More Glinda Missives

The Hughes’ household had a VERY busy weekend, so little time was available to maintain the fleet. I was, however, able to spend yesterday evening in the garage working on Glinda. Victoria was delivering her older sister back to school, so I was on my own. That meant I had control of the music selection – always a good thing.

Victoria had reported Glinda was smoking some on Friday, and I figured it was one of two things (or maybe both) – fluids still burning off the surfaces we’d touched when working on the engine or roasted pieces of insulation being blown out of the heater box. After putting her up on jackstands, I removed the two tunnel covers before pulling off the long heater duct and cleaning out a few bits of insulation. With the heater stuff all back together, I went to work on the sealing project. I started by fashioning a patch from the plastic of water bottle and, using Silicone RTV, attached it to cover the rusted hole above the right-side fresh air inlet vents. I used duct tape to hold the patch against the sheetmetal while the RTV sets. Then, with new strips of caulk, I reinstalled the two vents followed by the door sills. More RTV went into as many of the seams as I could find, both under the dash and in the outside air plenum at the base of the windshield. That little project was completed when I reinstalled the front air grill and the wipers. Finally, I replaced the headlight switch since the one that was in the car would not turn on the gage lights. Unfortunately, the new switch doesn’t work perfectly either – it won’t turn on the dome light when you rotate the knob. I think it’s a ground issue, but it’s not a show-stopper. At that point, it was 10 and time to call it a weekend.

The last two parts that need reinstallation are the engine mount cover and the rear grill. Then I can make the hard choice between Ringo’s rust repair or Lucy’s.