Singin' the Woodie Blues...

A couple of weeks ago, I had the Country Squire out for a little road trip. Since the end of April, when I did some trading for a newer daily driver ('09 Nissan Altima S), I parked the wagon in the shop and put almost no miles on it until this little drive. I gassed up the Squire and went to look at an old Chrysler Newport a guy had on an over-priced lot he had, which was about 60 miles away. Rejected that and went home. Roughly 120 miles, so far. A couple hours later, my wife and I had a social engagement at a co-workers' house (BBQ ribs, burgers, beer...yum!), and since the wagon was gassed up and the interior cool, we went the 35 miles to our destination. Six hours later, it's time to go home. Jump in the car, and the starter solenoid makes that noise when it doesn't want to play. Crap! Grab the jumpers and hook them up, after cleaning the terminals with Coke and a water rinse. Nothing. Went to check the cables themselves, and the positive cable came right off the terminal! It was corroded straight through. I'm amazed the car ran at all! So, I then call Hagerty and arrange a haul to home. Since the wagon is not my DD anymore, I wasn't in a hurry to fix anything.

Last weekend, I went out to the wagon to assess things. Not only were BOTH cables bad, the battery now put out a whopping 8.1VDC and had a bulging side, to boot. Crap again! Okay. So off I go to the parts store and get a new battery, positive cable, a negative cable end, and for good measure, a new solenoid. Put her all together. Turn key. Starter makes that slooooooow "er, er, er, ttktktktktktkt" sound. Are you serious? Out comes the starter and off I go to the parts store. Again. Test the starter. It, too, went tits-up on me. Buy a new starter. Crawl under the car and find an oil leak off the back of the PS valve cover...and right over the starter! OK, can today suck any more than it does? Installed the new starter...and she started right up! Damn good thing, too. But at least it starts in less than two seconds now instead of five as it did before. I no longer have the flickering light problem I had from before. And everything is working as it should. Except, of course, the stereo. It's coming out for good tomorrow.

Next thing on the agenda for the Squire - tinted windows! YOU drive a car with all those windows in the Summertime, with the factory "tint", which isn't much. The temperature gets ridiculous here, when combined with the humidity. I'm going to have the cargo area all limo-tinted, and the door windows about half that darkness. These cars look great with tint, and I want to preserve the interior as much as possible; especially since it's cloth.

That's it for today, enjoy the week!

 

Oh, and keep your eyeballs peeled in January '17 for the Starz miniseries "American Gods" (premiere episode) and a new film scheduled for release in early Spring '17 called "Stillwater", where you'll see the wagon in both!

 

Did ya replace the valve cover gasket?

Turned the key to make her start.
All she'd do is grunt and fart.
Replaced the cables and the battery too.
Still some more grunts was all she'd do.
Got a new starter to start my woody wagon.
Back on the road and here to be braggin.

 

No on the valve cover gasket. My energy and patience had been expended after the starter.

 

Cutting back on the social engagements at co-workers' houses is recommended.
BBQ and beer are bad!

 

No, they were quite delicious and worth the jaunt!

 

Been thinking of doing a light tint on my wagon too, for the same reasons you mentioned, Patrick80. Not sure I'll go limo dark though. I'm thinking something about half that dark.

 

Wow, Patrick, it's been awhile since my '83 CP did all that, and took the alternator, too. That was an expensive week. Oh, and that was the Winter the heater core wasn't hooked up! "It never rains but it pours." But it's soooo nice when it catches so quickly, doesn't it?

 

Yeah, open the hood and check things once in a while.
You're real lucky that battery didn't blow up in your face.
Going by all the the war stories I've been reading lately it seems like basic preventative maintenance is an abstract concept to a lot of people here.

 

If PM were a religion, I'd be a Holy Book-thumpin' acolyte, but even I get surprised sometimes. The real suck-@$$ part of missing PM is that more than one thing can go wrong. One problem will usually balloon into many.

CAN I GET AN 'AMEN!?'

 

When it rains, it pours, eh Patrick?

Since I'm actually working now, I've been driving the Way Back Machine almost daily. No problems at all, which is not an omen, hopefully.

I think I would like to put some money into getting it to ride better - bushings, shocks, etc. and maybe figure out if I can improve the shuddering I get around 50 - 55 mph. Seems related to the lock-up torque converter, if I had to guess.

 

If there is one thing I have learned with my last three classic cars is they like to be driven. Good for you Marshall! I love that you're driving your wagon more often! We just turned in our '13 Volt which brought us from 3 cars to 2; my wagon being one of them. So I'm driving it almost daily now as well.

 

Well, I tell ya what, sometimes shit really DOES happen, regardless of the effort expended in keeping things on the road. Something can appear to be fine when it's not. And, surely you've never, ever had a failure on your car on an excursion, right??? Don't be such a condecending ass.

 

I had that dark tint on the rear 5 windows when I got my '89 Crown Vic Wagon(Florida car),and the RMV made me remove all of it...

 

Like a fool I sold our 55 Chevy wagon. The fool that I bought it back from had all windows tinted as dark as possible. The windshield had it across the top even. I removed it from the driver and passenger door windows because at night I couldn't see anything off to the sides.
The way I understand in Florida everything except those two side windows and the windshield can be very dark.
Our son had his El Camino windows tinted and local police made him remove it. Now even the cop car windows are super dark . Personally I think it's dangerous and not good. I like to see the guy at the intersections to see if he's awake and paying attention.
More cars are coming from the factory very dark tinted. That's so they can drink beer and text while driving naked.