As far as weekends go, they don't get more pleasurely productive as this past one. There's a fine line to walk- you can bust ass all weekend and not bring anything to completion. Result: unfulfillment. You can peter out halfway through the day or sleep in a little too long. Result: Shame and guilt. If you're feeling it, you can work at 100% for 100% of the time and when the alarm goes off Monday morning you can't lift yourself out of bed. Result: Sweet satisfaction, but you've set yourself up for Monday fail. Ideally, I like to run at #3, and then force myself out there for Monday action (and bed….early). Trouble is, if I don't get myself to bed at a reasonable hour the rest of the week, the fatigue rolls on down to Friday like falling dominos. This is not good.
They say variety is the spice of life. True that. Got off work a little early on Friday and checked on the cars in storage. Things looked ok and the batt in the '59 appeared to hold a charge. Maybe I'll get it out next month. Wrote a check and headed into town to change. The skies were looking unfriendly so instead of pounding nails, I decided to turn wrenches; added Friday's list to Saturday's. Spent a few hours working on the ETC. Put in the new gas lift cylinders for the hood. Worked on getting the batt to take a charge. Started pulling lights and dash parts. Swapped brackets and connectors to put the Biarritz radio in. Discovered all 6 tailight bulbs were either blown entirely or only had half good sections; plus sockets full of crud. Flushed everything with lots of brake cleaner and started making a list. One taillight extension had been installed after repaint pinching a wire between metal and metal. Fixed that. Yanked the aftermarket fog light wiring and got down into the fuse panel. I would have guessed replacing two open fuses would have brought back the Climate and Fuel readouts. They did not, but I was getting closer. Swapping the climate head made no difference either. Followed the trouble-tree and schematics in the shop manual and made it all the way to the very last step in the guide with my meter: Replace A/C programmer. Hmmm. I did have a spare board downstairs, missing the solenoids. Worth a shot. Swapped it in and still no luck. Then I had a thought. I replaced both it AND the climate head and we were back in business! Plus a functioning warning chime. Tore apart the head and found a severely burnt resistor in the power supply section. The programmer must have shorted and taken it out. OK, now I had a list.
Sat morning, the real work began. Moved the picker to the east and let the sun soften the shingles. Finished the last panel of aromatic cedar in the closet, installed the freshly painted exterior recept cover, installed the last piece of red cedar on the gangway wall and drug the stain outside to warm in the sun. Managed to drill and install the aluminum drip eding on the east side, followed by (very messy) tar to seal nails and shingles back down. Measured for cedar corners while I was up there. Fixed a kink in some z-flashing and folded the picker up to move to the west side. Once there it was 'beat the clock' with the sun moving overhead. With brush and handi-pail, stained the west siding to remove all traces of the white paint faux-paus (finally!). Riveted the dip out of the west flashing and then proceeded to carefully and tediously cut the shingles flush to the flashing in 4 ft sections with the shingle knife. Did a little electrical wiring, then decided I better put a drop of white paint on the rivet head up there. Done and done. Gorgeous day to hang out in the bucket.
Now late in the afternoon, it was time for errands. Picked up automotive supplies, bulbs and a new battery. Home in time for Guy Lombardo (yeah, yeah) and a viewing of Taken. I'd probably feel cheated if I were paying at a theater, but being action-driven, it loses something on the small screen. Tough call.
Sunday. Crappy, crappy weather. Toiled on the second garage door, section #2, for a couple hours to the point where it was ready for a 24 hour adhesive setup. Headed to the parents with bags of laundry and got things going. Spent the afternoon running laundry and working on the car. Swapped taillight lenses and bezels (ETC's have painted bezels and (non-OEM) cracked lenses, apparently). Loaded fresh bulbs. R&R'd a socket that was too far gone. Shimmied underneath the rear to find both backup lamps were toast. Replaced. Still no workee. Tore apart dash for a deep cleaning. Found a broken mount on the wiper control pod. Replaced from my stash. Paint monkeys had snaked the RH remote mirror cable out and botched that control pod. Removed, scrubbed clean and re-heat-staked the faceplate (and re-routed the cable). Polished all the dash chrome, scrubbed the nicotine off the soft parts. Pulled driver's visor. Swapped batteries. Soldered in a 15 ohm resistor into the control head and that fixed that. The car now runs without any error codes but still surges under load. Clean as a pin underhood.
That is one of the nice things about these cars- yes, lots of plastic, which is the way of the world since around the '70 models, but everything can be removed with screws, repaired if you're careful, and put right back in. No mega-assemblies, proprietary components or 'break-clips' to remove type parts. So far only money spent has been on maintenance stuff- battery, coolant, light bulbs. Well worth it for the therapy of making something better than when you found it.
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