Re: Ken's 1937 115C Touring Sedan

Posted by Ken_P On 2011/4/25 19:34:45

It's alive! The last thing I did on Saturday was clean the plugs and turn it over without the plugs. Today, I had low expectations, but pushed the choke to full closed (no cable), pumped the cable, and she... FIRED RIGHT UP! It died after a few seconds, so I had my wife come out and manually operate the choke (she's awesome) and it ran for about two minutes before the carb started leaking gas from every orifice.

Flackmaster is shipping me a carb, so once I get that and get it rebuilt, I think she'll run like a top.

That's the big news, but I was also doing some strategic thinking. I know I'll be in CT until about the end of August, and then I'll be on sea duty for about three years and anticipate not having any time to work on the car, if I can even be in the same geographic area. Because I don't have any experience doing body work, I'm planning on having the body restored over those three years. If I was going to live in the same area for the next decade, I would try and muddle through it myself, but my career doesn't allow for it. With all that being said, I decided that my goal for the summer is to get the frame portion of the restoration done. I'm going jack the cab up, roll the frame out, have the frame and running gear sandblasted, painted, and then put it all back together while going through everything (running new hard lines as required, rebuild the shocks, new bushings as required, etc). The genesis of the idea was when I priced out getting the brake drums and backing plates sandblasted. $60 for that, or $350 for the whole frame and running gear.

Change of direction, but I'm confident it will save my time and money in the long run. Again, if I knew I wasn't going to move and have my work load increase, I might go a little slower and just get it driving well this summer without repainting anything.

With that being said, today I pulled off the bonnet, front bumper, and got the driver's side engine splash pan off. I don't have one for the passenger side. I'll probably try to get the front clip lifted off later this week, and then continue disassembling.