Yesterday A.M. while enroute to visit an account I spotted an AD truck in
a parking lot. I had taken a side street through and industrial area to cut
the route a bit and had just kicked the elderly Ford station wagon back into
'burner after slowing for a dip when I spotted a bright blue metallic AD out
of the corner of my eye. After a quick check for traffic fore and aft, it was
hard on the binders, twiddle the helm to the starboard, then hard-a-port
while shooting momentarily back into 'burner and now heading 180 degrees from
the original heading. Another quick additional turn to port had us parked
right next to a very attractive AD of uncertain parentage.
This AD was painted a bright metallic blue with black fenders and had
some sort of step bumper bolted to the back. This is a sharp daily driver
with an odd mixture of parts. The doors had no vent windows, but the left
cowl had no vent either. The steering wheel looked like a later model,
perhaps off of a TF model, but the speedo is the part that had me guessing.
The speedo looked a lot like the one we're used to seeing in ADs, but
with some odd differences. To start, it was mounted upside down! The needle
now sweeps from the 1 o'clock position to the 11 o'clock position rather than
from the 7 o'clock position to 5 o'clock position. The gauge face had been
handsomely renumbered to match the new orientation, and even the odometer
read correctly.
About this time I chanced to look out to the driveway and noticed a trail
of liquid. Heh, heh, some poor dumb bastard is gonna have some grief over
that I thought. I followed the trail with my eyes out into the street and
noticed it described the same little pirouette that my car had so recently
performed . . ., hey I wonder where it goes! My eyes darted quickly to the
other end of the trail and saw a trickle of water emerging from under the
hapless Ford. Gosh, I'm the one in for the grief!
A quick under the hood check revealed that some coolant still remained,
but it would not be there for long. After strapping back in, it was gently
(well, as gently as I can manage) back to the barn for the application of
some more $.
Had it not been for that little blue AD, I would have carried on in the
wrong direction, perhaps not noticing until too late the steady loss of
coolant. I would have continued to wring the Ford's neck, and may well have
missed any idiot light's (if it even works) display of trouble. Oh how I love
real gauges!
A few years ago SHMBO had the Ford for the day and noticed a big puddle
under it out in the shopping mall parking lot. She wisely suspected that this
might be a sign of mechanical distress and as a precaution cut her list of
things to be done to just a couple of the most urgent trips. All went well
until she got home and the car started smoking and knocking and the motor
suddenly stopped. As luck would have it, she was finished with it anyway!
That sudden stop cost me nearly three grand.
Paul O'Neil, Hudson29@aol.com
1951 Chevrolet 3600 Pickup Project, See it at:
The Poor Man's Advanced Design Tech Tips Page
http://home.earthlink.net/~conntest47/
Fullerton, California USA
AEROMARK - Need Rubber Stamps or Signs? See:
www.aeromark.net
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