Gorgeous Buick Don!!
66 Monaco Wagon Preservation
- Thread starter TxDon
- Start date
TxDon
Well-Known Member
So another month has gone by and I have made zero progress on my wagon. It is
still driveable and I take it out weekly but I have a long To Do list. My A/C is still only half working and I'm no closer to a solution. I need to do a full brake job including new cylinders and conversion to a dual master and all the parts are bought. I'm replacing all the shocks with KYB's and have those too, and may also replace the rear springs. Part of the problem is Texas hard summer, now officially in 100 plus degree territory, but my biggest problem is storage! I made a rule a few years ago that our daily driver must always be garaged after our previous one was destroyed by hail sitting outside. Now that I have the 60 Buick the only way I can do a long term repair job is to put the Buick in a storage facility. I had no trouble renting a drive-up unit a couple years ago but now it is almost impossible to find one even though many new facilities are open - and the prices have more than doubled! I blame this on the crazy housing market in DFW. So right now it's looking like I may make no progress until later this year, I'll keep you posted.
still driveable and I take it out weekly but I have a long To Do list. My A/C is still only half working and I'm no closer to a solution. I need to do a full brake job including new cylinders and conversion to a dual master and all the parts are bought. I'm replacing all the shocks with KYB's and have those too, and may also replace the rear springs. Part of the problem is Texas hard summer, now officially in 100 plus degree territory, but my biggest problem is storage! I made a rule a few years ago that our daily driver must always be garaged after our previous one was destroyed by hail sitting outside. Now that I have the 60 Buick the only way I can do a long term repair job is to put the Buick in a storage facility. I had no trouble renting a drive-up unit a couple years ago but now it is almost impossible to find one even though many new facilities are open - and the prices have more than doubled! I blame this on the crazy housing market in DFW. So right now it's looking like I may make no progress until later this year, I'll keep you posted.
TxDon
Well-Known Member
I finally got a break today and located a storage space. Back in July I put my name on a wait list at an Advantage Storage location very close to my house that I had used previously and they called today saying a 10' by 25' unit was available. That size will allow me to fit a car plus some additional space and the best part was that the price was quite reasonable compared to other local quotes I had received. so hopefully I can get to my to do list on the wagon pretty soon!
TxDon
Well-Known Member
Finally a small amount of progress on this car. After many failed attempts to compress and tie the front KYB shocks for installation, I finally outsourced the job. In calling around to get it done I was again amazed to find that most "normal" auto shops won't touch work on old cars, which seems to be anything built prior to the middle 90s. The excuse I heard was that they had no techs that had training to work on cars that old and no equipment to do the job. All I'm talking about is installing two shock absorbers! I did find a guy with 25 years experience at his own shop who had sold it and had downsized to a small shop working ONLY on older cars. Took it in today and it was done in a couple of hours with no drama and a reasonable price. It turned out that one of the Monroes I had installed when I first got the car was completely blown out and the upper bushing on the other one had self destructed, no wonder it was bottoming out! Went the long way home over some poor roads and the difference is amazing. I may still fiddle with the back shocks later but the brake job will come next.
TxDon
Well-Known Member
On Saturday I pulled the Edelbrock off to check it out. I had been having symptoms of it running over-rich and blowing sooty water out the tailpipe. This is a 1406 600 cfm unit that I bought new on Ebay in a Spanish printed box and I just bolted it on out of the box. I pulled the top off and checked the float levels which were a little off, I also noted some dirt in the float bowls which I cleaned up. It ran better when I reinstalled and now I will get a new filter on there.
TxDon
Well-Known Member
After far too much time and too many excuses I am finally working on the brakes for this car. I cleared space in the garage, put down some 2 mil plastic sheeting and got the car up on stands yesterday. I have all the new parts and will start disassembly today.
TxDon
Well-Known Member
Today I disassembled the brakes on all four wheels, cleaned and vacuumed all the brake dust, and cleaned the wheel bearings in gasoline. The bearings and races all looked fine. I cleaned an enormous amount of grease out of the hubs in preparation for getting the drums cut, tomorrow I'm talking to the manager of a nearby O'Reilly's who still knows how to do drums without taking too much off. I decided I'm going to replace the front hoses even though they look ok. Tomorrow I will check all my new parts against the old ones to be sure all is correct then I will start taking the hydraulics apart.
Make sure you arc the new shoes to the drums.
TxDon
Well-Known Member
Where do I go to get that done? I'm having a hard time finding place that still knows how to surface the drums...
If that manager knows how to turn drums, he may know how to arch the shoes.
Parking brake shoes done with a brake shoe arcing machine. Watch this video to see how it's done. The guy talks a lot (and some of what you see is of no value), but you can see that he knows exactly what to do and is very good at telling people like you and me how to do it.
Check around your neighbourhood and see who's got a brake arcing machine. If they been in business a long time they likely have one. One place I would start to look are places that service larger trucks and not cars. Most large-scale truck still run drum brakes.
Check around your neighbourhood and see who's got a brake arcing machine. If they been in business a long time they likely have one. One place I would start to look are places that service larger trucks and not cars. Most large-scale truck still run drum brakes.
TxDon
Well-Known Member
I compared the new parts to the old and all looks good, the linings appear to have quite a bit of metal in them. As always the job has become more complicated as all of the old rear linings show signs of axle seal leaks. I pulled both axles and will repack the bearings and replace the seals, this is covered more in another thread:
Rear Axle Bearing Noise | For C Bodies Only Classic Mopar Forum
Rear Axle Bearing Noise | For C Bodies Only Classic Mopar Forum
Some will say that high metallic content will chew up drums and rotors more quickly, and some even claim they can feel the difference.
I would tend to think the wear issue is not of great concern unless your car is a daily driver. Collector cars getting driven less than 5000 miles a year will have brakes that will still last for years and years.
The feel thing? I dunno...
I would tend to think the wear issue is not of great concern unless your car is a daily driver. Collector cars getting driven less than 5000 miles a year will have brakes that will still last for years and years.
The feel thing? I dunno...
You can also see that the wear patterns on the old shoe in the pictue you posted are not even, indicating they weren't arced originally...
TxDon
Well-Known Member
Not concerned about the wear issue, we will see about the feel.
TxDon
Well-Known Member
I'm going to spend time on the phone tomorrow and hopefully find someone who can do the cut and the arcing, wish me luck.
Talk to the truck guys first. Being so near to Dallas, there's GOT to be someone out there near you who can do it. Also talk to any vintage car places around...
A quick poke around Google came up with these people who say they specialize in classics:
Wilson Auto Repair It says they also service trucks. 30 miles from McKinney...
These guys get 5 star reviews, and will come to you if required:
Affordable Mobile Brake Repair Dallas TX | NuBrakes - We Come To You
A quick poke around Google came up with these people who say they specialize in classics:
Wilson Auto Repair It says they also service trucks. 30 miles from McKinney...
These guys get 5 star reviews, and will come to you if required:
Affordable Mobile Brake Repair Dallas TX | NuBrakes - We Come To You
Agreed, but it's worth a shot. From the video it looked like that arcing machine had quite a lot of room for bigger diametre shoes, so I wonder if much the same machine would be used in a truck application. It doesn't necessarily make sense for a shop to have to have two of the same machine, just one bigger to do trucks... but who ever said things had to make sense either?!! Lol...
The long and the short of it is, ask the right kind of people and someone will have a good lead for Don.
The long and the short of it is, ask the right kind of people and someone will have a good lead for Don.
TxDon
Well-Known Member
It's been a disappointing day. I called at least six contacts in the area including old car shops I have worked with in the past and no one either did brake arcing or knew of anyone that did. At least three said they have done countless drum brake jobs in the last 20 to 30 years and never arced the shoes, just cut the drums. So I said, OK, I'll just take the drums in to O'Reilly's where i have had drums done before. Lugged them all over, they measure them and tell me they are beyond specs and can't be cut. The max is 11.060 and the rears were 11.073 which was fine but the fronts were 10.999. I said why can't you cut those and he said corporate policy only allows them to max out at 11.000! So I guess I now need four new drums....SH-T!
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