I hate drum brakes with all my body and soul

It has been a very busy day today. I crawled out of bed around 9:30, ate some toast, and ventured outside. My first task for the day was swapping the carburators between the truck and the Pontiac. The truck came with a 600cfm Edelbrock, and I put a 500cfm Edelbrock onto the Pontiac last summer.

With the new engine, the Grand Prix was very under-carb'd, and the truck always had been over-carbed. That's all changed. A scant two hours, and both vehicles were running again, with idle and chokes properly re-set. Idle quality on both was greatly improved. A drive in the Pontiac to O'Reilly to get some bushings revealed a completely different car.

So, with that done, I set upon the rear axle. I had to replace the upper control arm bushings, which I had to buy. I have a set somewhere in the garage, but I couldn't find them.

Anyway, they weren't coming out easily. I ended up cooking them with a propane torch to chunk up the rubber, then collapsing the outer sleeves with an air hammer, then beating them out with a ball-peen hammer. Installation of the new ones was accomplished with the same ball-peen hammer.

The next task was removing the 2.29 third member from the GP. Taking it out was actually very easy. The part that sucked is visible in the first picture. My gas tank was leaking, and not at someplace easy to fix. In the picture you can see an upper water line of sorts. Fuel was seeping through the pinch welded seam of the tank. That isn't fixable. So, I piled in the truck and headed up the road to Roppels. That was when I realized the truck was now a completely different animal. Throttle response was better, it ran smoother, and the transmission was shifting in the right spots. It was wonderful. What a difference having the proper sized carb makes. Amazing. Remember kids, before you buy that 1000cfm Road Demon for your 3.8L six, be assured it will run like shit. More is not better.
$170 later, I had my new tank. That's it in the second picture, with a nice coating of whatever paint I had at the time. The tank came in bare steel. To keep it from rusting and eventually looking like shit, I painted the bottom with the last of my can of satin black RustOleum, and the top with the last of my Rustoleum hammer finish gray.
The last picture is the new rear in the car. yippee...

Anyway, after a nice dinner consisting of a 6 oz. filet, green beens, and rolls, I headed out to put the rear drum brakes back together.

Holy shit I hate drum brakes. Putting the parking brake lever back onto the cable? Nearly impossible. Took me two hours to get them both. After that, reassembly on the passenger side was pretty straight forward, except for those damn capped springs that hold the shoes to the backing plate. They pissed me off, too.

I finally had to give up and come in around 11pm, though. It was getting cold, and I was missing a very small piece from the driver side. Hopefully the morning and some fresh eyes will let me find it. Once I find that, I can toss the new tank in and put it back on the ground.