Antique & Classic Cars Blog

Several years ago, a man read an article I wrote for the paper talking about the 215 V8 engine going in my TR6. He had the same engine in his ‘62 Skylark and was looking to have it rebuilt. He needed a rebuilder and, since they usually don’t pull the engine for you, some help on that preliminary chore.

Have engine hoist, will travel. I said I’d pull the motor for him and recommended Adelmann Engine, which rebuilt my 215. Conceptually, removing an engine from this era is not hard, but there was some grease involved. When I got home I looked like I’d spent the day on the Exxon Valdez cleanup.

Rebuild and resto turned out nice, but there were two imperfections still dogging owner Tom Veilleux. One was a tendency for the engine to get hot when it stood for too long on a summer day. The other was the grille, which had gotten cracked somewhere along the way and was crooked to boot.

I had an extra six-blade fan to replace the stock four-blade item and Tom had picked up a nice stock grille at Sonny’s Auto Salvage to swap out his broken one.

So we drained and pulled the radiator, unbolted the four-blade fan, and swapped in the six. The blades on his original piece were longer, so there’s some question how much more air the six-blader will move. We concluded that a shroud would be a big help. I also noticed that the gap of 2 inches from the blades to the radiator was too much. At about an inch, he’d get better cooling. A spacer would correct that and I have a 7/8 inch one that would be about right. Unfortunately it was on my garage shelf.

The car won’t be on the road quite yet, though, so the spacer can go in shortly.

Straightening the grille proved more time consuming. It’s a three-piece item–the wide center, with a two-headlight piece on each end. The Sonny’s center and driver’s-side headlight pieces looked best but we reused Tom’s passenger-side headlight piece because the headlight bucket was very rusty on the replacement.

(Gaps were worse than this–this is after a little fiddling.)

The driver’s-side headlights were low, while the other side nearly touched the top of the grille cavity. Loosening and repositioning with the stock holes wasn’t enough. I kept out the bolts, positioned the grille in a spot where Tom, viewing from the front of the car some ten paces out, was happy, then marked with a Sharpie the additional sheetmetal surrounding each mounting hole that needed to be removed to allow it to bolt up straight.

In his 46 years with the car, Tom doesn’t remember the grille being crooked. Somehow during the recent body restoration, things got out of kilter. But no problem–we got things squared up and bolted down.

The final touch was to adjust the rubber stops on which the hood rests. These were threaded in too far, allowing the hood to rest too low. We backed each one out until Tom was happy with where it sat. (Sharp, well-informed eyes will notice that the front radiator mount has been bent out on its back piece, which now projects over the fan when it should sneak in front of it parallel to the grille. This suggests that someone may have run into fan interference and bent it out of the way. Perhaps they removed an important spacer at the same time to create too big a gap for proper cooling.)

All the minor adjusting pushed this job out to five hours, but the car looks a lot better and when the sun is shining and you’re out cruising, that’s important peace of mind.

At the classic car show the Buick Club hosted at the fairgrounds last Sunday, I talked with David Johnson about his very nice and very original 1964 Wedgewood Blue Buick Skylark (see two posts down).

David posted a good suggestion: Bring a kid to a car show.

As during all eras, there are plenty of things for young people to waste time on and get in trouble with. Cars and car shows give restless minds a positive outlet. They’re all about the cars and the joy of finding, driving, fixing, polishing and discussing them with other enthusiasts.

The hobby teaches hard work–to find parts and information and make repairs.

Fiscal responsibility–in determining parts and service costs, earning, saving and purchasing.

Discipline–to apply the parts and knowledge and make things work right.

Ingenuity and self-confidence–through encountering challenges, working through them and making what doesn’t work, work.

Humility and respect for others–as you gather insights and receive help from those with more knowledge and experience.

And a sense of fellowship with people of all ages. As anyone in the hobby will tell you, car shows bring together people from all views and income levels to share a common interest. How you vote, what you do, where you studied, how much you earn, what you read, whose music you like….None of those things by which we judge and are judged in the everyday world hold sway among a group of people who love cars. The rat rod built for six grand is just as legitimate and interesting as the half-million dollar Bugatti.

There is a young crowd taking an interest in the skills to be learned and camaraderie to be enjoyed in the car hobby, but there’s room for more. Next time you head out for a car show, see if any young people in your family or neighborhood want to tag along. Maybe someone will take an interest in the history, the hard work, and the satisfaction all those vehicles represent.

A few folks have posted comments that are slow to appear on the site. This is because the ebb and flow of spam is back to high tide. The website software identifies it as probable spam and prevents it from posting automatically, but I still have go through and delete it. Sometimes it holds up legitimate posts–I don’t know all the criteria it analyzes.

I get an email notification each time someone posts, including the spam, and sometimes I miss a legimate email notice and don’t discover it until I see the post inself in the approve/disapprove page on the website.

I’ll try to stay vigilant. Please note that only spam gets withheld. Everyone is free to agree or disagree with or improve upon anything said here so long as the language is appropriate for prime time. Thanks.

Minnesota, what has become of your fearsome winter reputation? Only the 3rd of May and already the snow is gone. Oh well, if it’s too late for fun on two skis, I guess we can start trying on four wheels.

The Buick Club made a fine effort at the fairgrounds today, doing with warm weather one of the best things possible–hosting a show of cool classic cars.

Here’s a sampling of the some of the fun on hand.

Always liked these dash-top mounted clocks. A friend and I pulled on from a Buick at French Lake–and he gave it away. Such is the car hobby.

Richard Bury’s 1926 woody depot hack is a one-off made with all 1926 parts–except for the wood.

Hot rod Lincoln (allusion to the song. The car itself looks very original–like only the top’s been swapped) sits next to decent Cord replica.

The ‘64 Skylark is a nice looking car in my book. Its aluminum 300 heads even bolt to my car’s 215 V8, an advantage since the 300’s intake valve is larger. David Johnson owns this find, still with original paint, upholstery and window sticker never, as far as he knows, taken off.

Mm. Love the dash on this Hudson Commodore.

This photo doesn’t quite do the ‘40 Buick justice. The back end is gorgeous–the sort of long, rounded tail that speaks to aerodynamics well before the car mags were talking about it.

Here’s another goody in the Buick–a classic Edmonds performance intake.

Wayne Johnstone’s 454 Vette is a cool and rare shade known as Corvette Bronze.

The ‘54 Buick’s tail lights are like no others–which is good until you have to replace them. My friend in the club, Tom V., saw a set for sale for $2000 apiece!

And here’s Dean, who climbed into this colander hoping to become adorable enough I’d take his picture. It worked.

If I were a headlight, I’d be a low beam, probably 6 volt. The Buick Club hosted a car show at the fairgrounds today and I went over to poke around. A friend is in the club and was helping count ballots, so I stopped to ask the gate man where that was being done.

He asked me if I was “the computer guy.” I told him no. We talked a moment longer and again he said, “aren’t you the computer guy?” So again I said I wasn’t.

Only later, walking around and talking to people about their cars and the blog did I realize–the blog! Great Scot! It appears on “the computer.”

I couldn’t understand what computer guy they’d be expecting in the middle of a car show on machinery hill… So, if you read this, um, yes, I am the computer guy. Sorry a few cylinders weren’t firing when you kindly inquired.

In this internet age of constant communication, nicely tailored phrases like “go with the flow” become careworn quickly. It’s a good description, though, for capturing the benefits of synchronized movement.

Last week, I was driving on 94 East. Suddenly the left lane of traffic braked hard, so drivers did what pedestrians and runners and bicyclists and any other movers do–they swung wide to clear the impediment disrupting more lanes of traffic and inviting trouble from any distracted driver.

Naturally, we wonder “what’s the holdup?,” expecting to see a front-end loader, wide load, sputtering vehicle being nursed toward an exit ramp….

This time, the log in the stream was a van doing 40-45 mph among hundreds of vehicles doing 60. The abrupt speed and lane shifts this caused was a nicely printed, promptly delivered invitation for a pileup.

When my turn to get by arrived, I saw a large sign on the back of this road-target: “Caution Children Aboard.”

Why, when you have precious cargo, would you get out onto an interstate filled with swiftly moving multi-ton vehicles and put those children “in harm’s way” by creeping along when the safe course is to go with the flow.