Installed new plug wires. The old ones were falling apart. Traced a few wires through the engine compartment to solve a gauge problem and to more permanently connect the coil.
The transmission shakes like crazy. It's a four speed…probably the original. The trans mount is completely split in half. The guibo is split into 3 pieces. The shift mount bracket is held together with a home made bracket and mismatched bolts. This car must have been off road at some point in it's life. It's time to rebuild this area. First we drained the transmission fluid. There was less than a cup of fluid in the case. That's probably not good. Only a few flakes of metal on the magnetic plug so hopefully it is fine. We started by taking apart the shift lever from inside the car. We removed the trans bolts that we could reach from the engine compartment. Then we got underneath. We unbolted the transmission mount bracket and guibo. We kept unbolting parts of the driveshaft until we could slide it out of the trans.

The first goal is to get the car running so we can evaluate what the long term plan should be. I pulled off the wheels and had the old tires removed. I cleaned the wheels up and repainted them silver. We put a set of Pep Boy's basic 185/70-13s on for now. I still need to polish the trim rings and center caps. The engine compartment got a battery, coil, spark plugs, and new oil and filter. We siphoned out the old gas and poured in a few gallons of new stuff. A few sprays of carb cleaner caused the car to come to life for a second, but it obviously wasn't running on gasoline. We took and Weber off and pulled it apart. The gas had turned to jelly because the car sat in the desert for a few years. The floats were stuck to the bottom of the bowl and the jets were completely clogged. A can of carb cleaner and a rebuild kit solved the problem. The engine fired right up and idled. It sounds great. We only ran it for a minute because of the coolant issue. The goose neck on top of the engine has a hole in the casting. I'd love to know what caused that. A replacement is one the way and we can top off the coolant after it is installed.

Our initial inspection of the car showed that it needed some love but there were a lot of pleasant surprises. The interior is in bad shape. The seats, carpet, door panels, and headliner will all have to come out. I would like to change everything over to black leather from a later model. The trim is mostly complete, but there are a couple pieces that are dented and would look terrible against a new paint job. The 4 speed has some sludge on the outside of the case and the shifter bracket is held on with wire. The brake system and suspension should live through a few miles before being rebuild during the winter. The windshield and one of the tail lights are cracked. On the bright side there is no body rot and only a few spots of surface rust. The engine has already been upgraded with a header and a Weber carb. I was pretty pleased.