Heading for the Lonestar Round Up today...wearing my HAMB shirt as per the avitar. Will photo and post interesting '52 - '56 Fords when I get back!
Cool. I was hoping to go but I am working a couple hours west of San Antonio. Just too far for the day.
Would be glad to have had you ride shotgun, Geno, but you might not have enjoyed the wait for the tow truck on the way home...
isnt everything, both good and bad, part of the experience of getting our old cars out and enjoying them? at least thats what i keep hearing. sorry to hear that part of your trip involved a different form of motorvation to make it home tho.
Best as I can figure out, the 1-2 ac***ulator spring broke, allowing the o-ring to leak and dump a prodigeous amount of fluid in a very short time. Not a difficult fix...if that's what it is...and the ****** does not need to come out. Couldn't do it by the side of the road, however. No special tool, no spring and no new o-ring. ****** still works fine, just won't hold fluid. Fortunately it was still daylight when it went and I noticed the smoke right away and got 'er pulled over and shut down. No permanant damage...I hope. I'll get on it this week. Austin is about 160 miles from my home...a long wrecker ride. Fortunately, AAA Premium picked up the tab. Ya' gotta love AAA!
aaa is good to have if you can use it 1 or 2 times a year. but that tow bill alone would have been 2bills or more here
i didnt make it in the 53 either. i made it to temple before my ****** gave up. sorry to hear about yours man. i feel your pain trust me. do you know of a reasonable place around here to get a c4 rebuilt?
Oh...I made it to the Roundup, and had a great day! I'll post photos when I can. The car ran great all the way down to Austin and about 10 miles on the way home. Yes, I can highly recommend Carl's Automotive (Carl's Hot Rods) in Red Oak, Texas, for transmission work...and other hot rod work as well. He has done all the work on my Buick that I didn't do myself, including the re-installation of the rear axle using boxed Chevelle 4-link control arms. The number is 972-617-9400, ask for Carl and tell him Eric Pierce referred you. Carl's DID NOT build the transmission that failed! Let me make that perfectly clear. The ****** in the Buick which failed was built by Gearstar, the high-buck rebuilder that advertizes in all the magazines. I can't really blame them for the problem, either, because spring failure, though somewhat rare, is the fault of the spring manufacturer, not the installer. Other than this problem, the custom-built Gearstar TH350 has been flawless in its performance. This problem, and most others, is covered by their excellent 3-year, 36,000-mile warranty. I'm sure that once this little problem is fixed, the ****** will continue to give the same excellent performanc which it has up until now.
The Jalopy Journal
