PhilAndrews

The season of picturesque mornings is with us. Phil

Went to fix the exhaust hanger. Simple job, thinks I. Nope. Center muffler decided to not play ball so it was removed with extreme prejudice and deposited in the trash. Bought a Magnaflow "rumble" muffler, made a little S to bring things back in line and fitted it up. A much quieter tone, better on the ears. Then, it rained. And rained and rained and rained some more. Car is just about drying out now, a day later. Phil

Real nice weather (82°F/65%rH) so we made an 80 mile round trip with some friends, hitting up the back roads. In convoy behind another car driving through Bayou Black. Didn't realize we had any AT&T LongLines towers down here. This one in Gibson, LA. Opportune in town on the way back there was a car show, wandered around that. Nice turnout. Head home, fixed the tumble dryer, played with the dogs and went out get dinner with my wife because the kids are out at friends overnight. Phil

A fun evening out, invited to be part of the old cars lined up along the street for the evening fun downtown. A most enjoyable evening! Tomorrow, road trip with the club. Phil

Yup. Went roll to get fuel. At least it was clean for the afternoon.

Decided I needed the time to be able to clean the car before a club do on Friday and an outing on Saturday. Got a bit warm towards the end, but that's better. Phil

Welded it up. Put it all back together again. Changed the oil and grease. Quieter now, funny how that works... Phil

That'll be what that noise was then.

Actually, see- that's an interesting point. Someone asked me how many miles I've driven in the car, so I went find the photos of the car when I picked it up- naturally a few were of the dash and the odometer reading was clearly legible. To date, 13,400 miles I've added to the car. Not bad Phil

I've done 6000 with it going clink. At least the oil doesn't fall out of it any more. Phil

Yeah, you have to jack the car up on the axle and not have it hang down to keep the angle on the uj correct to get a grease gun on it Phil

Up to about 45 dokka dokka dokka, a deep low rattle from the back end. A CLINGK from the back end on engaging gears or 2-3 shift is just excess lash in the differential, which isn't too bad, when it is too bad it'll let you know by whining. Phil

Fixed the speedometer. New cable time. Much better. Nice to have the speedometer back again. Replaced the rear UJ because the old one was getting noisy and no amount of grease would make it quiet. Phil

Those are the things yes.

Get it lined up with 0 and push on with a finger. The pointer center is cut at a slight taper and will bind up just with a press fit.

You can; it's a press fit on the shaft so the best tool to remove it without damage is a needle puller. You can improvise but using a screwdriver is risky, both to bend the shaft and dent the speedometer face. The mechanism has an internal stop so you do not lose the hairspring calibration by removing the needle (unlike gauges like a lot of Smiths for instance). Search "gauge pointer puller" for tools. Phil

Helpfully today, as I was driving, the speedometer went from working perfectly to reading zero. I have a feeling the drive gear has stripped a tooth.

I think the damp had gotten into the radio, it was all crackles and distortion. Wrangled it out from under the dash, always an enjoyable* experience. The output tubes had bad connections- typical with Loktal tubes. Cleaned up and added DeOxit. Ran it on the bench for an hour, played well. Glowing again as they should. I think a new vibrator will help the voltage sag and I'm on the lookout for a new speaker because this one is terrible. Phil

The only place we normally get ice is in the freezer!

Icicles (small variety) today. The car started up and idled happily, despite the wind chill being in the teens. Thursday we're forecast back in the seventies. Weather can't decide what it wants to do. Phil

Cold snap ahead. I had drained the system and flushed it out when I did the manifold. Now, that should be good. Phil

It's already got dings in the doors. Some I inherited with the car, the most recent was the standard "I parked the car in the furthest space away from the doors, with no cars for miles around and some ass parked right next to me and opened their door into the paint" Since then I've just parked it wherever. The fact it needs bodywork and paint means I can enjoy driving it without having to be overly paranoid. Phil

Right passenger bearing tightened up, I was a bit gentle when I did it up last. However, got a new water pump on order. Hid the car in a lineup tonight. Phil

Between rain showers I went go buy some plastic totes. Big car looks small. Also sounds like I have a wheel bearing that needs attention.

All back together again. After a couple hours, took it for a gentle run to dry everything out; I had burped the heater by taking the hose off the cylinder head, holding the flexible pipe from the heater up, and with the heater control set to HIGH, put the hosepipe into the cylinder head. Also had the benefit of back flushing the heaters. Primarily what it did was throw water all over the engine compartment. Driving experience? Improved. Exhaust now scavenges better and it's very quiet. Much better. Phil