One mystery solved, and another plot thickens

Years ago, I discovered some mystery electrical relays in the drivers' side door. These relays did not appear in any of the circuit diagram, and were made in England. Combine that with the mishmash way the wiring was done, and it was clear that these relays were installed when the car was in England, but I could never figure out why. It didn't help that the window regulator in this door was non-original (and didn't quite fit).
Well, I have now figured out what they are for. Due to the mismash nature of the wiring situation in the door, I bought a new wiring harness for the door. While I was at it, I bought a new window regulator, since the old one wasn't the right size and would never stay in place. I installed both of them this weekend, and when I went to install the window switches I realized that there weren't enough terminals. After a little bit of research, I found that the window switches are dual-pole (so they connect two circuits at once), and the seat switches are single pole. The switches I had for the windows were seat switches! So, some time in the late 60's or early 70's, when the motor was switched out, the original window switches disappeared, and the owner only had access to seat switches, so he found a workaround involving the relays.
I have now ordered new seat switches (even though they are remarkably expensive for switches), and hope I'll get them this weekend. Then I can install the windows, just in time for the weather to get cold (that's Texas cold, so no worry of road salt or moisture).

Now on to the continuing mystery: the tachometer. It has never worked in the 22 years I've been driving this car. Before I started driving it, my dad had the gauge rebuilt. If the cable was attached to the gauge, it oscillated wildly, and was loud. During my high school year I presumed it was the cable. That has been replaced. Then the noise was gone, but it didn't move. Then I noticed the gear was missing. I must have lost it when I changed the cable. That's a fairly expensive mistake ($35 or so). So I now have a new gear. I installed it this weekend, but no go: the noise and oscillation are back. So what's the deal? The entire system has been replaced or rebuilt. The only other element in the system is the distributor, but if there was a problem there, the cylinders wouldn't fire.
I have come to the conclusion that it's the gauge. I'll try to take it apart this weekend to see if I can figure out what's wrong. Anyway, internet people: any ideas?

Body Work Done

Here are some "after" shots of the body work. I wasn't aware of how bad it looked before until I saw how good it could look. I took it out twice today, and couldn't avoid answering questions about it either time. This is higher than normal. Also, I had two guys at the auto shop take pictures of it, and one guy at a stop light. This has never happened before, so I guess it really does look a lot better.
Anyway, here are the pics:

Water Pump

I took the car to a local body shop in February. The bottoms of the doors were rusted out, there was some rust on the trunk lid, on the fenders, rocker panels, and a couple other places. I found some replacement doors from the T-bird center in Ohio. I ordered some new fender skirts, since the original ones disappeared somewhere between Italy and England. I also ordered all of the weatherstripping and gaskets needed.

During the body work, the shop found out that the new drivers-side door was somewhat warped, and did not fit the body well. Since these doors are scarce, I had them work it as best as they could.

I have never liked the original color of this car. In 1956, Ford offered T-birds in Fiesta Red, which has too much orange in it for my tastes, so for the new paint I chose Torch Red, which was offered in 1955. It's a much deeper red, less orange. Also, since the interior of the 1955 is quite similar to the 1956 (only the pattern on the seat was different), I can get interior vinyl and paint in the correct color to match the body.

So, I finally got the car out of the shop about a month ago (pictures coming soon). On the drive home, I noticed a new (not good) sound. At first I thought it was the transmission, but I eventually tracked it down to the fan. The bearings in the water pump broke, and the water pump was throwing grease on the underside of my newly clean and painted hood.
So, I got to work tearing down the cooling system. I bought a new high output water pump, new thermostat, new hoses, new gaskets, new clamps, and various other fun things.
When re-installing the thermostat housing with the new thermostat, one of the bolts broke. I had the torque wrench set to 18 ft-lbs, and later I checked, and the correct setting was 12-15 ft-lbs. This difference should not have broken the bolt, so I figure it was just old. I found new bolts, and installed the thermostat housing.
Next came the water pump, fan, belts, fan shroud (how I hate that thing), and all of the hoses.
On the test drive, I found a leak at the bottom radiator hose (where it meets the radiator). That's always a hard one to get right. I have yet to be able to get that down, but I can do that some night this week.
Anyway, after all of this, I hope to drive it to work next week (after I have a bit more confidence in my fix).

Now that the exterior looks so good, the interior looks worse than it did before. I need to get the power windows working, and I've got a new wiring harness for the driver's side door. Once the windows are working, I might be able to start on the rest of the interior.

Hot Rod Revolution

Went to the Hot Rod Revolution today at Camp Mabry. Here are a few pictures:

The Doors

Paint and Body

I've been wanting to get some body work done, and the paint redone, for quite a while.
The current paint job dates to 1983. It's quite faded now, and it wasn't very good when it was done, anyway. The color is supposed to be the original Fiesta Red, the same color it was when it was made. I've never been a big fan of Fiesta Red - it's got way too much orange in it for my taste.
Here's a photo of the right front fender. There are a few dings in it, but the body panel seems to be straight. The headlight rims are chromed, which is non-original. I'm not sure when that was done. They've been like that my whole life.

The front end
The bumper is in quite good shape. It was re-chromed almost 30 years ago, and it still looks really good. Notice the ding in the center below the Thunderbird emblem. That happened some time while I was in high school - I don't know who did it.







I'll publish another post soon with details of more of the body.

More about the Brake Conversion

Bleeding the brakes was difficult for a couple of reasons.
1. I had not connected all of the brake lines. I guess it was sort of a "I'll do it later", but forgot.
2. I had a few leaks. I hadn't tightened all of the connections.
3. The crappy one-way valve I bought for bleeding at Harbor Freight Tools (I know, I know, Harbor Freight sucks) was leaking.
4. It takes a lot of pumping to clear the air out of completely empty lines. A LOT of pumping.
5. Once I had completely got everything bled, I noticed a leak on the line going into the power brake booster. As I tightened it, I stripped out the threads on the brass fitting. Finding a replacement part was somewhat difficult - none of the catalogs carry the part (some of them have a part number, but none of them carry it), and getting the specs for the part was pretty hard. Eventually I found someone who knew the weatherhead part number. From that, I found an auto parts store here in Austin that had it. The part I ended up installing is Edelmann 265301. 3/16 inch female thread, 1/2 - 20 male to go into the booster.
Now everything is back together. The brakes work well, but are still a little spongy. The power booster is working quite well.
Anyway, here's some pictures.
The replacement fitting is on the top center part of the picture, going into the booster.
Here's the new dual chamber master cylinder:

Below, the pictures are the left front rotor and caliper, right front rotor and caliper, and a couple of pictures of the car.