Imperial Car Club Forum

Well, it's been two years, but the 57 has finally returned home. It's the one pictured on the main page of this site: https://imperialcar.club

I'll post a picture after I wash it tomorrow as it's pretty dirty. It's still far from perfect, and has some new issues from the shops that didn't treat it right, but I'll keep going on it.

To summarize, back in March of 2019, the 57 had an engine fire. Took it to an initial shop and they simply took my money and parked it out back, never to touch it again. Finally towed it away and took it to a high end shop, but then insurance wouldn't pay their higher rate. Took it to another small shop and the guy did get the engine out and sent off for rebuild, but could never get it going again once he got it back and started parking it out in the rain as well.

Finally found a place that would take it in and the guy got it running. It's still within the first 50 miles of the engine rebuild, so maybe some of the weirdness is due to that - I've never had an engine rebuilt to know if they work perfect straight from the shop or if they need to be broken in.

Currently the car will fire right up and seems to be running well, but the moment I put it in reverse, it stalls. I have to give it at least 3 or 4 minutes to warm up before I can attempt to back it out of the garage. And then it's not quite as smooth as I had hoped.

Anyway, here's all that's been done to it:

• Engine rebuild

• Transmission rebuild

• Distributor rebuild

• Original Carb rebuild

• New gas tank, fuel line, fuel pump

• Hood repainted - looks bad, will likely need redone

New issues from it sitting for the last two years:

• some new rust bubbles starting to form in paint

• water damage on back driver side internal door panel

• speedo cable broke

• newly chromed bumpers have a few rusty edges from sitting in rain

I'm just glad to have the car back where I can drive it again. Will have to start working through the issues now.

Got her outside and washed down. Still need a good wax, but the two years worth of crud is off of it now. Just seeing it again all cleaned up brings a smile to my face again.

My stars Adam that's a beautiful car. Does it finally smooth out after it's fully warmed up? Sounds like the carb isn't quite right.

Thanks, Mike.

Yes, it does smooth out after it's warmed up. I was thinking the same thing, and rather than fight the old carb, I may give in and get a new one.

The other thing I noticed was the harmonic balancer wobbles a bit. Here's a video of that I took yesterday: https://youtu.be/fCOO-8cmpDQ

Not sure if it's bad enough I need to worry about it. Never changed one of those before, so should be interesting.

Very Nice Adam,Keep plugging away.

I agree, beautiful car! I’d say that the balancer should not be wobbling like that but not sure that it will cause you any problems in the short term. It would definitely be on my fix it list if it were mine.

very nice , like the interior