Roger Zimmermann

It seems that your welding skills are improving! My experience was that grinding the welds is taking much more time! than weld!

Same opinion about buffing. With chrome in place, there is a zone you cannot buff. Nice scenery with the snow!

Thanks for the explanation, John! Yes I know that it was some slang; the answer I got from dalef62 gave me an idea of the sense. I'm not especially found of green cars, but this hue is nice and, as you said, green cars are not common. I just would like to have it soon!

Put antifreeze in the transmission!

Well...Not yet. I'm not especially happy with that situation, as you may imagine. I'm probably responsible to some extend to this delay: when Brian did the car's inspection, he noted all the items which were questionable. To most of them, I wrote "do it"! Plus the fact that I told to Brian that I was not in a hurry, that car was not a priority to him. Recently, he confessed that he had personal problem which delayed the work on the car. For about 2 or 3 weeks, he promised that I would drive the car this year. The fact is that he did a lot of work on the frame/underbody/suspension/engine, maybe more than I expected; according to the latest pictures he sent, the car is not yet ready, but I would say the I see the end of the tunnel. I just hope that he will hold his promise and the car will be soon ready . Thanks for asking!

Thanks Ron! Fortunately for most, it will be quicker than for the scale model!

Of course, I had to take a decision: the car was there, totally mine and at that time, with transportation and customs, too expensive to throw away (about CHF 10'000.- or $ 10'000.00). Resell parts? which ones? there was nothing good, except the outside windshield's moldings. Anyway, I did not bought that scrap on basis of the pictures alone: the friend in England, Don Bedford, let send an inspector from AA Technical Services to see the car, at my expense, of course. His report was more or less correct, except that instead of "corrosion" I would have written "rust hole". The recap of his report is interesting: "As can be seen from the contents of this report, the main structure of the car is sound, with very little damage other than corrosion and general deterioration to the body work" This inspector was also a very optimistic man! Over the years (the Brougham was not yet completed), I began to remove parts. As I lost my game, I had to assume: therefore the thing will be a car again. The next few pictures are from 1990. The roof structure was not bad, however, some work was needed to get it to MY standard. The engine compartment was not worse as some I saw on driveable cars, with the exception of the missing radiator and damaged radiator's support. The bad surprises would come later...

Maybe it was cold and the oil in the gear box was too thick? Sanding and more sanding...I know that song! Depending of the products you are using (2 K or with solvents) wait a while until all is settle. It's frustrating when you apply the paint on a perfect surface just to discover one month later that what is under the paint "worked".

Thanks for the kind words, Dale. I'm glad this construction did entertain many people! I'm living near Bienne, at about 20 miles from Bern. If you are in that region, you are welcome to visit me!

Mmmm...Not so sure!

Ah! Jeff and the lying pictures! I measured the distance between the "C" and the "L" to the chrome bar this morning. Maybe at 0.1mm the distance is the same. The vertical part of the "L" is wide, giving the impression that the letter is further away from the chromed bar, because the thin horizontal element is hardly visible on the picture. Thanks to all who take the time to answer and comment this construction.

Thanks for the positive comments! As usual, I do appreciate them.

As the jig is ready, why wait longer to glue the letters? To avoid scratches on the paint, I glued a piece of paper at the “B” side of the jig. Then, I attached it temporarily on the trunk and I tried if the first letter, the middle “N” would fit. As the jig was not following the curve from the trunk lid, the letter went a bit under the jig. I tried to restore its position with a screwdriver and I heard “tic” and no N anymore. Nothing around the car…No good at all. As I had no clue about the possible path, I began to search on the floor in the supposed way; I found nothing. Nothing? Not true: I found a partly finished part from a hinge which flew years ago! After maybe two hours without positive result, I decided to remove the jig and correct its shape. And what did I saw? The “N”! It did not fly away, but went under the jig! What a relief! Indeed, I could glue 3 letters each time; therefore I had to prepare less 2 K glue. I will have to clean a bit the lid (I put too much glue at the first letter); I will wait 1 or 2 days to do that. Indeed, I’m satisfied; the distance between letters may not be the same left and right, but it’s hard no notice it.

I see your theory; maybe you are right. I will first glue the letters, one letter at the time, waiting 5 to 8 minutes for the glue to set before the next one will be glued, etc. I will be using, after the tests I did, a 2 k glue, which means preparing the smallest quantity as possible for 1 letter, repeating that process for the 10 remaining letters. A busy day! If the word is OK to the eye, I may try your method for the hood. Here the letters have more space between each other; it may not be important if there is a variation.

They cannot: all letters have more or less the same length (they are 18 mm to 18.3mm, except the letter "I" which is significantly narrower at 8mm). The letter "N" in the middle of the word is exactly on the car's centerline; the letters "C" and "L" are at the same distance from the emblem. Therefore, the distance between the letters at the left group is slightly larger than the distance between letters at the right side. As the distance between letters is rather large, our eyes don't perceive a difference. Of course, I'm open for another theory!

Good solution, I was thinking at that too. As I had more than one day to do that template (I'm working very slowly now), I'll go tomorrow with what I have!

Sure Jeff, I will not wait that long to tell the story! One or two posts per week is reasonable; it will be over probably middle this year. In fact, I had 10 years to restore the car. When I bought it, I still had the '57 Brougham to finish; when I had enough with the Brougham (it was a very difficult car to restore), I began to remove parts. The real work began in 1991.

I was born in the French part of Switzerland. We had German the last 3 years at school but in the German part of the country, people are speaking Swiss German (sort of slang). With the school German, I understood nothing. When I began to work at GM in 1970, I had to bite the bullet and "improve" my German knowledge. I would say I'm understanding most of what is said, except what is spoken in some Swiss regions; their slang is just not understandable to me. I'm sure you have similar situation in England; not everybody is speaking the Oxford English! Due to my interest in US vehicles, I began to buy US magazines when I was 19-20 years old. I understood the pictures perfectly, that's was all! With the time, it improved; one decisive factor was when I went a long time ago for vacation in California: I was alone and had to make the effort to understand and speak. I still have difficulties to understand English speaking people over the phone, depending the region they are coming from. Fortunately, I understand almost everything in print!

Martin, this an old story! I bought the car in 1986 and yes, I did restore it, finishing the job in 2001!

It's not always easy to let giggle an older person, I'm glad I coud do it! Your interpretation about the holes is what differentiate somebody trying to make a story in a foreign language from somebody mastering that language!

Barry Wolk asked me to show my scale model here; he said that I would have more audience; he was right. Of course, with the time, I began to read what other people do with their cars scale 1:1. Of course, some cars (therefore topics) are more appealing to me. With the digital cameras and Internet it's so easy to show the progress from a project compared to what was possible 20 or more years ago. During my life, I restored 3 Cadillacs. I did some pictures when I was thinking that the progress was significant enough to grant a picture. Of course, I took no notes and it was that way for all three cars. Now, somewhere else in this forum, I'm relating the restoration of my third car. Unfortunately, the rare pictures I did are all on paper and the story I will relate is...from memory. In fact, I do now regret that I was so restrictive with pictures and that I did note all events occurring during the work. If I still have pictures from the fist two cars, I don't remember all the events. Regrets, regrets!

The issue is easy to guess; he was just older and poorer!

This is no surprise for me. I bought several regulators in the US; they all were bad and not charging. The one I bought locally was sure more expensive, but it was functioning properly.

Unfortunately for you, I will not be able to help. At that time, I was a GM Service District manager in Switzerland and yes, this system was not quite reliable even when new (is that German engineering?). I remember that the accumulator got bad too often as well as pressure sensors. We were really happy when GM came later with a more reliable set-up. I hope that you will get here some positive answers.

When I had enough with the trouble the Brougham gave to me, I cleaned the mess from the floors and did a first inspection. It was not glorious: the radiator was missing, the engine was from 1956, but not the correct one. It never ran in this car: the studs from the front supports were not in the frame's holes, they were on the frame! The engine transplant was not done without damage: the radiator support was bent. The condition of the transmission was unknown; anyway, according to the plate, it was not the right one: it was for an engine with one carb. The floors were badly rusted; the trunk floor was real bad: the housing for the spare wheel was gone, eaten by the rust. Interesting enough: the trunk lid was in good condition, no holes. It was not the case with the hood: the sheet metal part on which the lock is attached was full of holes... At that time, I had no idea how to repair that disaster and I could not weld. In retrospect, that rust bucket was a relative good base, compared to cars I saw later which were worse. I was just not prepared at that time to see so many holes.