A friend who lives in California emailed me the other day, inquiring whether I was OK, as he hadn’t heard from me, and hadn’t posted anything here for a while. I assured him I’m doing fine, in fact, busier than ever, adding to the already crowded project list. More on that in a bit.
The big news of this past summer is that Kim and I sold our ’48 Pontiac convertible. This car has been a part of our family since 1974, before we got married. In fact, Kim was opposed to my buying it, since we were both in college, and a wedding was on the horizon. Of course, I bought it anyway.
Since getting the Diamond T finished, we haven’t been driving the car, it’s been setting in the garage, sort of covered, for three years. It’s not that we didn’t like it, but I thought it needed some changes, and having built the car three times in over 40 years, I wasn’t enthused about the thought of rebuilding it again. Our friends Brandon and Liz, fellow Tin Can Tourists members, learned we had the car, and after some conversation and couple of visits, we agreed to sell it to them. I put a new battery in it, dusted it off, had a sticking front brake caliper replaced, and the car left our driveway with someone else behind the wheel for the first time in 41 years. They’ve been busy putting their own personal stamp on it, enjoying using it to pull their vintage Trotwood trailer. We’re happy to see the car being used and loved, not slowly going to seed in the garage.
Of course, the empty space in the garage, and the sudden positive balance in the checking account was not destined to last very long. I’d been talking about building a ’27 Highboy roadster for several years, and began now to look for a body and frame. I talked to several friends, looked again at the beautiful little black ’27, the Frank Mack car, at the Gilmore Museum, and decided a ’27 wasn’t going to work for me in my old age. I’d seen a ’31 on ’32 rails this summer, and thought maybe a Brookville body on ’32 rails would do, and started adding up the bits. The totals soon added to more than I’d gotten for the convert, and was getting a little discouraged, when I saw an ad on the HAMB classifieds for a ’34 roadster, pretty complete minus the engine and transmission. I called the owner, we had a good conversation, I told him I’d get back with him.
Discussing it with Kim, her concern was that I’d suddenly switched gears from the ’27 she’d been hearing (incessantly) about, to this new idea, a bigger, heavier, open car. I assured her it’d be more suitable for us at this stage in our lives (the stage of needing to be relatively comfortable). She gave a green light, I called the guy in Connecticut, Bill, back, we made a deal and two days later, by dad Rex, 91 years old, and I were in the Diamond T with the trailer tagging along, on the way to get a roadster.
We drove the 802 miles in one day, leaving at 6 am, arriving at Bill’s house at 10 pm. Steady construction although Pennsylvania and New York slowed us, but we had no trouble at all. The next morning we looked over the parts and pieces of the disassembled car, and I was happy with what I saw. It had been a finished car in the 70’s and 80’s, running a blown flathead, and was featured in Street Rodder magazine in ’83. Of course I have this issue, and even remembered the feature once I saw the car. Now wearing a quickie coat of black swap-meet primer over the original burgundy paint, it still has the original lettering “Flying Flathead” on the tail pan. 
Included in the pile of parts are the original top and upholstery. The flathead and original chassis are long missing, the cars builder had decided he wanted a coupe, and pulled the glass body, an early Gibbons body I think, and sold it. Bill had bought it after it changed hands a couple of times, built a new frame, accumulated all the chassis parts to make it a roller, and for some reason, perhaps because like me has three other projects going already, offered it for sale.
Dad and I took two days to drive home after loading (almost) all the parts into the enclosed trailer. We stopped halfway in Pennsylvania, and headed out early the next day, getting home at 2:30. I was a little worried about the long drive in the cramped cab of the truck, but dad enjoyed the drive, and even though he’s never been a “car guy” seems enthusiastic and supportive of the project. He remembers ’34 Fords as being sporty looking cars of his youth, so that may be part of it.
Two weeks later, I haven’t yet unloaded, or even fully inventoried what all I have, mainly because I know if I get it out of the trailer, I’ll be drawn to work on it rather than the T’bird and the Spartan trailer, so, it’s still in the trailer. I’m excited though, and have located a 700R transmission for the (tired) 350 Chevy I have in the garage, decorated with vintage Cal Custom finned aluminum valve covers and an Offy dual quad intake with two new Edelbrock carbs. Aside from wiring, I have, I think, everything I need to put the car together. The dropped front axle we’d left under Bill’s bench, I remembered it in the middle of the night on the way home, he shipped to me. We’d kicked it out of the way rolling the body and chassis out.
In other news, I’ve started stripping the interior of the ’47 Spartan Manor in the back yard. From Brandon and Liz we have some vintage 9×9 floor tiles in a nice gray/green, and some black and red to sprinkle in at random. I want to get the floor repaired, there a couple of soft spots under windows in the rear, and flooring down before cold weather. Once the floor is in, and the new front windows in, the trailer becomes its own workshop, and the goal is to have the wiring, plumbing, walls and cabinetry in by spring. Once that’s done, finishing the interior and polishing can be done by next summers camping season.
We had the boat out this summer, and found its leaking so badly that the pumps can no longer keep up. In fact, in a two-day period in the water without being used, the battery had run down and it wouldn’t start. Underway, the rear pump was overwhelmed, and water filled the bilge to the floor. The problem turns out to be a loose rudder post, due to decades of over tightening the bolts and pulling them into the wood, and a bad chine plank, which I’d short planked 26 years ago. It’s so soft I could push my finger through it (I could, but didn’t). So, it needs to have a new bottom, which is going to have to wait until other things get done.
Speaking of getting things done, I finally have primer on the Thunderbird. I had planned on having it in color by now, but summer came and went working on the car at all. It really looks good all one color, even grey primer, and I’m enthused again. Now the tedious job of block sanding, re-priming, blocking, guide coating, re-priming before color goes on. And, what colors to pick? We’ll see, we’ll see…
Kim’s Riviera may be on hiatus, but we have big plans for it as too, so, keep checking in, and keep reminding me to keep up with the blog so you’ll know I’m OK!
Cool McCool's Garage 
