60FlatTop

About twenty pictures from the end there are a few shots from the Auburn Museum Engine room: http://brockportinternational.com/AuburnWebPhotos/ Bernie

I like humor; the more ironic, cutting, or entwined the better. Humor doesn't work well in forums, email, or between two people. Something triggers the "hey! that's personal" furrows the little ball of thoughts that rolled into the brain. One of my favorite lines was the entity that called the Enterprise crew crew ugly sacks of mostly water. Not personal. not racial. not even the species; stand up and take it as an organism! Be constructive about art forms. When the modified Buick makes you think of a velvet Elvis painting just say "Thank you very much." and move on....... unless they are trying to sell it to you. Bernie

I am nudging 55 years of working on cars and experiencing my own and others workmanship. If you wrote post #1 all by yourself, you are light years ahead of most service providers I have encountered. My suggestion would be to farm out the machine work and follow the shop manual closely as you disassemble and reassemble the engine yourself. If you have to buy a couple of tools you may never use again it's no big deal. You will be assured an attentive and painstaking job. Upstate New York is an interesting concept. For people in Brooklyn it could be all the way up to Westchester. Then, again, if my wife and I take a ride along the Lake for lunch tomorrow, Toronto will look like this from the hill near RT 18: Bernie

There used to be a website that would decode VIN's like this one for my Chevy SS. It closed and I haven't been able to find a similar one. Vehicle VIN Decode.htm Rarity... There are 4 1994 CAPRICE CLASSIC 4 DR vehicles (0.004%) matching your exact options list. There are 27 (0.028%) with at least as many options. Pretty neat stuff and you can verify the car is a Caprice with the SS option, not an SS stand alone model. So there are details out there. It's just finding the database. Bernie

Wife? Here she is at 21. I sure ain't gonna get her the wash my car again. I just checked my pocket and found $103 and a couple of dimes. She took the rest. (except for a couple of tin cans in the garage that I showed my son). All I have is the cars, what's a fella to do. Bernie

I tried the boat fuel. It requires special tubes. And the algae tinted my car kind of green. Bernie

Has anyone noticed that the differentiation between pre-war and post-war cars is a little skewed? About 1900-1942 vs. 1946-2015 keeps getting to be a larger group on one side. And it hasn't stopped. Bernie

1996 was the last year for the Jaguar V12. During the intervening decades most of the problems have been experienced, resolved, and preventive measures have been documents. Here is the 750 page living document. http://www.jag-lovers.org/xj-s/book/XJS_help.pdf Yes, I have read it. I owned the stock and driven both pristine and modified. My next one, and that has a way of happening, will have a GM wengine. Bernie

Aviation gas is OK, but sometimes one feels out of place waiting in line. Bernie

The coefficient of expansion due to weather at this end of New York makes everything seem like Invar. That's the stuff we made satellite chassis out of so it wouldn't change in deep space. I keep the tanks full, usually top them off on Sunday nights, to keep humid air out of them and prevent rust on the exposed inner surfaces. Moisture can condense out and settle under the fuel where it will pit the bottom of the tank. Moisture also collects in oil pans during long storage and put pinholes in them. If I was going to leave them at a 1/4 I would probably try to get a light oil slick on the fuel surface to slosh around the upper surfaces to prevent rust scale. I got a surprise filling the Packard prior to reading the owner's manual. It has a whistle! A guy in camouflage coming out of the station yelled "Incoming!" and hit the deck. I'm not seeing the fuel issues yet. It will come someday, I imagine. Until then I'll just use it up as fast as I can. The way gas goes through those cars I'm going to have to refer to then a a gaggle of tin geese. 7 PM, now; I'm heading out for a 5 mile round trip for coffee in the convert. I have 700 miles on that one so far this year and the more I drive it, the happier it gets. Bernie

It's not just chrome. A guy was telling me his V6 was "just like a V8". I was leaning against the fender of my '64 Riviera with the 425, patted his little head, and said "Sure it is." Bargains, wholesale pricing, and the whole insider sales thing, I think, is a post WWII phenomenon from the farm boys meeting the city boys. In the '50's and '60's I worked with my Grandfather in his businesses; Wholesale Tires and Wholesale Used Cars. P. T. Barnum would have been proud of us. Well.... actually I did get an unsolicited email from a car dealer who had to compliment me on an ad I wrote for a Jaguar on Ebay. He said it was motivating and didn't even say anything about the car. For old pot metal, clean and polish it real good, use a jack knife tip to clean the loose stuff out of pits, wipe it down with lacquer thinner, and spray it clear (clear makes taillights look great, too). And always remember "What you pay for is the MOST you can expect to get" Bernie

Ethanol can also colonize in the tank and, in some instances, develop a collective intelligence commonly referred to a a monsanto. When maintained at half a tank they can become agitated and aggressive. If your garage is attached to your house always check that the gas cap is tight before you go to bed. Being the victim of a nocturnal hygroscopic incident wouldn't be my idea of dry humor. Bernie

I have had two XJS V12's, a '53 Mark VII and a Series II XJ6. There is a kind of empty feeling when you sell one unless you divert your attention. I prefer my next one to be a Chevy powered XJS and expect to pay $3500 to $4,000 for a nice one. A really nice one. Bernie

Yep, Imroned is our way of saying we squirted the DuPont Imron paint. It is an especially durable two part paint. Here is a picture of the subframe: The paint, primer, and hardener probably ate up most of a hundred dollar bill. There were about 2 to 3 hours of cleaning and prep time plus at least another hour of spraying. That car uses a special motor mount and I think it was something like $120. Then the new struts; and, as long as we did the front, we did the rears. The car looked a little squatty so I put new springs in. My point is that there are so many interrelated parts and detail a job can easily exceed an informed budget and greatly exceed the "wave of the hand" estimate. I had a 1959 Cadillac come in for a brake job once. In total, the owner asked for and we came across 27 more jobs ranging from windshield wipers not working to new heater and radiator hoses, each done with prior approval. When presented with the final bill (I invoiced T&M weekly) his comment was "That is a lot for a brake job." We even fixed his horn! The logic of a car that just needs an engine rebuild doesn't work well. All the parts wear out together. I just got back from a 100 mile drive with that convertible today. It performs pretty good and looks good. Another $2,000 to $3,000 in some more details and I will be satisfied. Bernie

I had hopes of getting to the Buffalo Meet tomorrow. It has been raining all day and it looks like the rain will continue tomorrow, as well. Let's hope for a peek of sunshine. So, 10 days ago, to get ready, I wanted to touch up a small bad spot that always attracts fingers to my Park Ave convert. You know how it seems the only valid sense people in general have is touch. And they always have to touch imperfections so they know their vision is not fooling them. Ten days ago I removed the third brake light from the fabricated panel between my deck lid and the top lip and tack strip. That is a non-stock panel that was spray painted during the conversion 28 years ago. The paint blistered around the brake light housing, raised, and got some pitting started. I thought I would have time, but a job came up that demanded most of the week (yeah, I actually do work). All I managed to do was remove the light and make bare metal at about the 40 grit level, not a big spot, but enough. I got creative last night and the pits no longer show. Ready to go now! Bernie

I had hopes of getting to the Buffalo Meet tomorrow. It has been raining all day and it looks like the rain will continue tomorrow, as well. Let's hope for a peek of sunshine. So, 10 days ago, to get ready, I wanted to touch up a small bad spot that always attracts fingers to my Park Ave convert. You know how it seems the only valid sense people in general have is touch. And they always have to touch imperfections so they know their vision is not fooling them. Ten days ago I removed the third brake light from the fabricated panel between my deck lid and the top lip and tack strip. That is a non-stock panel that was spray painted during the conversion 28 years ago. The paint blistered around the brake light housing, raised, and got some pitting started.

My old rule of thumb, 1,000 bucks a hole for a restoration level engine job usually holds true. I figure the R&R and all the things you do during the whole process. It is never the straight forward job of bearings, rings, and valves. My V6 Park Ave left home with a bad 3.8 and came back $6,000 later. The subframe was imroned, transmission rebuilt, lots of engine management parts, and little details everywhere. Bernie

There's a time in life when your priorities were different. Figure out what overshadowed the price of gas then, regain it now, and you'll be in good shape. Interesting comment about keeping the 25 gallon tank full during High School. Gas was 30 cents a gallon when I was in school and I never started filling the tank until it cost over a dollar a gallon. Now I keep seven tanks full and don't really know the exact cost of gas. Must be MY priorities are elsewhere. Bernie

I tried the 20% ethanol in my flex fuel Silverado. My mileage was consistently lower, but it wasn't consistent how low. My 5.3 2WD that always gets 20 MPG on Mobil regular ranged from 18 down to 15 on the corn licker depending on how bad it ran. It threw out a CES light, too, the only time in 10 years. My truck has a sensing chamber that reads the specific gravity of the fuel and adjust to what it thinks the corn level is. It seems to be a flawed technology based on engineering assumptions. We had an ethanol plant about 20 miles west of us where diesel trucks delivered corn that was harvested with diesel combines and ran it through a steam distiller. The steam came from a natural gas fired boiler and had a 24/7 plume of atmospheric vented excess steam for the few years it ran. They shut it down. Now when I drive by I just shake my head and think about the capital amortization. I used to laugh about the operating losses when it ran. Oh, the processed ethanol left the plant in diesel trucks too. The flavors will continue to change and the hobby will adjust. For now, I have figured the best thing I can do it keep that corn licker percentage in my tank as short a time as possible. Oh, the LT1 Chevy is sitting all black and shiny in the drive. Out to dinner in that instead of the Packard. That will get a few punches to the throttle before we get back. Blonde riders like that excessive consumption, but you gotta get 'em young! Bernie

Buy a building, an old dealership or warehouse shouldn't cost more than a good CCCA acceptable car. Be sure to incorporate a holding company for the building. There are a lot of benefits to that plan. You will not regret it. You will probably find that owning a building is like owning a car; buy one and they start spouting. Things might feel a little tough with the economy over the next few years, but in 2030 you'll be a smiling 40 year old. I'm an old guy and I'm getting ready to commit to a commercial building to run two companies from. Bernie

I married a tall blonde and when she is sitting in my 401 Electra the car gets about 17 MPG on a long trip and, maybe, 15 average driving, but I know how to get 10. She only lets me put Mobil regular in the car and I am not allowed to run around price shopping at gas stations whom fill their tanks from a mystery tanker at midnight. Being in the position of owning more licensed and drivable cars than a sane person, I have to work to put 1,000 on each per year. If I was able to achieve the 1,000 with a car that got 10 miles a gallon that would be about $350 a year for gas, average a buck a day. Good thoughts, I think I'll take my blonde wife out to a restaurant in the Packard tonight. It will probably cost me 10% of the monthly payment on a Prius, maybe a little less. Bernie P.S. G'ever hear about the two Buick owners who got a hold of a penny and invented copper wire?

Didn't stand back and look at it! Sometimes it's just the agle. Bernie

If you are young just look for the widow. Find the right one and junk the cars. Bernie

When an engine fire damages the aluminum parts of a Duesenberg engine swapping in that Chevy small block could screw the value up a bit. Of course one gets a whole different perspective on "cost prohibitive" upon completion. Bernie

An Ebay car with a reserve = reserve not met. That's it. Bernie