The left side axle has a deep gouge in it. Maybe that's why it was so hard pushing it into the garage. I've heard too many stories about people loosing wheels off of old cars; seeing it roll down the road ahead of them. The tie rod end I put on a few months ago wasn't easy to take off. I used a crows foot at first - that just messed up the boot. I'll have to get another one. Just for the fun of it I tried using a light weight puller.


Now this doesn't look like it'll work. But after I got the steering arm good and hot with a torch, the tie rod end just popped out. I should have tried this method first. I found some struts off a 1973 car and had a local garage put some new shocks in them. Money well spent for that work because they had the original oil shocks.


Here's the replacement struts prepped for some painting.

I found a can of off white spray paint at OSH that's very close to the original interior color. I also painted the air ducts with flat black paint. The IC heating system used heat exchangers built in to the exhaust pipes. Ducts at the base of each door carried the hot air to the front of the car. I plan to use the existing holes through the firewall to recirculate air.

Fixing the ventilation system

After removing the gas tank and cleaning the mess that a rat made before dying I decided to disassemble the ventilation system and clean it as well. The picture above is the aftermath. The blower had lots of leaf litter in it so I removed it entirely so I could do a more thorough job. The valves were pretty much worn out.


The black stuff is high density foam rubber. It needed replacing so I spent several hours today trying to find a piece of it. I finally found it at a foam shop in Palo Alto. A 6" X 6" piece cost $1.00 - a real bargain if I had gone there first!. The material I got is 1/4" thick and seems to be ok even though the original was 3/16".


I cut out 2 rings - 2.5" OD, 1.5" ID. Accuracy is not that important.


Here's the new gasket, looks like it'll work ok.



This is the blower motor and fan. Below the brush is a small piece of wood with some 800 grit emery paper stuck to it. I used this to polish the commutator. I wedged it against the commutator and spun the fan around. There doesn't appear to be any way of disassembling the motor without breaking something.



Here's the blower half assembled. The two flapper valves work better now. I also tested the motor. A clean commutator makes a difference.


This is the bottom of the blower. The split rings that hold the two pieces of the case together still need to be put on. When the ventilation system is all back together it won't be blowing out 30 year old dust. A dirty job but worth the effort.