Saturday, July 19, 2025

Been a while since my last update, so I thought it time to post again.

CHINESE ELDEBROCK CLONE CARB. The 55 wagon hadn’t run smoothly since I drove it home the first week of January 2025. At part throttle, the car surged and ran unevenly, bucking and hesitating. It took me some time to figure out what was going on, but eventually I figured it had to be the carb. I considered buying a kit and rebuilding my existing Eldebrock. But on eBay, I found brand new Chinese-manufactured carbs for upwards of $150 — less than half the cost of a new U.S.-built Eldebrock. After giving it some thought, I opted for the new carb.

The new carb arrived in short order; it looked excellent. I installed the carb and it immediately made a tremendous difference — and in the weeks since, the engine has operated very well. Smooth and even operation and lots of power. I’ve been nothing but tickled to death with how the car is running with the Eldebrock clone. No complaints!

GPS-BASED SPEEDOMETER. I found this GPS-based speedometer on Amazon,, and its a first-rate unit. It was less than $30. The unit is more than just speed, but also compass direction, total miles driven, and more. It can even tell you your current longitude and latitude if you want that info.

The unit has a glass mount that I’m using currently, with the unit located on the lower left corner of the windshield.

The unit runs off a USB cable that plugs into the cigarette lighter. The cigarette lighter socket is either dirty or worn out, it is intermittent.

Thanks to an app on my wife’s phone, I had determined that 2000 rpm was right at 55 mph. With the new speedo, 2300 rpm equates to 60 mph.

I think I’m going to have to replace the cigarette lighter plug. I also need to wire it so its key switched and not hot all the time. An original style socket is between $50 and $60, which is too damn much. I think I can replace it with a generic replacement, but that remains to be seen.

I also plan to install a unit with several cigarette lighter adapters and several USB ports given the fact that I need to power my GPS speedo, a dash cam and charge a phone or two. My plan is to have the multi-power interface in the glove box.

MOVED CAR POSITIONS. As the main photo with the post shows, I finally got around to moving the 55 wagon to the west side of the garage, and parked the 56 Plymouth on the east side. There’s only one overhead door on the west side, which allows me to park the Chevy in the middle fo that half, which gives me plenty of room to have the doors open for carpet, door panels, etc.

LIGHT REPAIR With my son Elijah’s assistance today, we replaced the inoperative 8 foot LED light fixture with a new one. It didn’t take long to swap out. Since I have had those lights installed, this makes the third one I’ve had to replace. I bought a box of four new ones, so if I need to replace others, I can take care of it.

MIRRORS, MIRRORS, QUITE THE UPGRADE. Replacing the driver’s side mirror and adding a passenger side mirror with convex mirrors has been a huge upgrade to the wagon’s driveability. I can see what’s near me on both sides of the car with just a quick look. I also added a wide view convex mirror to the existing inside rear view mirror. With these mirror upgrades, its been a huge upgrade to my ability to determine vehicles that may be in or near my blind spots. Its made driving the wagon much easier and safer. I’ve decided that I’m going to make similar upgrades to the 1956 Plymouth — adding convex sideview mirrors and a wide angle inside rearview mirror.

WINDSHIELD WIPERS WIPED?? My son and I took a drive into town last week, and ran into a brief but heavy rain on the way home. The wipers worked fine on slow, but when I turned them up to high,, the wipers slipped …. the quit wiping and stopped at the end of their travel and wouldn’t return to the “home” position.

I’m not sure what the hell is going on with the wipres. I don’t think its the cables or transmissions, but I’m thinking its the motor that’s either slipping or not making the wipers move correctly. I haven’t tried to troubleshoot the issue yet. In the event that I’m caught in rain again, I’ve applied Rain-X to the windshield,, which will help keep the windshield clear.

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