98 in San Diego
November 10th, 2010, 11:00 PM
#1
Registered User
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 9
98 in San Diego
Hi All,
Finally getting around to joining here. I've had my '63 Ninety Eight Town Sedan since Sept. of '97. She had 58K documented, original miles. Now she has 66K on the clock. Interior is like new, exterior needs work. I've had her stored for a long time and now getting her back up and running. Like a mule, she's fighting me every inch to get her back to reliable service, but I'm not giving up yet. Most recent triumph was upgrading to dual master cylinder/booster out of a '69 Delta sedan. Looking forward to asking and answering questions here!
Best,
John
Finally getting around to joining here. I've had my '63 Ninety Eight Town Sedan since Sept. of '97. She had 58K documented, original miles. Now she has 66K on the clock. Interior is like new, exterior needs work. I've had her stored for a long time and now getting her back up and running. Like a mule, she's fighting me every inch to get her back to reliable service, but I'm not giving up yet. Most recent triumph was upgrading to dual master cylinder/booster out of a '69 Delta sedan. Looking forward to asking and answering questions here!
Best,
John
November 11th, 2010, 06:34 AM
#4
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 1,471
Hey John,
Welcome to the club! I love the 60's 98's so I really wanna see pics of your car. I've actually had one of my '76 98's since November of '97 so I'm just about to hit the 13 year mark too.
Anytime you pull a car out of long term storage you're bound to get some resistance but keep at it and you'll work out all the bugs. Let us know what kinds of problems you're having and we'll all do our best to help.
John
Welcome to the club! I love the 60's 98's so I really wanna see pics of your car. I've actually had one of my '76 98's since November of '97 so I'm just about to hit the 13 year mark too.
Anytime you pull a car out of long term storage you're bound to get some resistance but keep at it and you'll work out all the bugs. Let us know what kinds of problems you're having and we'll all do our best to help.
John
November 13th, 2010, 11:14 AM
#6
Registered User
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 9
Hi Guys, will post pix sometime soon, I have the car garaged in San Diego, but I'm 60 miles away, so I have to make trips to visit her every week or so. I have a friend in SD who is helping get her back on the road. She's faked big problems that turned out to be simple fixes several times.
First I thought she needed a new fuel pump. That turned out to be a crack in the 46 year old GM-issue fuel hose. No wonder they went bankrupt when they can make a fuel hose that will last 50 years!
Replaced upper & lower radiator hoses. I had alot of trouble finding molded hoses, ended up taking the old ones and matching up to something similar and trimming to fit. Lower has anti collapse spring in it. After this the car was still leaking coolant, which my friend thought was water pump. Turned out to be one of the hoses needed more clamping.
Brake system had mystery leak for years. I'd come back and find master reservoir almost empty. Checked firewall, wheels, under car, no evidence of leakage. I know these can leak into booster, and that is what I think happened. Once booster "filled up" then it leaked at firewall. Since booster and master needed a rebuild, we looked into dual master upgrade. We determined a '67 Delta was best candidate since it would have dual master, but not disk brakes. I checked Autozone online and they have set-up complete with booster for like, $107. We happened to find a 43,000 mile '69 Delta sedan in junkyard with drum brakes, so we pulled the master/booster, junction block and lines for $65. The key to swap is master and booster need to match each other due to push rod length. The whole thing bolted right up to firewall with NO modifications! Even the push-rod connected to the pedal with no issue. We noted pedal was slightly higher, but after bleeding I think this went away. I read someone else's post about needing to hammer the inner fender well in order for lines to clear. I didn't want to do this, so we re-routed the forward brake line up and over instead of down and under. This was jury rigged hand-bending the old line so it doesn't look pretty, but it works. I plan to replace with a cleaner looking line later.
After all this, the rear brakes were not bleeding. Turns out the rubber hose to rear axle had collapsed. This was another impossible to find part, as every parts place could only find front hoses, nothing for rear. Ultimately the part that fit? rear hose for a 1952-56 Chrysler New Yorker. Go figure. Now, (by 60's standards) the car stops on a dime and gives 9 cents change.
Latest issue is fuel delivery? I start car cold and it starts right up with fast idle. After it warms up, and goes to regular idle, it runs rough, and eventually "idles down" to a stall. It will run so long as you press accelerator linkage, but will not stay running on its own. It was doing this, then I had one day where it ran perfect. I thought it was just bad gas (which I had siphoned out and replaced with fresh). I had run car almost to empty but nearest station was closed so I put her away planning to gas her up next time. Well, didn't make it to station, and even after gassing up half a tank, car won't stay running. Planning to run a engine off a gas can to see if problem goes away. Then I know its a clogged fuel line or filter. If it still runs poorly, I know its in the carb. Looking for advice on this problem.
Thanks!
First I thought she needed a new fuel pump. That turned out to be a crack in the 46 year old GM-issue fuel hose. No wonder they went bankrupt when they can make a fuel hose that will last 50 years!
Replaced upper & lower radiator hoses. I had alot of trouble finding molded hoses, ended up taking the old ones and matching up to something similar and trimming to fit. Lower has anti collapse spring in it. After this the car was still leaking coolant, which my friend thought was water pump. Turned out to be one of the hoses needed more clamping.
Brake system had mystery leak for years. I'd come back and find master reservoir almost empty. Checked firewall, wheels, under car, no evidence of leakage. I know these can leak into booster, and that is what I think happened. Once booster "filled up" then it leaked at firewall. Since booster and master needed a rebuild, we looked into dual master upgrade. We determined a '67 Delta was best candidate since it would have dual master, but not disk brakes. I checked Autozone online and they have set-up complete with booster for like, $107. We happened to find a 43,000 mile '69 Delta sedan in junkyard with drum brakes, so we pulled the master/booster, junction block and lines for $65. The key to swap is master and booster need to match each other due to push rod length. The whole thing bolted right up to firewall with NO modifications! Even the push-rod connected to the pedal with no issue. We noted pedal was slightly higher, but after bleeding I think this went away. I read someone else's post about needing to hammer the inner fender well in order for lines to clear. I didn't want to do this, so we re-routed the forward brake line up and over instead of down and under. This was jury rigged hand-bending the old line so it doesn't look pretty, but it works. I plan to replace with a cleaner looking line later.
After all this, the rear brakes were not bleeding. Turns out the rubber hose to rear axle had collapsed. This was another impossible to find part, as every parts place could only find front hoses, nothing for rear. Ultimately the part that fit? rear hose for a 1952-56 Chrysler New Yorker. Go figure. Now, (by 60's standards) the car stops on a dime and gives 9 cents change.
Latest issue is fuel delivery? I start car cold and it starts right up with fast idle. After it warms up, and goes to regular idle, it runs rough, and eventually "idles down" to a stall. It will run so long as you press accelerator linkage, but will not stay running on its own. It was doing this, then I had one day where it ran perfect. I thought it was just bad gas (which I had siphoned out and replaced with fresh). I had run car almost to empty but nearest station was closed so I put her away planning to gas her up next time. Well, didn't make it to station, and even after gassing up half a tank, car won't stay running. Planning to run a engine off a gas can to see if problem goes away. Then I know its a clogged fuel line or filter. If it still runs poorly, I know its in the carb. Looking for advice on this problem.
Thanks!
November 13th, 2010, 06:55 PM
#7
Past Administrator
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Rural Waxahachie Texas
Posts: 10,171
Thanks for the update on the brakes. I have thought about doing the same for the '46. Did you just eyeball the master cylinder from the '69 or make a few preliminary measurements or just make a lucky guess? It sure sounds like a good deal. Looking forward to some pics.
November 13th, 2010, 09:13 PM
#8
Registered User
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 9
Brakes
All of the above -- started with eyeballing, then checked online (probably was this website) for anyone who had added this feature. There was one guy who had swapped in a dual master on a '66 98, so I knew it was do-able, just didn't know for sure it would bolt up. Ultimately I had to remove the stock set-up regardless because it wasn't functional, so once it was out, we measured the bolt pattern, diameter of the booster, how far it extended into engine bay, etc. Armed with this info, we compared what was in the junkyard car, and after checking price opted to take the plunge. We only opted to go with used one over new because the junkyard car was clearly a low mileage grandma car that looked to have been well-maintained, the price was cheap enough, and it was available NOW as opposed to whenever the parts place could ship it out. For your Olds, I would say you'll probably have to modify the firewall in order to install this, and you might also have to have the push rod adapted to reach/attach to your pedal. Or you could just add a second master cylinder next to the original one and hook the rears to it!
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