unimogjohn

Still Wednesday, but early PM. After a couple of hours the little green LED turn signal indicator is all done and working correctly. Now Alice can see when her turn signals are on or off. Easy and fun little job. You can still obtain a new turn signal for the steering column, but they are about $150, so this is a good value at $6 and two hours of my time.

September 6th, Wednesday. Raining all day so am heading out to the garage to see if I can hook up a turn signal indicator light on the dash of the Morris Minor. It has a indicator light at the end of the turn signal stock, but it had somehow shorted and melted itself into the stock. I have tried to get it out to no avail. So am going to try to mount one on the dash. Alice has left the turn signals on several times as they did not automatically cancel. I bought a little LED green light to hopefully fit into the instrument cluster. Yesterday I headed over to Dan's shop (our local fabricator) to pick up Camaro Steve. He and Dan are installing a hvac unit into Barney, the 53 Ford F100 pickup. They had been working all day and had run into a major problem of the pulleys not lining up. So they were calling several vendor to see what they needed. They found the right pulleys, but it will be a couple of days before they arrive. Steve told me that they have the old heating unit removed, the electric fans wired to the back of the radiator, and the condenser mounted to the front. Today, Dan should make progress in installing the big unit under the dash. Dan also finished working on the engine of the Police paddy wagon. Two cylinders were dead, so Dan did a valve job with the engine in the truck. How? I have no idea. He said that he had old machines/equipment that were built to do that specific task.

Chris, great pics. Thanks for posting. Liked your descriptions too.

David, Rural King in Front Royal. www.ruralking.com to see what they have and what they can order.

Joe, glad you got your answer. I would have never guessed. It is Sunday, September 3rd. Just finished fitting the new "modern" seat belts in the Morris Traveller. They replaced the old black ones that were well worn. I did put in new large backing plates under the floor as a measure of safety. They work great and a much easier to use that the old ones that were not retractable. Now it is a neat installation. I also bought a new pair of fenders for the dump trailer. The old ones are really beaten up. Picked up the new ones for $60 each at the Rural King farm store. This will be a winter project. The fenders are welded onto the bed sides so will have to cut out the old ones and then weld the new ones on. I have a little arc welder and a small MIG welder, both 110 volts. I do not know if they will do the job, but will give it a go. Camaro Steve has a 220 unit so may borrow that if mine do not work out.

Bernie, re the key. Success comes in small doses. Now comes the real test, will it unlock that old lock. Hope that the innards are not pot metal and have swollen tight all these years. Enjoying having you back at work. Makes my old car day.

Joe, thanks for the information. Do you know the hours of the shop? I am going to take all my cars in immediately. I will get that glass cleaner too, all my windows have water spots and Windex will not remove them. And thanks for sending me this article. Wow, the prices are beyond my expectations for sure. I have never seen Avanti's go so high as in the Mecum auction. Lots of money out there. And didn't you have a 914 back in the day? https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/Articles/2017/08/23/big-money-surprises-at-monterey-2017?utm_source=MagnetMail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=jnkhop22@gmail.com&utm_content=17-Hagerty Weekly News 08-23&utm_campaign=The VW Bus is back%2C Monterey auction shockers and recap%2C and the surprise legacy of the Mustang II

Just wondering. Parking on the access road last year was great and convenient.

It i s Tuesday. The 1928 Buick has been moved back to its stall in the garage. I did take it out for a short run before I put it back to bed for a month. Got her covered to keep off the dust. All I will have to do is reconnect the battery and put it in the trailer. Looking forward to taking the car to Hershey. I took a couple of beauty shots on the front lawn. And I spent an hour working on the aluminum hood of the 07 BMW Z4 Coupe. It had lots of watermarks that were deep in the clearcoat. None of the same issue on the steel panels, odd. But I used some not too aggressive compound to see if I could get them out. Well, I got most of them out. Looks a lot better, but some are still there. I used Meguiar's G10307 ScratchX 2.0 - 7 oz from Amazon.

Just a couple of more things about the 28 that I found to be interesting. I bought the car in 1984 and at that time it had travelled about 300 miles since 1950 when it had 40,533 miles. Now it has 43,473, so I have driven it about 2,600 miles since I bought it. The car still has decals of tax and inspection stickers from the state of Washington. And the little VV decal applied at the factory for the windshield vent system. Pretty cool.

Still Monday. But the car is all cleaned and waxed. My arm is about to fall off. Every few years I have put on a product on the roof called "top coat" This paint waterproofs the rubber and canvas roof material. It goes on thick. Works great, but it leaves the roof bright and shiny, like a high gloss black paint. It takes about a year for it to return to a flat black patina. It is just too close to Hershey to use it as I think it makes the car over the top, kinda like putting on high gloss wet shine on your tires. Certainly not the correct look for a HPOF candidate. So the old 28 is ready to go to Hershey. I will put it back into its parking spot in the garage and put a new clear plastic dust cover over it. All I have to do is make sure the battery is charged and she is ready for the big show.

It is Monday, August 21st. Going to be another hot one today so will be turning on the AC in the garage. I did spend another two hours waxing the 1928 Buick. I now have one side done. Figure I have about three hours invested so far, one side to go. Here are pics of the completed side. The first pic is before I started, the rest are of the completed waxing. I am quite happy with the condition and finish of the paint. It should show well at Hershey from about five feet, which I think is more than satisfactory in the HPOF class.

It is Saturday and sill hot. Did not plan to work on old cars today so left the AC off. Bad mistake as I went to the garage to do some work in the heat of the day. Decided that I would do a test of Megulars cleaner wax on the 1928 Buick. It is about the softest wax you can use. So I did a couple of half panels to show you the difference what a light rubbing of wax would do to the paint. The paint is original, Harbor Blue on the body and Black on the fenders and on the body above the belt line. The car body was painted all blue and then they added the black over it. The cleaner wax worked good, it did not remove much paint. I think the last time I waxed the car was about ten years ago. You do not want to do it too often, the paint is pretty soft. The blue paint is only missing on one door panel.

My dad, an experimental flight test mechanic for The Boeing Company during WWII (He was a test engineer on B17 certification flights). He also had a part time job at a tire re-tread plant in Seattle, WA. He told me that only re-treads were available for civilian cars during the war and even those were rationed. He told me that many old cars were taken off the road as you could not get casings for them to re-tread. People even cut down tire treads and wired them to the old casings. After the war, tires were still in short supply, and they did not make them for the 20s and 30s cars. My 1928 Buick was put in the barn in 1951 because the tires were so bald you could see thru them to the tube. I wish I would have saved them when I bought new Lester tires in the mid 80s. Here are a couple of rationing links. http://www.ameshistory.org/content/world-war-ii-rationing-us-homefront https://www.ilfb.org/history/gangler/gangler.html

Oh lordie it is hot and humid, I have to run to the garage from the house. It is Thursday, August 17th. I actually turned on the AC to the garage so I could work. Well, the 1928 Buick is done for now. All the wheels are done, interior vacuumed and dusted, mechanicals are lubed, and the exterior wiped down. I will leave the waxing until a few days before Hershey. But she is all ready to go. Pics of wheel half done and then all done And I bought a new pair of seat belts for the 1966 Morris Traveller. It has some now, but they are old and not retractable. Got these from England. Suppose to be an exact replacement.

Here are the specs and tire sizes available from Tire Rack. https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Endurance

Thanks for letting us know. Keep us informed.

It is Wednesday, August 16th. Another hot and humid day. Not much fun to be outside. But I did move the 1928 Buick into the main garage bay to give me lots of room to work on it. First up will be the wheels. The last time I put tung oil on the wood spokes was in 2000. So they are due. It is easy to apply, I just use a small brush to put it on. It will have one coat today and another tomorrow. Then I will touch up the metal parts with Rustoleum gloss black. So in a couple of days all four wheels will be done. I will clean the white wall tires up a bit, but not too much. I do not want them to over power the rest of the car. I did wipe the tire down with "Fantastic" cleaner, and it did remove the road grime. Pictures, before tung oil, and the other after. For me there is a fine line between restoration and preservation quality. I attempt to keep the car as "joe car owner" would have kept his car after a few good years of use and ownership. In good order, but not just a Sunday driver. Hence, the 28 still has a few dents and bruises, and a little surface rust here and there. Perfect it is not, presentable, yes.

Larry, I have been following along with your issues. Pulled the 28 out of garage this afternoon for a bath and general cleaning. Looking good. It started right up. If it stops raining and the roads dry up I will take it out for a run. I have to polish the original paint as it always has a sheen of oxidization, and put more tung oil on the wheel spokes. But not much else to do to get it ready for the October show. The last time it was shown was the 2000 Buick Nationals in Richmond, VA. See pic. I am negotiating on a 2003 BMW Z4 roadster. It is suppose to be very nice inside and out, but has a blown engine. I can replace that easily. We just have to agree on a price. I hope to get it for about $2,000. It will be a flip car. A replacement engine, used, is about $1,500 to my door.

It is Tuesday, August 8th. Hershey! Well, I will be going again this year and will show a car on Saturday. I have decided not to take the 1923 McLaughlin Buick as it has been there three times, or the 1953 Jaguar XK 120 as it has been there one time. So that leaves the 1928 Buick Model 29 Town Brougham. I am entered it in the preservation classification. So look for me way in the back of the show field. I will be posting on getting it ready in September.

It is Monday, PM on August 7th. Heavy rains today, about one inch. The plants loved it. It has been over a week without any rain. Success, I worked on the Jaguar's driving light and got it installed and re-connected. Works great. So the car is now back to the same condition it was before the deer incident. I did notice that the driving lights are starting to loose chrome on the bottom of the bucket where the mount is connect. You can only see it if you stand on your head. I guess I better start looking for replacements.

Chris, I have my Optima battery in the trunk also. If you decided to keep the battery up front you might consider putting some reinforcing under the shelf. The shelf is prone to cracking and splitting due to the focused weight. Mine was cracked and repaired several times by the previous owner.

Bill, I sure hate to hurt the critters. But we have so many deer in the woods it is almost unavoidable these day. It use to be you only saw them in the evening or early morning. Now it is all the time. I took a few hours this morning to take a look at the car and bumper assembly. The car body is fine. Not a mark. The bumper assembly was not only pushed back, but twisted. So I pulled it and rebent it by putting it in my big vice. After I got it on the car it was still a bit short, 1/4 inch, of the other side, so attached a strap to the tractor and slowly lowered the buck and gave it a gentle tug. Everything worked great. The bar, while thick, is very soft and give up easily. Now I have the bumper back on the car and everything looks good. I will put on the driving light assembly tomorrow, just too hot now. In the pics it looks like it is bent, but that is due to the main bracket being bent over onto its side. I did find out that the bumper mounting bars are available as new. They are about $60 each from several Jaguar vendors.

Oh deer me! Coming home from the car show a small deer leaped in front of the Jaguar, and we collided. We were both stunned. I was only doing about 15 mph waiting for Alice in Dexter to catch up with me. I knew that I had hit it, but could not see it. Alice said that it rolled across the pavement, but got right up and ran off into the woods. I stopped, fearing the worst. No body panels were dented and only the driving light was pushed aside and the bumper strap/support was pushed back. So the only damage is that the bumper is pushed in about an inch. I think that I can pull out the strap/support with a towing strap attached to the old barn telephone pole support. It could have been a lot worse. Oh, and the light is OK.

Saturday, August 5th. We headed out this morning for the local car show about 20 miles away from the farm. We took Dexter, the 1966 Morris Minor Traveller and the 1953 Jaguar XK120. A great time was had by all. About 120 cars attended. I estimate that about 90% were modified muscle cars. There were a few original cars. We were parked way in the back, kinda like stepchildren. But we had lots of people come by and chat about the cars. Dexter was a big hit. Here are some pics. And the Jaguar did a top 20 cars award. That was good.