vehicle-maintenance

The Golden Bonnet

Presidential debate night tonight and I have the TV on. Typically I write about what I see, this time I will tell a story. Back when I was 16 years old, through luck, persistence, gifting, work and prayer I became the proud owner of my first real car(The Studabaker and Dune Buggy don’t count). A gold 1963 Jaguar XKE convertible. At the time it was nine years old and a bit rough. It needed brake work and a few other things. As a teenage boy I had chosen the car because it was the fastest car for the money. Like now, American muscle cars were a lot more money. I thought I was being practical and efficient. That was my logic.

I may have been a little unhappy with my home life. I just wanted to hit the road. Drive and drive. I drove all over the place. I took the car on many road rallies. I went looking for the Jersey Devil in the sand. Set records going to Syracuse. Spent more time with the Jag at Lime Rock than at home. Went on parades through Newport RI. Plus it was my favorite ride to the family farm.

I may have mentioned in some other writings that the car started with four bias ply tires that were four completely different brands. When I drifted through the corners each tire would have its own pitch. On a winding road drifting through different phases of brake induced understeer and throttle powered oversteer different tunes would emerge from the tires. Winding roads without much traffic could be extremely entertaining. With the skinny bias ply tires the cornering speeds were not that high. I spent my summer working at a bicycle shop so I could afford some new Michelin XAS tires. The car cornered much faster, though not as quite entertaining musicly with a single pitch from the squealing tires.

Speaking auditory entertainment, I worked a bit more and bought an Ansa exhaust system. I needed to do this because one of the problems the car had was the brake fluid would boil during spirited driving. Surprisingly when the fluid boils there would be no brakes. So I would turn of the ignition key off to slow the car down with engine braking. When the ignition was off the exhaust system and beyond would be filled with unburned hydrocarbons. When the automobile was sufficiently slowed I would turn the ignition key back on. Turning the ignition back on would introduce a spark that would ignite the hydrocarbons in the exhaust system with a loud bang. The explosions actually split the mufflers. The split mufflers not only let the noise out, they let the heat out setting the carpet on fire. That was a surprise. So I put out the fire and went shopping for a new muffler. I went for a good one. The exhaust was, and still is music to my ears.

I used to like to do all night road rallies. Illumination was important. Because the headlights are under glass there was not much side Illumination so I added three axillary Marchell 8″ lights to a light bar protruding from the grill. There was a spot light in the middle with a fog light on the right and a driving light on the left. I had switches under the dash so I could turn the lights on individually, the car wasn’t capable of providing electrons for all. However I liked the lamps so much I also replaced the headlights with Marchal Amplilux halogen headlights.

My old E-Type was almost a complete and proper sports car. The shocks were a bit soft and I wiped out the drain sump on the fuel tank over an intersection hump. I lost all the fuel and had to repair the tank. At that point I was broke. My dear mother then bought me new Koni shock absorbers.

Another modification I made was to install racing harnesses that came from J.C. Whitney, I believed in safety. One time when I was at Lime Rock Paul Newman’s mechanic borrowed my racing harness for Paul to use in his new racing car. I had to ask for it’s return. I still not really trust those actor types. Yet I will still tell the story.

During my time with the car I put five high school students in the car to drive them home in a blizzard. I had a collection of hats in the car, so if I gave anyone a ride they could have a hat of their choice. I almost always had the top down. Hauled wood for the Boy Scouts campfire, and drove myself to work and school. I even had murder of crows poop on me. Poop landed on the steering wheel windshield and even the shifter. I sacrificed one of the scarfs I had for cleaning.

The most distinctive feature of the car was its long hood. On hills and intersections it was sometimes hard to see where you were going as you were sitting so far back. Yet historically a long hood was a symbol of power. Think of the prestigious cars of the 1930’s, Dusenburgs and Packards come to my mind. Some people would say the long hood is simply phallic. However this is an English car with French illumination and an Italian sound track and a Dutch vibe. So I should say that it is not a long hood, properly it is a bonnet.

So this is a story about memories, I have so many memories about my time behind the long golden bonnet. I sold the E-Type after 50 years, and bought the Mark V. They both have long gold hoods. On the Mark V it is actually called a hood because the car is American. Still the effect is the same. The E-Type may be gone, but it’s essence isn’t. Even the auditory experience is replicated by the Miata from Asia. Even though the NA Miata has two fewer cylinders the revs are proportionally higher at the same road speeds giving an equivalent tone to my ear. Even the stupendous halogen lighting is met with equivalence by the LED illumination in the Cadillac ELR.

So many new roads to explore with emotion and feelings of the past.

Continental Mark V

I had thought I bought a Lincoln. However nowhere on the car does the word Lincoln appear. It does say “Continental”, “Mark V” & “Built by Ford” on the car. The Lincoln emblem is promently displayed in a number of places. Yet the word Lincoln does not.

Henry Leyland respected President Lincoln and named his second auto manufacturing company after the President. I will probably have more to say in a prolog or epilog that will appear later. This story is about I have done to make the car better in the last year or so.

The first thing I did is replace the oil and filter, I discovered that the drain plug was stripped. I replaced it with a new one. But I am not happy about that, I will want to do something better.

One reason I bought this internet car is because of the pictures of the underside featuring the original exhaust. I knew if the car had its original exhaust, it would not be too rusty. My belief was the car had been unmolested and in reasonably good shape. So I bought a low cost exhaust system off of Ebay, it did not fit. I had to pay an exhaust system expert to install the the exhaust. He also inspected the car and replaced the rear brakes and master cylinder. Now I could legally drive the car, and safly stop if need be.

The third time I went to start the car the starter solenoid stuck on and the starter continued to spin after the engine started. Fortunately I was at home and I quick grabbed a wrench and disconnected the battery. The battery cable was really hot. Then I bought a heavy duty solenoid and a new battery. I figured the old battery did not fully engage the solenoid and it welded itself closed. To help prevent further issues, a battery cut off switch was also added.

The carburetor would also have a variable idle. I fiddled with it and wished it was a bunch of old SU carbs like my old Jag E-Type. I could get those to work pretty well. I began to think a 4-Barrel was more complicated. So I bought a rebuild kit and disassembled the carburetor. It actually turned out to be quite clean inside, however there was an extra flanged nut inside the secondaries. It was the same type of nut that bolts the carburetor to the intake manifold. Yes all four nuts were were holding the carburetor on, none missing. I was so shocked by the presence of the extra nut I put a quick video on Snapchat. Fortunately the nut was just large enough so when the secondaries were wide open the nut would not fall into the intake manifold. Sometimes the secondaries would fully close, sometimes they would not. One time the car went 45 miles per hour whilst is was idling. That is why I took it apart.

Three of the tires were 20 year old Fisk tires, so three Armstrong tires were purchased to match a New Armstrong tire that was on the car. They told me one of the Fisk’s went flat before they delivered the car. The Fisk tires were not worn at all. So the car had not really done much travling in the last 20 years.

After driving the car a few times I discovered the radiator was leaking, so the radiatorcap was replaced. The reality was there were lots of small leaks all over the radiator. Fortunately I managed to score a good brass and copper radiator from Amazon at a good price. The hoses all looked good so I did not replace them. The plastic overflow tank was cracked too. I managed to glue that back together.

The door latch posts had electrical tap wrapped around them so I replaced them with latches from Ebay. That helped with a door rattle that I had been hearing.

I also replaced the spark plugs and spark plug wires. After that the car started Backfiring? I did not mix the wires up, they were actually numbered. It turns out the newer iridum plugs had more resistance than the old type of coil could handle. So I found some copper core plugs and replaced the distributor cap and roter along with a new coil. All the new parts were blue, to nicely match the Ford Blue air cleaner.

When the car was delivered, it was delivered to Keene, I ended up driving it home on a rainy night. It was hard to see, so I upgraded the lights to halogen led lights. I also bought new windshield wiper blades. I should be ready the next time there is a dark and stormy night.

Also I bought some quadrophonic 8-Track tapes, turns out only the rear speakers work. So I then bought some Sinatra tapes and a Bluetooth adapter so I can play music from my phone.

When driving with the windows down I thought I heard a slight noise when turning right from the left front wheel. I once owned a 71 Mustang and it had made the same noise. After a while the noise became worse and the wheel almost fell off. I bought some Timken bearings and replaced the wheel bearings. Surprisingly the races on the bearings did not match. The inner race was Timken and the outer was Koyo. The same bearing had two different manufacturers name on it. Someone was being lazy. While I was in there I replaced the brake pads and the inner fender splash shield. So far I have only done the left side. That was the side making the noise. I will probably do the other side at some point.

These cars are known for setting themselves on fire form some sort of short in the window and seat switches. I disassembled and cleaned the drivers side window and seat switches. I also replaced some bits in the window motor that fall apart and causes the window stop going up and down. These were not problems but would be in some time. I also cleaned and greases the window tracks and assembly.

There was a little bit of rust behind a couple pieces of the trim molding. I removed the trim and repaired the rust. Tried a couple of different types of paints, I think it came close. It is really not noticeable more than a couple feet away. I guess this is what is called paint correction. I also touched up a few other areas, it does make an improvement, you now have to look very closely to see the imperfections. There were a couple dings in the trim before I removed the trim. So I straightened the trim before I reinstalled the trim. It was nice to fix a couple of problems at the same time.

I did the previous two project during the winter when the car was in the garage. I could only get to one side of the car during this time. I cleaned up the car and went to drive it around the block. When it was warm the idle would surge, the car then stalled. I managed to shift into neutral and restart the car. And continue on. It was a bit of a trouble because I was going around a corner and the power steering did not work. An old lady walking her dog was watching me, she smiled. I do not know if she realized that the car stalled. She may not of noticed as the car is very quiet. Anyway I made it back home with no problem.

Now back to figuring out that carburetor, I need to have a good idle.