The Goldcar Story, cont.

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Can I underline one of your statements, Goldcar.
You said you like to document everything so someone in the future can find parts easier if they know what each system is made of.
I have often wished I would do that more but I haven't been very good at it.
Thank you for bringing it up.
 
The Goldcar Story cont.

Can I underline one of your statements, Goldcar.
You said you like to document everything so someone in the future can find parts easier if they know what each system is made of.
I have often wished I would do that more but I haven't been very good at it.
Thank you for bringing it up.

Thanks MM,

From conception, I’m the only person who knows the car. There are over 30 different year, make, model or all the above parts/systems 😊. I figure someone will find the information very useful.
 
The Goldcar Story cont.

Well a pretty productive week overall. Today reminded us of why we have been so diligent in our efforts and what a reward!

4/1/22

Dash installed with new steering wheel, ididit column/custom mount, trim rings, speaker grills made from some stainless steel mesh purchased and stereo speakers mounted.

We were WOWED! Thirsting for some consistent warmer weather so we can make the body pretty and get on with final assembly.

I decided to convert to a new FFI setup from carbonation. The parts should be here next week. We figured we might as well do it now and wire it with the new wiring harness we’re installing at present. So we put the rewire on hold for a few days.

We don’t have the upholstered kick panels installed yet. Stay tuned more coming soon. Did I say my chrome shop called…new bumpers being delivered tomorrow!
 

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Thanks OI and BW!

We thought the dash turned out very good too. My partner Ron makes all things possible! His guidance has brought about some very specific and detailed changes I never dreamed possible.
 
The Goldcar Story cont.

4/6/22

It is so refreshing to throw empty boxes away! Replaced the rear shocks due to a range of motion problem. We are currently at 2 1/4” aluminum block raising the rear end. In doing so we maxed out the extended length of our factory shocks. So we found shocked listed with collapsed and extended measurements. Fortunately we found some Monroe’s. Only problem, my chassis has the shock stud welded to the frame and bottom plate holding the leaf springs. To add insult to injury, the shank on the stud is the same size as the bushing in all the new shocks. Yes, you can press the bushings out and they fit our studs perfectly. Project completed, new shocks installed!

Final polishing of the rear running board stainless steel, finished top of running board, cut out the rubber and riveted in place. Tomorrow the rubber mat tops will be glued to the top sand ready to be installed. I expect we will have the front ones finished tomorrow and ready for final installation. That sounds so good…completed!

Our newest addition was finally delivered today. Since we are adding a new wiring harness, e decided no time like the present to add EFI. So we did! A nice combination of performance and under the hood bling.

Rear wheels all masked off and ready for a lesson with the air brush to paint our Kandi color in the wheel slots.
 

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The Goldcar Story cont.

4/7/22

Well a day of “momma said there would be days like this”!

We had visited a new upholstery shop earlier in the week to correct one piece we didn’t like and make a new cockpit cover. He recommended weld wood contact cement to glue our rubber mats.Started to glue the rubber mats down for our running boards yesterday. Using a brush to apply the contact cement, the more we applied the more it started reacting with our painted surface creating a huge mess. Thank goodness we only did one of the small ones for the rear. Had to clean up the mess and repaint our surface. In the meantime we changed back to our old standby and finished one. Hopefully, today will bring about better results and progress. While waiting on our repaint to dry we planned on air brushing the slots in our wheels. Got one ready and our air brush wouldn’t work. Upon further investigation the mirror paint we used to paint the trim rings for the dash earlier, even though we cleaned it, must have had some that didn’t rinse out. So no wheels air brushed. It killed a day of progress all the way around since we ere busy correcting problems no final sanding got done either. Hopefully, today will bring better results. Here’s our one accomplishment!
 

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Making great progress, looking good. Bummer on the rubber mats tho.. Contact cement is no good, as you found out - even if it does stick, when it gets in the sun, the black rubber mat will heat up and separate. What did you end up using to glue them on?
I ended up using Gorilla glue for the board mats of the 37 Packard, messy, time consuming and a ton of clamping needed, but seems to be holding.
 
Making great progress, looking good. Bummer on the rubber mats tho.. Contact cement is no good, as you found out - even if it does stick, when it gets in the sun, the black rubber mat will heat up and separate. What did you end up using to glue them on?
I ended up using Gorilla glue for the board mats of the 37 Packard, messy, time consuming and a ton of clamping needed, but seems to be holding.

I looked at the gorilla glue but decided to pass and go to something from our past vinyl top automotive trim adhesive. If we have any issues I will check back with you on how well the gorilla glue is working.
Thanks for the information.
 
The Goldcar Story cont.

4/9/22

A much better day in the shop. Finished the passenger running board. We had forgotten to make our final cuts and drill the holes for our side pipe additions. Made the final adjustments on our sheet metal top plate, cut our rubber mat and one more completed running board. Monday we plan the last final fit and assemble the driver side and final running board assembly

Our part for the air brush arrived so we painted one of the wheels. My first attempt with an air brush. Layed down a coat of primer, then some Zenith Gold base coat and the final coats of Kandi. It looks nice but very difficult to see from our pics. Probably best to take it outside for better pics with some sunshine.
I’ll try to get some better pics next week.
 

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The Goldcar Story cont.

4/13/22

We finished all of the running boards! Another project completed and ready for installation. I’m installing the new Pro Flo 4 Edelbrock EFI intake, new billet distributor and removed the exhaust manifolds to repaint. I made the mistake of using a rattle can of high temp engine paint from NAPA which didn’t last as long as it took to paint them the first time. This time I sprayed the exhaust manifolds with the high temp coating from Eastwood yesterday and baked them in the oven this afternoon since we are not running yet. Polishing the remaining wheels and getting them ready to paint the slots in the near future.

The intake was a pain! All was going good until I discovered two of the bolt hole positions are such close tolerances we couldn’t get our manifold bolts to fit! As you might expect, I found out after I had my gasket sealer applied. No end intake manifold gaskets in the EFI kit so I used some permatex rv silicone gasket sealer. Scramble time, so I could find some bolts before my gasket sealer dried. I sure am counting on the rest of the installation to go smoother so I can reap the benefits of EFI.🤞

Note to Edelbrock…change the design or include bolts that fit. Surely by now this is not a secret. One would think I’m not the only person who has this issue.

Ron is finishing some last minute detail items, the final sanding and prep of the body of the car. We discussed briefly today about painting the base coat the first pretty day we have. Then the next few days of nice weather we can paint the Kandi and clear. Doesn’t look like we’re going to get enough nice days to paint all of the coats in one day.
 

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The Goldcar Story cont.

OI and Torchie, I definitely will. I’m sure counting on it to work like a charm.

We’re sure getting antsy to get this project completed and back on the road.

Funny, I spoke to Edelbrock today and inquired if there were special intake manifold bolts that go with their Pro Flo 4. I explained there are 2 holes that are next to impossible o get a bolt in. He said they were aware and had several customers mention this. His solution was just find something that will work even if you have to wallow out the holes it will not void my warranty…What? Sounds like they’re really committed to resolving this problem. We found some button head 5/16 bolts and made a special Allen wrench to tighten. Whoever ends up with this car one day they will be looking for our tool if they want the manifold off.
 
4/17/22

LAST week started off really good and as the week progressed it went to hell in a hand basket on my EFI project. As mentioned earlier, two manifold bolts are very difficult to find something that fit, my plug wires won’t work with their distributor. This set up uses my existing coil but many of the spark plug wires don’t come with a coil wire and if it does it’s the new style not the older with bigger boot. After pulling the exhaust manifolds to paint one of the bolt holes stripped out when reinstalling. We ended up installing a heli coil. In the heli coil kit (from China) the thread tap was so poorly made we couldn’t get it to get a grip to start the threads. There is no place to bolt the coil to the manifold as with the old manifold and no way to mount my bracket that holds the throttle cable or kick down cable. Next week we will have to design and build a new bracket for these cables. What I thought was supposed to be a pretty straight forward replacement has turned into an issue to over come at each turn it seems. Edelbrock didn’t think this product design through vey well. I sure hope it performs better than the physical design!

Otherwise, Ron has the body ready to paint so we expect to make it look pretty real soon. I’m modifying the grill so we can finish our mounting of the new hood latch. We have a little more body work before the hood is ready to paint along with our front panels between the grill and bumper up front. Last week was a 2 step forward and one step back kind of week. I’m sure praying this next week goes closer to plan! Hope to have some new pics soon.
 

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