Thursday, October 24, 2013

Ringo’s Almost Ready for Ariel

Yesterday evening I spent a couple hours fiddling with Ringo reducing the items on the to-do list to one. I started by thoroughly cleaning the portion of the Powerglide shifter cable between the transmission mount and the tunnel before wrapping it with Rescue Tape. This will, hopefully, prevent him from marking his spot with ATF. Then, I installed the two lower shrouds with their thermostats so the salon of the car will get warm air during these cool months. This is always a fun job where a third hand would really come in handy (pun intended). As it is, I usually emply a knee or my chin to hold something in place while I try to insert the thermostat rod’s end fitting into its home on the shroud door. It’s best to use my chin, since it forces me to keep my mouth shut and, thus, all the swearing I do is silent hence I shift the focus of the worklight. Next, I verified the backup lights worked – they did. This was followed by a check of the heater blower – it did NOT work. It took some probing to determine power wasn’t getting from the fuse block to the switch. A few plug-in/plug-out cycles and all was good-to-go (corrosion is not my friend). Finally, I retightened the steering box screw by about 45 degrees resulting in no more play in the steering wheel.

While I didn’t drive him Tuesday (and I’ve reported what a mistake that was), I have been using him during my daily commutes and he’s performed flawlessly (TYL). The finaly item on the to-do list installing the replacement driver’s seat. I’m putting off starting this until tomorrow night so I can do the swap in one fell swoop to minimize his time off the road just pull the current one out, skin it of its upholstery, skin the replacement, and put the vinly on the replacement before reinstalling with swapped hardware.

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