7/20/1984 E.L. Cord was in Missouri. If you think he’s only responsible for the Cord
1937 Cord
Think again!!!! How about a company that included Stinson Aircraft, Checker Cab and American Airways (now American Airlines)? But let’s just stay with the cars. How about the Auburn and Duesenberg? His history is a good read.
7/23/1894 first auto race. It was organized by the Parisian magazine “Le Petit Journal” between the Paris to Rouen. And the winner was………… Count Jules-Albert de Dion it took 6 hours and 48 minutes at an average speed of 19 km/h (which was approximately 11.806052652509345 p/h). I don’t know what he drove but 2nd places was taken by George Lamaitre and he drove a Peugeot:
Peugeot 3 hp
7/24/1929 – 2, 000,000 Model A Ford built – A huge milestone.
I recently did some work on my power steering system found this tool to be handy.
There is a lot of fluid in the power steering reservoir. As soon as you release the hoses, it’s going to poor all over the front of your engine and then on the ground. An oil change tub will help keep it off the garage floor, no staining and no tracking it around. However, it will still run down the engine.
So, I used a turkey baster. EEEERRRKKK…(yeah it’s in caps!!!) Do not put it back in the kitchen when you’re done….NO…NO..NO….In fact if you are smart, ask first!!! I did and I was surprised to hear “Sure, but you’ll have to purchase a replacement.” For a minute I thought….well that’ll come out of my car budget….and I thought…I wonder if I can clean it up…and…ummm…(kidding of course). It worked great and I just have to purchase one…but not until Thanksgiving!!!! $10 bucks says..I’ll forget and have to run out on Thanksgiving and stand in line for 1.25 hours, if I can find one at all.
BTW – I recommend “Pampered Chef” brand for power steering fluid removal!!!!
7/6/1946…..U.S. began producing car again after World War II. It is a bit misleading but some cars companies did continue to produce cars. At the very onset of the war (1942 thereabout), some of the first effort were to build the cars without all the chrome, painting the trim instead, the first “blacked out” (they were actually called “blackout specials or models” ) which became popular with the grilles in muscle cars later on. Washington dictated that stainless-steel and chrome would not be allowed on cars except on of bumpers, bumper guards, and windshield wipers.
Caulk another tasks down on the restoration of the Mustang.
I finished up the pillar post molding last night. Here is the before:
Pretty?
Now these were not as labor intensive as the dash-pad but here were some issues.
We’ll walk through them.
The removing the dash-pad was chronicled in my earlier post and that was pretty quick now that I’ve done it twice.
Once the dash-pad was removed there is an additional piece that needs to be removed, or at least a couple of screw removed on each side. That is the top molding:
Top Molding
In the picture above I’m pointing to one of the screws in the top molding that runs the length of the windshield. That screw is actually through the pillar molding which is partially behind it. The top molding has 5 screws, two on each end and on my coupe the fifth is in the center and holds the plastic snap for the ends of the sun visors. That screw does not have to be removed there is plenty of play after the removal of the four other screws, to safely (without forcing anything) remove and install the new moldings.
The next step is removing the two additional screws that hold the pillar molding to the pillar.
Screw Marked Remove
and this one:
Second screw to remove.
It’s tough see there but here is a good clear picture…that old mold was so deteriorated it actually fell apart.
Lower molding screw.
When I said it fell apart…….
Yup. It was in bad shape.
The other side came/fell off the same way, in pieces, nothing left to do but snap the other pieces on and…eeerrrrkkkk(insert braking sound)…”Yeah..anybody know if you can insert sound in there a WordPress blog??” ….cricket..cricket…cricket……huuummm where’s my…oh I have no staff…well, only when my son visits (he does some on my graphic design..more on my new logo search later..maybe you all can vote on one??) back to my eeerrkkk…we need to discuss quality of workmanship for reproduction parts. That won’t be a long discussion..”sucks”…there ya go, end of discussion.
But really I know that they try, and I am grateful for something that looks almost as good, especially for a rare car like mine (…meaning not very sought after..at least not yet…therefore the profit in making any unique parts is next to nothing.)
One of the first things about this particular molding is that is about 1/2 the thickness of the original and made of light plastic. This worked out because the holes are not exactly lined up and there was a larger problem.
Offset isn't correct.
As you can see the molding on the right (the original) where the screw driver blade is located, is recessed about 1/2 an inch, if not a little more. On the left (new molding) there is almost only about 1/4 of an inch..maybe a bit less. If the material for the new molding was as rigid as the original there would be no flex in the material and the lack of offset for tab on the new molding would not have allowed the use of the original screw, it would have been too short. Additionally, screw holes A and B in the picture below were not aligned properly and would not have enough ”give” but allow installation, if it was stiff as the original.
Improperly aligned.
Was this engineering genius or happy mistake?
Generally, the fit was close, not contours car show inspect-able close, but close enough for the local guys. But if you can find parts made from “original tooling” (we talked about that when I was install the dash-pad for the first time) buy those, if your Average Budget can handle it. These molding just aren’t available in any other tooling.
With the holes in the wrong place it took some pressure and jostling to get them into place. One tip I can pass on is do not tighten the screws until you have them all started. I had to leave the top two screws out far enough to allow movement to get the bottom screw in.
Keep the screw loose to maneuver the piece around.
In the end the result were pretty good. You be the judge.
Left side
Left side bottom (and my vette in the background)
Right side (and my neighbor's truck...like you need to know that!!)
Left Side bottom
Over all it took about 3 hours with interruptions with phone calls and neighbors stopping to chat. It’s like Soaring over on www.MustangV8.com forum said..”Those are the kinds of tinkering jobs I like. You get satisfaction you can actually see.” (BTW – I like that forum, the Classic Mustang section is great.)
WOT (decided to give her a name) is back in the driveway. Compression and heads all checked out. 3 cheers for American Iron!!!!
(OK..WOT is funny because it’s a crossfire with least HP in the C4 Generation.)
Took it for a spin after picking it up and everything seems to be fine.
New hoses, new thermostat, new coolant..yeah…all of the old stuff is back in town, new transmission fluid (maybe over kill but there is the a school of thought that a major overheating event can cause a failure…safe..not sorry) and oil change (I’m not sure what happens to engine oil at 300 degrees – but safe…not sorry).
The other day (7/1) was a record-setting day for me. Oh..yea..setting some personal bests, that….well….frankly I could have done without!!!!
So I thought I’d take a minute or two to jot down the events of the day, as a form of therapy, and maybe I won’t feel like having all my cars crushed and moving to a small Quaker community in PA.
Ok…. that does feel better. Now say it with me…”I’m OK and You are OK”.
So here’s the story and I’m being as dramatic as necessary!!!!
Drove my 84 C4 to work as normal yesterday………
>>>Oh..hey wait…..I did this Corvette owner thing a few weeks back…guess what it was?…..{silence….cricket…cricket….cricket..} Give up? Ok..fine I’ll just tell you. I got a personalized license plate…No..not a vanity plate that says “Studly” like my wife wanted me to get!!! {{If you only knew how funny that last statement was..my wife hates those plates, although I believe he thinks I am studly!!!}}. Nope I had to get clever, I wanted something that defined my car. You have no idea how many times I get asked…”Yo…what years is it?” My neighbor next store ask me that every time he see me outside my house…he’s 80 something…so I’m very polite about it (’cause I’ll be 80 some day), and tell him it’s a 1984, and always ask him if he wants to take it for a spin and we both laugh. (Man..you’re getting your money’s worth reading this one..three stories in one.) Any way I thought if I could squeeze the year of my Corvette into the plate and I wouldn’t have to answer it as much. ( I actually got a stamped “1970” plate at a place in a shopping mall for the front of my Mustang for the same reason…Arizona only requires a rear plate…funny..they still sent out two plates though!!!) (Geezzzeee..there’s 4 stories for ya…I don’t think I remember what the orignal was??!?!?!). The plate reads “84C4WOT”. Deciphered it means 1984 C4 (the generation) and WOT = Wide Open Throttle.
Wow was that painful to read through? Hope not!!!
Ok, back to the original post. Got to work just fine no problems. Now, this time of year it’s get’s pretty hot here is Southern AZ and I think yesterday was about 105 or 107. My work day went by as slow as it possibly could and I had to hang a little late to finish up a task. I head home and I got about 4 miles from work and I noticed the cars behind me slow down and to a little swerve in the road. If you’ve driven here in Tucson much, such things are not extraordinary, there’s a lot of weirdness here on the roads.
Approximately 1000 yards down the road I see my digital temp gauge, jump to 260 degrees. Now the 1984 C4 runs hot by factory standards. The electric fan has a factory setting of 223 degree before it kicks on…but 260…is not good…not by any stretch. And picture my expression on my face when 200 feet further it shot to 280 degrees. I’m doing about 45 and I’m in the middle lane of a 3 lane street and traffic is heavy. I know I need to pull this thing over or that which is currently going very bad..is going to get even worse. I cut off the next car where there was the smallest of a gap and dove for a Circle K (like a 7-11) parkinglot about another 500 yards away. As I pulled in to the parkinglot…my temp gauge read 299 degrees (my first new record of the day..beating the old temp by a whopping 17 degrees…”Tell him what he’s won Johnny!!” ” Well Wink, he’s won a cooked corvette and gas saving trip on the back of a tow truck!!!!”.) DOOM!!! was the only word that came to mind….ok..fine…that wasn’t the word…but it did have 4 letters.
I stopped it, turned it off, popped the hood latch and jumped out of the car to get the front lifted up…. I expected to see coolant gushing out of every place imaginable, but the engine compartment was pretty dry…I’m thinking..this is not good…nope….not good at all. There was a little fluid on the frame and a small wisp of steam, but nothing to make you think there was an Old Faithful event about to occur. I checked the coolant overflow tank and it had a small amount of fluid in it..very small, odd for something that was about to blow. I quickly checked the hoses that I could see, without touching anything….every thing was hot, and they looked fine. I could even see a portion of bottom hose, it seemed ok. I stepped back and looked under the car and there was only a very small puddle. Corvettes are pretty low to the ground which makes it hard to see anything will out getting down on the ground, but I had on white paints and when it is 107 degrees in Tucson, the pavement is about 115!!!
So what my observations imply is there wasn’t enough coolant in the car to boil…and at about 300 degree…it would be boiling!!!
There are only a couple of things that would a cause a complete drain of the cooling system.
1. A hose coming off. Since there wasn’t any coolant on the upper part of the engine, so the top ones were fine and what I could see of the bottom hose it seemed normal.
2. A cracked block or a head would have had the Vette running poorly before hand and I would have noticed.
3. Freeze out plug failing. I’m thinking this was the problem. A freeze out plug is just that, a metal plug in the block and heads of your engine. They are there mainly for cold weather climates. If the coolant was mixed wrong with too much water and should this mixture freeze, the plugs will pop out during a “freezing event” allowing expansion of liquid hopefully saving the engine’s metal from cracking from the pressure.
Freeze Out Plug
Freeze Out Plug in the engine block.
Why is that so bad? They look pretty simple to put back in. Sure they are, right…after you pull the entire engine out!!!
So there I stand, white paints looking soiled, red Vette with hood up and smelling like a burnt carrot, 107 degree, humid as hell, and it starts to rain. Can you picture it?
I made a quick call to my GM Motor Club and they arraigned for a flat-bed. 2 hours later my lovely wife meets me at the Circle K and we wait together for another 45 minutes(total of 2.75 hours) for a truck to show up (my second record of the day… breaking my last tow truck wait by 1.25 hours) and 45 minutes after that I waiting in my favorite repair facility parkinglot waiting for my poor Vette to be dropped off (where it would sit, in the dark, overnight, all alone and wounded). Too much drama?
Let’s get to the do’s and don’ts.
1. Do pull over in a safe spot as soon as possible.
2. Don’t continue driving. Don’t try to make it home or one more block/mile. You could just be making it worse.
3. Don’t keeping it running after you stop in a safe place. It isn’t normally going to cool it down and again you could be making it worse.
4. Don’t touch anything under the hood. Don’t open the radiator. Don’t open the coolant overflow reservoir.
5. Don’t try filling it with water or coolant immediately. Just let the car cool down all the way down.
6. Don’t try driving it after its cooled down, even if you filled it with water. 100% chance that what caused the overheating, didn’t go way.
7. Do call a tow truck.
8. Do call a friend or someone and let them know where you are, at the least.
9. Do get a motor club of some kind. Average Guy with average budget..right? Towing is expensive, very expensive. I like the GM Motor Club. I pay about $69 a year and I’ve used it twice this year already. I have my son’s car covered and my Corvette. (The Mustang is covered by Haggerty insurance.) Within town the towing is free up to a certain mileage, both this years tows were free, saving about 250 bucks a shot, that a good deal.
If you searched and found or followed my posts on restoring the dash-board of my ’70 Mustang, then you might recall my planning/scheduling issues.
As I was taking the old dash pad off, I realized that I hadn’t order the plastic pillar molding. When I finally called a few Mustang parts supplies places I found them all to be out of stock and they had to put them on back order. They did finally come in and it’s taken me a bit to actually find the time to replace them. Well, this long 4th of July week, I’m at least going to get started. (I have also do the valve cover gaskets as well.)
So here again is what I’m replacing:
Yeah..had to get creative to keep them on.
Pretty?
Now the new molding comes in any color you want as long as that’s black. You’ll need to paint the proper color. If you have the specs for you car you’ll easily find the interior color and places like National Parts Depot or Mustang’s Unlimited have the paint for the job. I had to do this with a replacement armrest. Which was horrible – replicas all came square and my Mustang’s armrests are rounded and have the overstuffed look like a leather sofa or overstuffed chair. (I ended up pick up a use one in good shape and painted that..I think it was tan originally.)
Oh..sorry…I wandered!!!
The first think you have to do is prepare the plastic for holding paint. The guys at National Parts Depot recommend SEM 38353 Plastic/Leather Prep. I’ve used it and it seems to do the trick. Pretty simple….Spray surface, pay attention to recessed areas, wipe with clean cloth. Use some gloves if you have office worker hands and put out the cigar while you using this stuff.
SEM 38353 Plastic/Leather Prep
Sticking with the SEM brand I purchased a can of Universal Color Coat. I used this paint on the aforementioned armrest and it lives up to the “Flexible Coating” label. My Mustang’s interior is VP-15945 Vermillion.
6/30/1953 – Corvette debuts at NYC Motorama. That’s a big deal. 6/30 is also my birthday. Yup…5 years later to the very day the Corvette debuted my parents had another mouth to feed!!!
1953 Motorama Corvette..And so it began!!!
What? You thought my baby pic…No Way!!!
And 11 years later to the day the last Rambler was produced that was 6/30/1969.
1969 - Rambler made a few fine cars...um...this wasn't one of them.
7/1/1908 United Motors was formed. They build car components, at one point include Hyatt Roller Bearing Company (anti-friction roller bearings), New Departure Manufacturing Company (ball bearings), Remy Electric Company (electrical starting, lighting, and ignition equipment), Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, later known as Delco Electronics Corporation (electrical equipment), and the Perlman Rim Corporation. It was later purchased by General Motors.
Also on 7/1 the Graham auto plant in Canada produced its first Prosperity Six in 1931.
1931 Graham
Again on the same day Pontiac selected Bunkie Knudson general Manager in 1956. Bunkie Knudson – race car driver and innovator.
Another biggie….7/2/1992 the 1 millionth Corvette was built. It was a C4 Convertible. Grabbed a picture of it at the National Corvette Museum while I was there a couple weeks back.
1,000,000th Corvette at the NCM. Photo from my trip.
