BilWilVegas
Member
Good morning all,
In another post I had mentioned the lights all being shorted out in my new-to-me bucket. I have a friend with a bucket here in Vegas and he introduced me to his buddy that had redone the electrical on his bucket when he acquired his. I called this gentlemen, Jason, and he came by the house to inspect the car. We put it up on the lift and found a LOT of things that needed to be fixed.
My plans are to drive it during the nice weather of the spring season and then during July / August, when it is too hot out to enjoy the car, I will have the upholstery and carpet redone and swap out the steering (if we decide to redo this part) I may also look into swapping the engine for a mildly built but stronger bottom end with a 6-71 on top. I am not really in need of more power in this car as it is a cruiser for us, but I have always liked the look of a bucket with a blower.
I also plan to add some short wheelie bars, just for the look. These will be clamp on ones as I do not want to have to weld mount pads on the rearend since it is already painted in the same paint as the body and frame. I just need to figure out which ones are the best solution. I found a gentlemen on Facebook selling short T-bucket wheelie bars but he has not posted in awhile and has not responded to my messages. Competition Engineering makes a kit but they are 44" long and I would prefer shorter to at least minimize the liability of people tripping on them . . . they are just for looks on this car.
I am excited to have the bucket and looking forward to some adventures in it! I appreciate all of the advice and feedback I have gotten so far on this forum and am glad to be here. Thank you!
In another post I had mentioned the lights all being shorted out in my new-to-me bucket. I have a friend with a bucket here in Vegas and he introduced me to his buddy that had redone the electrical on his bucket when he acquired his. I called this gentlemen, Jason, and he came by the house to inspect the car. We put it up on the lift and found a LOT of things that needed to be fixed.
- Rewire entire car from scratch
- Install a power port in the face under the seat for phone charging
- Trim 2" off the bottom of the dash and repolish the entire dash (new dash and all new guages to be installed this summer)
- Remove extra lights on rear of car and have original lights work (by product of bad original wiring harness, they couldn't get the lights to work so they just bolted extras on the back of the car)
- Install box under chassis between frame and driveline to hold MSD box and fuse panel, Install hinged lid to access this from the storage space under the seat.
- Replace old battery with Odyssey PC680 in the battery mount under the passenger side seat, add hinged access panel in storage space under passenger seat.
- Replace missing zerk fittings and grease whole chassis
- Replace ALL brake lines. When the original builder assembled the car he / she used all 18" long pre-flared pieces of brake lines. So every 18" there is a junction. I can only speculate why this was done, but it is not safe so I am having him run all new brake lines. (Pads and shoes are in great shape front and rear).
- Electric fuel pump was bolted directly to the frame so there is a loud buzzing sound constantly coming from the pump. He is going to isolate it with small rubber pads between the pump and the frame.
- New chrome 1 wire alternator
- Electric fan and shroud on radiator (cooling is a massive concern out here in Vegas)
- Re-mount fuel cell back 1/2" because it was rubbing on the back of the bucket
- Reinforce side step on passenger side as it was pretty wobbly.
- Examine chassis to ascertain feasibility of replacing steering box with a new one that will allow for a tilted steering column to open up a bit more floor space (this project will be completed during the hot summer months as right now the weather is perfect and I want to enjoy the new car)
- Replace wood floor as it has a ton of oversized holes under the carpeting
- Change oil in engine.
My plans are to drive it during the nice weather of the spring season and then during July / August, when it is too hot out to enjoy the car, I will have the upholstery and carpet redone and swap out the steering (if we decide to redo this part) I may also look into swapping the engine for a mildly built but stronger bottom end with a 6-71 on top. I am not really in need of more power in this car as it is a cruiser for us, but I have always liked the look of a bucket with a blower.
I also plan to add some short wheelie bars, just for the look. These will be clamp on ones as I do not want to have to weld mount pads on the rearend since it is already painted in the same paint as the body and frame. I just need to figure out which ones are the best solution. I found a gentlemen on Facebook selling short T-bucket wheelie bars but he has not posted in awhile and has not responded to my messages. Competition Engineering makes a kit but they are 44" long and I would prefer shorter to at least minimize the liability of people tripping on them . . . they are just for looks on this car.
I am excited to have the bucket and looking forward to some adventures in it! I appreciate all of the advice and feedback I have gotten so far on this forum and am glad to be here. Thank you!
