…brings the responsibility of fixing stuff when it’s broken. Today, I had a couple of things on my “to do” list. Aim the headlights properly and check to see why the cooling fans haven’t been kicking on. Oh…also run to O’Reilly’s and see about getting a mechanical stoplight switch, to make my brake lights actually come on when they are supposed to!!!
Got the trim rings pulled off the headlights, so I could get to the adjusting screws, then realized it was WAY too light outside to see to aim the lights. Being too lazy to juggle cars, I figured I would wait til the sun went down, and started working on trouble shooting the fans.
The car has two fans that were grounded together, and the “ground” wire looked to be about a 16 gauge. WAY too small for two fans that run simultaneously!!! The ground wire was burnt to a crisp! I clipped the burnt ground, and scabbed on a 10 gauge common ground, but still couldn’t get the fans to kick on, after letting the car warm up to where they would have normally kicked on. Didn’t have enough time to put the multimeter on the leads, to see if the relay was working. Will try a new relay tomorrow.
While under the car, trying to reach the wires for the fan, I happened to notice that the passenger side front tire has a huge bulge on the inside, from bead to tread. Glad that didn’t let go while I was running all over God’s green earth, this past week. Will have to call Cory, at Mitchem’s, tomorrow, and see if he can come up with another set of 165/15’s!
I got the headlights aimed, as a “best guess”, due to it not being dark enough to really see anything, and having to leave to meet my in-laws for ice cream for Fathers Day. They are kind of a pain in the butt (not my in-laws, but the headlights), because you have to adjust the reflector differently than regular headlights. Usually you have an up and down screw, and a left and right screw. I had the “up and down” one out as far as it would go, and the lights were still shooting too low. Realized that you have to adjust the right and left screws to pull the bottom of the reflector up, to get them aimed high enough.
I was planning on driving the ’40 this week, since the ’37 got so much attention last week, but hadn’t planned on having to do this much to the ’37 this week!
Revised ’37 to-do list:
- Call Cory, at Mitchem, and see if he can track down new front tires.
- take relay to O’Reilly and see if they can test it. Probably buy a replacement anyway.
- pick up ordered brake light switch from O’Reilly.
- Swap spots with the ’40 and the ’37, so that I can take the front wheels off and haul them to Mitchem. In the process, probably learn new words that would get my mouth washed out with soap, while trying to get the stinkin hubcaps off the front wheels.
- make a couple of relief cuts in the lip of the hub caps, so they go on and off much nicer, and protect me from using words that would get me in trouble.
- Drop off ’37’s front wheels to get new tires put on them.
- Stop by Harbor Freight, and get a new set of wire crimpers.
- Pull out the front seat, pull the carpet back out, and install the new ’40 Ford rubber floor mat into the ’37. I have to cut a hole in the floor mat for the floor shifter. (I still need to pull the seat out of the ’40 and finish the install of the rubber floor mat in it, too!)
- Eventually get the ’37 over to Greg, to see if he can flash the computer and figure out why the dang thing only likes to run great at 3000 RPM’s.
Oh well…that’s the fun of driving old cars!