The motors seem to be wonderfully long lived and reliable--I have rarely had to do more than free up the brush holders on them; have yet to see one fried.

Now, the gearbox is another matter. The gears themselves are quite fine and also do not give problems unless they have seen a lot of water somehow. The first reduction in this triple reduction box is a worm drive direct off a fitting on the motor shaft. One end of the worm pilots on the armature, the other end is supported by a small ball bearing. This bearing also takes the thrust of the worm drive in both directions. Because it is at the top of the gearbox, where condensation can occur, this $6 bearing is often in quite bad shape. If the leveler is noisy,this is almost always the cause. Sometimes the c-clip that holds the shaft to the bearing has rusted away or pushed off. This can cause the motor to stall when subjected to load.

How does your leveler sound at the time the fuse blows?

Let me offer an observation from a longtime Constellation owner (35 years, 3 or 4 different ones) and lover:

There was no fabric offered in all of 55 and 56 that was less durable than that star pattern cloth. Even when the cars were only twenty something years old, and with very low mileage the driver's seat was always ruined--- even on otherwise immaculate cars. That was of course also true on the Clipper Custom sedans, which used the same star pattern material.

Yes, it is very pretty, but especially if you end up with NOS, plan on treating it like wet tissue paper and keeping it covered. I know I'm not an easy man on interiors, so I am going with the all vinyl option when I get around to doing mine. The flame cloth option seemed to hold up well.

Any time either the pink or the yellow wire is grounded the unit will operate. There is nothing wrong there.

As a test of your limit switch, ground one of those wires. As the motor drives the gearbox around, poke the "t-bar" on the limit switch in the direction it would go if the arm on the gearbox were to hit it. Watch your fingers!!!! The motor should stop at once. Try it again in the other direction by shorting the other wire. The t-bar is only the actuator lever for what's inside the little box in Howard's photo. It has no direct electrical action

Those limit switches are quite robust and I seldom have trouble with them. My impression is that yours is probably working OK. Chances are your troubles are inside that black control box with the three wires and little lever that is hooked to the torsion bar.

You are correct, the orange spring goes forward;it is lighter and lets the lead shoe go out first. To get you through the inspection, adjust the shoes out rather close to the drums. That will minimize the grabbing. I'm assuming all is clean and dry in there.

Later you will have to indulge in the rather elaborate procedure for centering the shoes in the drums correctly in order to get the best performance. That is elsewhere on this site, and I'm sure Howard can direct you.

Fascinating to look through. Thanks for posting.

The relay on the dash will continue to work when the fuse is removed, it merely doesn't have any electricity to send down to the solenoid, so the overdrive will not engage. You will hear the click at 21 mph as you noted unless the lockout knob is pulled out, in which case you should not hear it.

Be that as it may, there is nothing electrical to go click click down there when the clutch is depressed especially when the fuse is out. My best guess is that your throwout bearing is failing in an odd manner, or the throwout bearing return spring has broken and flicking against something inside the bell housing.

I have many sets of perfectly good used ones I'll sell you cheap. Valve spring failure is pretty well a non-issue with those cars. Think I have only ever seen one.

That's a lovely job. Well done. Now I wanna try it!

I think 89 was the year for the Geo paint. Will doublecheck.

Randy: I use model paint and a cheap artist's brush. The key is lay down some paint in the middle of the line you are painting and then push it out to the edge of the embossing with the brush. Takes me about 20 minutes per cover. Depending on what the customer wants, I sometimes clearcoat the whole thing afterward. The originals were not particularly shiney or neatly done.

48s came with either a brown woodgrain, or a grey woodgrain depending on which trim set was chosen. The grey was very attractive and somewhat rarer than the brown.