Michaelwk

At the moment, I’ve been following the steps in this thread, aside from pulling off the carbs. I drained a full tank of 12 year old gas, which looked ok since we’d cleaned out the tank previously, so leaving it alone for now. We also replaced most of the soft lines back there in 06. I changed the oil and pulled off the rocker cover to pour some around the cam and rockers. The engine was stuck when I tried the manually crank it, so I put some marvel mystery oil into the plug holes and let it sit a couple days. Still no luck after doing a couple more rounds of that. I rocked it with the car in gear and that finally broke it free. Got a new battery and cranked it over with the plugs out. Cylinder 6 must have been the one giving me trouble because it coughed up a lot of crap. Will have to see what that looks like next spring. I then tried to start it, but wouldn’t fire. I suspected fuel and sure enough the mechanical fuel pump wasn’t pushing anything. The electrical pump by the tank wasn’t working back in 06 and we left it because the mechanical did fine. I purchased a new electrical pump and probably just remove or bypass through the mechanical. I also poured some fuel into both carbs though the hoses going to them… not sure how much should go in, but it was a decent amount. No luck starting then either. So that’s where I am at the moment. We’ll see what the new pump can do and hopefully it’ll be a simple job to diagnose the carbs.? Michael

Alright, so here we go! This is a 1973, HLS30-165462. Purchased by my father brand new in 73 in Rhode Island and traveled with him to Colorado, New Mexico, and finally to Minnesota. He kept decent records of maintenance and mileage, so we know the odometer reading of 65,416 is correct. Original color is 901 Silver. There's still some of it under the hood and in the engine bay, but the outside was peeling in the late 80s so he had it removed and primed, but never decided on a new color, so in primer it remained. Back in my high school days we dropped the gas tank, cleaned it, replaced various hoses and managed to get it running. I had a lot of fun cruising around for a couple summers but moved away for college and then work and never kept up on maintenance after 2006. I’ve been itching to move it down to my house in Wisconsin and return it to its former glory and a few weeks ago it finally happened. The plan right now is just to get it running so I can drive it to winter storage. The long term goal is to strip it down next spring, fix the rust, and get it painted. The typical places all look to be affected. After that, go through and refresh as many original components as I can. I’m not a purist who plans to reuse every nut, bolt, and hose clamp, but I do want to keep the major components in place (flat tops ftw). I will admit that this is a new hobby for me and a bit beyond the work I have done on cars in the past. I don’t plan to learn to weld or paint, but can hopefully do most everything else myself. So I’d like to document this work as a benefit for others as well as myself. I’ve read a lot of past build threads on this forums and you all have a wealth of knowledge that I can hopefully draw upon to not screw this up too badly.