June 12: The Road Rodz gathered to make a food donation to the WZZM tv food drive and I was invited so I could meet the majority of the club members and be formally accepted in the club. No special ceremony, just handshakes all around and I was welcomed. Here's a pic of the club cars at WZZM.
June 13: Called Bob Hanlon at Hanlon motorsports and discussed the continuing problems with the T5 transmission. I suspected a part or two was missing from the rebuild manuals I had been using and sure enough, the S10 unit needed a spacer and snap ring installed in front of the 5th gear driving gear that mounts on the cluster. I ordered the needed parts and waited until later in the week to begin pulling the trans. Two car shows were scheduled for the coming weekend and I wanted to make sure the parts arrived before I disabled the car.
June 16: Thursday the parts arrived and I pulled the trans and disassembled it. To my horror and surprise, the drive gear was still in place with the improvised snap ring I had previously installed. However, the driven gear that mounts on the main shaft had forced its snap ring out of the retaining groove allowing the gear to move back on the main shaft and disengage from the 5th drive gear. I also found that one of the syncho springs was missing. It must have fallen out during the last time I had the trans apart and I missed it. The snap ring wasn't tight enough any longer to be reused so on Friday I did some mad dashing and found the needed parts. Luckily, a generous salvage yard gave them to me for free. Thank you Weller Auto Parts. Friday night I finished up the reinstall and fired up the car for a test drive. It was getting dark so I pulled on the light switch and ACK! - no lights! Pulled back in the garage and got out the service manual with the wiring diagram. I noticed a fuse shown on the light switch so I checked and found it fatigued and blown. I dug out another fuse from my parts cabinet and all was well. Off I went for the test drive and everything seemed to be working just fine.
June 18: Saturday was a beautiful day and I met up with 3 other guys from the Road Rodz to attend a small show in Lamont called Bumpers on the Boulevard. Had a great time talking to other car nuts, riding on the Grand Lady stern wheeler on the Grand River, eating a decent chicken dinner and looking at the fine iron on display. None of the club cars won any trophies but it was a good day. The speedometer wasn't working on the way to Lamont so I checked under the car and redid the cable connections when I got home. I also checked some looseness in the front end and found the driver's front wheel bearing was too loose. Tightened that up to factory settings and the front end feels much better.
June 19: Sunday was Father's Day and the traditional car show at Charlton Park near Hastings, Mi. This is a huge show with over 900 cars from all over the Great Lakes area. I had been looking forward to this one ever since I got the 41. We planned to meet the club guys in Middleville at 5:30 in the morning (that's before the birds are up!) and got up at 3:45 to make ready. Wife and I loaded the car and headed out about 4:45. We drove about 2 1/2 miles to the expressway entrance and had just reached the top of the entrance ramp when all the lights shut down! The turn signals were on a different circuit so I turned them on so other drivers could see us. We got off at the next exit, picked up some fuses at a gas station and attempted to fix the lights. Didn't work as the replacement fuse blew as soon as I put it in. I then knew there was a short or ground somewhere in the lighting system. Thoroughly disappointed, we headed back home in the dark with the turn signal flashing and called the club guys to let them know we weren't going to make the show.
June 21: Decided to tackle the light issue today. Pulled the light switch out of the dash and disconnected all of the wires. Tagged all of them and checked each with a jumper wire to see what lights each one controlled. Found the shorted circuit in the brake lights and quickly realized the problem had to be in the wire running from the switch to the brake switch mounted on the master cylinder. I checked under the car and discovered the speedometer cable was running between the floor and the switch wires and was putting downward pressure right on the connection going into the brake switch. I had pushed the cable back to run along the frame and added a short extension when I first installed the transmission. This was because the speedo cable was a bit short. Once the speedo cable was routed under the wiring to releave the pressure, I rechecked the circuits and all was well. A new light switch for the dash was in the box of spare parts that came with the car so I figured now was a good time to install it. Finished that install tonight and now even the dash lights are working. They weren't working with the old switch. Got another show coming up this Sat so I hope I have all the bugs out this time! Time will tell.
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