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Avanti R2, 1963, refresh


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Chris, Greg and his son have rebuilt the engine (R3 clone) of the black Avanti after the first one built wiped a cam on start-up.  Greg has just replaced the power steering hoses while the engine is out.  He expects that he will have the engine back in the car soon.  But it still needs lots of clean-up and detail work.  

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Monday,  April 4th.  Spent most of the day cleaning the Avanti and the 1923 McLaughlin Buick.  There is a local little cars and coffee show at our local market on Sunday.  Since it is only a few miles a way I want to see if I can drive the 23 to it.  Alice will take the Avanti.  Of course I positioned the 23 behind a wall so had to move the 28 Buick up and then put a jack under the rear end of the 23 and pull it over with the tractor.  It is now in a position where I can start the engine and maneuver it out of the garage.  

 

I last ran the 23 in October of last year so will have to spend some time getting it ready to start and run.  Plan on doing that tomorrow.

 

Here are a couple pics showing the move of the 23 to the garage door.  Sure wish I would have build a bigger garage now.  P1060598.JPG

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Edited by unimogjohn (see edit history)
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It is Thursday, April 7th.  The Kiawah Island Concours  http://islandconnectionnews.com/kiawah-island-motoring-retreat-returns-island/  is next weekend.  The Jag is all ready to go so I decided to pull the white enclosed trailer out of the pasture and onto the farm driveway.  Of course I had to back it out through a gate.  I took my time and maneuvered around a couple of trees, and got it out without running into anything.  With raining coming today I decided I better put the Jag in the trailer.  She is in and all strapped in, ready for the 440 mile trip.  We will be leaving bright and early on Wednesday, and plan on make the trip in one day of driving.  

 

Thursday will be a sightseeing day or us, Friday is a tours and lunch with the other show cars, Saturday is the regional car show on the show field, and Sunday is our day on the greens, and then the drive home on Monday.  Should be a very good trip.  We are excited to be going.

 

In the meantime we have a cars and coffee to attend at our local gathering spot in Orlean, VA. on Sunday  Going to be cold, but not raining.  Hope to get a few local cars to attend.  Our Avanti is going, and plan on taking the 23 McLaughlin Buick if I can get her cleaned and started over the next couple of days.  

 

So that is what I am doing, and here is what Greg has accomplished.

 

" Well,  time to come out from under my new lift to make a progress report.  Now that I have the ability to stand beneath a car and take care of issues that have accumulated, the maroon Avanti is first up.

     

The usual exhaust pipe rattle was located and adjustments made.   Easy fix with stainless steel under there.

 

Another very annoying and hard to locate rattle was coming from what sounded like a rear shock absorber.  The Konis have been under there since Steve put them there over forty years ago.    My previous attempts to remove them had failed,  even when I didn't know that I minded lying under a car on stands.  

 

Now that I can really get at them,  they still resisted extraction.   A week of soaking with penetrant proved wasted time.   All manner of persuasion to free the upper bolts had failed.  The top mounting is secured by a 7/16 bolt that passes through a frame channel and a steel bushing that's in a rubber grommet in the shock eye.     And all this is in a hump over the rear axle.Big wrenches, small wrenches,   more penetrant,  impact gun,  breaker bars,  small vise grips,  anything to try to turn the bolts that were siezed in the bushings.    Heat from a torch's flame would likely have loosened the bushing's grip,  but fire in a fiberglass tunnel that was the only separation from a tank full of gasoline didn't seem like the right thing to do.

 

After a week of this,  I decided the shocks were coming out!   Bundling things up,   I then used a right angle die grinder with a cutoff wheel.   Even after removing the exhaust tail pipes,  there wasn't room for this,  but with patience and vocal persuasion I was able to gnaw through the steel bushing and bolt.   I was forced to sever the bushing on each side of the shock eye.   Then after the shock was dropped out I tried to knock the bolt from the 1/4"  of bushing that remained.    Impossible .   I then resolved to gnaw through again beside the frame channel.  Only then could I free the bolt.       

 

Ditto for the other shock.

 

 Of course I had to replace the butchered bushings ,  only done with steel bar and lathe work.

 

That was last night.  Today I found time to clean the shock bodies,  press the bushings back into their grommets,   repaint the shock bodies,   hit the NAPA store for more  rubber bumpers,   clean and prep the mounting hardware and hit the hardware store for new 7/16 through bolts.   

   

Tomorrow I should be able to reinstall the shocks and get old Seabiscuit down out of the air. And oh yeah,  remind me to really, really slobber those bolts with nickel anti-sieze compound.   And then a little more."

 

 

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Edited by unimogjohn (see edit history)
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It is Friday, April 8th.  Heading out to fuel the Suburban for the trip to the concours, and will then hook it up to the trailer.  Plan to have it all packed today and ready for the trip on Wednesday.

 

Camaro Steve is coming over tomorrow, and we will begin to replace some of the wiring on the 1953 Ford F100.

 

And if you have the time here is a great little video based on photo based animation.  It is called "The Old New World".  Neat suff.  

 

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It is Saturday, April 9th.  Going down to 23 degrees tonight, about 25 degrees below normal.  Brrrrrrrrr.  Tomorrow we have a little cars and coffee at our local market, we are still going, but I think the turnout will be very light.

 

Camaro Steve brought Barney (the 1953 Ford F100) over today.  He has no rear lights, turn signals, etc.  So we tore into it and fixed it all.  There was lots of extra wiring that we cut out.  Some wires were pretty crusty and we replaced them.  And we got rid of the "house" connectors and put everything together.  Still only had about half working.  Turned out that the lights had been full of water and the light sockets were all rusty.  With those fixed, Barney had all its lights working.

 

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Sunday, April 10th.  Cold this morning, only 26 degrees, but the sun was up and shining brightly.  By 10 AM it was 40 degrees.  Not too bad.  So the Avanti headed to the little local cars and coffee event.  Folks started showing up two or three at a time.  I guess we had about twenty or so cars come.  I was happy considering the cold.  It scared a lot of cars away.  But the coffee and home made donuts were great.  And we had a great time talking to all the folks attending.  And Camaro Steve was very happy as lots of folks were looking at "Barney", his 53 Ford F100.  He was really surprised that folks were interested in it.

 

Here are the pics I took.

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Tuesday, April 12th.  All loaded and ready to go tomorrow.  Off to Kiawah Island, SC with the Jag.

 

Joe Hopkins (packick) sent me this link for a early Stoddard Dayaton at an upcoming Mecum auction.  Asked Greg about it, and he know of the car and its owner.  He said that he did the engine.  Small world.  https://www.mecum.com/lot-detail/SC0516-243338/0/1907-Stoddard-Dayton-Model-K-Runabout/3-Speed/

 

I also asked Greg if he was enjoying his new four post lift.  Here is what he said.  

 

"Enjoying the lift?  How about spending a couple days beneath the maroon Avanti with solvent and a brush,  cleaning accumulated gunk and looking for noises, etc.  Now that I can see where the leaks are,  I realize I need to swap out the power steering pump,  maybe a couple hoses.  Lots I can do now that I can see from another angle.  Getting that lift made a lot of work for myself."

Edited by unimogjohn (see edit history)
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Thursday, April 14th.  Made it to Charleston, SC; 440 miles and 11 hours of drive time.  Boy, those big tractor/trailer rigs really pull at the trailer.  May have to reconsider putting on the equalizer hitch setup.  No real trailer parking at the hotel, they are not happy that I am taking up so many spaces, but called the event organizer over the parking issue.  Bruce said to bring it out to Kiawah today and they would make room for it.  Yahoo!  

 

Got 10.6 mpg with an average speed of about 63 mpg.  Engine threw a MAF out of range code at the very end of the trip.  Sometimes does that with a heavy load and running hard.  I think that having a K&N system on it has something to do with it.  Cleared the code and all is good.

 

Tomorrow mid-morning is the 50 mile tour with some of the event cars.  Should be lots of fun.  Chance of rain, but who cares.

 

We are in the foreign, closed car class.  I am sure we will look like the little kid playing with the really big boys.

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It is Friday, April 15th.  Heading out soon to unload the Jaguar and head out on the 50 mile tour.  So we will have a good report and pictures tonight.

 

Yesterday we took the trailer to the event field so we could park the trailer early.  We were the first one there and picked out a good spot.  A few minutes later another trailer pulled in and noticed that they were also from Virginia.  Went over and met them and learned that they live only about twenty miles from us.  A small world.  He opened his trailer and I spied a 1928 Auburn Boattail Speedster, red and black.  Anyway, we had a nice conversation and discussed our collections.  He is a serious, high end collector, but does all the work himself to include hauling.  

 

I looked up the couple we met at the trailer lot yesterday.  His car won best in class at Amelia Island a couple of weeks ago.  

 

 

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Friday, PM, April 15th.  Had a great time on the tour, but it was very cold (thank goodness for the heater in the Jag) and it rained the entire time.  So everyone was cold and wet, but a good time was had by all.  Ended the tour at a distillery.  Everyone got to taste various flavors of moonshine.  We even bought a couple of mason jars of the stuff.  Bet it would run good in the car also.  

 

About two dozen or so of vintage and modern cars took the tour.  Numbers were way down due to the weather.  No one want to have to detail their car I guess except us.  We will do that tomorrow during the local car show on the event field.  I mixed race and premium gas, as a result the Jag was rather peppy to say the least.

 

Here are some of the cars that went on the tour.  And it looks like the local Porsche dealer is going to have a bunch of P cars on the field also.  They looked mighty fine in the trailer parking area.

 

Paul Rose of Vintage Motor Cars showed up too.  Boy was I surprised.  He brought his 1923 un-restored Buick roadster to show both Saturday and Sunday.  Good seeing a familiar face.

 

And a course I was following a truck and it threw a rock.  Looks like I will need a new windshield when we get home.

 

 

 

 

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Saturday, April 16th, PM.  Just got back to the hotel.  A long day.  Two hours to clean up the Jag from yesterday's tour.  Already to go tomorrow.  We plan on putting it on the show field about 8 AM, that means a get up time of around 5 AM.  

 

Today's local car show was well attended.  Lots of really nice cars.  Keith Martin of What's Your Car Worth fame is the MC.  He does a great job.  Goes out into the crowd and reviews cars and stories to keep everyone entertained and interested.

 

Here are the pics I took.

 

 

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Guest Corvanti

more excellent show pics!B)

 

i also liked that 1 pic of the boot/belt/food provider. had some fried 'gator tail at a street fair - tasted like a cross between frog legs and chicken.:)

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Wow, lots of nice cars, and looks like it was perfect weather John. BTW, isn't that a Morris Woodie station wagon Alice is standing next to? I believe you said some time ago that she wanted one of those for your next old car acquisition. Will you be bringing that one back with you? ;)

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It is Sunday evening, April 17th.  The 2016 Kiawah Island, SC, Concours is over.  Weather was windy, but sunny, and a high of about 72 degrees.  A perfect day for a car show.  We got onto the show field about 8 AM and quickly got in our place.  Perfect, right next to the main stage.  We had a great time meeting and greeting everyone.  The show was well attended.  After judging, Alice directed everyone to sit in the car.  Great fun.

 

Lots and lots of beautiful restored cars.  Many I have never heard of, and many know but unseen ever by me.  I took 180 pics and will post them over the next few days or will put them someplace where you can see them.  

 

Of note Paul Rose received the "Cars that Matter" award for his unrestored 1923 Buick.  The winner, best of the show, was a black Auburn supercharged speedster.  

 

We had a great time, meet lots of people and folks loved the little pastel green Jaguar.   The concours was well run and the organizers spared no expense in putting on a great show.  There was a good mix of the old to the new selected to attend.  There was also a great crowd too.  I am sure the hosts were happy with the attendance.  Here are just a few pics.

 

Getting up early, like 4 AM, to head for home.  We have a drive time of about 12 hours tomorrow.  

 

 

 

 

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It is Monday, PM, April 18th.  We made it home.  Left at 4:30 AM and arrived home at 3:30 PM, about 450 miles.

 

I created an album of the Sunday Concours.  We will see if this works.   https://goo.gl/photos/PJE4tNSbrHk9vnNq9

 

And if you expect to win your class or best of show then you have a trailer queen.  No driver was even noticed, except for Paul Rose and his 23 Buick. With that said, we did not go there expecting to win anything, but for the experience.  And we met lots of nice people.  Would we do it again?  Yes with no hesitation.

Edited by unimogjohn (see edit history)
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Its Tuesday, PM.  Got everything put away and the trailer is back in its spot in the pasture.  In addition to the MAF engine issue with the Suburban, I also noticed that one fog light was without it lens cover.  So decided to order a complete front light kit, which consists of the headlights, turn signals and fog lights.  It will be like a new truck.  The headlights are cloudy and scratched so this seems like a better idea than polishing.  Only $108 for everything.  I also ordered a new MAFsensor for $87.

 

And finally, here is a nice write up by Keith Martin, the MC of the concours.  http://www.sportscarmarket.com/blogs/keith-martin/a-tail-of-two-auburns

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Here are more pics of the Kiawah Island Concours, published by the organization.  

 

 

A bunch of us headed to the Carisle, PA, Spring Show today.  Lots of people, good prices on parts, cars not so much, all way overpriced.  Picked up a few things, but nothing major.  Good to see so many folks out buying stuff.  

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It's Saturday, April 23rd, PM.  Tomorrow morning we head off to a all British car show.  It will be about a 140 mile round trip.  We will be heading out about 8:30 and hope to arrive about 10.

 

I installed the new headlight and parking/running light assemblies today.  They look really good and a huge improvement over the old ones.  Fit and finish were excellent.  For a bit over $100 I am very happy.  I have to wait until dark to make an initial adjustment.  Here are a couple of pics of the old and new together so you can see the difference.  I will keep the old ones in case anyone needs them in the neighborhood.  There are a lot of Chev trucks in the hood.

 

I will put on the new fog lights on Monday, just ran out of steam this PM.  I have to put it up on the lift to get to the underside mounting screws, which are under the bumper.

 

Alice's bird feeders took a hit from Mr Bear last night.  Looks like I am going to make some repairs.

 

 

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Edited by unimogjohn (see edit history)
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Sunday, April 24th, PM.  Just arrived home from the 2016 Britain on the Green show.  Over 220 cars attended, which was a record.  The weather was beauriful; 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Lots of nice cars also.  And quite a few Jaguars showed up.  We were in the XK Sport Class, which was comprised on the old 120s, etc and the new XK8s.  What a mix.  Alice had a great time meeting folks and making them sit in the car.  I am sure we got lots of vote because of her great work with the crowd.  In the end we were awarded a first place in class.  The silver XK120 FHC was awarded best of the show.  It was fresh out of the restoration shop.  Looked great, but it had lots of new type items on it.  I would consider it more of a modified car.  We a great time.

 

Here are the pics we took.

 

 

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It is Monday, May 2nd.  We just got back from a short trip so nothing has happened in the old car world at our house.  But last night we attended a reception for the guys heading out to participate in the Peking to Paris rally.  I was surprised to see the Lancia there.  They were to have it on a ship to China a week ago.  Well, the car was not done so now it goes by air in a couple of weeks.  From the look of the car they have more work to do on it, but Stephen, one of the owners, said that they are driving the car to California in three days.  I think they may need more time.  Here is a link to their YouTube channel.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZo_YUrG4L_K-0ylVM49-iw  They have a few short videos of the car.  They have hired a film producer to do a documentary of their journey also.  Their web site, if you want to follow along, is http://p2pmanyroads.com/

 

I have to give the Suburban a once over and install the fog lights today.  We are heading on another little adventure.  We are heading to Florida to pick up a 2014 Jaguar and bring it back up the coast.  Sadly it is not mine to keep.  Going to be like 2,000 miles in a four day trip.  I am beginning to feel like a long haul trucker.

 

On the last trip the trailer was really buffeted by the big trucks.  Just so happens that I have an equalizer hitch that I picked up many years ago and never used.  This trip I am going to use it.  I sure hope it helps the towing of the big and long trailer.  

 

Edited by unimogjohn
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Still Monday, PM.  Spent a couple of hours this morning putting in the new fog light on the Suburban.  A real tight squeeze getting to the two bolts that hold each in.  The bolts are in a blind spot and you can only "feel" them up on top of the bumper rail.  Barely enough room to squeeze my hand and arm in to get to them.  But they are done and look good.  All the front lights are now "new".

 

I had to make an improvement to the garage.  I am sure the first of many.  I kept popping a 20 amp circuit breaker for the 4 post lift.  Not every time, but enough to tell me that I needed a slightly larger breaker in the panel.  So I went up to 30 amp.  We will see if that fixes the problem.

 

Jon and his 1937 Hudson Terraplane are coming over tomorrow to get on the 2 post lift.  He is having a terrible time steering the car.  It is really pulling to the right and making an awful banging noise.  So we are going to have a look see. 

 

 

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Edited by unimogjohn
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