With all the time Ringo and his brakes sucked from my Saturday, I had to wait until Sunday afternoon before I could work on Lucy. I got the racing harness installed and the brake rod adjusted. That last task was a pain in the butt. The inboard end of the rod is threaded into a block attached to the brake pedal. There’s a jam nut snugged against the face of the block to prevent its movement. Halfway down the rod is a knurled collar. You’re supposed to be able to simply loosen the jam nut, and rotate the rod using a pliers on the collar. Even after dousing the joints with my magic penetrating concoction, it was a serious chore to turn the jam nut. Fifteen difficult degrees at a time, I turned the nut towards the color. When it bound with the knurl, the rod finally started turning. After moving it to the new position I felt comfortable with, I tried to hold the knurl with the vise grips while turning the jam nut. The rod just spun with the nut. I decided to leave it without the jam nut jamming.
After that I worked on the front valance getting half of the patchwork done before running out of welding wire. At that point it was time to pack tools and the rest of the accouterments required for a day pushing the mechanical limits of my nearly fifty year old car.I ended up happy that I hadn’t spent any more time on the valance since it got mostly ripped away by the tow rope that drug me to the pits Monday. Oh well, I wasn’t happy with the job anyway. The metal I used for the patch was thinner than the car’s sheetmetal, so I had to use a lighter setting on my MIG welder to keep from blowing out the patch. That meant I didn’t get good penetration of the weld in base metal. I’m going to try and get an actual valance to do the patch correctly. If I strike out there, I can use the old patch as a template.
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