Project INVICTA

[balthazar]

• Put the dang blasted center link on loosely, so the car can be rolled outside with the front tires connected. Aired up the fronts and rolled the car about 6-inches, just to have it break it's 'gravity lock' with the same spot it's been sitting in for over a decade.

• Met up with an audiophile friend of mine who gave me sound system advise going forward- I need to cut holes in the package shelf for the rear speakers. Have a set of 4 Polk Audio speakers on order. Also going to fabricate a divider board between the trunk & back seat, which will also get sound deadening.

• Stripped & refurbished both rear armrests, including patching over the hacked speaker holes there. Ready for re-upholstery.

Edited May 15, 2018 by balthazar

[balthazar]

• Primed/painted the inside of my heater box assembly & made a new 'flapper door' seal (directs air either to defroster, or heat vents).

• Worked on speedo- has a revolving drum and altho the drum turned fine, the port where the speedo cable went into it was locked up. Worked at it and kept lubing it until it freed up & now spins freely. Re-assembled the speedo for now, but also made the decision I'm going to have the housing re-chromed. So starting a 're-chome' list.

• Measured out for a 'rear bulkhead' panel to block sound from the trunk. Will cut it out of thin plywood this week.

Edited May 28, 2018 by balthazar

[A Horse With No Name]

Glad to see progress on this.

[balthazar]

Cut the rear package shelf for 6x9 speakers. Took a bit of welding to eliminate the factory ribs, but went well.

 

Also made & sound-dedened the rear bulkhead panels using Masonite- they're peeking thru the speaker hole above

Edited July 1, 2018 by balthazar

[David]

Cool progress, thanks for the update. 

Keep going, ya gotta beat your brother!  

[balthazar]

Old pic, filtered ~

[balthazar]

• Package shelf got painted after the speaker holes were cut, and sound deadener adhered around those 2 holes.
• Drilled holes to mount a funky Pontiac dome/swivel map light to the ceiling cross-rib.
• There were 2 circa 2-in holes in the trunk floor to access the body mount bolts there, so whipped out some aluminum covers for those.
• Cleared the car completely off- it's going outside under the sky on Saturday!

Edited June 15, 2018 by balthazar

[balthazar]

Yep; she went out under the sky today. What a literal thrill for me.

• Ground welds, wire wheeled & orbital sanded the trunk out- getting it ready for priming/painting inside there. Great progress.
 

[balthazar]

Hit the steel one more time with Scotchbright pads, vacuumed it out, washed it down with a de-greaser, masked it off and shot 3 cans of etching primer all over everything.
 

[balthazar]

Today's work :
• sorted thru my box of various '59-72 horns, adjusted the original '59 horns until they honked again, then tested them vs. others so I have my '72 Riviera 4-note horn quartet together again. Have a 12-V regulated power supply unit, but it can only fire 1 horn at a time- need a car battery to blort all together. Will refinish the horns cosmetically.

• put the car up on jackstands. Need to drill my gas tank to accept a 1/2-in fuel elbow, and it would've hit the trunk floor as is. Came up with some rubber bushing to space the tank down about a 1/2-in and clearance everything. Need to go buy a 7/8-in drill bit to get the fitting into the tank tho. Also need to buy and modify an universal fuel sender, as the original is shot.

[balthazar]

Here's today's work; the factory 20-gal tank and the original fuel sender.

 

Made up this deal- aluminum top plate drilled to accept the fuel elbow, a huge steel washer that was drilled & tapped, then split in half so I can fish it into the tank thru the sender hole. It's going to be mounted in that flat area southeast of the sender hole.

 

Here's the point of this fabrication: enlarging the factory 1/4-in fuel line to a half inch.

Edited July 22, 2018 by balthazar

[David]

Very cool update, so how will you get the half washer pieces to hold in place to screw in the top piece? 🤔

[balthazar]

I can stick 2 fingers thru the sender hole and hold them there. I hope.

[David]

12 hours ago, balthazar said:

I can stick 2 fingers thru the sender hole and hold them there. I hope.

I see your fingers being in the way trying to screw in the top piece. How about commercial grade double stick tape to hold them in place so you can then put the top piece on and screw in the screws?

[balthazar]

I switched the assembly up; going to thread the screws into the half washers and insert them from inside, threads pointing up. Will use nuts/lockwashers on the top. Already fit it, it'll work.

• Ordered a high volume mechanical fuel pump capable of handling 550 HP. Have all my hardware and a Teflon-lined braided fuel hose, 20-ft of it, to plumb to the engine bay. Have to now fabricate a fuel return line to the tank, so a bit more work there. Eager to permanently install the fuel tank.

• Also ordered 1 7/8-in 'shorty' headers. Have some apprehension any headers are going to interfere with the steering box, so when they come in, will reinstall the block & heads and see if I can bolt the headers on. If they fit, or if minor 1 or 2 tube modifications are necc, then it's on to fabricating  the dual exhaust system.

• New universal fuel sender, modified to fit, and catalog pic of headers:

 

Edited September 6, 2018 by balthazar

[balthazar]

Here's the 7+ PSI mechanical fuel pump, says it'll support 550 HP:

 

These are the 1 7/8-in 'shorty' Riviera headers. Said to only lose I think 10-20 HP over full-length headers. Going to put the block/trans/heads together and see if they fit. I'm a bit nervous- have a fat steering box behind the crossmember... but my frame is 3-in wider than a Riviera frame. We'll see.
Look at that bottom flange- it's a full 1/2-in thick!

Edited September 13, 2018 by balthazar

[balthazar]

Re-set the motor/trans in the car, then bolted a cylinder head on. Yep- it's gonna be a problem.
Could not get the header close to lining up- hitting the steering box. With the header being an amorphous, twisty thing- in order to better judge where the interference was, I instead removed the steering box in order to bolt the header on. Wen I tried to slip the 'box back up against the frame rail, the bolt holes were about 2-in south of the holes in the frame- the 'box hit the headers in 2 places- those 12 o'clock curves in the foreground header.

Only viable course of action is to cut the collector off about an inch into the pipes there, cut the pipes at the upper flange, somehow rig the collector about a foot farther under the car and re-flow all 4 pipes to the collector around the mounted steering box.

A bunch of time, but no other way around it. Not going to completely revamp the steering system now. Had no issues fabbing the exhaust for the COE; same practice :

[balthazar]

• Got a fuel return fitting, so drilled another hole in the tank for that; 1/4-in rubber return line. That hole allowed me to see inside the tank fairly well, there is some residual rust inside here & there- not heavy but more than I would have expected. Tank has been dry since about 1995-96, was it there before? Have a very good radiator shop up the street, going to see what they say about getting it boiled/coated (they did the COE's tank in '03). This, after my buddy & I successfully got the fuel pickup assembly installed- took about 30 mins and a good 10 drops of the half-washers into the tank.

• Pipes for the header surgery are en route, as are mufflers. Made a cardboard 'muffler' to gauge room underneath, they may get close to the driveshaft- I don't have that yet so I don't know what diameter it'll be. The ladder bars are crowding where the mufflers will likely be (in front of the rear axle... but I may have room to hang them all the way back under the quarter panels.

• Started messing around with the braided fuel supply line & the fittings- think it's figured out.

[balthazar]

• Bought some EvapoRust to clean the slight rust out of the fuel tank, but unless one is ready to put gas in it (which I'm not) it's better to wait. So after all the running around RE the fuel tank and anticipating installing it permanently, instead it's going into storage in the basement, along with all the fuel lines & assorted pieces. Rad shop (in business since 1929!) wanted too much to clean/coat the tank ($395), so I paid them $20 to weld a drain plug in one upper corner instead. The best sealer on the market is $32/quart.

• Pu the car up on 4 jack stands, going to work on the exhaust / header next, instead. I am lacking the parking brake hardware inside the rear brakes, but once again; I am asking a '59 parking brake pedal & frame to talk to a '70's MoPar DANA 60, so more engineering there. Exhaust system comes with it's own questions, namely; whether I have to end it before the rear axle or if I can fit it out to the rear bumper. A bit more work and pounds that way, but also a bit quieter. Also can look at the brake line scenario & figger out upgrading the hydraulic system. I had planned on a dual-reservoir manual brake system, need to think it all through.

Edited November 2, 2018 by balthazar

[balthazar]

• Fabricated a mounting plate; the trans crossmember is not quite aligned with the trans, so fashioned a 5/16-in steel plate to be able to bolt the 2 together. Unconventional for sure, but I see no reason it won't have excellent longevity/be no problem.
• More planning on the header surgery, coming soon.

Edited November 3, 2018 by balthazar

[balthazar]

• Took a circa 4.25-in carpet cardboard tube and made a faux driveshaft, as a spacer when I fabricate the exhaust.
• In order to get the rear tires off/out, I have to jack the car up so the tires are hanging 2-3 inches off the floor, then unbolt the shocks and the Panhard bar to get the axle to drop enough to get the tire off. Not a friendly car for a on-road flat tire (nevermind the radically different size of the front & rear tires).
Contemplating my parking brake scenario : there's no hardware for it inside the brake right now, and any routing would be a 100% fabrication, as it's literally impossible to route it the way it was when new; too much is radically changed/gone underneath. I may have to go without one.
• picking thru part stashes- there's stuff in multiple places in my shop, in the basement, and in my study closet. Finding stuff I forgot I had, which is good so far. Found a brand new dual master cylinder today, but haven't yet found the wheels the parking brake cable is supposed to ride on.

Sidebar :: today I had my refurbished pot belly stove's inaugural first burn. Bought it off CL last year and blew it apart to clean & paint it. Finally got the stovepipe hooked up & thru the roof last month. No roaring fire, but a nice smaller burn. Outside was sunny but breezy, with the thermo just inside the people door reading 46... stove is on the rear wall between Bay 1 & Bay 2, with the Cab Over in between. Anyways, no issues, lit quickly & drafted well, and provided a nice warming of the air in the immediate area. Going to make it MUCH more hospitable over the winter and allow more work on the B-59.

Edited November 11, 2018 by balthazar

[A Horse With No Name]

Keep us posted. Love the progress!

Edited November 12, 2018 by A Horse With No Name
Clarity

[Windstorm]

Great progress!

[balthazar]

From Popular Mechanics 1959 Owner's Report ~

 

Weight distribution in the article was stated to be 54/46. Pretty good WRT the handling compliments. My car has lost 364 lbs to date, and probably 75% of that is off the front end.

Edited November 16, 2018 by balthazar

[balthazar]

I took the B-59 high & low note seashells and combined 'em with the mid-range and trumpet from my '72 Riviera 4-note horn set up. Took a bit of fiddling with the horn adjustments, but they all came back to life (initially the B-59 horns were silent). Adds a nice, locomotive-y approach, don'cha tink?

Edited November 20, 2018 by balthazar

[A Horse With No Name]

Yes it does!

[balthazar]

Working like a dog on a month-long condo rehab, will be wrapped up end of this week. No work on the B-59 since cutting the header into pieces, but taking next week off. Of course, the high temps next week are in the mid 30s. Of course.

Did find some verified engine-related weights, so I was able to update the B-59s weight loss log. To date, I've reduced the car's weight by 401 lbs. There will be a multitude of things that change this number, but at this point they are unknowns, weight-wise. But as is right now, car 'weighs' 4080 lbs. That's not bad for a 217-in car with less than 15 lbs of plastic in it.

Edited December 27, 2018 by balthazar

[balthazar]

'During' pic of header construction. Arrows show severed collector, positioned on a movable wooden stand, but providing a 'target' for the re-flowing of the individual pipes. Was able to (initially) to re-use the 2 cut-off pieces, which you see taped/clamped here.

If you look back one page to the post dated Sept 13, you can see the original header configuration, showing how tube 1 and tube 4 would be going right into the steering box, basically sitting 'outboard of' tubes 2 & 3.

I also decided to (temporarily) mount the dash substructure and the steering column so I could eyeball the column-shifted trans linkage. I have to go with an aftermarket universal linkage (Lokar) anyway, but it should be fine.

Edited January 7, 2019 by balthazar

[balthazar]

With the hope of pushing spring-esque weather, have started some more work on the B-59. My buddy has been doing some experimenting with zinc plating, the interior door latches (inside the doors) are bare steel, so doing those and the trunk latching hardware. I saw the trunk latch tonight (no pic) and it looked excellent. Trying to think of other things to plate. BTW, also working on a derusting bath (reverse electrolysis). Still have the parking brake system to engineer (just found the original B-59 cable wheels this past weekend) and the headers to get back on. Temps supposed to break over the weekend (mid 20s today).

[balthazar]

Man, has progress been lacking. What else is new.
- - - - -
The B-59 has an upward-projecting rear license light. The lense is available repro, but the die cast unit is not and I've never seen a really nice one / NOS for sale. My car's rear bumper has a fist-sized dent near the outer corner, but apparently there was a lot of twist involved, because my license light housing is also quite twisted (in addition to all the pitting). I don't want to put like $250-350 into this, so going to cobble something. Here's the results so far on that. First: the stock piece :

 

Here's my shot piece, and a new aluminum plate with a 1-W LED and 2 decorative retaining fasteners. I want to polish the aluminum so it looks more like chrome, and fashion some sort of little 'hood' for the lens so you don't see the light itself driving behind it. I hope that 1W isn't too bright, but it's a simple procedure to add resistors to dim it further. I want the glow of a campfire from 3 miles out on my plate.

 

Comparison pic from online, but you can never tell until you see it in person :

Edited January 5, 2020 by balthazar

[balthazar]

2 recent bits of progress.

Everyone lists the wrong sway bar bushing for my car (every B-59 that has a bar uses the same one). I know because I ordered it locally and tried fitting it to my car's sway bar bracket. Loose tooth city, (as Garfield would say). But this is the number all over the internet; Moog K5227. It's wrong. Here's that bushing on the B-59 of an internet 59er :

^ This is a recently replaced bushing- look at it gap not only around the bar but inside the bracket. Not working very hard.
- - - - -

It took another local parts store who was willing to test fit bushings off the shelf in my bracket, which resulted in this. Now, I had to put a spacer around the bar, as the bore int he new bushing was 3/32-in larger. I used... a length of garden hose. But the bar is very snug (I compressed the assembly in a vise to mimic it being installed- the gaps close up almost completely). And by eliminating the lower bracket, I don't even have to modify the bushing. Success.

Edited March 12, 2020 by balthazar

[balthazar]

And I bought this - I think it'll look 'boss' in the '59. I believe this design came out in '64 :

 

'Dis is the plan :

Edited March 19, 2020 by balthazar

[balthazar]

Gonna give this a whirl :

 

UPDATE ::

Edited April 13, 2020 by balthazar

[balthazar]

Been picking at various minor tasks on the B-59.
Put the instrument cluster, steering wheel & front seat back in for the fist time since I disassembled it. Wanted to gauge the intended aftermarket gauges, and an hidden ignition 'combination lock' to disable the starter. Fun to actually sit in it again.
Seat bottom is the original upholstery, seat back is an aftermarket cover. Interior is going to completely change over to black & silver, I think.

 

Seating position has always struck me as weird in '59 GMs. The front floor is still completely flat (last year of that), and the rooflines were lowered vs. '58, resulting in a very 'chaise lounge' position... but myself & my son sitting in it today found it's not bad.

Rear seat : shades of '70s F-Bodies :

Edited May 6, 2020 by balthazar

[ocnblu]

Not trying to be Invictive, but why would anyone want to change a car FROM green to... something else?

[balthazar]

there ARE other colors on the wheel, Mr Blu, you know.

[David]

Deep Metallic Forest Green my dad had on his 49 Merc and it was amazing!  

It was very much like this:

Wish he still had it, but traded it in for a Mercury station wagon late 60's as my two older sisters and me made them go after a bigger roomy auto for the family.

[balthazar]

'49-50 Mercs are tops~ Great green above, but sure wish the builder hadn't eliminated the characteristic Merc 'swoop' in the body line. Two thumbs down on that point.

[balthazar]

Wanted to paint the rear wheel wells today- it was upper 60s here & dry.
One rear tire is off; but when I started brushing the well, lots of debris was coming down. The rear wells were the only part of the underside that had undercoating, and most of it is left... but some brushed off and some that fell is apparently mud from the '80s.
So after numerous stiff-brush & wire brushings, I went over the whole well with mineral spirits and yet another brush. Put a fan on it but ran out of time to paint... and temps here are going to belly for about a week. On to something else.

[riviera74]

keep up the good work.

[ocnblu]

*whip crack*

[balthazar]

Both rear wheel wells are painted, and the pass rear brake is rebuilt. Have Kevlar-impregnated shoes and finally got the right parking brake hardware. The rears are actually MoPar brakes- a direct fit onto the Dana 60 axle. The 'ME' is Moser Engineering axle shafts- the good stuff. Ain't snapping dem babies.

[balthazar]

• Driver-side rear brake is now done. That side drum (brand new) was painted satin black hi-temp paint, still have to spray the passenger drum. 
• Painted up some of the parking brake hardware and bolted it under the car. Funky wheels to direct the cable toward the back. Have to do fabrication there, will tinker with that soon.
• Thinking again about the front speakers- most likely spot is in the doors. I generally don't like that look but maybe I can mask them / make them work with the door panel. Mulling. But I put the vent window back in the door to check how much space I have.
• There was some of this, accompanied by Sounds of Brutal Acceleration :

[ocnblu]

Wow it's almost like driving an EV, you're reduced to making vroom vroom noises with your lips instead of your throttle foot. *sobs*

[balthazar]

Working on the car 6 days out of 7.
• strung up the new parking brake cabling, of course I'll have to modify it.  Axle is a Dana 60, commonly found under MoPars, so the backing plates are MoPar.  Parking brake assembly (cables) is '71-74 B-Body MoPar [Charger/Satellite/GTX].  Looks like it will work, tho the front cable off the pedal is steel-jacketed and I'm going to have to cut that off and get the cable naked.  B-59 uses pulleys to snake the cabling down & back under the car [below is B-59 diagram].  Have to run the exhaust first, but feeling confident.
• Stripped 2 front doors off a '60 Bonneville flattop I tore down a few years ago.  Needed another vent window regulator and some of the auto-specific screws on the inner doors.  In doing so I realized 1. the door latch mechanicsms are the same, and 2. I haven't seen the door latches off my B-59 in years.  So cleaned them up in preparation for painting.  Was missing one hinge-to-body bolt, so got that here. 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by balthazar

[balthazar]

P-60 door latch, and cleaned up for the B-59 :

[balthazar]

Worked on some layout plans for the interior. From the factory- the only interior light is 1 dome light. Thinking about adding courtesy lamps on the bottom edge of the dash, pointing downward to light ingress/egress. Also planning on where/how to mount an upgrade- 4-way flashers [not required until '67 federal law]. These additional lights require some hole drilling- so making sure a. I want to pull the trigger, and b. there won't be anything behind there that would interfere with new components.

- - - - -
DONE :

Here's a direct shot with the parking brake warning light lit (by flashlight).
The 4-way flasher knob should also flash red in the center when activated (there's a bulb in there, not sure if it blinks).

Edited May 25, 2020 by balthazar

[balthazar]

10 min project: wanted to add under-dash courtesy lamps [inspired by my P-60 parts car]. Had these 1W LED mini lights I recently ordered, and they fit perfectly in these chrome cabinet washers. Not too bright at 1W, they’ll do some illumination of the entry ports. 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by balthazar

[balthazar]

Did some work on the parking brake cabling assembly. After carefully cutting the front cable's steel jacket off, the cable is likely too short by about 4 or 6 inches. Probably most of that is that the car this assembly is from has a 8 inch shorter wheelbase. Here's a shot of the rear & intermediate cabling loosely hanging. Routing it to the underbody will take up more linear length.

Also held the center sections of the exhaust up underneath, planning the routing. Looks like it'll be fine but will need a few more pieces of pipe to fabricate. Again- this universal X system is likely all for shorter wheelbase cars.  You know; cars for girls. 😛

Finished sound deadening the package shelf tonight :

Edited May 27, 2020 by balthazar

[balthazar]

Finally found my damned ashtray after looking for like 45 mins. Was on the roof of the '64 under some stuff.
That was the last piece in the dash so I can be sure what area I need to prep/paint so's I can bolt the dash structure in permanently; a contained area around the ashtray & glovebox; the dash top & other exposed bits will get professionally painted down the road.

With a front bench seat hip room measurement of 66.1", the B-59 provides a very comfy nap spot (I'm only 68" tall), either laying down or just leaning back. One of the reasons I didn't go bucket/console like everyone else building a period resto-mod car always does.