13 Shots from Petersen

I've lived my whole life in the Los Angeles area, and I'm a car guy, but here's something I've never done. A visit to the Petersen Automotive Museum!!!

My dad's car club managed to get a group trip there, including a tour of the vault. It was pretty awesome, but they don't allow photography in the vault. The three things that I remember from that part are one of the three gold DeLorians ever produced, a Pantera owned by Elvis that he put three bullets into when it wouldn't start for him, and a 62-63 Comet that was under construction. The Comet got my attention because one of the cars I'm always looking around for the similar but much cooler 60-61 model.

All the pictures are from the levels above the vault. I considered attempting a sneak vault photo on my phone, but never did.

Right out in the lobby they had this auto show superbike with a Dodge V-10 engine.

This Mercer was pretty cool. Whoever heard of a monocle windshield??? I was a bit mystified by the gear drive to the front wheel. The most likely thing I could think of was a speedometer cable take off.

Motorized bikes were well represented.

I liked the green car with the white hard top. Don't remember what it was named, but it is a trike, has a removable top, and seats four across the bench seat!!!

There was a design school that had done wood mock ups for the next generation Minis. I like that they used a 5 gallon bucket for the center gauge cluster.

A lot of auto show cars that never saw production.

The huge black Rolls Royce in the lobby has a perfectly round door, although it's not so easy to see in the picture.

Finally, on the way out, in the parking lot was a cool dune buggy!!!

Grillin' Merkin

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I should blog more!!! I've got so much I'm behind on.

Anyway, I've done a LOT of wrenching on me cars this week!!! Enough for a month, I'd say, but I may do yet more...

They tried something new at work (well, non-work related, they're ALWAYS trying something new...), a Bring your Toy to work day. Bring your classic or hobby car or bike or boat or whatever to work and show it off. They cordoned off a prime area of the parking lot (right near the newly remodeled cafeteria) for us to park 'em in. I was planning on bringing the Falcon since I first heard of it, and I did. The week before, when I was washing her off, I pulled out the grille I'd salvaged when I junked my '65 Comet, and thought to myself, "I could make this work".

I enclosed a couple of shots from the first Car Show they did on the work picnic day a couple years back for reference, how it looked with no grille (but with the recently installed square lights). I had to hacksaw off the ends of the grille, and it was tricky getting it in, and it's not a perfect fit, but it's plausible, and better than nothing. I'd already been thinking of using the Mercury logo in the center when I fabbed up a grille.

I already had the horn bar from the Comet from when I first got the car. I told a few people since I now had a Mercury grille in her, I should tell people to call it a Merkin!!! (For the LOLs. I don't think enough people know what a merkin is for them to get it.)

So, I'd noticed the back left tire was low before driving it in that morning. Pumped it up, then it was low on the way back, too. Pumped it up again for the drive back. I'd also filled the tank by my work, too. Coming around an interchange, I punched it a little to pass a slow minivan, and she got loose in the rear, and I ended up sliding both ways, for an adrenaline shot!!! The tire was low again. Time for new tires.

The next night, the starter in Baby went out. Had to have her towed home, and my wife pulled the Falcon-Merkin out of the driveway to make room. The tire was totally flat and definitely damaged once she got that done. Bought a new starter (lines were down and they couldn't use credit or ATM cards or checks, so they gave me 10% off!!! Win!!!) and did that, as well as replacing two of the motor mounts (lower one with a polyurethane mount kit). Made a nice difference. I'd been planning on doing an oil change on Janice, and since I had all the jacks & stands out already, went ahead and did that too. Next, I changed the flat on the Falcon-Merkin.

Since I've in the past posted pictures of bad motor mounts before, here's a couple more!!!

A Tale of Two Starters

Or "What's up with all the starter troubles???"

I had been getting estimates on the removal of the pepper tree near the edge of our property. It grows like a weed, and regularly encroaches on the neighbor's house. Incidentally, this is the same end of the property that has the driveway, and the tree is at the end of the driveway. And the driveway is full of cars. A few weeks back I was going to take the Falcon down to my parents house and do some work on it there, and possibly get it two-toned. However, the starter was acting up. Actually, the starter sounds like it has a handful of gravel thrown in.

This morning, after taking the oldest boy to a breakfast fundraiser, I exchanged an old Ford starter I had sitting in the basement (possibly from the original six cylinder that used to be in the Falcon, it looked slightly different) so I wouldn't have to do that while I'm greasy.



Last Wednesday, after my wife took the boys to school, Janice wouldn't start up again. Didn't even crank, just did a click, and nothing more. Hmmmm, I've had something like this happen before... and it ended up being the better part of a year before she was back on the road!!! Only thing was, this time she didn't crank right before she stopped. I would try the starter, and it would click but not turn, and make a rather faint high pitched squeak, perhaps like something was slipping. Anyway, I had the idea, as I'd had last time, that the engine got on a compression stroke and the starter didn't have quite enough to kick it past there. Instead of cranking it back as I'd done last time, I had the brilliant idea of pulling the glow plugs out to relieve the pressure. I'd remembered them as being much easier to remove last time I'd worked on her. Got them out, and it still did the same thing. The main reason I'd been avoiding just pulling out the starter is that it's a major pain to do so. It requires every one of my socket extensions to be used from the opposite end of the transmission. After putting the glow plugs back in (and breaking one terminal off and losing one of their little nuts) I finally relented and went ahead and pulled the starter out. Lo and behold, it does the same thing with no engine load on it!!!

Of course, I'd asked wifey which car I should work on first, and she'd opted for Janice. By the time I'd gotten everything back together and cleaned up, it was nearing full dark. And I'd been thinking I'd be able to get the grass mowed today, it's full of weeds and really has liked all the rain we've had in the last couple of months.

So that's what happened today, I got one new starter, which I didn't get put in, and I got one old starter that doesn't work pulled out.

Junkyard Jaunt

Over the weekend it was half price day at the junkyard again. It didn't look like the weather was going to co-operate, but in the end it did, and in a quite nice fashion. It had been pouring buckets of rain since morning Friday, and it continued on into Saturday morning. Oh well, my dad and I headed over anyway, figuring we'd just get wet. As we got to the junkyard, it was just a few big fat drops, and by the time we got in, there was no more to be had!!! Nice.

I scored on many items. The funny thing was, right as I pulled up to my parents house and hit Baby's door lock button, the button failed. Stopped returning to center on its own, and wanted to stay in the lock or unlock position. I'd wanted to get a replacement door panel for that side, it has been worked on by someone who didn't know what they were doing in the past, and is slightly damaged. I only saw one Saturn of the same vintage and model, and it didn't have the door panel, or even the door from that side, for that matter. Note to self: Do NOT run it into an immovable object!!! This one had, and the whole roof had been jaws-of-life'ed off. I did get a couple of missing fasteners off it, but found the lock switch, as well as a door limiter off four door models.

For Janice, I finally found one with the missing vacuum valve for the transmission function. Didn't need it, but bought it anyway. Someday I may even test it, but it only cost a couple bucks. Also found a replacement for a damaged under dash panel, and a receiver for one of the back door latches that hasn't been shutting correctly.

For the Maverick, I bought a couple of seat belts. This was the most expensive items that I purchased. The part that the belts snap into blew up several months ago. I got a couple of heavy duty caribiners to connect the belts to, but they're a pain to use. Also turned out to be the hardest thing to remove. They were out of an LTD. The only Maverick there was an early 70's 2-door with the V-8 engine. Very little body damage, I was actually rather surprised to see it there!!! I got the headlight rings from it, someone had removed them but not taken them, so I did. I considered pulling the tail lights off and getting them, too, but really have no need. Funny thing, when I got home, the Maverick had a tire that's gone flat. I pumped it back up, but it has leaked back down again.



Some of the fun stuff I found were these pins from the back of the Maverick, and the homie that I can't remember exactly where I found.

Good Enough?

I'm not sure if it's everything it could be or not, but it seems to work!!! Here's the completion of the vacuum valve system I've rigged up for the Mercedes. A couple weekends ago I mounted the dump valve I'd mentioned, and had been planning on taking a couple of pictures to post here, but had left my camera out of the camera bag!!! As you can see, the dump valve switch came out SLICK!!! I realized that the throttle had a cam plate which has the perfect bump at the end of it to activate the switch if it's mounted correctly. It was a bit tricky to do, and took about three times as long as it should have. That same day I'd also made up a clamp to hold the bleed valve, and was planning to weld it to a plate to bolt onto the engine, but never made it that far.



Yesterday I went down there to finalize that portion. I couldn't find a good piece to weld it to, but at some point I realize that all I'd have to do would be to weld it to the throttle cable mount. I did that, and was fairly pleased with the results. That would be the valve connected to the double bent linkage. I am going to get some "exhaust mufflers" (little threaded air fittings with porous ends on them for pneumatic systems) for the open ports on the valves to keep them from sucking in debris, and possibly to smooth out the vacuum signal.



I liked the third shot here, the sun glinting off the valve in the afternoon sunlight made it appear golden. The function of everything seems to work well enough, but I still can't discern if it makes it into 4th gear at highway speeds. Some tweaking may still be in the future.



Here's one other thing I did, I made up a spring loaded bumper to help pop the hood open. I am planning on one for each side, but they keep sending me one with the wrong threads on it. On Friday at work, I went to take a look at the bin box containing them to see if there were several mixed material in there, but the forward location was absent. I looked it up, and it was "in transit", with a document pending. I'm suspecting that means that the ICG or checking is finally dealing with this situation. I guess better me than an actual paying customer. ANyway, even with only one rigged up, it cured all the hood opening difficulties I'd been having.

Now, for the fun stuff: Bought gas for Baby again, this time a little short of an empty tank. I've noticed that the gauge moves to only about 3/4 tank for the first 100 miles, is still a hair over half full at 200 miles, and drops quickly from there. This time I travelled 266.7 miles on 9.27 gallons, for an average of 28.77 MPG for this tank, the second lowest number I've had since I got it. I attribute this to my wife taking the boy to a doctor's appointment on mostly surface streets, and being caught in a couple of nasty traffic jams. Nice, however, is that this is the first tank I've ever bought for her that has been under $3 a gallon!!! Lifetime average of 29.47 MPG. Heck, I'd be perfectly happy if better than 28.5 every time was all I ever got!!! Once I've begun to drive Janice again, I'll have to repair the odometer to determine the mileage that she gets. I've found tutorials for doing this, and it looks rather easy, if not time consuming. I notice that diesel fuel is finally falling in line with reality, only ten cents a gallon more than regular gasoline. Good times!!!

Starting the Weekend Right

Saturday of last weekend we went to my parents house for a barbecue and swimming. See that??? My younger son can walk on water!!!



My dad was with his car club at the Great Labor Day Cruise at the Orange County Fairgrounds, so he wasn't there for most of the day, but he showed up in the afternoon.



The younger of my sisters was there, and her boyfriend, with all of her kids over. I don't think I've made much mention of her situation, but she's only the custodial parent of her youngest. The older two visit my parents every other weekend. This information will come in handy later in the story. Also in attendance was her friend, a former roommate of hers from a long time ago. She has a daughter around the age of my oldest, and was planning on bringing her, but she couldn't arrange visitation.



It was a great day, a lot of fun, good food. My mom was disappointed in the meager quantity of food we consumed. Later on in the late afternoon I was doing a little wrenching on the Benz, remember her??? I haven't been able to get a proper vacuum valve for it yet, no place has them, not the dealer, not even in Germany. I came up with the idea that I could buy a needle valve from my work, equip it with a couple of hose barbs for the vacuum lines, and weld one of the linkage arms to a shaft collar to simulate the action on the ungettable valve. Of course, I'll need to fabricate a mount for it, too. So far, my theory seems to be valid, although it tends to bleed off the vacuum quicker than I would like. I could make a compound linkage to slow it, perhaps. All that said, I've been looking for a replacement for the Storm, but if I'd be able to get the transmission on the Mercedes to work right, that would be considerably less of a priority.



As I'm doing this, my sister's friend (actually, she's really a whole family friend, she's truly awesome) comes out and tells me that my mom has had a couple of instances of numbness on her left side, just small areas. We all think the same thing, not good, sounds like a stroke. She takes her to the emergency room, while my dad takes my nephew home. My sister and her youngest and her boyfriend all had to go home a little later. This leaves me and my family, as well as my niece. They had asked if we could stay with her overnight if need be if it took a long time at the ER, or they admit her for further observation or treatment. Of course, I accepted. After my dad had taken my nephew home, he went on to the emergency room. Everything turned out to be OK with the tests they ran on her, but she was to follow up with her neurologist. It was just a little after midnight when they made it home.

So, that's how my weekend started...

The Junkyard Gang

Went to the junkyard's half price day over the weekend. I didn't find anything to make the Benz shift right, in fact didn't see but one car that was even similar to mine there. The one that was there was a 240D, and about the most stripped Mercedes I've ever seen. It was manual transmission, no air conditioning, cruise control or power windows. I did, however, find a console with all the window switches in good condition in another (gas powered) Benz. I had not only given up on ever finding one of those, but had even purchased a GM switch panel to put in place of the factory piece.

In the non-automotive category, I found these guys!!! Most of the cast of The Cat in the Hat, minus Thing 1 and Sally. Interesting, the boy from the story is never named, only spoken in the first person. I've always liked those Things. Funny that SpongeBob was in with these guys. For the wife, I found a really cute denim halter top with a zipper up the front. Once again, everything I brought home got a thorough de-lousing.

Technology Meltdown

This is the tale of my New Years Eve. First thing you should know is that I had to work New Years Eve. There wasn't a lot of work going on, but I had to be there. I made a mistake the previous Friday, but it worked out OK. It was slow on Friday, too, and the supervisors came around asking people if they would like to go home early that day or Monday. I immediately said Monday, my logic being that I would prefer to get a little earlier home on New Year's Eve. Just a little after I'd told them that, I got to having second thoughts. Firstly, I was on the later shift on Monday, and being on the road an hour earlier would mean potentially being more in the midst of traffic. My second thought was that, while it was slow on Friday, it was likely to be even slower on Monday, so they might still send people home early that day, even if they'd left early on Friday too. As I said, it worked out, just a bit after I'd articulated this thinking to one of my co-workers, a supervisor came up to me and told me I was leaving an hour early that day, Friday. OK, all's well that ends well.

When I got home quite early that evening, I put my older boy's computer system upgrades in. For all practical purposes, it's a brand new machine, the only things remaining are the case and the CD and floppy drives. I have to say, it was the easiest computer I've ever built.

As I has predicted, it was even slower on Monday. That worked out as I had hoped it would, too. Actually, even better than I'd planned. A bit after morning break, one of the supervisors told me that I only had to work until the start of my lunch break, something they were doing for all the people with good attendance stats. Whoo hooo!!!

I had been planning on scouring junkyards over the weekend. The Benz is running great, except that the transmission doesn't want to shift right. Since the engine is different than the chassis, I'm looking for what is called a "change over valve" that is proper to the year of the chassis. Since I was done at 1, I called up my dad to see if he wanted to go. We did, to two different yards, but had no luck finding the valve.

When I got home is when the title alluded technology meltdown happened. As I was attempting to get some dinner together, my older boy starts calling out, asking what to do when his screen goes upside down!!! I go out and take a look, and sure enough, his screen is displaying upside down!!! Huh. Flip your monitor over, boy. I have no idea how he did it. I remembered some years ago seeing a little joke program you could send your friends that would do just this when activated, but I couldn't find anything like that. I messed with it for quite a while, then gave up on it for a bit.

My younger boy tells me that his new keyboard "does numbers when you do letters". Huh??? I type a few letters. No problem. He types a few farther to the right, and sure enough, it does numbers. Huh??? I'm thinking that his new keyboard has some crossed wires from the factory, and grab the box out of the trash before it goes any farther. I can't figure it out at this time, and finally sit down to eat.

While I'm eating, I happen to look at the digital photo frame that I gave my wife for Christmas. The front of it looks like it's been scribbled on!!! I'm a little upset by this and ask a bit loudly what happened. My younger boy says, "I'm sorry!" Once again, I ask what he did to it, and he repeats "I'm sorry!" Two or three more times we go through this, and I finally have to explain, "Yea, I got that you're sorry, now WHAT DID YOU DO TO IT???" He tells me that he was drawing on it with his finger. Fortunately, it cleaned off with no negative effects.

On my older boy's machine, my wife had the brilliant idea that, since he's now using XP instead of 2000, he could use the system restore. One day back, and everything is fine. I discovered a bit later that his display driver has a built in rotate function. If I'd known sooner...

Sin City came on at 10:00, and it is one of those movies I'd always kind of wanted to see. I turned it on and laid back on the couch. Twenty minutes later, I was out.

Happy New Year!!!

A Day Without My Camera

I had meant to bring my camera.

Saturday morning my wife and I had our first dentist appointment in years. Naturally, like most people I know, we don't care much for going to the dentist. The past few years, my former fly by night job had unannounced pulled my dental insurance, so we had an easy excuse not to go. For the last nine months, however, we have had no excuse. Right at the bottom of the hill there is a dental office. I had meant to bring my camera for an outside shot of the building, it is housed in a former auto dealership showroom (old school) that in its last incarnation was a nice little overpriced restaurant called The Packard Grill. On the roof, they had the grille, headlights, and front sheet metal of a 30's Packard. It's still up there, only now they have a mouth with perfect teeth mounted below it. Pretty amusing, one of those things I see nearly every day to the point I nearly don't see it anymore.

Always the same story when you go to the dentist, seems like they find SOMETHING that needs done. If it's been a while, it's always the "deep cleaning", a euphemism for scraping your teeth and jabbing your gums with nasty little hooks. And they wonder why people don't like them. I had two cavities in addition, so I told them I'd get those taken care of right then, then come back for the deep cleaning. Half at a time, to help mitigate the costs. It seemed to take quite a while to do that, and then when I got out, my wife was waiting for approval for two fillings and two crowns. One they are waiting on the custom,, the other they put a temp on until the custom one is ready in two weeks.

We had gone there at 9:00. It was around 11:00 when they finished with me. I stayed with the boys for around 20 minutes in the waiting room, then decided to go for a walk with them. Right where I exit the freeway for the last week there have been a fleet of movie trailers and trucks and equipment parked. Another thing I would have liked to take some shots of. I figured they were doing a shoot nearby, and we'd see if there were any stars or anything else of interest. We got up there, and there was no one except a guard. Talked to him a bit, turns out they took the week of the 4th off, and parked their wagons there. Shooting had been going on in Vernon. He was reading through the script, its for a movie titled "Por Vida".

The boys spent some time tossing rocks into the stream (concrete lined, as is the custom of many an L.A. river), then we passed by the Lumis home, a historical landmark, on the way back. I've lived here more than 12 years, and have been coming up here my whole life, and had never actually seen the place up close. It was still 45 minutes or so until they were open. We walked back and perused the magazines for a while, until my oldest noted the time again and saw that the home was now open. I had all but forgotten about that. We walked back, and toured the place. Very interesting, and yet another thing I wish I'd brought my camera for. One of these days, I'll go back and get pictures.

My wife called when we were almost back. I was hungry by then, and the Novocaine had finally worn completely off, too. Good timing.

I was going to drive Janis to work on Friday, but she didn't crank for me when I got in. A couple tries later, and I abandoned that idea. My thought was that it hadn't really been a starter problem at all, but the wiring between the key and the starter, or possibly a bad ignition switch. My perception is that European cars have flaky wiring. I had bought a push button to bypass the key with from work on Friday. The battery is new, and the starter is new. Of course, the starter had been replaced by the former owner's Cuban mobile mechanic. It looked fine, shiney and new, but when I messed with it a bit, it seemed like it wasn't doing anything. I removed it (a reasonable pain in the ass, damned Germans used allen wrench bolts of all things) and verified that it wasn't doing a thing. Of course, by now it was nearly dark out. Today I picked up a new one with a lifetime warranty and put it in. Went back in much easier than it came out. Problem solved.

Speaking of problems, the wondrous Blogger isn't letting me put a cursor in the title box tonight. Huh??? This post will not be titled until Blogger cooperates at a later date.

Diesel or No Diesel

Oh lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
My friends all drive Porsche's, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes Benz?


It actually makes sense. Janis Joplin was probably an early environmentalist, and wanted to get a diesel Mercedes Benz and use recycled vegetable oil to run it!!!

Well, I did it. The price was pretty good, and it is really in incredible shape. Full of options. Of course, for the price, there are a few things that shall require attention, but for the most part, turn the key and go!!! It has a power sunroof, but something isn't quite right with it. The motor spins, and it moves just a bit, but won't open. Except one time. It has air conditioning, but it seems to need a charge. Typical for this age. The main switches for the power windows are coming apart, but only the driver's side one doesn't work at all. I'm thinking of replacing them with a panel from a 60's or 70's GM car, they're pretty heavy duty. Ummm, what else, it needs new tires soon, and I'd like a passenger side mirror. Oh yea, one of the headlights is burned out. The paint is pretty decent, but it is 27 years old. Just a tiny bit of rust on the trunk. Most Mercedes seem to rust along the bottom edges, but not this one. I think that has to do with being down by the ocean. The guy I bought it from said the radio didn't work because the antenna was broken, but today my wife figured out how to turn it on while I was driving, and it works just fine. Even the power antenna works with it. The radio is an old one with a cassette tape deck, but it does have an auxiliary input that I can probably plug my MP3 player into!!! Thing seems kind of underpowered, though, may have dirty injectors.


The story of how I ended up getting it is something altogether again!!! We looked at it on Sunday, then I had to head over to Sammy's to get him some paperwork. Kind of interrupted the test drive, and I told the guy I'd think about it and call him, one way or the other. The seller had bought it for a friend who was new in the country (I think they were both from Poland, their names have a LOT of strangely placed Y's and Z's in it) around 6 months ago, and now was selling it for him. The guy buys older Mercedes and ships them back to Germany, where they command a much better price than they do here. Of course, the Euro is strong compared to the dollar these days, so that helps, too. He has a lot of nice specimens.

When we got into the car for the test drive, he pulled back the floor mat and pulled out the key. Joked that I could steal it now that I know where the key is. After the drive, he slipped the key into his pocket. I called him from Sammy's and asked him if he would take a lesser amount. He agreed, along with agreeing to fill up the tank (I don't know where many diesel stations are, yet) so we drove back. We got there, and he tells us that he can't find the key. He's going crazy looking for it, but can't find it anywhere. He says that he'll keep looking for it, and, if I leave a deposit, he'll drive it up Monday evening with his wife following him for his ride home. When I got home, I called him to see what his story is. He hadn't found the key, and had to have a locksmith come out and make a new one. Getting ready to come up, and the key doesn't crank the car. Turns it on, but it doesn't crank it. He says he'll have his mechanic check it out the next morning. When I get home Tuesday, he calls and says his mechanic determined that it was a bad starter. Replaced the starter, and drove it up that evening. He gets here, and his wife's Mercedes (much newer and nicer) is blowing white smoke like crazy!!! He's a little agitated over that, I asked him if he was sure he wanted to sell this one to me, so he'd have a way to get home. He didn't, just wanted to wrap it up and get going. We did, and off he went, trailing white smoke. Seemed like a head gasket to me. Bad luck for him, I felt bad for him.