It's gosh darn cold out...

Lots of words and few pictures this time.  I live in Wisconsin.  The thing about Wisconsin is that sometimes it can get cold.   Really cold.  The past few weeks, the average temp has been in the low teens, with lows below 0°F.  Normally, it's not such a big deal, I'm generally outside for all of a minute or so, on my way to and from the car.  But then two weeks ago, the heater fan in the Impala died. 

So I suffered for a few weeks, driving 40 miles a day, in a car with no heater.  Actually, not a new experience for me.  My '69 Beetle doesn't have a heater worth mentioning either, so I've driven my share with frostbite threatening.  But, it was a cold two weeks none the less.  The new replacements on the market use a smaller fan blade and don't put out the volume of the originals.  So, I replaced the fan with a used original. 

There's another thing that is a bit peculiar about these cars.  The heater cores are well known for plugging up.  When that happens, hot water can't circulate, so the heater doesn't put out much heat.  I flushed, and reverse flushed my heater core when I swapped on the silicone hoses from the Caprice back in October.  But, with the new fan, I noticed that my heater wasn't blowing hot, just warm.  And, when I'd hit a stop light so the car was idling, the temp would drop even further, down to tepid.

So today, I braved the 9°F weather, and flushed/backflushed(and repeat a few times) my heater core.  It's not hard to do, just clamp off the heater hoses(I use needle nose vice grips wrapped in electrical tape so I don't chew up the hoses), then disconnect the hoses at the firewall and shove the garden hose on the heater core fittings one at a time.  Reconnect the hoses and be on your way.  You probably won't even need to add any coolant, though you'll want to check to be sure.  And try not to do it in the driveway, you'll end up with an ice puddle...

With the new fan in, and heater core cleared, the heater pumps out more heat than most people will ever need.  How much heat you ask?  Well, here is my dash vent after a 15 minute drive...

My car was A-salt-ed

I talk with a lot of people around the country on various forums.  There are, believe it or not, people who have never seen road salt.  Sure, they hear about how we use salt on out roads in the great white North, but they have very little concept of what that actually means for us.  This is what a car looks like after 20 miles on a WI road during the winter.  Even with daily washings, you still end up with everything covered in the stuff.  All the white stuff in this pic is salt from WI roads...

A Brassy Attitude

Being new to me, one of the first things I did to my Kentucky Rifle was take it completely apart for cleaning and inspection.  Turns out, it didn't really need the former, and it passed the latter with flying colors.  One of those colors though happened to be a dull yellow.  When I said the worst part of this gun was the tarnished brass, I wasn't kidding.  Polishing metal being one of those things that I inexplicably enjoy, I had to take care of it.  It didn't really seem all that tarnished until I started polishing.  Some of the castings(particularly the trigger guard) were a bit rough so I filed/sanded as necessary before polishing.  To buff them up, I used my trusty bench grinder with a buffing wheel and some Jewelers Rouge.  The difference just a few minutes of buffing can make is astonishing.  Here are just a few samples:

At the end of an afternoon, my buffing wheel was thoroughly loaded with brass:

Finally presentable

With the major paint touch ups done,  I could finally get the outside of the Impala cleaned up.  I think that this may have been the first time this car was waxed in the past decade.  I also hand polished some of the dull spots on the body.  The whole thing needs to be machine polished, but the weather wouldn't allow it.  That will be a next summer job.  With the paint in decent shape, and the wheels looking right, the car is finally presentable without embarrassment.

I'm moving outside

It's not just the inside of the Impala that hadn't been cared for, the outside was pretty beat up as well.  For starters, the right tail light was shattered.  The guy said it happened almost right after he got it.  Because the shift rod was missing a $0.14 cotter pin and 5 minutes worth of work, it wouldn't actually lock into park, and the guy said it rolled into a truck in a parking lot.  Here's how it looked when I got it:

Now, I've never been a big fan of the factory ribbed tail lights as it is.  Once again the Caprice helped me out.  At some point in it's life with the city of Rockford, Il, the tail lights were replaced with smooth 91-92 tail lights.  After painting the center chrome strip black, they look right at home on the SS.

The right front corner light lens was cracked on the Impala too.  Again, the Caprice had the answer, but it was a different one this time.  Many, many years ago, I grazed a deer with the left front corner of the Caprice.  It hit just hard enough to crack the corner lens and wrinkle the fender.  When I repaired it, I had to buy a pair of corner lights.  As luck would have it, now that I needed the other side, I already had it.

This car had been repainted twice with rather poor prep, and the bumpers had been bumped into things.  As such, the paint on the bumpers was largely peeling or missing.

Since this is a low dollar winter car, I decided spray paint is good enough.  Despite what you might think, spray paint is actually pretty good stuff when properly used.  The B and C pillars, and trunk lid of the Caprice were spray painted some 9 years ago, and still looked good when I sold it(see reference pics here).  After peeling off any flaking paint and scuffing anything shiny, I used Dupli-Color DA1600 Gloss Black.  It's actually a pretty close match for the factory black.

My car also suffered the same thing as many of these cars do, Peeling Spoiler Syndrome.  With time, the factory paint starts to lift off the fiberglass spoiler.  I ended up using a razor blade to scrape all of the paint off of it(which was actually very easy and quick to do), then I scuffed it up and painted it too.  Ready for paint here:

I also went around and touched up all the other spots of missing paint.  It's by no means perfect, but since I was racing the weather, it's good enough for now.

More than meets the eye.

My favorite TV show ever is Transformers.  It has been since I was six.  The age of the Internet has provided me the opportunity to show that in a way that wasn't really possible before.  For many years now, all my vehicles has had an Autobot symbol on it someplace.  They're never the same style, and rarely in the same place.  The Impala is no different and needed some Autobot pride.  Since my new grill didn't come with the factory Chevy bow tie, it was the logical place to put it.  This emblem was originally chrome, but I thought it stood out too much, so I covered it in some black chrome vinyl that I had laying about.

Don't I look Dashing

The dash in the Impala is all in one piece now.  Basically, except for the A pillar covers, everything gray in this picture used to be blue.  All the dash pieces are out of my Caprice, the steering wheel and column are from the salvage yard(but were also blue).  Everything is painted with SEM 15393 Medium Gray, a perfect match for the stock Impala color.  The HVAC panel is out of the Caprice because the Impala one had more of that awful woodgrain on it.  The radio is actually from a '90's Cavalier, but was likewise swapped from the Caprice where it's lived for the past decade(the tape deck allows use of my MP3 player with a cassette adapter).

HUDs for everyone!

I've always kind of though the Heads Up Displays sometimes found on high end cars were pretty neat.  They install in your dashboard and project your speed onto the windshield so you don't have to look down at the speedometer.  By and large, they're just a gimmick, but a pretty cool one.  The whole installing in the dash part can get complicated though.  Additionally, like many older B-body, the digital speedometer in the Impala has a habit of blinking off so you have no idea how fast you're going.  I came across a way to kill two birds with one stone.  I'm actually using my smart phone for something...smart.  I downloaded an app called DigiHUD.  It's basically just a GPS based speedometer, but it has a mirrored display setting.  With the numbers mirrored, and the phone set on the dashboard, it projects correctly up onto the windshield.  It's free to download, and as easy to use as setting your phone on your dash.  No hacking apart the dash, no wiring, nothing.  There is a very slight ghosting of the letters as the light bounces off both the inside and outside of the glass, but it's hardy noticeable(it shows up in the pic MUCH worse than in real life).  It's also got a built in compass, trip and max speed reached readouts, if you're into that kind of thing.  Everyone who likes cars should give this app a try.

Putting on the brakes

Well, just the one brake really.  I had a guy ask me why the muzzle brake on the AK was crooked.  As it happens, they're made that way.  Mine is a US made copy of the original Polish part(for 922r compliance).  The reasoning for the offset is a pretty simple one actually.  The standard Soviet/Warsaw Pact firing position was more face on than the US left foot forward stance.  Firing from that position, the barrel wants to kick right as well as up.  Having the slant brake at an angle helps correct both climb and right drift, and pushes the gun towards the shooters left arm instead of away from the body.  Interestingly, this style brake always has two stop notches, so it's reversible for left handed shooters.  Those Ruskies thought of everything...

Check out my rimz yo

One of the things I always liked about the '94-96 Impala SS's was the wheels.  They may seem blase now, but in the mid 90's, a 17" aluminum wheel on any production vehicle was something to behold.  My Impala didn't come with the stock wheels though, it had run of the mill 15" steel Chevy van wheels on it.  The guy said the original wheels had been stolen, which gives more evidence that this was, at some point, a theft recovery car.  The car just doesn't look right without the original wheels so I e-bay'd myself some. 

Since this was to be primarily a winter car, two things needed to happen.  First, I had to protect my new used wheels.  When the factory clear coat on the wheels chips, water gets in, and the aluminum starts to corrode.  This is what leads to the spider veiny look you often see on older wheels.  To protect my wheels, I sprayed them with clear Plasti-dip.  Plasti-dip followed by a coat of Meguiars Ultimate Quick Wax gives the wheels a durable, easy to clean, protective finish.

The second, and more important addition, was some snow tires.  I didn't used to be a believer in snow tires until I bought a set for my old Caprice.  I still remember the first time I drove on them.  I stomped on the gas, and the car took off.  I jammed on the brake, and the car stopped.  It was amazing.  I've had snow tires on my winter cars ever since.  For the Impala, I'm using the Bridgestone Blizzak WS80 in 235/55-17.  These are literally the best snow tires money can buy for this car, and so far they've been worth every penny.

We musket something straight here...

I've always liked black powder guns.  Don't know why, just seemed like fun I suppose.  In fact, the first gun I ever bought for myself was a repro 1851 Navy cap and ball revolver.  I've always kind of wanted one of those "build you own" black powder single shot cap lock pistol kits too.  But I never got one, and then the price went up into the "way too much for a low end kit" price(especially considering they were around $35 in the 80's).  I recently had a brilliant idea, I'd buy a cheap BP rifle, and cut it down into a pistol.  Normally, that is a HUGE no-no, you haven't made a pistol, you've made a short barreled rifle that is very illegal without the proper paperwork from the BATF.  According to the law, once a rifle, always a rifle.  But, since the BATF doesn't consider muzzleloaders firearms, this rule doesn't apply.  So I had this plan, and it was going good until...

...I was at a gun show and saw this.  It's a Dikar Kentucky Rifle in .45 caliber and made probably some time in the mid 1980's.  It is the same gun as the CVA and Traditions brands of Kentucky Rifles. They were all made in Spain by Dikar, and were available as kits and pre-finished guns.  Seeing as how the current Traditions kit is nearly $300, this thing was a steal at $100.  When I bought it, I had every intention of using the parts for a pistol, but when I got it home and inspected it, I changed my mind.  This thing is in nearly perfect shape.  If it was a kit, it was a very well built one.  The bore is bright and shiny, and if it weren't for the cap residue under the hammer and tarnished muzzle brass, I'd think it had never been shot.  The bluing is perfect, and there's not a spec of rust on it(which is unusual for an older black powder gun).  Seriously, the worst part of the whole thing is the slightly tarnished brass.  It's just too nice to cut apart.  Sigh...