unimogjohn

It is Friday, January 30th PM. We just got back from a week in Seattle, WA. All the days were in the 50s and no rain. We made several trips around the area and ran across this car in Ronald, WA. And the 12 is for the Seattle Seahawks football fan number. The tree looks to be about 20 some years old. Maria, our daughter-in-law, made us a present. A sign for our new garage. It says "Windy Ridge Auto Farm". She did a great job. And it was -5 degrees here today. But thought I better start thinking of starting and moving the 89 Taurus SHO from the field. The old battery would not take a charge so I put in a smaller 12 volt tractor battery that I had. It is fully charged and the lights inside the car went on. Will attempt to start the car when it gets a bit warmer. If it does not start I will have to winch it up onto the open trailer to move it. And it will be going into the new garage. On the garage front, we ordered insulation that will go under the roof. The contractor will put that in during construction. We will put in the insulation in the walls. COSTCO has LED Feit shop lights on sale. So going to pick up a dozen for the garage. I think that the price is right around $35 with a $8 discount.

It is Wednesday, January 28th. Not much going on. Garage is still moving ahead. It will be delivered to the contractor the first week of March so site prep should begin maybe next week. I have to get busy moving the trailers out of the pasture, moving fence lines and installing a new 12 ft entrance gate. Busy, busy. And we have a report from Greg. "Today's adventure was the moving of the 1910 Overland chassis from deep storage to cold storage. With the help of the Coco Moving Company, it is now waiting here for its turn. First task will be a thorough cleaning. When warm weather comes."

Chris and David, thank for the heads up on turning the pictures on the forum pages. Worked for me too. It is Thursday, January 15th, AM. Had a good day yesterday as David Coco aka trimacar notified me that he got my first installment check and was ordering the material for the 1923 McLaughlin Buick side curtains. The garage site prep guys came over as well as the builder of the garage; and we made the final placement of the garage. I have to move trailer and fencing before they can start work, and install a larger gate to get in and out for them and me. The work should on take a day or two. The trailers are going into the front yard for a bit. Site work is scheduled to begin early February, providing the weather cooperates a bit. They are saying that they only need two to three days to do the work and have the pad ready for building construction. And it looks like we have a report from Greg this morning. He is a busy man. Here is his report. " Hey, some progress in the Brass Era. The Stoddard Dayton that is in storage at Rob's garage warranted some attention so I've been working up the horn assembly. Most cars of the period have the horn, conduit and bulb mounted outside, quick and dirty. Not this one. The period photos show the bulb mounted on the steering column. Here and there I've been gathering or fabricating the components to make this work. Since it was cold in the shop, as good an excuse as any to sit behind the wheel and make the voyage to Rob's where we could try the bulb bracket and conduit on for size. So far so good. Next will be the hairy job of drilling a hole in the cowl for the horn itself to sneak through. It mounts outside on the cowl. Progress too on the Overland stage. While at Rob's I picked up some brass items I'd left earlier. They've had a trip to his local brass and copper refinisher. Steering column jacket, spark and throttle leverage and the robe rail now bright and shiny. The best part is that I didn't have to do it. And as a surprise on my return, the clutch disc that I'd sent out for replacement of the leather was waiting for me. Sending this stuff out for work, I've finally learned that Time is Money, but Money Buys Time." =

Talk to David Coco (trimacar on this forum). I know that he specializes in the teens and 20s cars. He did most of my 1923 McLaughlin after several trimmers attempted it and either gave up or botched the job. David is in Winchester, VA.

It is Tuesday, January 13th, PM. Just got in from replacing the battery in the 2002 Trailblazer. The truck has failed to start on a couple of the cold days, and the dash instruments keep going on and off. Everything points to a weak battery so got a new one. Hope that it fixes the problem. We received our building permit for the garage/ag building. So we headed down to the builders office and signed the contract so they could order the building. Picked out the colors, gray for the body and a charcoal for the roof and trim. Tomorrow the site prep guys is coming over to finalize the building site and mark all four corners with a transit. We have a cement contractor coming over on Saturday to give us a bid on the slab. Glad to be finally moving ahead. I think I have picked the vendor for the two lifts I am getting. I have a delivered and installed price on a 2 post and a 4 post lift. I received my Buick Bugle magazine in the mail yesterday. To my surprise, there is the 1923. Here is the article and pics. Sorry about the sideways pics. I do change them to the proper orientation, but when I post to the forum it turns them sideways. Oh well.

Mickey and others. Will there be food vendors at the Saturday show? I did not see that the Museum had a cafe on its website. Will we be able to visit our cars prior to the show on Saturday to do final cleaning and other preparations? Thanks.

It is Monday, January 5th, PM. Colder tonight and snow expected late tonight and early tomorrow morning. Looks like we could get 3 or more inches. Alice and I went to the county zoning folks this morning. We have to get a building permit even if it is a agricultural structure. After some serious negotiations with the zoning folks we got approval for the placement of the structure. They will issue a permit the end of the week. Yahoo! We are good to go. We go down to the builders business later in the week to sign the contract and pick out colors for the garage. In the meantime, Greg has a report for us. "Better check in to let you all know that I'm still here. Had a great Christmas and New Year's holiday. So had some time for a couple projects. The next step on the Matheson engine is to get the spark advance system working. Lots of linkage and gizmos. A functions check proved that all wasn't working well, interference between the ignitor trigger springs and the cast fingers that slide back and forth to advance and retard the spark timing. Don't know why it was that way but I spent some time making adjustments with a die grinder to make things happen. Any spare time I found was devoted to some general cleaning of miscellaneous Overland parts on hand. The shift and brake levers and related are steel and then were brass plated. Those items were separated and lightly bead blasted to remove the years of oxidation and dirt. Tomorrow I'll contact the brass plater to see how he wants me to proceed with metal finishing in preparation for their process. I also got after some other things, engine front timing gear cover, universal joint housing and drive dog, radiator support rod , etc. Not a lot but progress just the same. So with Monday the official start of the new year, here's hoping that we all have a better one than the last. No matter how good the last one might have been." =

It is Saturday, January 3rd, PM. Oh, and it's 2015! Got a package today. A pair of gauntlet style gloves from the French National Police. Used by their motorcycle division. Will be used for my 1920s costume when showing the 1923 McLaughlin Buick. Great condition, but will require a long break in period as they are a bit stiff from sitting for many years. This morning 67 Camaro Steve and I went over to Wayne's place to help him install the newly rebuilt auto transmission into his P/U truck. He had installed the engine a couple of days ago by himself, but he clearly needed some help with the tranny. We put it on a trolley and a couple of plastic milk containers on top, and then attempted to lift it the last two feet into position. Oh my, that tranny is heavy. Even with three of us we could not get it into position to bolt it in. My last words were "I am losing it!!!!!!!!". With that admission we set it down and had the great thought of lowering the car onto the transmission. That worked great and we had it bolted up and in place in just a few minutes. Job done. Here are a few pics of it and the engine in the truck. Sorry, no pics as we were trying to install it.

It is January 1st, 2015. Happy New Year everyone! Not much going on, just too cold. I have kept the battery connected on the Jaguar to make sure the clock is working correctly. It is keeping perfect time. I started up the Jag and could hear a little hissing. Did some investigation and found that I had left off the vacuum line which connects to the windshield waster button. Pushed it on and all was well. it is 15 degrees here this morning, will head out and turn off the battery power. The Garage. We met again with the builder and the site preparation manager. We have the site pretty much picked out. We do not have much flat land so our choice is very limited as to the site and orientation of the garage. We have to make a trip to the county zoning folks to get their verbal OK of the site, placement, and building permit. We have given the OK to order the 30x60x14 building. We also have to have that one side of our property surveyed to make sure that we meet the 25 ft setback requirement. We will have a chance to tweak the final design before the company starts construction in their factory. The garage is classified as a pole structure. It is our plan to have the contractor prep the site, put up the building, and lay in a cement floor. Alice and I will tackle the insulation, electricity and any remaining construction. Of course we also have to relocate some fencing for the llamas. I expect that the building will be up and ready for the cement in two months. The site prep will start on or about the first of February. They will also lay in 6 inches of rock as the bed for the building and the cement. The builder says that his construction of the actual garage will take two weeks. We will have to wait to see when the cement can be poured. I have an eye on a two post lift on Craigs List. Will call them on Monday and see if I can go see it. It is used, but for $1000 it would be a great deal.

It is Christmas Eve. I hope that everyone has a great Christmas Day, and Santa brings you lots of car goodies. Getting ready to head out for Chinese with our neighbors. No old cars, too dark, too cold and too wet. But nothing stops Greg. Here is his report. "Rob, Glenn, and Greg's Big Adventure. Yesterday was a road trip for work. We were having a Curtiss Jenny radiator serviced at Universal/Carnegie Radiator works near Pittsburgh. It needed to be picked up, Gerry had done his magic. A couple calls to friends and after voicing my intentions, they were in on it too. Rob Burchill would meet me enroute with Peter Jakab's Model T radiator. Glenn would embark from Ann Arbor with and EMF type to be serviced too. We'd all converge on Carnegie mid morning. After an early (for me) start, I met Rob in Hancock , Md and we began the climb over the Alleghenies. Raining and fogging, the temperature at 34* even before we approached Cumberland. Caution was the word as we climbed Savage Mountain and its shiny roadway. No mishaps, we finally drove out of the inclement weather into sunshine. Glenn arrived first, took care of his radiator business and was getting the grand tour as we arrived. Rob went over details of the Model T and finally my Overland radiator for servicing too. Being Tuesday, the day they solder dip, we got to see the assembly process for the custom made cores. Coils of copper are run through forming machines to produce the intricate ribbon cores. They are then grouped and carefully positioned and clamped. From there two of the workmen dip each face in a flux bath and then to the solder dip. A good lunch at the local diner, a side trip to inner Pittsburgh to drop off a couple pumps to be overhauled for Rob, and that's when I noticed a problem that should be remedied. Our ride had cords showing through on a front tire. Not in the mood to crawl under the pickup to free the spare, I decided to take the wimpy way out and have it done at a service station. After we found a place that would and after we waited out turn for the transfer, that's when we found out that three of the five tires on the truck were maypops. So much for my pre trip preflight inspection. A couple used tires were selected, mounted, balanced installed and we were finally on our way for home. Back into the rain and fog, down the mountain and my day that began with a 5:20 AM start was finally over with a 10:30 PM return. Just think, I could be retired, sitting on the couch and missing all this. Now this morning, the dotted lines have faded from my vision and I realize it is December 24th.. An opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas." =

It is Tuesday, December 23rd. Rained hard all last night. Just fed the llamas in the PM and slipped about ten times in the muck of the pastures. Not much fun. But it is half way warmer this PM, like 45 degrees. Enough that I could take off my heavy winter coat and crawl into the Jaguar. Got the mounting bracket for the radio in and then the radio. I must admit I cannot reach a top bolt for the dash to the firewall. I tried everything. How I got it out of there I do not know. I will keep it and wait for a summer day to see if I can get it in. But the dash is secure anyway. Checked everything out and now the turn signals do not work. After some troubleshooting found a loose wire on the can in the engine compartment. Had to take out the can to refasten the little screws. One of the screws was out and finally let a wire go, the other two were loose. All of this busy work took three hours. But it is all done. Just have some cleanup to do and we are good to go. Great to hear the tic, tic, tic of the clock.

It is Monday, PM, December 22nd. It looks like it is a done deal. After looking for a builder for several years, we finally found one that gave us a decent price on a new garage. It will be 30 x 60 x 14, and will have three bays and a work shop area. We are going to meet with the site manager over the coming days to discuss the schedule and start date. Finally four the old cars will be in one place. Inside will be a four post lift for two cars, a space for the Jaguar, and a two post lift for the work area. Once the garage is complete I plan on selling the black enclosed trailer. Here is a pic of the sample garage. Alice is happy as her car will have the house garage as its new home. Will keep you all posted on the project.

It is Sunday, December 21st. Oh goodie, we have a weekend report from Greg. " Found some time for the black Avanti 5054 today. Avanti steering wheels crack with age. There are some stainless steel rings that decorate the rim and for some reason the plastic shrinks at these areas. I decided to try a repair using a plastic casting resin found at hobby and craft shops and a moulding compound we use when modelling artifacts in museums. When my steering wheel was properly cleaned of paint and scale, the modelling rubber, a two part mix was kneaded and applied to good areas of the rim. Not needing a mould release, the rubber was opened with a razor blade and then reapplied to the rim where it shrunk. The casting resin was mixed and poured into the mould. When cured, the plastic was then cut and filed to receive the stainless ring. The modelling rubber had captured the gnarly pattern of the hand grip and the resin duplicated it nicely. Lightly sanded and painted with Krylon Fusion for plastic, it is now black again, just like the day I bought the car." =

David, as you work on the side curtains please feel free to post some progress pictures. I am sure that everyone would be interested and amazed with your work.

It is Thursday, December 18th. Too cold for me to finish up the Jaguar. Not going to use it anyway. But we have a report from Greg. Here is his report. "It's been pretty busy here at work, much to do. As for the 'projects', some movement but mostly out of house. Had the maroon Avanti out over the weekend. Planned to run a cross country errand in Seabiscuit, but a stop beforehand . While waiting at a traffic light we here a small pop. Parked nearby , took a look and found a battery cap had launched. When I tried to restart, all I got was a groan out of it. A jump start got us home, a new battery purchased the next day and it's back in service. No complaints, the old 3EE battery served nine years. Matheson, beginning to fit the valves in the heads. Overland , lots of stuff sent out for others to do. Since I'm not ready to resume work on this project, I'll let qualified help get started. Enclosed pics just in of my exhaust manifold. Jim Snyder is the cast iron welder of choice and I'd sent him my manifold, it was completely broken in half. Jim's a wizard . Black Avanti 5054, a bit more chrome trickled in. That's all I can recall first thing in the morning. Those vacuum tubes in my brain haven't warmed up yet. Just an imaginary test pattern so far. Oh yeah, I enjoyed lunch with David Coco and John Feser on Monday. Enclosed photo shows them hard at work on some Buick side curtains. " Also here is the correspondence from the specialized welder to Greg. Pictures are attached.From: Subject: welded your manifold Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 01:51:14 -0500 To: gregcone@msn.com I just took this out of the oven. It was a challenge to weld because of oxidation inside the metal. Common in exhaust because of the heat of operation. Won't know until I start grinding and see a bunch of bubbles. I tried to hold the flanges flat with this fixture, but won't know if that worked until I take it loose. =

It is Wednesday, December 17th. Started out below freezing this morning and now at 1 PM it is a toasty 52 degrees. So I have spent the last hour hooking up the tachometer and clock for the Jaguar. Cannot believe it, everything works. Here is proof, the tach is working great, and I can hear the tic, tic, tic of the clock. Boy, the Jaguar engine sure does not like the cold, very hard to start. Now I only have a panel for the radio to go in and then I can install the radio. Then I am done!

Thanks Joe. We just got a station that is selling "real gas". Seems that more and more are popping up. Have no idea as to the price, but cannot be much more that the junk we are getting now. Oh, gas here is $2.23. Update: Trimacar dropped by and picked up the side curtains and the rear carpet. He is finishing up a couple of projects and will start mine in January. We did take out the four metal posts that hold up the curtains for the doors. My job is to get them re-plated and correctly fitting in the door post holes. David said that we will leave off most of the snaps until he comes back out and fits the curtains to the car. We then headed off to see Greg and take him to lunch. We found him working on a Jenny airplane aluminum engine cover. He is doing some finishing work on it to get it ready for paint. It looked really neat. They had just had some stress cracks welded up and Greg was going to finish them. I could not believe how light the panel was, and it must have been about 4 by 6 feet. It looked pretty fragile to me. Neat stuff. Then we headed off for Chinese and great conversation. A very good afternoon, well spent.

It is Tuesday, December 16th. Sitting here waiting for Trimacar (aka David Coco) to arrive and pick up the side curtains for the 1923 McLaughlin Buick. Also going to give him the carpet for the passenger floor to see if he will cut and trim it. After Dave picks everything up we are going down to visit Greg, get an update on all his projects, and then head off to lunch. We have had warmer weather, mid 50s, for the last two days so have been getting the tach and clock back into the instrument cluster and the dash. What an ugly job. Hard to work through all the wires and other gauges. But finally got the tach mounted correct with its four L shaped brackets. The cluster is now back in the dash. I have everything hooked up except the tach and clock, and one screw to attach the cluster to the dash panel. The screw is up high and you almost have to stand on your head to get to it. I need to get the Jaguar out of the trailer so I can open the door so I can get half my body under the dash to finish. Of course today it is colder and raining hard, so it is just not going to happen today. I would have pulled the Jaguar out yesterday, but it would not start. Nothing was happening, just cranking and cranking, no hint of it firing. So grabbed Alice and she worked the starter button and the control for the starter carb. She worked both and I could not hear or feel the starting carb (acts like a choke dumping more fuel in the manifold). I tapped on the solenoid and she started working. Looks like it was gummed up with sticky fuel. Alice worked the switch for the solenoid fa few times and hit the starter. She fired right up. I do have Stabil in the fuel. If the rain lets up and I have the dash finished and the tach and clock working I will begin the task of getting the new tires mounted.

Roger, great work. I just finished putting in a restored tachometer and clock in my Jaguar XK 120. It was very difficult with all the wires, gauges and limited working space. I cannot imagine how you are going to install the gauge faces in the model. Cannot wait to see how you do it.

Bernie, do you have the fenders? They look like they are a fairly complex shape, and long too. Keep the posts coming. We are all interested.

Roger, Thanks and yes, Greg always paints the underside of his bumpers, and I did also. A great reminder to all of us.

It is Thursday, December 11th AM. Still too cold to do much outside, just hovering above freezing. We had a pole barn contractor out yesterday to see if it is possible to build a barn on the property without blowing the top of the mountain we are on. Found a satisfactory spot, discussed the building and it use and we now wait for a detailed drawing and a cost estimate. But until then we can catch up on Greg's projects. Looks like he is back on the Matheson engine. "I'm long since ready for the daffodils. Cold and dreary, there's been a bunch of that. Meanwhile I've gotten some good work in on the Matheson engine. Operating the system with a sewing machine motor and voltage applied for several nights without losing spark, I've finally gotten the make and break ignition where it should be and now will resume the engine build. Get the heads back together and installed, that sort of thing. I thought I'd get the overhead cam drive installed while the heads were off, but I think the valve action is what times everything. Nothing in the owners/parts manual about it, only a couple mysterious marks on the flywheel. On a more positive note, I got a package in today's mail. Anyone in the old car hobby knows that a plater can bring a grown man to his knees in an instant. Parts lost, damaged (details buffed away, caught in the buffer and twisted like a pretzel, built up to half again its original size, threads completely filled, etc. ), and we won't even mention the cost involved. Avanti 5054 needed some chrome work. I dropped some items off at the York Studebaker swap meet last winter, think it was Feb or March. It was convenient and the items hand carried. Perhaps you might recall that when I received them, there were some that needed to be redone. Now that they've been redone, my plan to pick them up at another Studebaker swap meet fell through and my friend Bob Johnstone kindly picked them up for me. Safely in his care, I'm hoping to see him again someday and bring them home. But what to do with the bumpers? The Avanti has six pieces, the largest being the rear which measures almost as long as I am tall. I really didn't want to crate and ship it. Wanted someplace close enough that I could hand carry the stuff. An inquiry to Paul Rose and he recommended a firm used by his shop. Librandi's in Harrisburg, Pa. Now every chrome shop has horror stories, but on Paul's recommendation I tried them. You may even recall that I made a special trip home from the Hershey swap meet to deliver what parts I have to their booth at the swap meet. Anxious to please, they told me however that it would be ten or twelve weeks away. And not to come get them, they's ship and save me the fuel and sales tax. Price quoted and I left all with them. Hoping for the best, I've ripped open the package. After looking them over carefully I can only say the work is exquisite. Straight, no scratches, they had masked the threads for protection, and a problem area for most firms , the plating isn't peeling from the inside areas. Now with those items safely tucked under the bed, I need to start making some calls to find a good front bar to send them. Then, after the daffodils and apple blossoms return and the paint job is finished buffed, I can put the bumpers on the car where they belong." =

It is Sunday, December 7th, PM. Too cold and wet to do much on the old cars. But just a little bit helps. I did get the clock, tachometer and the smaller LED dash lights over the weekend. Everything looks good. Mounted the refurbished clock back into the tachometer. Took about 30 seconds, two screws and it was done. If it warms up just a little bit I will start putting the Jaguar's dash back into its housing. Here are a couple of pics. After I get the dash done will jack up the car, remove the rear wheels and take them down to the tire shop to have the new tires put on.

Jan, these are the folks I use. There are many others. Get yourself a copy of Classic Motorsports for a complete list of vendors. XKS.com XK's unlimited out of CA mossmotors.com Moss Motors and they have lots of YouTube how to videos http://www.welshent.com/ Welsh Enterprises in Ohio. Also has body panels, etc in addition to parts

Still Tuesday. Well the fourth tire arrived safe and sound. Also Greg wrote that he has been doing more research on his Stoddard-Dayton. He was able to find this picture.