Just When You Think You Have It Made..

[trim code 76]

Ray, Do you know Kevin Nichols in England?? We are good friends! We meet in Portland a few years ago for the 50th Tbird Anivers. International show. He and the lovely Rachel have been out to our house twice (in WA) and it looks like now we will go out to their "flat', English talk, next year. Great guy, very sad about his bird
Greg

[trim code 76]

Ray,
Your wiring looks much better, very glad the old girl is doing well, here's to a happy road test!
Greg

[YellowRose]

Just When You Think You Have It Made..

Yes, I do know Kevin from Squarebirds, and the story of his destroyed beautiful Tbird. That is one reason why I put a Start Lock on Rose, especially after the wiring problems I ran into. My Start Lock handle has been turned to take the power off the battery while they are working on it. When I get it back, I will leave NO power to the car while it is in my garage. I dont mind resetting the clock.

That is great that ya'll got to spend some time together at your place and now, it appears, at their place in England. I am sure you will enjoy that. I love visiting England. My daughter-in-law is a beautiful and lovely English lass! I am one of those that spends all my time visiting the castles, climbing the stairs to the walls and waging imaginary war with the Normans or the Saxons, or anyone trying to storm my castle! I have done the same in Scotland. Unfortunately, I have yet to visit Ireland, the other land of my ancestors, along with Scotland and England.

And yes, Kevin is a great guy!

[YellowRose]

Just When You Think You Have It Made..

A number of you have asked in email or PM's about the status of Rose. If all goes well, I should get her back tomorrow. As a result of an accidental shorting of several of her electrical wires in the dash area by a mechanic while working on her, she has had a pretty complete rewiring.. Twice.. At their expense...
One of those accidents took out the CVR unit and the Fuel/Temp gauge. I replaced the CVR unit with the new solid state one that I have posted about in the past. Bird Nest rebuilt my gauges... At the auto shops expense also...

The wiring has been completely redone and wire loomed very nicely. In doing so, they missed the wiring to the AC compressor and had to fix that. While working on that, they found what I already knew, that the AC blower motor was not blowing out a lot of cold air, though the air was nice and cold. They had recharged my AC unit while they had the car. So I told them to fix the AC blower motor. They had it rebuilt and now it is blowing and going. However, I had some leaks into the engine area around that AC unit on the firewall. They are fixing that, sealing all the leaks, and I should get it back sometime tomorrow, after they clean it up inside and out again.. When I get it back, it should be in much, much better shape than it was when I took it in.

My plan is to drive it to my interior guy and let him look it over. I need to determine what I want to do next. I am torn between painting it turquoise, which is what I wanted in the first place, and leaving it the original color. If I go the turquoise route, that means my interior will have to be changed also, unless I want to leave it black and white. Which I don't. I was planning on changing the interior anyway. So I have something to think about in the way of exterior paint and interior. And I have been thinking...

So there you have it. It has taken a long time to get things fixed, but I have not been pushing them. They work it in as they can and have treated me pretty well, as far as I am concerned. They have done a lot of good things to the car to improve it and make it a safer car. They like working on it because it is something different than working on these new fangled cars they have these days. These guys cut their teeth on old cars like this.

The only thing bad about it is that I have missed a couple of S&S events and this weekends Memorial Day parade. It is probably good that I did, because the Tbirds and other old cars were put behind the horses and buggies. As a result, the cars were overheating and having to dodge horse hockey half the time! They had to pull the cars out of the parade. Some parade organizer made the mistake of putting the old cars behind the slow moving horses..

[Penelope]

Wow Ray, there is a lot happening behind the scene. Great news on the electrical problems being sorted at their expense, so they should have though. Still, there are some workshops around that would have tried to hang it on the car being old etc etc.

I do recall that you love the turquoise, if you go that route, are you still going to do tu-tone? Also what colour interior would take your fancy then? I know white isnt a T-Bird colour, but I can recommend them together!

[YellowRose]

Just When You Think You Have It Made..

Hi Bill,

The only thing about painting the car turquoise is that I am taking it one further step away from it being original. But I remember what Alexander told me... "Keep it original if you want to, or improve it, make it safer, and make it yours since you paid for it"... It will probably cost me a lot more also to have it painted turquoise. Whereas, if I keep it Casino Cream, it might be cheaper. If I decide on turquoise, I will probably two-tone it, with a darker turquoise on the top, hood, trunk and forward part of the car, with a lighter turquoise from the curve on the door back. The interior I would probably make match the exterior color.. If I do that, I am probably going to have to change her name also... As for white, yes white and turquoise set each other off well, as evidenced in Penelope!

I might go with something like this. The darker color Indian Turquoise, with the lighter color Aquamarine.. Sorry Bob, I used your car to color! And I did not do a very good job of coloring, but it let me see what it might look like.

[bird 60]

Hi Ray,
Good to hear you're getting 'Rose back tomorrow. Turqoise Blue is a beautiful color. I had a Ford Transit Van back in the mid seventees whilst residing in Canada. I had that painted Turqoise Blue & it looked majic. I know we can't compare T.Birds to the Van but it's a great color. Should you go that direction I reckon Turqoise blue & White interior & a Turqoise Blue Body & a White Top. I've seen a few two-tone bottom but to my opinion they don't look overly appealing. But then again it's your party & you'll do what you want to.

Chris....From the Land of OZ.