Cool McCool's Garage

I’ve made some real progress on the ’34, since I missed my “deadline” to have it at this years “Relix Riot” car show last weekend at the Gilmore Car Museum.  After a summer of having fun (which is what summer is supposed to be about), I’ve gotten busy on the car.  The brake lines and fuel lines are done.  I bought another Buick brake drum to replace the junk one (the lining was worn down too thin to be turned), and have that at my friend Jake’s where he’s turning the Ford hub down to fit the pilot hole in the Buick drum and re-drilling the bolt pattern.

I spent yesterday afternoon with a pan of CLR and a scuffy pad getting the surface rust off the Rootlieb hood, and when that was done, another couple of hours re-fitting the radiator/grill shell and hood gaps.  That involved welding the holes in the mounting tabs for the radiator full and re-drilling them, and as an aside, making a divot in the crossmember to clear the lower radiator hose outlet on the radiator, because with the radiator properly positioned it didn’t clear the (flattened) crossmember.

As Jake says, “It’s all about the re-do.”

A bunch of other little things have been done along the way, like cutting an access hole in the floor for the master cylinder, hooking up the shift linkage, and fitting a pair of absolutely beautiful finned Cal-Custom style finned valve covers to the 283, also a “Red Barns Spectacular” swap meet find.

I’m not sorry at all I missed my artificial deadline.  As the saying goes, “Good things come to them that wait.”.  It feels good to have it going together right, and good, rather than fast.