RSchnell

I'm still plugging away in my 2019 VW Jetta. Bought the car with 7 miles, now has 114K and other than a set of plugs and pad/rotor change, I haven't had to do a thing to it repair wise other than routine maintenance. I'll probably drive it until it dies. It does everything I expect it to do while getting 40+ mpg on the highway with the cruise set at 75 and the A/C on.

Spotted this 1957 Chevy big truck still earning it's keep in rural North California earlier this week.

The right quarter needs to be replaced. When this car sat in a field, someone got sassy with it using a front end loader! LOL There's a full original rust free convertible quarter stuffed inside the car. This is my next to last full all out resto project and wanted to use my metal working skills one last time! While I was out here I picked up the front end, a nice rust free tail pan, rust free decklid & other stuff that is hard to find in FL.

That hood is actually pretty rough, We just threw it on the car to keep help keep water off the motor.

While in the area we shot up to Big M Junkyard in Williams, CA. I picked up a few things for the '55 Ford Convertible project. The owner was gracious enough to allow me to take the Nikon out in the yard while I was hunting parts. Here's some selected photos.

Dave is a cool dude. A fun week of messing around with old Fords, trading ribald jokes, and eating at all the hole in the wall restaurants in the area!

Thanks to fellow forum member @Rodent I'm now the owner of one of my bucket list cars. What started out as a simple "hey a friend of mine has a car or two you may interested in", resulted in me flying out to California from Florida this past Monday and spending the past week getting it ready to bring back to Florida. I'd been looking for a factory yellow/black '55 Ford convertible project. It's a project but it has all the right stuff- power windows, power seat, V-8, automatic but I will convert it to manual transmission. A big thanks to Steve and our mutual friend Dave for providing some great California hospitality to this old Southern boy.

It was a pleasure to meet you as well Steve! Nice to put a face with the person responsible for me dropping copious amounts of cash and getting not just one, but two cars across the country. LOL. Like I told you earlier, you can now claim the award for being the first forum member I've met in person.

Punching Out by Paul Clemens. I'm finishing this one up now. Dude hangs around the closed Budd stamping plant in Detroit and documents the going ons of the plant liquidation. I found it a good read. The American Icon book I have read a few pages so far and looks good. It's out of my wheelhouse of Ford history which is why I thought it'd be a good one to read. I hope to finish it on my flight out to CA first of the week.

That damn one part putty is BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. Those of us who worked in body shops back in the day will recall it's equally BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH sibling.

I bought one of the Harbor Freight mini tool boxes for my airbrushes, I liked it so much I bought one for my work desk to keep pens, sticky notes etc in and another for the table beside my chair in the living room.

One thing I would add, the bearing supports on the rear axle are one of the most neglected parts of a C2/C3 chassis. There's no way to grease the bearings except for disassembly and then you need a press to R&I the spindle & make sure you get the endplay right during reassembly. It's one of those things that's not a problem until it is. Unless you know the history of the chassis this is something I'd look into getting done if you plan to drive the car a lot.

I said I wasn't going to buy anymore kits, and have done well for 3 months, but couldn't resist the 1/16 VW van.

That dude sets up at all the model swaps too. I've gotten some really good deals from him.

My interest in collecting books is pretty much limited to Ford & Ford Motor Company History 1903-1965. Also collect books on Henry Ford with emphasis on books about him written during the era. Some are easy to find, some not so easy. But that's what makes it fun!

Ford did a book/brochure similar to that in 1938. It was called "X-ray Ford" or something along that line. It had several pages that were clear an laid on top of each other to build the engine, body etc.

I tossed a bunch of Model Master enamels that settled/separated & no amount of agitation would bring them back. If you have any Floquil, that stuff is like gold if you have right colors. I still have a few bottles I bought as a kid 30+ years ago that are good.

Agree 100% I've also slowed way down on my buying-and building. I realize people must be buying these kits otherwise they wouldn't keep pumping them out, but with shows/swaps, ebay etc you can pick up any of Round 2's current inventory for 1/2 price used. I can only assume the kits we keep seeing over & over the tooling must be in China so it's easy to run another 5,000 kits or whatever the case may be. I've said it before, my main issue is charging $30+ & now likely $40+ for the same old kit with no real improvements.

I'll probably pick one of these up if nothing else for the nostalgia factor. This is one of the first kits my Dad helped me put together back in the day.

I checked my local Ollie's and no Revell stuff, but I don't need anything anyways. At least here that Atlantis stuff just sits & sits.

Still kinda cool here in Cocoa Beach for this time of year. It's supposed to last until midweek. Which is fine, I want the Atlantic to warm up a few more degrees. I miss doing my afternoon laps.

Thanks! That's just a small portion. I've been collecting Ford stuff off & on for about 30 years. Most of it is packed away until I get a bigger place somewhere less crowded!

Been working on getting my home office a bit better organized. Figured since I gained a few empty shelves reorganizing, why not dip into the totes & put some more of my vintage Ford memorabilia out. Shelf 1 this afternoon.