I noticed that Bob also has a 1961?? Oldsmobile under his shed, or is that another's car he's restoring....? :)
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I noticed that Bob also has a 1961?? Oldsmobile under his shed, or is that another's car he's restoring....? :)
Gary , that's his 1959 Oldsmobile Super 88 four door hardtop , with vista views . Bob also has a 1958 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe , and a 1959 Belair two door sedan , and a 1962 Sunbeam Alpine , and he's still driving his parents 1962 Hillman Wagon that they ordered new and received when then vacationed in England . They ordered it with the steering wheel on the American side , and it came back with them on the ship .
He's got an interesting collection, Dom... :) I'm not a huge fan of '58-59 American cars(Chevy tossed their best design ever and redesigned the '58!).. :).
My next door car buddy has a '64 Sunbeam Tiger which I really like (always wanted one of those).. and when I was in the USAf, a car buddy of mine had a 'damaged' '56 Thunderbird (a tree had fell on it), so he shortened the frame, stuck a VW front suspension on it, and a 430 Mercury engine he had with trans in the chassis, and found a near perfect Hillman wagon body in a local MS junkyard, so he took that and fitted it to the chassis (so he could drive it with or without the Hillman body!).. The same fella also bought new a 1970 Challenger TA, then swapped engine/trans with a airman who had a '66 Plymouth with 426 Hemi and huge 4-speed... (I thought he was crazy, but he ended up with a very unique Challenger).. :) I often wonder what happened to those two cars!
I remember test driving a Sunbeam Tiger in 1966. I decided to take my chances with the Army, I thought the odds were more in my favor.
I figured that was sure death to me as a 19 year old 135 lb punk.
To pull this thread BACK to Domenic's '57 Nomad project... I'll post a few images here that Domenic sent me over the weekend. His restorer had mounted his WS wiper motor and transmissions and has them working (I tried to post his test video but I don't have an internet address for it, only a file on my computer so I cannot post it).
And he's installed the firewall pad, which appears to be a very neat installation (made me want to know where he got the firewall pad, as there are a number of 'crappy' replacement firewall pads available these days. His looks *original*..? maybe NOS? or ?? Domenic can you tell us?
Attachment 12202
I cannot tell how the pad is attached; I can't see the 'factory type' plugs which punch thru from under the dash and should show the head of the plastic push pin under the dash, and the protruding pin on the firewall side. Did the install the push pins from the firewall side (that would be incorrect - backwards from the factory installations!)...
Gary , the firewall pad came from Ol'55 . Sorry for the confusion this firewall pad was just laying in place and not completely installed with the plastic pins yet . Seeing the wiper's going back and fourth was great to see as these were some of the first parts going back onto the car . The door handle's and latches and locking linkage were before the wipers .I would have to say that the rubber body mount cushions were the very first parts. We are going with a "Factory Fit " Wiring harness and I had previously purchased all these parts in " NOS " : fuse box, complete steering wheel hub with the blinker switch, and all related parts . Ignition switch , High Beam switch , False Neutral switch , blue dot ceramic Points resistor, Point sets , re-built original dist. for the 4 barrel with correct weights , rocker panel moldings which I hope are all the same on all Belaire models . the rear end is in with the new axel bearings and seals , retainers and backing plates . The rear leaf's came from " Eaton Detroit " with the spring rate most commonly used on all the 57 wagon's with 1" over arc .
I received the following notation with the image of Domenic's heater installation in his '57 Nomad.
"We have installed the heater , the re-production blower resistor was no good I found a NOS one to use."
Attachment 12280
Looks great , thanks for the update
Sid