It has become clear we are not going to make our Labor Day target date for roll out. It has been a long hot summer with one issue after another raising their ugly heads. On the business front staffing issues have caused chaos with scheduling taking up way more of my time than expected and it is expected to continue throughout the Fall season. Parts issues are holding us back as well, ah well, you can’t rush perfection.
Gary at Cadillac International finally delivered the rear fender moulding almost 2 Months after it was ordered. In fairness, the piece looks like NOS and is beautiful, but it was a long wait. When ordered, I explained I wanted a piece with no dents or dings and it seems he decided to send it out to be refurbished though he told me it was in stock, so he was at the mercy of the re-finishing company. I feel kind of bad because he probably spent close to what he sold it to me for to get it done and he and I had some heated discussions before he told me the real story. He tried to do the right thing and all would have been well had he told me what he was doing from the beginning. Would I do business with him again, yes, but I would be sure to negotiate a firm delivery date.
The new American Classic radials arrived from Coker Tire yesterday, more than 2 weeks later than I expected and will be put on this week. The dash is still apart while we wait for a new vibrator tube for the radio, it was supposed to be here 2 weeks ago and we are not sure whether it is the actual culprit or not, so I don’t want to close everything up and then have to pull it apart again if the radio needs to come back out.
My biggest issue has now been resolved, the car has been running rougher and rougher with a very bad dead spot on the throttle and then started stalling when the brakes were applied. It was getting worse and no amount of tweaking the carb was improving it. I was convinced that it was a carb issue, so pulled it off and sent it back to the re-builder only to find no issues. Further investigation revealed that when we converted the generator to a one wire system alternator we wired the generator light into the circuit and it somehow was backfeeding power into the harness with the key off. This caused the coil to be energized 24/7 and apparently damaged it. I remedied the power backfeed by cutting out the gen light, installed a new coil, re-installed the carb, cranked her about 45 seconds to prime the fuel system and boom off she went. She idles perfect, seems to need nothing more than minor carb adjustments and we are ready to go.
I started assembling the front bumper and brackets and soon hope to roll her out to get an inspection though interior work still needs to be done. All inspection issues are OK, lights, directionals, horn, but the wipers are needing a little help and I will work on those soon.….……
back soon.…
