[dan]

Other interesting things...

So, I bought the car out of state (not too far away) after looking it over, because it was within my price range and my wife liked the color :-) My coupe was that not-very-attractive 1931 tan and dark brown, which she didn't like at all. Anyway, the owner--a really nice kid in his late 20s early 30s--had bought the car two years ago and decided it wasn't for him. He said he quickly discovered that he preferred a modern "turn it on and drive it" experience.

He'd taken it to a local mechanic who'd replaced the coil, condenser, and points, put on a new belt and radiator hoses, a new carb, and he couldn't remember what else. He said the mechanic ran it at his shop, but when he got it home he couldn't get it to start. When I got there and looked it over, I asked him what he'd tried. Turns out he didn't know about the choke/gav... so I started it, ran it for two minutes or so, and then bought it.

Today while going over it and making my three-part list (must fix now, should fix soon, would be nice) I ran it for a bit longer. It looks like it's leaking at the second-from the rear driver's side head stud and has a little something escaping at the number three plug. I'll tighten both of those back down tomorrow and see what happens. Somewhere in my box of A stuff I have a new copper head gasket, so if I have to open up the engine at least I don't have to wait for that to arrive.

The doors latches were really poorly adjusted. An easy fix, but the handles are really sloppy and it might need new ones. The handle bases had been sprayed over in the cheesy repaint, so I'd probably do that anyway.

It's missing the floor wood, which I knew from when I looked at it. I bought some board today and downloaded the template, so I'll cut that out tomorrow. I should probably dive into the ebrake tomorrow too. It holds the car, but won't latch. I'm hoping it's just an adjustment thing, not a woggled-out pivot hole.

The headlights don't work. I'm pretty suspicious that there's a problem with the switch rod, because of the horn button on the side of the steering column that I posted a photo of. They're those "sealed beam" things that were popular a while back. I've done a good bit of electric work in the past, so it shouldn't be too hard to sort out. I can't register it without lights, so that's near the top of my second list.

In some ways the car seems pretty original. Just the single tail light, no cowl lights--just a plain-jane Tudor. Rubber floor mats and the rest of the bottom-of-the-line things you'd get in a 29 Tudor. But the things I posted photos of are clearly from a bad "restoration" so the car seems like an odd duck to me.

More later