Its the fuse for the 12 volt power coming into the ignition switch. thanks for having us, you've got a really awesome little place there.
Good seeing you in Indy. I did 1100 miles, an alternator, a battery, a matching pair of shoes and a ground wire. And 12 quarts of oil. Got home at 4 am Sunday. And lost a 57 Caddy hubcap. Got a wedding to go to, so I`ll miss Stanberry.
Just a little oil leak is all. I couldn`t miss the show and let a little leak stop me. Joey has given me motivation to keep going no matter what the obstacles are.
Can confirm the old 6 in my '55 leaked like a sieve and the undercarriage from about bellhousing back looked fantastic lolol Just now getting back to reality and full up on sleep but that trip was a blast thanks again for copiloting Joey. Let's do it again sometime.
Well, I figured it out, the wire to the bright side of the bulb on the driver side taillight had come loose from the crimp of the socket, and rested on the edge of the housing. Easy fix, it just took me some time to get it done. last night dad came up and hung out for awhile, so I pulled the taillights apart, fixed the wires, better wrapped the ends, and buttoned it all back up. we also took the distributor apart, tested the vacuum advance (seemed good), and greased the mechanical spring plates on the distributor, all which helped it feel a little more peppy on the ride to work this morning. It feels good to be back in the saddle. I think I will fiddle with a few more things, like cleaning the fuel system and carb, and doing a once over of the valves, and cleaning some spark plugs, for the trip next week to Back To The Fifties! this weekend is the local show in Stanberry. I've done the artwork for the last few years.
Might spray the inside of the dist cap with WD next time you have it off since you’re likely to get wet again. Glad you found your gremlin
Ok, big weekend. first things first, here's a sneak peak of my open house flyer/cards. will you get one this summer? maybe? don't worry, I'll probably forget them most of the time. I drove this thing to work and to the store all week last week. Saturday night after I came home, I parked across the street, and took some pretty photos. And a couple shots of my dirty interior... And of course, I took some from a ladder with my big camera, but you'll have to wait for those. While taking some detail shots I noticed my grill shell was a little loose. No Bueno. So, It being the night before a show, I did a little patch job. it ain't pretty, but it should hold for the summer, till I take the radiator shroud off. and its mostly hidden by the light anyway.
Sunday morning I got up, made coffee and was out the door by 6. I put on my goggles, earmuffs and hat, and took off. It rained pretty good for the first 15 miles. I didn't get too wet, except for the water that went under the windshield, and splashed right into my face. Once I got there, I went and took a picture by this old (1917 I think) model T that has a homemade body on an early model T cowl and door. it was neat, with the body made out of old galvanized tin and pop riveted together. obviously an early job, probably done in the great depression era. It was brought to the show by the granddaughter of the original owner. A minute later my dad showed up, and we went to have breakfast. Once we ate and I talked to the guys at registration, We felt a couple raindrops, so I went and tarped my car, and before long it started pouring. I took a couple trips out in the rain to dump a collection of water out of my tarp, and after a few hours, it stopped raining. As usual for us in June, after it was done raining, it got HOT. And thankfully, people showed up. we had a great show, and rain didn't seem to affect attendance nearly at all. After the show, I drove up by the registration tent, and got a picture next to another T, this one a '22 touring cut down into a roadster. . . sound familiar? He said he had a hard time explaining to his kid that they were the same car. His, like the other car there, was originally his grandpa's and he had just recently got it running and driving. Oh, this being the first show I really entered in, (other than LSRU) I was interested to see if I'd win anything. Apparently people have been watching, cause not only did I win first place, but I won the best award, In my opinion, the "Best Daily Driven" award. On the way home I had some fun with a buddy on a motorcycle who was following me, and let me tell you, 100mph air in a roadster hurts. at least theoretically it would, I think, If someone were to do it on a closed course. All in all, a good day, and I have a short list to work on before I leave for Minnesota on thursday.
On monday afternoon I tore into the T, I put some washers under the shocks on the back, hopefully enough to get it to stop grazing the axle tube every time I hit a major bump. I also flipped the top bolt in the hairpin over as it was scraping the dust shield on a big hit. I also finally got under the car and replaced the rear seal on the trans. its been leaking for awhile now and I've been keeping the trans full and ignoring the leak. . . No more! Its fixed now. (and yes, I removed the t-shirt-trans-tunnel-sealer-4000) Finally I opened up the rearend, and started messing with the rear cover, cause it had a pinhole that leaked whenever the gear oil got hot. (there's a little dark spot where my car parks at work.) I also took my new-to-me tires to get the mounted. Tuesday I went and picked them up. These are old 15x5.5 Chrome reverses, that my bubby @CoolForSchool58 picked up for me. they are oldies with slanted barrels and chevy bolt pattern. and boy, do I like em. Once I get chrome reverses for the front I'll be cooking with gas. Speaking of getting, I received a package today, from my long time friend @Dennis Lacy This should spice up the little small block just fine. I took it out for a drive last night and found that my vibration at 70 was the rear tire! So now I'm pretty much ready to go to Minnesota, I've gotta do a fluid check, and get packed up. tomorrow morning I depart.
Ok, now that I've partially recovered some sleep, it's storytime! So wednesday night I went out for a drive, and came home and topped off all the fluids, then packed my bags. I got up the next morning and got out the door by 6, cause I had places to go. I had to take the ritual roadtrip photo at atlantic. Then I made my way to baxter cycle in marne, IA I've been stopping here since my first trip to Minnesota, ten years ago. they always have something cool to look at. this year it was this sweet 1952 vincent drag bike. I also got to catch up with my freind AJ, that I gave a ride in my bug when I first came through years ago. he had just bought this sweet van and started doing work to it, including the sweet white powder coated ansens. but soon enough it was time to go, I had a lunch date in spencer, and I had to make time. What Would Stroker McGurk Do? stop and see a windmill of course! (I didn't have extra time today, and I've already walked through the museum before, so it was just a photo opp this time...) passed by the lighthouse in storm lake (terrible name for a lake, just asking for trouble) And next thing i knew, I was at Dennis' shop. He was excited to see the car, and had to take a couple pictures of me with it. once the formality's were done, we went out to lunch and then came back to wait out the hot part of the day in the shop. I was interested in seeing the latest progress on Dennis' long term project RPU But we mostly sat around and caught up. Unfortunately the time came to move on, and I headed north again. After a few long miles, I showed up at my aunt and uncles house. and I even got to park inside! It was a long day, but the fun was just getting started.
I woke up early Friday morning and got repacked, filled the oil, gas and me, and continued onward to registration. I surprised quite a few people on their friday morning commute by screaming up the left lane in an open headered hot rod. It sure was out of place when I rolled into registration. Once I had been relieved of some cash, I moved on to the fairgrounds. as soon as I entered, I saw mike from swillco, and asked him where they were set up. After some confusion, turning down a one way street the wrong way, and crossing the center island over a crosswalk, I made it. After I talked for awhile with Scott (swillco) , John ( @Mpls 40 ), and a few others, then I went inside the grandstand building to say Hi to Marcy and Heather at the Hop Up booth. When I walked in, the booth was Packed with people, and stuff wasn't even fully set up yet. I asked if i could help, and got recruited as the newest booth attendant. Its weird standing on this side of the table. I quickly got into the groove, helping set up and eventually helping customers. After they closed the building at 6, we went out and walked around, had some cheese curds and checked out some vendors. A cool can from one of them: And in a strange turn of events, I didn't take a single picture of a car at the show that night. I went to dinner with @titus and Family, Marcy and Heather, and after we ate, we went to Jeff's place to see the sights. Good sights. really good sights. Jeff took us on the ten cent tour, then helped me blast a few spark plugs for the ride home. Twas a good day, I tarped up the car, and hit the sack.
Another Early morning after a late night, I woke up and stumbled around the yard, checking out all the stuff tucked in all the nooks of titus' place. I was happy to see his little channeled 40 in the daylight. (its one of my favorites) even though I had the flashlight tour the night before, It was so much cooler in the daylight. And my little turd. It was neat to see my car in a backdrop that I was familiar with from the internet. After stopping for coffee, I parked in behind swillco's trailer, and headed for the building. (photo by @32fenderless ) Before I got to the building I spotted this neat little car, which turned out to be a neat old 'sports rod' from the 50's After working the booth for the morning, I went out to find @titus car, and retrieve the wheels that heather brought me from @Collin Benoit in chicago, and Jeff had graciously dismounted the tires from to make my travel easier. after a nice stranger offered to help lug the wheels back to my car, I went back to work the booth, then heading to dinner again, mexican this time, and then heading to my place to crash for the night, otherwise know as John stitcha's house. after hanging out and talking till a late hour, I hit the couch to the sound of rain, luckily for me, john had offered a spot in his garage full of much nicer hot rods, so I slept great.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! I woke up early again, and caught this photo as I was backing my car out of John's garage. @flathead 37 caught this photo of me, tarped up, in the rain at the swap meet. Meanwhile I was buying things that were small enough to try and fit into my car, which sadly didn't include this cool poster. or this sweet little A pickup (for only $5500) On the way to the building to pack up the other things I had bought, I had to stop and check out this little number. such a neat RPU with a bunch of period touches, like the neat Casler slicks on the back! But as usual, all good things come to an end, and it was time to hit the road for home. I bombed all the way through Minneapolis in the left lane, in fifth gear having a blast, right until I got out of the city. It was jumping up and down on temp, so stopped and checked the plugs to see if they were fouled, and though a few of them were, they weren't as bad as I thought they might be. so I pressed on, but by the time I got to the New Prague exit, it was clear something wasn't right. I knew I had to grab some oil for the road, so I stopped and let it cool down, checked the water in the rad, double checked the timing, and then tried to leave, only to be greeted with a "CLICK" Luckily the uncle I stayed with on Friday, lives in New Prague, just a few miles from the gas station I was at. so he came and jumped me, and seeing it charging, I continued down the road... To the next exit. So my uncle got the call once again and he again saved my bacon. I determined since all the connections were good it must be a bad alternator. so we rigged a small battery to a set of jumper cables hooked to the battery cable on the starter, to get it started and drive the 2 miles to the oreily's in Faribault. It's not dumb if it works. we found a alternator that would work in stock, and replaced it in the parking lot. and I was back on the road. Or so I thought. I made it a few exits south, to Owatonna, and it was overheating, bad. Now, you have to remember that I have only slept a collective like, 13 hours in the last 3 days. I pulled off, and rolled into a fleetfarm, and found that my belt was flopping around on the pulleys. so luckily I had a spare, and was actually able to squeeze it on there. and wouldn't ya know it, 13.5 volts and a cool 185 all the way home. But don't think that the rest of the way was without incident. after I left Owatonna, My speedometer never connected again. I called Speedhut today, and they are shipping me a new antenna, hopefully it fixes it. Unfortunately with all the time I had wasted, I wound up having to drive the two lanes in Iowa, at night, in deer country. It wasn't soothing. I saw 7 deer, and almost hit two, one only missing by mere inches. But I kept the hammer down, cause I wanted to get home. 20 miles from home, I saw blue and red lights in the distance, then the semi's that were stopped, then when I pulled up, a nice firefighter alerted me that there had been an accident, and there was a helicopter on the roadway. So I sat there for about twenty minutes or so, trying not to fall asleep, until they let us through. finally, at about 11:30, I parked, in my home garage, and started for bed. It was a long 4 days, but oh so good, filled with friends and laughter. I'm still tired two days after. So who's gonna be in Des Moines this weekend?
The Jalopy Journal
