Gramma's Car: the new project!

[njsteve]

Looky what I found!

A NOS set of the same brown/tan/orange/yellow-ish "Plasticolor" floor mats that my Gramma bought for the car when it was new. The original set got rather chewed up by four and a half decades of foot travel.

Found them on ebay for $115. I have been searching for years for a set and got the search alert on Saturday morning at 6:30 AM. I immediately ht the buy-it-now button. They just arrived today.

Just need some scrubbing and cleaning and they will be fine.

[njsteve]

Did some suspension upgrades recently. I installed a Lares 974 quick ratio steering box (2-1/2 turns). Got it from rockauto to replace the original 3+turn, over-boosted box. It also comes with the new steering coupler. It was a direct swap and uses the same original-style flare fittings for the hoses. It now has a very tight feel to the steering instead of the heavily-sedated original steering feel. It took several fluid bleedings over a week to get all the residual air bubbles out. One of the symptoms of air still present is reduced assist at idle. After a week or so the assist at idle is good again.

Today I swapped out the original 1" front sway bar and 9/16" rear sway bar for the WS-6 optional 1-1/4" front and 3/4" rear bars that I got of ebay for around $110 for the set. (Shipping was a killer though - that front bar sure is heavy!) I also installed new Prothane bushings as well. Total time for the sway bar swap was a leisurely 3 hours.


New Lares 974:



Old 1" bar:




New 1-1/4" sway bar:

[njsteve]

And the rear bars, comparison

9/16" bar:



3/4" bar:

[napa68]

Steve,

Any pics of your exhaust hangers for the muffler? I'm curious to see how yours was done. Took your advice...........RA manifolds and Pypes on the way.

Thanks,
Tim

[njsteve]

I will take a look at the archive. Pypes themselves did the install in PA. They employed a hanger bracket that uses the factory slip-in rubber bushing at the top, near the gas tank hangers.

[njsteve]

You can just barely see the edge of them but they are the u-shaped brackets that slip under the top exhaust clamp and also slide into the bulkhead rubber grommet bracket above the muffler. Pypes sells the brackets. I think they are an extra cost items not included in the kit. (of course)

Here's the old video of the sound:

https://youtu.be/ptAubfuN8N4

and the installation:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XsgWVUQ48s