I seldom go to car shows or swap meets unless I'm looking for a specific part or person. I tell people I look at these type of cars 5 1/2 days a week, see them when they're naked and ugly, and have many other and usually long neglected weekend obligations. The one exception is the annual Bug Tussle Trek which my wife and I have taken part of for 30 or so years. Instead of the cars being parked and people wandering around them you actually DRIVE them on a trip of 100-200 miles with several fun stops along the way and enough free food to bloat a teenager. This year the out look was bleak because my old 37 Buick was far from ready. On monday it was just a frame sticking out from under the firewall. I set the new engine with it's adaptor and turbo 350 trans down into place and when I tried to bolt up the front engine cushions they disintegrated, maybe 71 years old was a factor. A bit of eyeballing noted that 37-48 Ford cushions would work with just a little Dremel tool massage. The straight 8 factory rear mounts worked by trimming a 3x3 angle iron to the right shape and drilling and tapping the adaptor plate so they mount the same as on the original bell housing (like a 216/235). The U-joint on the front of the driveshaft hit on the X-member so trimmed it just a bit with the plasma torch. Mounted a 3 speed AD column shifter on top the Buick column and fabbed a shifter rod. When I bolted the mini starter to the adaptor plate it raised h*ll, the mount holes were wrong and shimming wouldn't correct it. A bit of careful measuring showed that by grinding the engine block oil pan rail back to even with the pan lip and grinding 3/32 off a late model Chevy V8 "can" type starter it would fit--barely. Hooked up the brakes to the open rear end and the master cylinder had given up. A call to Stacy at Antique Auto in Arlington, Tx, and he hand carried a new kit to the post office to send priorty mail. It is now 1:30 am saturday morning (Trek starts at 8:30) and the right headlight high beam has a dead short so right lights are left disconnected since the trip is in the daytime. Car running while I close shop when starter tries to engage flywheel. I tear out and pull wire from solenoid while there is still a starter ring left. Start to station to fill with gas when ignition wire fries. It probably had melted into the solenoid wire and engaged the starter. Cut it at the switch and pulled it off the ballast resistor. Use jumper wire from battery to coil and screwdriver on solenoid to get to station. Back up at dawn to run a new ignition and solenoid wire. Get one mile and the main feed wire fries--BAD short somewhere. Back to the jumper wire to coil and screwdriver to start. Trip goes flawlessly.
Stubborn or dumb????? Well in my opinion, you sure arnt dumb! But your as stubborn as hell!!!! Good on yer, and how satisfying was that ride!
If anyone said anything about the smell of fried wires, just tell them you were deep in thought. Just another day, huh Evan?
Nate, my wife was in charge of the camera and she likes the really off beat and unusual stuff. Here are a couple pics of her kinky tastes. Note the skeleton at rest on the cadillac hearse's air cleaner.
