morfing a 58 custom into a 57 custom 300

[gasman826]

Nothing worse than not being able to trust your gauges.  I often use a cooking thermometer to confirm coolant temperature.  Snoop around the kitchen and find a candy thermometer or one of the meat thermometers that you stick in the turkey.

[57 imposter]

I left my inferred at home. ya just can't bring everything you own. I will probably buy and install a mechanical gauge just to get me thru this trip. kind of hate to because it will spend the rest of my life sitting on a shelf but you gotta do what ya gotta do. Off to Tucson, maybe I should just put some tape over the gauge, then maybe it wouldn't bother me.

[gasman826]

Ya', I don't carry a meat thermometer on road trips either.

[RICH MUISE]

Did you get the new temp gage put in? How's the car been running?
We had snow here yesterday, not much though.

[57 imposter]

Didn't put the gauge in, i am pretty sure the sender is screwing up but it can wait till I get home. It hasn't been showing warm enough to worry about. Other than that non issue it has run just like it's suppose to. Hasen't used a drop of either oil or water so nothing to complain about. Shame we had to cancel our Ok. trip but I'm sure this won't be our last trip south so maybe we can give it a try next time. We did Santa Fe and Abq. today. The Unser racing museum has great. We are going to start wandering towards home tomorrow in no particular direction. I am really ready to get my dog back. Hopefully you will have some good news soon on getting your car repaired.

[RICH MUISE]

I am really disappointed I had to cancel....it would have been so cool. Really happy to hear your car is performing as it should...it's a real tribute to your build ability.
I'm meeting with the insurance adjuster tomorrow as it turns out. I wasn't expecting it until next week. Hopefully before long I'll have a check and can get the car into the repair shop. If all goes well, I should be back on the road fixed sometime late April. Their adjuster for the building damage did his thing today.
I did take mine out for a drive today, starts right up every time, cold or hot.  Tomorrow also is the alignment shop to have the Castor increased as much as possible.

[57 imposter]

We made it home. Happy with car overall. 4000 miles and never had to look at anything. Had a little more trouble with driveway approaches than I would like so will be looking at getting the suspension up a little. I will probably order some 6 leave rears and have the spindles reamed to get the drop out of them. I am also going to try a new temp sending unit and will replace the power steering pump. Pump is working fine but is noisy. Irritating, It just started making noise when I got the car back on the road. I never made a peep before. Nothing for now except a good clean up. I'm tired of looking at the thing. Time to get the Road King out and ready for spring and to start the restoration on the XS650. 

[RICH MUISE]

All in all pretty darn good imho. Glad to hear you made it back home safely.
As it turns out, I probably could have done the Oklahoma thing without any issues. I just didn't know at the time I felt I had to let you know. I put 200 miles on it Sunday with no hitches. Even shut the car off 100 miles from home!

[57 imposter]

Glad it's working as it should now. all the nagging little issues finishing one of these projects can really be a pain. unfortunately, you had one of the little issues create a big problem. Any word yet on when they will be able to get it into the body shop?

[RICH MUISE]

No, I'm waiting on the adjuster to email me a copy of the estimate, then I'll talk with the body shop once I have numbers to work with. If I don't hear from him tomorrow, I'll call him. I've got to be 100% certain they understand there will be NO adjustments, surprises, add-ons, whatevers after they are done.

[57 imposter]

Tomorrow is the day. after my daily trip to town for coffee, I am going to go to a friends shop who has a two post inside, mine is outside, drop the lower control arms off and ream the Granada spindles to fit the 58 lower ball joint studs. My hope is that will take most or all of the advertised 2 inch drop out of them. I am thinking that between this change and the addition of heavier rear springs that I will get the front end up at least 1 or more inches. Now if I can just remember to get very good measurements before we touch anything, I should end up with good information.

[57 imposter]

Got the job done today. The car is running stock Granada spindles, Aerostar springs with a 1 inch rubber spacer. We had made 5/8" spacers to go between the bottom of the spindle and the rubber boot on the balljoint. We took those out and reamed the spindle so it would seat on the ball joint boot. We measured the spindle to fender lip, with a laser, prior to doing any work. It measured 11 1/4". after the work was done it measured 12 5/16. So I picked up just under an inch in ride height. I actually thought I would get a little more but I think this will help with the low clearance issues I was having. The springs have been in about two months and we just put almost 4000 miles on them so I am sure they are done setteling.  I will probably go ahead and get the heavier leaf springs just to firm up the rear a bit. but that won't be for a bit.

[RICH MUISE]

Thanks for the input, Doug. Nice to have confirmation from one of the members that there can be two drop levels on the Granada spindles depending on how they are reamed. When you do go to the 6 leaf springs, it shouldn't change that front spindle-to-fender dimension, but will make a slight change (lower) in anything forward of that, such as the HD sway bar.....unless you use the lowering blocks as discussed.

[57 imposter]

Follow up on my spindle ream. My advise, Don't try and take shortcuts. We simply dropped the lower control arm, supported it on a pole jack so the spindle,brake assay could be lifted up and out to gain access to the lower ball joint mount. We then used a 1/2 inch drill to ream the lower hole to fit the ball joint stud. this is not nearly precision enough for this job and I noticed the studs were not exactly vertical. While I did get the lifting of the front end I was after, I noticed the steering wheel was off just a bit from where it was before and I feel there is a difference in how it join down the road. To correct my bad idea, I called Stop'em and Drop'em and ordered two new spindles properly reamed to fit the ball joints. My conclusion, If you are going to do this modification, strip the brakes off the spindle, completely remove the spindle and get it set up in a mill and bore them correctly[ All of which we could have done at no additional cost] Which makes the $400.00 learning experience just that much more painful.

[lalessi1]

For me the most valuable learning experiences have come from mistakes...including those of others. Thanks for that lesson!