I'm about 30 miles south of there if you need help while you are in the area. I am sure others might be along the route. Maybe they will chime in as well. Will you be at the pre race at the brewery?
I hope to get there a little early, so I can make it to the meet up. Although the way things work on these rallies, the get-togethers are kind of hit or miss, depending on who is where, when.
I'm running out of things to fix, so it's time to get the "theme" together. The Black & Blue Cab is just about ready. yes, the roof light works. I'm always "off duty" when the key is on.
The off duty light does look cool, no doubt about that! One of the very cool perks about the checker, is its more than ample trunk, that has enough room to carry your vintage tool box and other assorted parts and spare nuts, bolts, etc. The only thing I would do at this point, is use some "FLITZ" on each wheel cover to give them the best shine and polish, because it really does make them stand out against the black wall tires! And maybe some yellow/amber, "1157" bulbs in the "off duty TAXI" light so that would really look cool as well!
The light bulb in the roof light has a single filament, and it's built to kind of look right, but not quite. Note that there's only one bulb, so whenever the TAXI part is lit, which would indicate I'll take a fare, the OFF DUTY part is also lit, which would indicate that I won't take a fare. So you'll never get a ride in it! That's on purpose. The illumination is rather uneven, very bright in the middle, not so much nearer the ends. I spent hours researching lights, and found that everywhere except NYC used the plastic bubble light. But NYC had their own weird rules, and used lights that you can copy with whatever old junk you have laying around, so that's what I did. Also this style with TAXI on the front was used into the 70s, then later they just had the medallion number in the middle, front and back. And lots of cabs had yellow lights on the sides of the box, to make it clear that they were able to be flagged. I decided to keep it simple.
I'd been thinking about that, and today I got out the tackle box that I had in Plan II. I took out all the remaining big block racey stuff, and put in boring parts for a boring car. Hopefully I won't need any of them. Also there's a bunch of normal road trip stuff in the plastic bin. I should probably bring a floor jack, and stands, since the bumper jack is missing the main part. Oh...and looks like my kiddo is going with me to PA. Should be fun.
Yes on the floor jack, and three extra pieces of that same length of 4X4, better to have the extra wood than not have it and need it! Measure the footprint of your floor jack and cut an inch thick piece of good stout plywood, that helps to keep the jack from sinking into what ever soft soil that you may encounter on this epic journey!
Bravo Amigo! This isn't your first rodeo! Make us all proud of your performance, it's cool that your kid is going on this trip!
I carry an 18" x 24" piece of old greasy but thick plywood in the trunk of my Ford along with a garage sale Pittsburgh floor jack. I made a wooden box to hold it. The '66 Belair, I have a Harbor Fright lighter floor jack, on sale for $99. The one in my Ford I have not used, but other people at cruise nights have.
hey @squirrel that interior looks good! The view from the trunk showing the rear seat construction explains why they held up so well and were comfortable. They don't build them like they used to!
These things were built like nobody else built them! Pretty stout, but also pretty simple, and they didn't change things very often over the production run, starting in 56 ending in 82.
It was a genius invention of a vehicle with long service in mind. Parts were sourced that someone else did the design work on. There was no need to change the outward appearance of the car. Pure utility was the name of the game.
Yeah, they had a steady, if small, customer base that they could rely on selling a few thousand cars a year, no matter what they looked like. But progress finally caught up with them.
Even the checker station wagons, were very cool and in their own way, and a bit stylish, as far as the element of how big and boxy goes. The 4 door sedan and the station wagons had great, all around visibility. Sadly their time had passed and the parking spaces in parking lots and multilevel parking garages, in today's world, they would have a hard time fitting the parking spaces. I was always amazed how tight and accommodating the turning radius is on the checker, that was a real perk when driving the one I had.
I think parallel parking is out of the question. Related article Here: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...03f63a305378#vhid=JVYjRV0IIdt7wM&vssid=mosaic
The 8 door Checker ( AEROBUS ) never truly had to be put to the task of parallel parking for a very simple reason. The original concept and design was meant for hotels that had the covered driveways out front of the hotel. The AEROBUS in use, was always going forward and rarely needed to be going in reverse. So it would make a run to the airport to pick up or drop off passengers, and then return to the covered driveway back at the hotel that it belonged to! This particular 8 door Checker Aerobus, is well known around town here in Seattle, that is my friend Marco in the drivers seat smiling!
The Crown Vic needed to die with all the frame rust problems they had. It was long in the tooth anyway.
My wife had a Mercury Marquis... man that was scary when we saw the frame rot, right behind the driver side front.
we had a 93 crown vic, no rust problems at all! but the transmission got sluggish, and the seat foam was tired. Also puffed blue smoke pretty regularly. Nice car, otherwise.
My wife's car was a 1997 with the 4.6 in it. A true rocket of a car. It got passed down to my son who beat the snot out of it. It was not that fast any longer.
The Jalopy Journal
