Meet Leona (62 Classic Wagon)

Joe, there is a couple on the Heritage Forum that have put their 62 Wagon up for sale on craigslist. The Portland craigslist to be exact. It is a really nice wagon.

I cured an oil leak at the governor cover of my 65 Rambler today and wanted to take it for a drive but Leona is in the way.  So I started tinkering with her and I'm on the edge of a slippery slope.  She has a fresh recored radiator.  She was parked in a garage for years with what looks like water in the cooling system.  The heater hoses appear to be the original blue streak Goodyear hoses with wire hose clamps.  They had to go.  One thing led to another and I pulled the thermostat housing.  The water pump has plenty of evidence of rust buildup too.  So I will pull the head and send it to my machinist and check for cracks and get it cleaned and a fresh valve job.   I don't want to go any further than I have to but I could not let the corrosion mess up my freshly recored radiator.   I also attached a pic of the aftermarket waterpump I got off Ebay fairly cheap. It has a plastic impeller.  My box of gaskets contains many old 195.6 era gaskets that have saved my bacon several times.  I got that collection of gaskets off Ebay several years ago.  Joe

Edited by pacerman - Apr/29/2012 at 9:17pm

Ok, got the head ready to pull tomorrow evening.   The exhaust manifold bolts are left and they are soaked with Kroil.  I'll hit them again tomorrow before work.  Joe

Well things sometimes move slowly (actually they frequently move slowly if you get my meaning) around the Pacerman household.  But I pulled the cylinder head mainly because I wanted a valve job and to get it tanked to remove the rust.  The head had at least one previous valve job and the margins on the valves were "iffy" according to the machinist.  He preferred that I get new valves.  I got a good deal off Ebay on intake valves and bought the exhaust valves from Kanter.  The engine has 118,000 on it and it ran for a few minutes with no knocks or unusual noises so I opted for the valve job only.   The engine still has standard size pistons but the honing marks on the cylinders are long gone.  From the looks of the old plugs oil burning was not much of an issue.  So I'm putting the engine back together this week and cleaning some things as I go.  I did the Tom Jennings cooling bypass modification and have ordered a 1 3/4 x 5/8 bypass T-fitting which will go in the top radiator hose so I will have a significant bypass of the thermostat at all times but the thermostat (now 180 degree) will remain in place to provide some restriction.   Previously the car had a 160 degree thermostat so the previous owner's mechanic must have known about the weak points of this engine.   Pictures follow.

Edited by pacerman - Jul/24/2012 at 12:33am

I'm making some progess, but slowly   Lately if have welded up some pinholes in the front floorboards.  I had to make a couple of very small (silver dollar) size patches and I had to fabricate a new gas pedal anchor.  Surprise, the rubber floor mats trapped moisture.  I've also purchased seat fabric from SMS and I'm having a some reclining split bench seats I pulled out of a 400 series Classic covered in a local shop to match the pristine back seat.  Pictures soon.  Should be neat.    I've been working under the hood.  Got the sticky pushrod problems worked out and rebuilt the Holley 1908 carb this came on this car.  The 1908 is an orphan carb, but most of the parts from a Holley 1904 will fit it.  The fuel inlet and float is different.  A good source of carburetor parts if you don't need a hole kit is Walker Products. They sell kits but you can buy extra parts too.   I got the brakes finished and bled them.  Here's some underhood pics.  I still need the air cleaner decal and I need to clean up the fan motor and some of the firewall hardware.