Exhausted by exhaust

[walyfd]

So, one of the last things I had to do again was realign the exhaust on the 62. Installing exhaust on yor back on the driveway is not optimal but it's what I had to do...

I got the car back from the body shop and spent the last few weeks detailing and polishing the original lacquer but, driving it home from the shop, I went over railroad tracks that'd rattle the teeth from a shark. Bang, bang bang... pipes hitting all over.

There's a hanger over the axle that you can't tighten unless the body is off the car. So I spent today repositioning pipes before they rust together...

Nobody wants to bother helping on an old car...

I made a clamp from 2 brackets and bolts so I could tighten it from under the car.

As for the paint... I'm amazed by the shine I got from white. The car needs all the help it can get being white... at night, a white car can shimmer under street lamps.

[electra225]

You can get an aluminized exhaust system, then the clamps rust. Your Cadillac is really clean, metal wise, underneath for being in the part of the country you are. White is elegant on a big car. Nothing wore white better than Cadillac...

Exhaust work is work even on a lift. You did well....

[TC Chris]

Threading those pipes aft back in the '60s, when lower was better, was quite a complicated art. Everything had to be bent just right, and then in the right position relative to the others (twist), and then the moon had to be in the right phase.

After years of working on exhausts on low-slung cars by lying on the ground, I decided that I was old enough and wealthy enough that I could pay somebody else to do that work whenever possible. After my Chevy's engine rebuild one pipe was banging. It was back at the rebuilder's for something and it was up on the lift and I mentioned it. The rebuilder grabbed his 6' pry bar and bent it just enough to solve the problem. I could not have done that on the ground.

The Ranger, yeah, I can crawl under that, and did so a while back to apply patching cement (yeah, masonry) to the muffler long enough to get a new exhaust. The new one is stainless and will probably be functioning when I am no longer on the scene.

Your paint does look beautiful. I assume it's acrylic lacquer? The Chevy's original lacquer was my favorite finish when polished up. The hood, trunk, and maybe one door have original finish on them and one of these days I'll buff them up.

[walyfd]

Magic Mirror acrylic lacquer. That's original paint. The trunk and one quarter needed to be done. Thankfully I found a shop that would spray lacquer. Factory paint with scratches and orange peel is impossible to replicate.

Car went to Columbus, Ohio late 61. It's a September 61 build. Dealer undercoating and cautious prior owners saved it. All I can do is preserve it now.

There's paint chips everywhere but I'm letting them go. Dabbing them will lead to sanding then more polish and then possible burn through. Enough is enough. I look at it as a nice 37k mile trade on a new 64 or 65...

[electra225]

Your Cadillac looks fantastic for having mostly original paint. The original lacquer on the Buick looked like chicken tracks, it was so broken up. Nobody out here will spray lacquer. I'm not sure you can even buy lacquer paint here. I have DuPont Cintari "99A" on the Buick and only one shop I know of will still work with it, and that is my friend Don. Art always told me that 99A was the blackest black paint they made.

[TC Chris]

There's paint chips everywhere but I'm letting them go. Dabbing them will lead to sanding then more polish and then possible burn through. Enough is enough.

The original owner of my Mustang was so proud that he had taken his new car to "Sun Country," a chain of some sort, to have some sort of special wheel-out job. On a new car??? It came with a lifetime guarantee. Lifetime of the franchise, perhaps. In any event, there's one spot of burn-through on the hood if you look closely. I'll bet it was from the ill-advised grinding away of good new paint.

In '90 I got hit by a drunk driver at a blind intersection. 15 years later there was some bubbling at the seam of the new quarter panel. There was a tiny gap in the weld-through sealant by the rear hatch jamb that let moisture in. I've got it sealed up now but that was barn door/horse out. Nobody will do a spot repair. One high-end joint north of me (the kind of place with English wheels and photos of sheet metal bodies they have made) said they would take it on but their proposal was to pant the full quarter panel and across the roof in color/clearcoat. The idea of part paint, part clearcoat never quite made sense to me, and besides, they never followed through on scheduling. I drive a car with a line of bubbles that nobody else really notices. One day I may try a rattle-can spot repair. As a kid I was really good with rattle cans and even vacuum-cleaner low-pressure paint sprayers. How many people do you know who have sprayed acrylic lacquer with a canister vac and its spray attachment? Or maybe I'll live with the bubbles a while longer. It's like your stone chips, a sign of experience.

Chris Campbell

[walyfd]

Took it out today for a 25 mile drive and $50 of e-free 90 octane for the winter. $4.79 a gallon but I know it'll start in March... God knows how much it could be by then.

Ran great. Still a slight rattle but I just can't look at it anymore. At least it doesn't bang.

Before closing the garage, I thought I'd check the radio after dark. Picked up 18 stations with the wonderbar. 12 were mostly static but it stopped on each one. Middle sensitivity picked up 6 but minimum picked up none. Go figure. Couldn't fully extend the antenna since it'd hit the garage door but one or 2 should have come in.

I was hoping to hear the station from Canada I remember getting years ago and there was another one from liberty, NY. Might try again tomorrow after 7PM. Seems like I remember that was when they got stronger.

[TC Chris]

Took it out today for a 25 mile drive and $50 of e-free 90 octane for the winter. $4.79 a gallon but I know it'll start in March... God knows how much it could be by then.

Before closing the garage, I thought I'd check the radio after dark I was hoping to hear the station from Canada I remember getting years ago and there was another one from liberty, NY. Might try again tomorrow after 7PM. Seems like I remember that was when they got stronger.

We have the same gas philosophy. I would rather pay some extra on those last fill-ups than pay later in repairs or annoyance. While the cars are active I'll buy the crummy cheap ethanol stuff because it doesn't sit very long in the tank, but for a long sleep, let's choose real gas that won't corrode or separate out.

And for the radio, the later the better on AM.

As an official old guy I can remember when the AM band was where the cool stuff was. At night you'd pull in the big clear channel stations and many regional ones. There was a time for me when life was really hard and I would escape mentally by imagining driving down the road in the dark on a warm summer evening with the radio on, the slide-rule dial lighted greenish and glowing over to the right. Maybe the radio was playing Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell, a wonderful melancholy song.

Now, I do a lot of nighttime highway driving in the summer. Michigan's drastic overabundance of deer can make it a white-knuckle experience because you can't see the wretched creatures until they leap in front of the vehicle. Sometimes I remind myself of how I'm doing what I used to dream about: driving on down the road on the dark with the radio on, no immediate responsibility beyond keeping the vehicle on the road. Well, and watching for @#%&**!!!! deer.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

We can't buy gasoline out here without alcohol in it. I think even the marinas have oxygenated fuels. I get by using Sta-Bil, but my time may be coming where that won't work.

[TC Chris]

It used to be rare. There's a web site for locating it. But lately more and more stations are carrying one flavor or another of it (different octane ratings). I can buy it within a mile of my house now. It may be because here in Michigan, everybody has a boat or three. It's almost a requirement of residence. And it's a fact of life that boats sit a lot because most of us have to work for a living. The longer the gas sits, the more the ethanol absorbs atmospheric moisture, and pretty soon it phase-separates and you have a puddle of water at the bottom of the tank. Or worse, in a fuel system that might have dissimilar metals, etc.

My first experience was when my Dad and Mom drove north in January to take the Canadian "Snow Train" farther north out of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Dad's Subaru stopped running in very cold temps. Icing. Hos garage was warmish (not heated, but sheltered) and damp, so the new crummy gas absorbed moisture and when he got far enough north it froze up. They eventually did get on the train but there's nothing worse than car trouble on a vacation trip.

Chris Campbell

[Conelrad]

The Loves truck stop on I-10 & Sundust road Chandler sells 100 Octane gas. Across the freeway from the NHRA racetrack is why.

No COH reportedly.

DG

[electra225]

That's good to know, Dennis. By the time I drove over there and back, I'd need another tank of gas....

[walyfd]

My reason for using the e-free gas is to reduce the possibility of vapor lock and protect the rubber in the fuel system.

I had a fuel hose fail on the 57 because of that crappy gas. The fuel pump had a stroke when a "clot" of rubber on the inside of the hose lodged in the pump valve...

YEP!!! ANOTHER ride on a rollback...

And it just seems to run better overall.

[William]

Around me, we have the Silver Lake Sand Dunes so there is a lot of "REC" gas or premium without alcohol. The "REC" gas is 95 or 96 octane, and the premium is 90 octane. Needless to say, the premium is less expensive and works just fine for the Metro or the lawn equipment. Closer to the dunes a few stations offer racing fuel which is $$$$ and it's something like 110 octane.

Bill

[walyfd]

Oh, baby! I'd love to try some of that in the car...

One of the best things I did was add the factory pcv system. Between that and using the good gas, the car doesn't stink and just runs smoother. But I'd love a tank of 100 octane like the manual called for.

Since using the 90, I was able to advance the timing closer to 10 BTDC without pinging. The panther pee, i had it at like 6 degrees. And it'd stumble a little....

Even the vapors get into the vacuum advance and eat away at the diaphragm.