GTE Overdrive and a Superfast



6/28/07
GTE Overdrive and a Superfast

Distributor

Gary Hiniker’s GTE was almost ready for delivery when a problem arose with the overdrive. The solenoid decided to stop working and needed to be repaired. Upon closer inspection, François found the safety switch on the gear box was broken and bypassed. As with most 40 year old cars, many repairs and modifications have left questionable changes that should be brought back to the way it was intended. A safety switch insures power to the electric overdrive unit only happens with fourth gear selected. The main reason for this is a Laycock overdrive will self destruct if it is engaged when the gear box is in reverse. Bypassing this switch was a disaster waiting to happen. To get to this switch, I had to remove one of the distributors after marking its rotor position, and advance setting.
switch

A modern replacement switch is now available, but new connectors had to be soldered on so the spade connectors would work with the old harness.
old switch

The new switch looks a lot better than the original ones. Here’s an old picture of mine when I had to fabricate new covers.
superfast

After I buttoned up Gary’s GTE, I moved on over to work on a 500 Superfast that was back from fresh paint.
brakes

As always after a new paint job, everything on the car was looking a little dingy. I set to work on the brakes to make them a little more presentable without replating everything.
brakes after

This will not be a show car, so I painted parts of the calipers with some dull aluminum paint. What pieces that still had clean nickel plating, I left alone after a thorough cleaning.
front brakes

The front calipers looked pretty dirty as well, but I wanted to see if I could just clean instead of painting them.
front brakes after

The results were not as dramatic as with the paint, but I wanted to preserve the nickel plating as opposed to covering everything with paint!

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