George Cole

How about the 17-23 March AACA Founders Tour in Lafayette, LA? It sounds like an excellent tour. Anybody here planning to participate in that? I'm trying to decide if I can make it there directly from the 14-17 March JCNA Annual Meeting in Charlotte, NC, where I'm already registered to attend..

Anybody here going to do any of next year's CCCA tours or shows? I just signed up for the Ohio Mini-CARavan and Grand Concours. Ed asked if I was going to do the Best of the West CARavan. I'd like to, but it's hard to justify least $12-15k for one event, including 8-days of dragging the car on a trailer 6k+ miles there and back. Thinking about the Metro Region Grand Classic, but it's only one day of touring. I'd have to drag the car 2400 miles there and back just to tour one day.

Hey AJ. Yup, it's all about confidence in the presentation. You can act like pro and tell most people anything...and they believe you. Every once in a while you get a 'sleeper'...someone who knows the answer before asking a question, testing your B.S. level.

Hey Kerry. Ha, ha, ha. The Jag is a 20-20 car...looks good from 20-feet away at 20 mph. It's got a lot of small chips in the paint from road debris, and has a 77-year-old interior...nice, but far from perfect. Likewise, the chrome is shiny and presentable, but not concours quality. I think the event coordinators wanted to keep an organized flow of people, as at times, the small 'people corridor' was quite full. Probably several thousand people passed by throughout the day. So the ropes/stanchions created a barrier leaving the cars somewhat exposed for those who wanted to take pictures. However, there were many, many people who stepped over the ropes to look at interiors, speak with owners, have kids honk horns, etc. Richard helped quite a few climb into and out of the rumble seat of his Model A. I had many wanting to see the Jag interior, engine, or tool tray close up, or take their picture alongside the car. Likewise, there was interest in my semaphore turn signals, which I demonstrate many, many times at each show. The same was happening with most other cars who's owners were with them and talking to the spectators...although not all owners were on-site doing that. You can see Ed in the background of some of my pictures talking to some, as well. He and I spoke several times throughout the day, but we mostly spent time with spectators. He and I sat together and had some one-on-one time at the reception the preceding evening, at Jeff Fisher's showroom/garage.

John, it's an annual charity fund raiser for wounded veterans put on by the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in Palm Beach. The show area is very small, so limited to 14 cars. The area's so small the cars had to be brought in one at a time and parked before the next one could come in. It's by invitation only....cars that are seen at other shows or are known in the area. The show's a one-time-only opportunity....once shown there, that car is not invited back. FL Region CCCA member, Jeff Fischer, is the show chairman and has a ~20 mostly foreign car collection in WPB. He's got an impressive display of Pebble Beach trophies in his showroom. The red Delahaye is his. Chuck Mitchell, FL Region CCCA President, is an honorary chairman. He's the one who asked me last December if I'd bring my Jag. FL Region CCCA member Larry Kopp owns the Daimler. FL Region CCCA newsletter editor, Richard Hughes, owns the Model A. He also has a 1921 RR Silver Ghost limo, but it was previously shown there so not invited back. See the connection...along with Ed and his boss, about half of us are involved with the FL Region CCCA. The Bugatti is owned by 43-car-collector John Grey in Jupiter, FL. He's in the short rows of opening his own museum there. I'm not sure what the connection was with the late model cars on the field.

Define 'fun.' The 1947 Jaguar is the 2022 and 2023 Jaguar Clubs of North America Class A Slalom championship car. It also does several thousand miles per year touring. Next tour scheduled in 2 weeks...2023 Palm Beach Supercar Tour on 9 December. Did it last year as well. Limited to 30 new and classic Ferrari, Porsche, Maserati, Ford GT, Lamborghini, McLaren, Aston Martin, Mercedes, and a ratty old 1947 Jaguar, tearing up the streets of Palm Beach and WPB. Blowing through traffic lights up and down Ocean Blvd at 60-70 mph. with FHP escort. The amazing thing was we were able to keep up...or at least keep the rest in sight. No, it's not a spotless, immaculate, pampered trailer queen, and is continually reminded of such at judged events. But it is a FUN car.

We did our Thanksgiving drive last Saturday, as a part of the Ann Norton Sculpture in Motion 13-car show in Palm Beach. Put about 20 miles on the 1947 Jag, along with Ed in a 1929 RR Phantom. A 1930 Bugatti led the tour procession. Other show cars included 1939 Delahaye, 1952 Daimier, 1952 Muntz Jet, 1952 Alfa Romeo, a gorgeous tri-color 1956 Packard Caribbean, 1962 Lotus coupe, 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB/C, 1971 Maserati, 1951 Fiat, and a 1930 Ford Model A.

How about donating both boxes of documents to the AACA Library where each document could eventually be accessible to everyone on line?

My RHD Jaguar has a single, keyed door lock on the right, driver's side door...which would be the street-side, not the curb-side in countries which drive on the 'wrong' side of the road.

TA Kerry and I were referring to the flat bed tractor trailer carrying the Barracuda. It has no ramps under the rear of the trailer.

Probably used a loading dock which had an attached forklift ramp. All major warehouses have them. Even the local Harley dealer has something similar for loading bikes into jacked-up pickups and onto flatbeds.

Hey Kerry, How about calling one of AACA's prime sponsors, NPD Parts? Regards, George

It's a novelty at car shows, and an interest item to kids when I ask them. "Where's the turn signals?"

And with that logic, I guess a Full Classic is a 67 Mustang that has just gassed up. (sarcasm)

But in British territories the hand is extended out the right side of the car...as with my right-hand-drive Jaguar. You think people are confused with hand signals from the left side of a car, try them from the right side. That's why I upgraded the semaphore 'trafficators' on the Jag.

Buick35, as you and I are Florida residents, here's what the current (rev 06/2022) Florida Driver's Handbook says on Page 29 regarding turns: quote Making Turns ► You must use vehicle directional signals or hand signals to show other drivers that you are turning. ► Turn signals are also required by law when changing lanes or overtaking a vehicle. ► You must give a turn signal for at least 100 feet BEFORE you make your turn. endquote There are large illustrations of hand signals for left turn, slow or stop, and right turn at the bottom of the page, but I was unable to copy and paste them here. George

For those of you naysayers and non-believers, here's what I looked like the first day my eye was swollen shut..2 July. Now here's what I looked like on 11 July, with my entire forehead, eye, and scalp covered in blisters. Now, think about playing with your cars in this condition. At this point all i wanted was for the extreme pain to subside...which it didn't start to come down until I started getting mega-doses of Lyrica, several weeks later.

This is not off topic. Getting eye shingles massively affected my ability to enjoy the antique car hobby. I've cancelled attendance at several shows and other venues because of it. It's been 7 weeks since I came down with it, and I'm still limited in what I can do with my cars. Initially my right eye was swollen shut for 6 days. The shingles med finally started working and I was gradually able to open the eye and start seeing light and dark shadows. Although most of the symptoms (huge black blisters which covered my forehead, scalp, and eye,) are gone, I still have eye pain and constant headaches of 3-4 on a scale of 1-10. The pain has been somewhat mediated by the max dose (600mg p/day) of Lyrica which I'm now taking. Now I'm dealing with that drug's side effects. My optometrist says the shingles symptoms can last for 6-12 months. That's 6-12 months of affecting my ability to enjoy the antique car hobby. Most likely the shingles was brought on by stress from my first failed spine surgery. I had 5 ruptured discs in my lower back. One had my spinal cord compressed and displaced by over 50%. The surgeon tried replacing the worst 2 by putting screws into my vertebrae to hold them in place. He said the bone crumbled like rotten wood. He did the best he could, but the new discs blew out the following day...worse than they were before. Three days later he brought me back under the knife for a kyphoplasty procedure, wrapping those 3 vertebrae in 'cement', then rescheduled me to redo the spine surgery 2 weeks later. That's when the shingles hit. The pain from it was the worst I've ever experienced in my life. The good news is the 3d spine surgery worked...the surgeon was able to screw into the 'cement' and fix a wire cage around those vertebrae to hold everything in place. I'm slowly getting better...walking a mile each morning now without a walker. Two more weeks of 'limited duty', and I should be able to crawl under cars and up under dashboards again. And as I said, although my eye pain and headache are still significant issues, I'm dealing with them and trying to get on with my life. GET THE SHINGLES VACCINE, unless you want to give up a year of your life and your ability to enjoy the antique car hobby.

Success! I visited Co-Lin/Rock-Valley on 8 June. Zach stopped what he was doing and gave me his undivided attention for over an hour. We walked through the factory, where seemingly over a half-dozen employees were involved with making tanks. We went out back and dug through a very large mil-van, full of what appeared to be scrap tanks. Lo and behold, there was the major part of the tank which I had sent to them. it still had my name, email address, and phone number, which I had written on it with a Sharpie. No sign of the tank top piece or strap which I had also sent them. Zach agreed there was enough of my tank to use as a template for fabrication of 2 new ones. He said he'd get draftsmen on it immediately, and then fabricate my tanks. There was some confusion on the figure-8 design of the filler neck and gauge. I told him to disregard trying to duplicate them. Just send me the tanks and I will figure out how to cut them for the filler neck and gauge. He asked me to email pictures of my one last strap which they could use to fabricate 4 new ones. Last week i received 2 large boxes via UPS, each with a new stainless steel tank...massively packed in foam. I haven't been able to do anything with they yet as I'm recovering from 3 spine surgeries within a 30-day period (21 June, 26 June, and 19 July.) And if that's not enough, the good Lord's suffering committee must have said something like, "He's coping rather well with the spine issues...let's take out an eye." So I got hit with eye shingles on 1 July. So like I said, per my spine surgeon's directions, I'm giving my back time to heal, and recovering from the eye shingles. Note to all: If you haven't had the shingles vaccine, GET IT. Even if you got it a few years ago, it's changed, so get it again. It's a two-part vaccine, at least 90-days between the shots. I didn't know the vaccine existed. So here's the two pieces of ratty old tank which I sent to Rock-Valley. We found the bigger piece, but not the top piece which had been cut away. Zach used the bigger piece to fabricate my new tanks. I also sent them one of my 2 tank straps. Two are used for each tank. It went the never-never-land way the top piece of my tank did. So I sent Zach pictures of my remaining strap. I told him I could probably fabricate them myself if necessary, although the curl at the end might pose a challenge. Here's the strap picture I sent to Zach. Here's the tanks I received, complete with bottom drains and side pick-ups. He sent me 2 do-it-yourself fill and gauge neck sets. The straps he sent were nothing like the original strap I sent them or the pictures I sent. They were bent to the contour of the tank, but the attachment curl on the end was not there. Nor were the attachment holes drilled. Also, the new tank strapping is significantly thinner than the original straps, so I may be looking for different material to start from scratch with them. Such is life. Need to get my back patched back together and my eye back to normal before I can do much of anything with them. George

Hey Kerry, i did it almost a year ago towing the Jag to Cape Cod and back for a CCCA show and tour. I came in from the west (Hershey) and eventually took I-287 across the Tappanzee. Traffic was heavy but steady...but I did it the second mid-week of June, not on Memorial Day weekend. Add my congrats with everyone else's. I'm GTO-green with envy. George

Okay, here's the latest. First, thanks mobileparts for the updated phone number. All of the old numbers I had no longer worked. Yours did. After a couple of diversions to an answering machine, I got 'Michelle' who passed my message to Zach, who said he'd return my call when he got back into the office. He did, and we spoke a few minutes ago. After telling him I've emailed and called multiple times with no success, he said they've been having problems. He profusely apologized for this dragging on for so long and not getting my tanks done. I reminded him I had sent them my only tank, which had been cut into several pieces, on 4 Sept 2020, almost 3 years ago. Since that time, we've exchanged many, many emails, with them continually telling me, "We're working on them." That was until January of this year when they no longer responded to my queries. He said they've done the engineering drawings for the lower half, but since their move, have not been able to find the upper half pieces of my tank. He asked if I have another tank which i can send...which of course I don't. I told him I had taken pictures of each of the pieces before sending them to him, so he asked me to send the pictures and they will use them as reference to again look for the rest of mine. I told him I had written my name and phone number on each piece with a sharpie, so if they have it, it shouldn't be too hard to find. He said they'll get right on it. I told him I'll be in his area somewhere around the 7-8 June and he said I was more than welcome to stop by. So again, thanks to everyone for helping me get this back off of top dead center. I'm heaving sighs of relief that my one-and-only unobtanium tank has not gone to never-never-land. Regards, George

Of course to everything you said. However, I wanted to try and find out what's going on prior to showing up there. And if by some miracle it all falls into place, i could pick up the tanks in person rahter than paying another couple of hundred to have them shipped.

That's the email address I've been using which they are no longer responding to.

I googled Rock Valley Auto Parts and came up with phone numbers 815-645-2771 which gives a response that the line has been disconnected, and number 815-645-2740 which gives some sort of weird tone, and 800-344-1934 where I left a message on an answering machine and did not get a response. I'll try your number 5311 number today. Still, as mentioned in my OP, I've emailed them multiple times over the past few weeks and also got no response.