OH CRAP!!! Another Newbie!!!

[jtheye]

Sorry Tony, I guess my words are confusing. The fan blade isn't hitting anything physically. The air it is pushing is not making it to the vents. When the fan is running it is running just fine, there is a blockage of some sort or something preventing the air to flow. So when a/c or heat is on, very little to no airflow out of any of the vent settings. Shop claims to have replaced a vent vacuum motor but still not finding the reason air is not flowing or where the next flap door could be to be preventing the air flow.

[jtheye]

Thanks Tony for pointing out the 63 grille on my 64. I have another complete grill/headlight assembly (pics attached) for a 64. The only problem is you can see that the drivers side headlight piece, the mounting ear is broke off. Can this be welded back on? Or maybe just find someone who needs a 63 in trade for a 64 might be easier. Not sure where the 63 came from. Is it possible some 64's had a different grille, or more likely that 1 of the cars must have gotten grille replaced at some time through the years? The driver and parts car are titled as 1964's, who knows??? This is part of the reason I did not go the route of restoring to original. Heck, the owner I bought both cars from thought the parts car was a 65. Shows how long it has taken me to look at titles. Guess I better confirm VIN's with titles too!

Also still wondering if anybody has suggestions I can give the shop on my AC/Heat fan air flow. New fan runs great, but no airflow coming out the vents on the dash or defrost. Shop claims to have replaced a vacuum motor, but with all the lies that I have been told, maybe they didn't. At least I have it in writing it is supposed to be done from original deal I paid for and have receipts of parts they bought to try and get it going.

[Mike]

It could be one of the blend doors thats not moved blocking the air.
I'm not sure on temp for these engines specifically but that's that's the typical normal range for a lot of engines.

[frasern]

The year is easy to confirm, it is in the serial #, but you must use the one in the engine bay. I had a guy get very upset when I called his '67 a '66 with a '67 door. Even though the door was a different colour, he insisted that was the correct serial #.
Heaters are difficult to assess from afar, but if you drive it at highway speed, air should flow without a fan. This can help sort out if it is the fan, or a baffle. You may have a wiring issue causing a slower fan, but more likely a vacuum leak or misrouted line. Tricky to find and fix yourself, but teaching someone else at $100+ per hour can add up.
When you shut the engine off, enough vacuum should remain, to operate the system briefly. If not, a hose is leaking, or disconnected.

[TonyC]

Oh, Jason's is definitely a '64. The greenhouse alone confirms that. Somebody in the past definitely swapped grilles, either to replace the original one damaged in a collision or "just because," but failed to factor in the trim difference, thus the gap. I'm not sure if the broken piece can be fixed with welding; but being that the grilles were made of pot-metal, maybe it's possible.

Now, about the air not blowing into the car, that is very odd. The first thing I would think of is a flexible duct that is ripped or unfastened, but the flexible duct on these cars (well, at least mine) is placed before the fan, not after. There must be a malfunctioning flap somewhere along the inlet; if so, that means either the vacuum servo to the flap is defective, not being fed vacuum due to a broken hose, or not properly connected to the flap...or, the flap could be seized and needs to be freed up. Being that all the vents have been cut off from air flow, the problem has to be isolated to the inlet. I'm not really sure about what differences there are between '64 and '66; I only know the latter in detail.

---Tony

[Dan Szwarc]

If you have the broken ear and the clearance, try superglue and baking soda. First gue the parts together, use use a shit-ton of SG across the backsides and sprinkle with baking soda. Build it up as much as necessary.

Google it.

[TonyC]

Wow, that's brilliant! I'll need to try that next time I need to do repairs to the mounting tabs of my starboard mirror. I've known about and used the super-glue, but not the baking soda. I'll look that up.

---Tony

[Dan Szwarc]

SG and baking soda create a super strong epoxy polymer. Hard as a rock and strong as heck. It can be tapped for screws, it’s so strong.

Tip: use the superglue liberally first, then sprinkle with the baking soda until it’s all absorbed. Then repeat until you’ve built up the area. You can file it down later, but it’s worse than trying to file lead filler. Almost as hard as steel. If you build up walls with paper tape, you can shape it or control it like a mold.

[jtheye]

I am trying to find the fix to my 63 and 64 grille set up because Tony created it for me . There is this one on ebay. The problem is, the one on eBay does not have the vertical "slats" on the piece for sale. Mine does, but I am not sure if they can be removed and put onto the one off of eBay? When I look at the back of my 64 grille there doesn't appear to be an "easy" way to take the polished vertical slats off my 64 grille to put onto the eBay 64 grille piece. (like screws) The next question is if all the headlight bezels, headlight bulb holders etc all go with the 64 grille that is currently in my car with the 63 grill? Or do I need more items other than the 64 grille itself? I duplicated the pic of my grille, broken drivers side with vertical slats and copied the eBay piece for sale. Also here is the link to that piece. Maybe the Gentleman who pointed out my grille mistake, uh-um Tony, cough cough, could chime in and enlighten me??? Please??? I am looking at this replacement as an alternative to SG/bakingsodaing my broken one.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/304616949855?h ... R5bazubpYA

[TonyC]

Here I am . I have to say first that I'm not very familiar with the ultra-fine details of the grilles of those years, so what I offer is guesswork based on the pictures you've shared. From what I see, it looks like the mounting bases for the headlight components are integrated with the grille, as opposed to mine that are attached by nuts and bolts and thus relatively easy to swap out with compatible years (late-'60s). However, if I read your question correctly, you should not have issues with swapping the bulbs, buckets, springs, and retaining rings between grilles. I mean, if a '63 grille can fit onto a '64 (setting aside the one missing top trim piece for a mite), then the headlight components ought to swap in with no issues or need for extra parts. As for the vertical slats, again I don't know that much detail...but if the grille on E-Bay is missing all of those slats, that tells me there must be a way to transfer the ones on your damaged grille to the one on E-Bay. I'm thinking there would have to be screws or similar retainers in the back somewhere, and a more involved examination of your old grille should reveal that. Maybe the shop manual can provide guidance on that; they clearly are separate pieces, so there should be something in there about how to disassemble the grille pieces.

Sorry I can't be of more certain help; I didn't really intend to unleash another can of worms with my initial observation. Hopefully what I have offered helps to some extent.

---Tony

[RMAENV]

I have a '64 grille in my basement (both sides). I will take a look and see and get some pics when I go down there tomorrow.

[jtheye]

Ok, VENT TIME!!!! Went to pick up my Continental for a lighted parade on the 15th. Shop said a part from my front disc conversion and dual master had a casting defect and would be in on Friday, would have it finished on Saturday by 10 am. 10 am received text asking if it could be pushed till 2 pm. Went in at 1:45 only to discover my car in the paint booth. Asked WTF???? The shop finally admitted that they got done with replacing the Booster and Master, went to back the car out to wash off brake fluid from the work. The idiot backed the car up with out shutting the engine hood, the shop door wasn't raised far enough and your imagination knows the rest. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Who moves a vehicle with any door/hood open? What gets me mad is them trying to hide it with some paint and shims. So now starts them getting new hinges, since they couldn't hide it with the shims and welding up the hood hinge brackets. Excuse me for a bit, I gotta go scream and cuss some more cause if I hold this in I might just explode taking them with me.

[TonyC]

Who moves a vehicle with any door/hood open? Apparently, they do. I trust that the repairs they have to do now will be entirely on their own dime and not reflected on your final bill...?

I would certainly be reluctant to trust that shop again with anything, even if they make everything right. So sorry that had to happen to you.

---Tony

[1Bad55Chevy]

Who moves a vehicle with any door/hood open? Apparently, they do. I trust that the repairs they have to do now will be entirely on their own dime and not reflected on your final bill...?

I would certainly be reluctant to trust that shop again with anything, even if they make everything right. So sorry that had to happen to you.

---Tony

In every career field and profession mistakes happen it just so happens when you own a auto shop they happen to customer cars. I wasn't there but based on the description they were trying to clean all the brake fluid off it after the repairs. The hood was probably open because under the hood was still wet from brake fluid and cleaning chemicals and those are highly flammable so they wanted to get it out in the sun to dry. Trust me what he walked into was much better then a burned out shell infront of the shop. Accidents with garage doors are more common then you think in a shop. DIY people flip out about it because they don't understand how it happens but don't understand things happen when you move hundreds of cars in and out of a shop a year. Where the shop messed up was by not calling because bad news doesn't get better with age.

Here are a few incidents that happened around Greenville TX that I am aware of in 2022.

GM dealership has a 2022 Escalade in for a faulty air bag module. One tech started the job but was out sick when the part came in. One of the master techs decides he would finish the job to get the job out. The master tech accidentally plugs the module in upside down with the battery connected so now the vehicle thinks its been rolled over and discharges all airbags in the shop bay. That tech has over 30 years of experience with GM so you can't say he doesn't know what he is doing.

A small shop that I know very well had a very high end resto mod 72 chevy half ton truck in for rear wheel bearings. The shop has a very old Joyce 2 post lift that has flip up frame adapters. The tech didn't realize that the adapters had to be pointed in opposite directions to fully be stable. While beating on the rear axle with a slide hammer the adapter flipped on the lift causing the truck to fall destroying all the body panels on the passenger side and damaging all the powder coat under the vehicle. When they called the ower of the truck he just asked if anyone was hurt and wasn't mad. The shop owner told him he was surprised he wasn't upset about it and the guy told him he owned a construction company and had seen every accident possible.

A small shop doing a transmission job on an Accord totals the vehicle. while the tech is rolling the transmission jack out from underneath the car the mini pick shifts and the engine falls out the bottom and hits the floor. The tech didn't have a screw jack under the back of the car causing the vehicle to fall backwards off the lift.

[TonyC]

So, mistakes happen. Still does not excuse them. When one hands one's property to someone else to be worked on, trust is a critical factor. The frequency of "mistakes" can compromise that trust...and cover-up attempts will compromise that trust, eventually ending that business's existence.

Sorry, but in this case I cannot side with the shop. I sensed a degree of deception on their part, trying to cover up the damage they caused without telling the owner, until they realized they were not able to. If I were in Jason's situation, I would not do business with that shop again, even if they made up for it at their own expense. On the other hand, if they in fact did make things right at their expense, I would not publicly turn others away from them. If anyone asked for a rating of them, I'd give all the facts of my last experience, bad and good. But right now, their rep is in grave danger, whether they realize it or not.

Jason's is not the first case to suffer from a shop's incompetence, accidental or otherwise; other Forum members have suffered at the hands of irresponsible shops.

---Tony