are also known to leak.

John

One other possibility that I ran into a few years back is the power steering fluid where it goes up into the windshield wiper motor and back out. There was a leak at the fittings going in and out and then dripped onto the bell housing and down onto the floor making it look like a transmission leak .

[Cwcb08]

Type F fluid will find the smallest hole. I had three areas for leaks in my '64.

1. Main seal behind the torque converter. Obviously this is the most $$ to fix so you want to diagnose it correctly. It manifests itself by dripping through the bottom of the dust cover at the front of the bell housing. Requires taking the transmission out. I put a new seal in and it immediately started leaking again, so I rebuilt the transmission, finding that the first bushing was badly worn, almost to the point of wearing through and ruining the case.

2. Dip stick tube. Yours might be different, but in '64 the dip stick tube does a 90 degree and screws into the side of the pan as an inverted flare fitting. It didn't matter how much I tightened it it would still leak. So I took it apart, cleaned up the connection as best as I could, dried it, then put a thin smear of RTV copper on the joint before assembly.

3. Pan gasket. The factory bolt torque is 10-13 #-ft which is about twice what the flimsy steel pan flange can handle. Take the pan off and inspect it. If yours is like mine the flange is distorted. I have a large flat steel plate on my work bench so I put the pan on it flange down then used a short length of 1/4 hardwood dowel as a drift to make it flat. Before I reassembled I used a rubber gasket and glued it onto the flange with black RTV, then let it set for at least an hour on my flat plate with a jug of water on the pan to weigh it down. Then I installed the bolts in the gasket holes, used RTV again on the case side of the gasket, then torqued it in several stages, but only to 5 #-ft.

After all this my garage floor is dry.

great things to check, mine doesn't have the dust cover so i should be able to shine a light up in there easily

Don't forget to check the shift selector o-rings. They are also known to leak.

John

ill check them to

One other possibility that I ran into a few years back is the power steering fluid where it goes up into the windshield wiper motor and back out. There was a leak at the fittings going in and out and then dripped onto the bell housing and down onto the floor making it look like a transmission leak .

check the top and bottom of the trans, got it lol


like i said, won't be able to really get into it for a little, one more week until we get the keys!

Epoxy floor flakes:

[Cwcb08]

We took the car to my wifes parents for easter dinner, needless to say i ended up eating leftovers, we almost made it, 1 block short.
They came and got jess and the kiddo and left me another vehicle to have better 4ways parked behind the bird since they aren't very bright.



i knew i needed to replace the tires soon






i just hoped i could do it after we finished moving
oh well, we put the two new ones on the front and moved the fronts to the back





we just put what was on sale at canadian tire on in the comparable oem size 8.15x15 = 215/75r/15, the front had with 225/75/15 ( now the rears ) and the rears were 235/75r/15



and while i was down there this is the area the fluid is coming from

[jopizz]

Going by the dry rot those tires should've been replaced about thirty years ago. I don't recommend that anyone drive any distance on tires that bad. You're lucky it wasn't a front tire that went. Someone could've been seriously hurt. Tires are not the part of the car that you should be putting off until later. That's my sermon for the day.

John

[Cwcb08]

The date code put them at 05 or 08 I can't remember, the safety was done less than 100km ago ( tires are on the list of govt checks ). They were also something I wondered if I would need to replace before it would pass, I knew I wanted and needed to replace them. But not being a professional I figured the shop wouldn't pass it if they were that bad, it's their liscence on the line after all

[scumdog]

Going by the dry rot those tires should've been replaced about thirty years ago. I don't recommend that anyone drive any distance on tires that bad. You're lucky it wasn't a front tire that went. Someone could've been seriously hurt. Tires are not the part of the car that you should be putting off until later. That's my sermon for the day.

John

Exactly!
Not worth the risk.

"If in doubt - throw it out"

[jopizz]

The date code put them at 05 or 08 I can't remember, the safety was done less than 100km ago ( tires are on the list of govt checks ). They were also something I wondered if I would need to replace before it would pass, I knew I wanted and needed to replace them. But not being a professional I figured the shop wouldn't pass it if they were that bad, it's their liscence on the line after all

Any shop that would pass tires with that much dry rot shouldn't be in business. I'm not doubting what you're saying about the date codes but either those tires are much older or the car sat with flat tires for many years. Even so you don't need to be a mechanic to see that those tires are unsafe.

John

[stubbie]

I had oil in the same area. Mine was coming from power steering box and spreading all over undercarriage of car as I was driving.

[simplyconnected]

Going by the dry rot those tires should've been replaced about thirty years ago...

It's hard to argue against this alligator tire. I'm sure that's why it lost air and went flat.
Of course, the deep cracks don't show until the rubber is folded back. - Dave

[Cwcb08]

It's hard to argue against this alligator tire. I'm sure that's why it lost air and went flat.
Of course, the deep cracks don't show until the rubber is folded back. - Dave

Exactaly, aside from the massive hole in photo 5 you don't see any of the big cracks from this photo^

[Cwcb08]

been a while since i posted, not a lot of progress but some

[jopizz]

Are you changing the interior color? I doubt the original carpet color was black looking at the console and seats.

John

[Cwcb08]

Are you changing the interior color? I doubt the original carpet color was black looking at the console and seats.

John

Original carpet was green, but we decided to do black in case we change the seat colours from green to black, black is easy to coordinate