:: Diary - April 2019 ::

:: Friday, April 12, 2019 ::

I’ve had a few drives around in the Chevy - nothing much, just on half-decent days to keep it turning over, with regular checks of that spark plug. Although it’s a wee bit oily, it’s nothing like it was before!

This Sunday, though, will be its first official outing of the season, with the Sporting Bears. I decide to give it another check, before its longer run, but I can’t gat the drivers door open - they key just won’t turn. It opens fine from the inside, but not from outside...

OK. I need to take the door trim off to find the problem. First stop is to remove the inner window frame, which isn’t hard - 6 shots of a cordless screwdriver sees to that.

Then I need to take of the door handle, and the two window winders (one for the main window and one for the quarter light) and I realise that I don’t have the special forked tool to take off the circling that hold them on to their wee shafts.

After mucking about for ages trying to prise them off with screwdrivers etc, I remember how I used to do this back in the old days when all cars had “Council Windows”. You get a screwdriver and use it to lever the trim back from the handle to leave a small gap. Then you put a bit of cloth into that gap, over the ends of the circling, and twist it about 3/4 of the way round the shaft. Then you pull one end of the cloth, the end of the circlip catches in the fibres, and it pings off!

And it works!

The rest of the door trim disengages from tacks around the edges, and a slot underneath, and it’s off!

Right, what’s wrong with this lock? It’s difficult to see, but once I’ve worked out what’s connected to what, it’s pretty obvious. There’s a wee lever tab that is pushed down by the door lock button, and it’s supposed to spring back up when you lift the button - but it’s sticking, so although the button lifts, the lever tab keeps the door locked from outside. The inside door handle bypasses that tab. All it needs is a bit of lubrication!

I spray it with 3 in 1 oil, and work the lock and all the various levers, till they are freed up. Try it again with the window open and the internal handle in my hand (so I can reach in if it still doesn’t work) and it’s all fine!

Reassembly, as they say in the manuals, is the reverse of removal (albeit without the inevitable swearing while you work out how it comes to bits).

Then I complete my original mission, which was to inspect that spark plug. It’s fine!

:: Sunday, April 14, 2019 ::

Today we’re off to the Sporting Bears Stand at the Doune hill climb meeting. Because I haven’t filled the car with diesel this year, it starts fourth time (which is pretty good from cold, believe me). It’s misfiring like hell though, and it continues to run like a knackered tractor as I head out of the street and up the dual carriageway. Every few minutes I feel another cylinder come to life, so after 5 arse-clenching miles it seems ok...

When I get there, I get parked up, and also set out the second display - a pedal car from the early 1960s that I’ve been restoring. It looks fantastic!

One of the competitors has this lovely Corvette. Same engine as mine (except that one's got a four-barrel carb, ram-air intake, solid lifters, high-lift cam, and every other method of tuning an engine known to man).

At one point, I notice two of the other Bears discussing the Chevrolet, and in particular the windscreen scuttle. The paint is lifting off in huge blisters, and there’s rust underneath. Last year I stuck the paint down temporarily with superglue (I know, eh?) and touched in along the cracks, but I have to admit it looks shit again. I pretend I haven’t noticed...

The journey home is great - just a gentle cruise along, no funny noises, no misfires, just lovely!

:: Tuesday, April 23, 2019 ::

Yesterday I decided that the cracked windscreen scuttle need to be sorted! Let’s be honest, the car’s paintwork is pretty crap anyway, because American restorations and Scottish weather clearly don’t mix. It’s definitely a “20-foot car” - it looks fine from that distance, any closer and it’s crap.

However, the crackled finish under the windscreen is clearly visible from 40 feet away, so it needs some work to bring it into the sub-20-foot category. I have a wriggle under the dash so I can see the underside of that panel, and as I suspected, the underside is fine - it’s just a bit of water and rust under the paint.

So I set to work yesterday by removing the wipers and escutcheons, and then I use a scraper and a chisel to remove the bits of paint like a huge jigsaw (but with all the bits the same colour, and no picture on the box). Then I give it all a sand down with various grades of paper, till it comes up right shiny.

Then it’s ready for a brush coating of rust preventer.

When that’s dry, I give it a rub down, a wipe with panel wipe and a couple of coats of brush-on primer and leave it to dry overnight.

Today I use a whole roll of masking tape and a gazillion bin bags to mask off the front of the car, then I rub down the primer until it’s reasonably smooth. I’ve bought more rattle can paint (the same as the paint I used to restore the steering wheel) and after another panel wipe, I spray the scuttle with several light coats, about 10 minutes apart.

After several hours drying time, I take off the masking paper, and refit the escutcheons and the wipers. It’s far from perfect, but it looks not bad at all from 5 feet - that’s a quarter of the targeted viewing distance, so I would call that a success!