I’ve had the battery on a slow charger/maintainer for a couple of weeks. I had assumed the thing was toast, since it was stone dead when I got it… battery voltage was under 0.5 V. I had to use a battery drill pack to throw enough of a charge into it to get the charger to even try to start charging. Every day or two I’d go out, disconnect the charger, run the heater blower for a few minutes, and re-connect the charger. It wasn’t costing my anything, so I figured – why not?
Saturday afternoon, I decided to drop the battery in and give it another try. It cranked over OK, but of course the carb was bone dry. I gave it a shot of ether, and lo and behold — it fired up and ran. I ran it for a total of about 15 minutes or so, until the garage filled with gray smoke and I had to air it out. I’m not quite sure if it was just old-engine exhaust smoke with steam, or if it’s burning oil. Nothing has changed my plan to pull and rebuild the engine, but at least we know it runs.
Pete and I also got the left front fender off. The last idiot welded this one up even worse than the right side. A large patch was actually welded on, not just over rusted metal — but over the top of rusted metal covered with Bondo. Awesome job, dumbass. The fender is scrap, even the front corner is rusted out.
I’m debating what to do with the floor pans. If I can get someone who knows what they’re doing to finish welding them in place, great. I’m afraid I may end up needed to remove all the stuff that’s been done and re-do it. I hope not, but it is one option. The good news (aside from the engine running) is, I got the instrument cluster finished up and put back together, and it looks great. Brakes also seem to be in good shape, so that opens up options for getting it on and off of a trailer and in and out of the driveway when it comes time to use a power washer to clean up the undercarriage, engine bay and fender wells. Just blasting off all the accumulated grime and filth will make it easier to work on.