The 1955-1957 combination shop manual and seals and other various parts showed up from Danchuk. The shop manual is very nice and descriptive! I was just reading through the carburetor section and it describes every possible piece of info about how it works, including different ways of talking about vacuum (as a point of low pressure) and on and on. Good stuff.

Since I had the car working perfectly, I took it on the freeway and when I got home I had the oil light on. Trying to find how to test the oil pump. Breona said her dad had a shop for me to take the car to for the engine, so I will probably do that to be safe.

I realized that the headlights already in the car are halogens. They are sealed though, so you have to replace the whole thing, as opposed to just a halogen bulb, and one of them had a chip broken out. It likely got oxidized or maybe just dirty inside the lens. I realized after pulling that headlight that I shouldn’t have messed with the adjustment screws, as you don’t have to. When I get the lights back in, I will have to adjust that.

To get the new, replaceable bulb, headlights in, I have to trim down the piece that attaches to the lights that then attaches to the headlight buckets. So I went looking for a sheet metal nibbler. I have tin snips, and somebody at the hardware store suggested aircraft snips, but both of those cause bad ripples from my experience, so trying to find the nibbler. I think I finally found a place that might have those in town, Graybar, which is a telecommunications wiring supplier. If not, I can order the thing. It’s just a $25 manual one (Klein 76011B, if you are curious).

Replaced the indicator and taillight lenses, which made me realize that I need to get some more replacement bulbs, as their finishes are wearing off. There were also two screws which didn’t want to leave their spots in the metal and snapped off. Trying to figure out a good way to drill those out and then pour something like JB Weld in to re-tap the holes for new screws. I think I need to make a jig and put the whole light assembly under a drill press, but then, of course, some of the screws holding the light assemblies are stuck. Didn’t mess with those yet. I put the new lenses on for now, there are just a couple screws I will have to figure out later. They look much nicer and I’m sure they wlil let through much more light. I’ll have to ask around to see if any friends have had to re-tap holes before. Might mean I need a tap and die kit. I think I need to find some car buddies to share a garage and some tools with.