Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021
My new 26×41 garage was built this past Wednesday and Thursday by a 4-man crew. I can’t complain about the guys that came and built it — they went right to work and had it framed up and sided by the time they quit Wednesday evening. They roofed it and installed the doors and windows and had it mostly completed by 1 p.m. Thursday. Took time to clean up and they were done!
The garage ends face east and west, and I have two overhead doors on the east side (driveway side) and one overhead door on the opposite end. Since we live on a hill, we have nearly constant breezes, and I knew that with overhead doors on each end, it would help keep the building cooler. Well, that’s proven to be absolutely correct — a lesson I learned when I built a 20x-24 foot pole barn 30 years ago that had no windows or ventilation. The garage was a damn oven!
I’m still trying to figure out how I want to arrange my garage … lots of ideas. I did order two 4-foot wide shelf units from Lowes, each shelf can handle 800 pounds.
TAYLORSVILLE CRUISE. Today my wife and I drove the Plymouth to Taylorsville for their final cruise for the summer. It was well attended, and saw lots and lots of great looking cars, including a spectacular 1953 Studebaker Commander, and lots of classic Tri-Five Chevrolets.
My wife and had trouble finding a place to park; the cruise begins at noon, and clearly, if you want a good parking spot you have to arrive early! There was a couple of open parking spots on the street, but they would require me to parallel park the Plymouth — not something I really wanted to try without power steering! We ended up pulling into a bank drive-thru teller area, and parking behind a beautiful red 1955 Chevrolet Handyman wagon. The wagon was just stunning, and featured radiused rear wheel openings.
The other drive-thru lane had a 1955 Chevrolet 2-door 210 sedan, painted a baby blue. It had a small-block V-8, power steering, automatic transmission, and power brakes. The car had a late model tilt steering column, but he dash was original. And like most classic Chevies, the car had the common oil pressure, water temperature and ammeter.
PLYMOUTH’S PAST RESURFACES. While my wife were sitting at the cruise, we saw a guy walking our way, making a bee line for us and the Plymouth. The guy owns a 1957 Chevy, but was tickled to see the Plymouth. He told me that 30 years ago, he did some engine work for a guy who was working on a 1956 Plymouth that had the same paint scheme as mine. Turns out that he redid the heads on my Plymouth’s engine years ago! He was contacted by Danny Gant, the guy who was the mechanic for the previous owner — Gary Brady.
It was wonderful to meet this guy and learn a little bit of the Plymouth’s history. We had several people come by and express their appreciation for having the Plymouth at the show. We were the only 1950s era Mopar in attendance.
CRUISE DETAILS. Down the street from us parked on the street was an absolutely gorgeous 1957 Chevy Bel Air hardtop painted a Dusk Pearl, almost a rosey color. Further down there was a really, really nice 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air, two-tone black and white. No other 1950s-era Mopar products, but I did see a really sharp 1957 Ford Fairlane 500. There was a variety of street rods and muscle cars as well.
There were several late model (i.e. 1980s and 90s) Ford Mustangs in attendance, as well as some classic pickup trucks including one really nice restored 1972 Chevy two-tone truck.
They gave a “cruise award” that was voted on by Facebook viewers. The winner was a 2016 Chevy Camaro special edition.
We drove to Taylorsville by going to Bloomfield and the taking KY 55 north to Taylorsville. On the way home, my wife talked me into taking KY44 west from Taylorsville to Mount Washington (we wanted to eat a late lunch/early supper at Hometown Pizza!). Lunch was great, and once we were done, we left to head home.
Just as we were about to cross the Salt River bridge, the engine lost power and died. We coasted to a stop on the shoulder just south of the wide, sweeping curve that heads into the bridge. There was no heating issue, no vapor lock; all conditions pointed to simply being out of gas — despite the fact the gas gauge showed between 1/2 and 3/4 tank of gas. WTF??
Thankfully, our son was home from work by this time, so we had him bring a 5 gallon of gas. We gas up the car and it immediately fired up like a champ. We drove home from there, never missing a beat!
Now the question I need to answer is pretty simple — is the gauge sending unit out of kilter? Or is there enough crap in the tank that’s blocking the intake when the tank gets down below 3/4 level?? All I know is that if we’re going to drive it anywhere, we need to make sure we keep the fuel topped off all the time. Of course, when you think about it, we drove to the Whiskey City Cruisers in July, on to Culvertown for church, then back home, as well as several small trips to town.
I still believe we have a tank issue — I don’t think we drove the car enough to have actually run out of fuel. I may just bite the dam bullet and buy a new tank and sending unit. Ugh!
COMING UP. I still need to get the car to a mechanic to measure the driveshaft. I also plan to have them do a safety check on the flexible and hard brake lines and fuel lines and also change the oil.
I also need to remove the door panels and rear seat panels, and then work on the windows. The driver’s side rear window won’t roll down, and both sides need to be lubricated.
The car show and cruise season will be over next month, so once the season ends, I’ve got my work cut out for me. The fuel tank, the interior, and the biggie will be the body work.
I’m already planning the repaint job — I’ll shoot it in lacquer and then clear coat it, kind of like I did with Stan Walker’s Z-28.
All in good time … lol