This past summer we decided to get my Dad a bullet nose starlight coupe. He had always wanted one, so in October he got an early Christmas present. He likes to have something to work on, but we didn't think he would be up to a full blown restoration, so we decided to get him a car that would be a good driver without too much work. After some searching we found a good candidate in CA owned by John Sweeney. Pat Dilling was nice enough to check the car out and confirm its condition. The deal was made and the car arrived in October. We decided to go ahead and give it to him then instead of trying to hide it until Christmas.
So we spent the next month deciding what he wanted to do with the car. He decided he wanted a good reliable driver, not a "show car" that you would be scared to drive. So we decided that to accomplish this, we needed to rebuild the carb, check out the brakes, add and electric fuel pump and convert it from a 6V to 12V.
We rebuilt the carb first and that made the car run much smoother. I also started identifying the parts we needed for the 12V conversion and getting those items ordered. We installed the 12V conversion during our Christmas holiday. The conversion went very smooth and the car starts really easy now. Plus all of the electrical stuff works now.
During all this time, Dad had been driving it around the yard and the brakes seemed to be working good, but.... At some point during the 12V conversion Dad decided to check the brake fluid level. The cap of the original MC busted during removal, so we ended up replacing the entire MC and decided to do the rubber hoses at the same time as a precaution. When we tried to bleed the brake system, one of the bleeder valves broke off in a wheel cylinder so we had to replace that. Once that was done we started bleeding the system. Once we started pumping new clean fluid through the system, a front wheel cylinder started leaking, so we decided to just replace them all. We were now able to bleed the system but we had an odd problem where after we drove the car a little the brakes would build a little more pressure every time the brakes were applied until eventually they would lock up the wheels. We first found that the front brake adjusters didn't work right on the forward shoe, but worked fine on the rear shoe. It turned out that one set of shoes were installed backwards, the auto adjuster shoe was installed as the rear shoe. The other side didn't have any of the auto adjuster mechanism in there. So we ordered all those parts from SI and installed them. Now the shoes could be adjusted properly, however, the brakes would still build pressure and lock up. By now we had replaced everything except the hill holder. So we pulled it apart and and found that it was full of sludge. We cleaned it up and installed the SI kit and put it all back together. Now the brakes are finally working properly.
The brake repairs have been going on for about a month now because we kept having to order parts. During this time I could tell Dad was starting to get impatient. He was ready to go for a ride. Well we finally got the brakes working Saturday evening, but it had started snowing so we didn't want to take it out on the road for the first time while it was snowing, just in case we had problems. Today the weather had cleared up so he was finally able to hit the road for the first time.
A good trip, car ran well and everything worked properly. Dad had a big smile. A good day and good memory.
Wayne
So we spent the next month deciding what he wanted to do with the car. He decided he wanted a good reliable driver, not a "show car" that you would be scared to drive. So we decided that to accomplish this, we needed to rebuild the carb, check out the brakes, add and electric fuel pump and convert it from a 6V to 12V.
We rebuilt the carb first and that made the car run much smoother. I also started identifying the parts we needed for the 12V conversion and getting those items ordered. We installed the 12V conversion during our Christmas holiday. The conversion went very smooth and the car starts really easy now. Plus all of the electrical stuff works now.
During all this time, Dad had been driving it around the yard and the brakes seemed to be working good, but.... At some point during the 12V conversion Dad decided to check the brake fluid level. The cap of the original MC busted during removal, so we ended up replacing the entire MC and decided to do the rubber hoses at the same time as a precaution. When we tried to bleed the brake system, one of the bleeder valves broke off in a wheel cylinder so we had to replace that. Once that was done we started bleeding the system. Once we started pumping new clean fluid through the system, a front wheel cylinder started leaking, so we decided to just replace them all. We were now able to bleed the system but we had an odd problem where after we drove the car a little the brakes would build a little more pressure every time the brakes were applied until eventually they would lock up the wheels. We first found that the front brake adjusters didn't work right on the forward shoe, but worked fine on the rear shoe. It turned out that one set of shoes were installed backwards, the auto adjuster shoe was installed as the rear shoe. The other side didn't have any of the auto adjuster mechanism in there. So we ordered all those parts from SI and installed them. Now the shoes could be adjusted properly, however, the brakes would still build pressure and lock up. By now we had replaced everything except the hill holder. So we pulled it apart and and found that it was full of sludge. We cleaned it up and installed the SI kit and put it all back together. Now the brakes are finally working properly.
The brake repairs have been going on for about a month now because we kept having to order parts. During this time I could tell Dad was starting to get impatient. He was ready to go for a ride. Well we finally got the brakes working Saturday evening, but it had started snowing so we didn't want to take it out on the road for the first time while it was snowing, just in case we had problems. Today the weather had cleared up so he was finally able to hit the road for the first time.
A good trip, car ran well and everything worked properly. Dad had a big smile. A good day and good memory.
Wayne
BP
We've got to quit saying, 
looking forward to hearing about it and seeing more pics...
'63 Avanti R-1384. sold 12/10.
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