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Mary Lee and I are enjoy­ing our break from the nasty New Eng­land weather down here in sunny and HOT Boca Raton.  It looks like it has been rainy, damp, foggy and cool since we left Mass­a­chu­setts, but sure is nice here.

Yes­ter­day, we took a short 50 mile trip down to Miami to visit Ted Vernon’s “South Beach Clas­sics”.  Ted’s busi­ness is the focus of a TV show by the same name that you can catch on the Veloc­ity Chan­nel on Fri­day nights at 9:00PM.

We spent much time look­ing over the col­lec­tion of hot rods, cus­toms and clas­sics.  Down here they run the gamut from gar­ish to sub­lime.  Many of the clas­sics are mod­i­fied and not to our taste but still done well.  Those who know me know that I am an “orig­i­nal” clas­sic type guy.  Ted’s inven­tory is exten­sive and var­ied, we saw Chevy’s, and Ford’s, along with Dodge’s, Nash’s, Chryslers and every­thing in between includ­ing a Zim­mer and sev­eral Rolls Royce.

I was kind of sur­prised at the num­ber of un-molested Cadillac’s that ranged from the ’40’s on up.  There were sev­eral nice Lin­colns in atten­dance too!  Once again, no 1958 Cadil­lac to be found, what are we, the “ugly step-child” of car col­lect­ing?  Just kid­ding, we love the ’58 and always will.  We made the trek back up to Boca with­out a new addi­tion to the fleet, but it was a great day out.….

Back to Mass­a­chu­setts on May 9th.……

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We had a won­der­ful day and met many new peo­ple at the Con­necti­cut Trol­ley Museum in East Wind­sor, Con­necti­cut on Sat­ur­day.  Beau­ti­ful sunny day, a nice ride down, and the chance to view many clas­sic Cadillac’s.  That by itself is a rare occur­rence, we do a lot of char­ity events and local cruise nights and only rarely get to see another Cadil­lac.  A cou­ple of stand-outs come to mind, a gor­geous 1933 V-12, and a very nice ’55 coupe along with a cou­ple very nice LaSalle’s.  The 1959 model year was very well rep­re­sented with at least 5 exam­ples there that day.  We were the only 1958 on the property.

As always we surely have to drive defen­sively both to and from these events, I’m still amazed at the atten­tion we get while on the road, with the horn honk­ing, thumbs up, and pic­ture tak­ing, all while trav­el­ing at 65 MPH!!  I’ll never get over the fact that peo­ple pull along­side us, roll down their win­dows and attempt to carry on a con­ver­sa­tion while dri­ving, what’s up with that?

All was well with our first trip out, the newly rebuilt trans­mis­sion per­formed smoothly, but sadly we still have that nag­ging har­monic vibra­tion through­out the car at speeds from 50 – 70 MPH.  We bal­anced the torque con­verter when the tranny was out and replaced the drive-shaft cen­ter sup­port bear­ing at the same time hop­ing we would elim­i­nate it.  Alas, it is not to be, and the vibra­tion per­sists.  We are run­ning out of places to look, the drive-shaft has been trued and bal­anced, wheel bear­ings all replaced, motor and tranny rebuilt and still it is there.  Some think it is an engine vibra­tion, oth­ers think it is in the drive-line, not a major deal, but it is caus­ing me to tear out what lit­tle hair I have left.  We will find it and fix it, but I can see it is going to take some time.

I had a nice con­ver­sa­tion with Ron Ther­oux of Clas­sic Unlim­ited Video Pro­duc­tions who spent quite some time shoot­ing video of the “Gray Lady” and I will get a link up to his site as soon as I have some spare time.  Also, spent a lot of time with the guys from Fusick Auto­mo­tive Prod­ucts, a local ven­dor from East Wind­sor, CT, who spe­cial­ize in repro­duc­tion parts and com­po­nent rebuild­ing.  Looks like I will fast become new best friends with this local ven­dor.  Their link will be up soon as well.

Finally, we were hon­ored to be selected as an award win­ner at the show, it’s nice to know so many oth­ers appre­ci­ate these fine vehi­cles as much as we do.  Next up, this evening we are attend­ing a new local cruise night at McCray’s Farm here in town, only because the weather is so great and I feel a need to just get her out and about after the long Win­ter sleep.  Tomor­row Mary Lee and I jet off to Boca Raton for a short hia­tus and will return on the 10th.

Till then.….….…..

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Those of you who have been fol­low­ing our restora­tion project know that the car’s exte­rior trim is just about com­plete.  We are still wait­ing to get the right tail-fin let­ters returned from the plater so that we can install them and be done with it.

Well here’s my story and I’m stick­ing to it.… Many moons ago when plat­ing the bumpers, bezels, door han­dles, Vees, mir­ror and emblems with New Eng­land Chrome Plat­ing in Hart­ford, CT., we were sat­is­fied with all, until they returned our let­ter set with one “L” miss­ing!!!  Geez…you think any­one will notice if I spell Cadil­lac with an “L” miss­ing?  CADILAC doesn’t look quite right does it?  They looked high and low and never found it, con­sen­sus is that if fell in the tank and with a 2,000 gal­lon tank they can­not retrieve it.

They didn’t seem to con­cerned, but did say they would make it right if I found another part.  After a months long search I did find them in Her­shey, PA, and while there vis­ited New Eng­land Chrome’s booth and was told to bring it to the shop after the show.  OK, things are look­ing up right?  NOT, now they tell me they won’t touch it as they already lost one and don’t want the lia­bil­ity.  Nice way to treat a cus­tomer who has already spent thou­sands in your shop.  GREAT, what a bunch of A-Holes.….

The saga con­tin­ues as I spend months try­ing to find another plater.  Finally leave them with a shop in Palm Beach, FL (have to redo a whole set, not 1 let­ter, to make sure they all match) with a promise they will be back to me 2nd week of March.  Any­body know what today’s date is?  So here I am with the NERCLC show tomor­row morn­ing and still no let­ters.  I called them a month ago and they told me they were done, but 1 let­ter didn’t come out well and was in the process of being redone, fur­ther assured me I would have them in a week…  Yeah right, called they again on Tues­day and the new excuse is; WE DROPPED A LETTER IN THE TANK, are you kid­ding me, am I really going to have to go through all of this again?  They did say they had retrieved it and they are going to be ready next week.  I told them to hold them and not mail them, because the way things are going the US Postal is liable to store them in the dead let­ter office for the next decade or so.  For­tu­nately, I plan on being in Boca Raton next week, when my plater can have a face to face visit with a very angry customer.….

Till next time…

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