Transitions

Haven't written much lately. In the last month, I have attended two memorial services for Dad, and one for Uncle Toronado. Yesterday I took a short boat trip with my sister to lay Dad's remains to rest.

This month I'll be traveling a lot for business, and I don't expect to write much... even though I am writing this from a hotel room. On the advice of my therapist, I have been reading Transitions by William Bridges. I believe that I am on the threshold of a major life transition, spurred not just by Dad's death and my shifting role as a son and caregiver, but also because I'm anticipating taking early retirement from my employer this year. These things are causing me to re-examine my own identity, and to question what I really want to do with the rest of my life. I'm beginning to think that I need to take some time off, and go into the mountains for a while to think about this... A kind of personal retreat for a week or so.

I was able to drive my Cousin to Dad's memorial on Saturday in the t-bird. He owned the car for 10 years (unrestored), and sold it to me two years ago last April. We had the top down, and had a good conversation during the ride.

I haven't done much to the car in the last month. I did take the exhaust use manifolds off and get them thermal coated. This should significantly lower under hood temperatures. I also took the car to a good muffler guy, and had him align the exhaust pipes, including installing new hangers. The stock hangers didn't prevent the pipes from grounding on the frame and the shocks. The exhaust no longer rattles, and the car sounds great!


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2-Year Anniversary

It's been two years since the t-bird came home.  I need to take a moment and settle into that reality.

The time has gone very quickly as I worked on the car with my son.  The time has gone painfully slowly as I cared for my dying parents. 

The car isn't "done", but it is an enjoyable touring car that has been in a parade, a car show, and several cruise nights.  I look forward to enjoying it for a long time, and passing it on as a memento for my boys.

My parents are gone, but I am still managing the estate and the grief.  I know this will pass, but it's not clear what legacy they have left in my soul.

I do really enjoy the car.  It reminds me of an adolescent hope that I had forgotten!  I particularly enjoy driving it at night, basking in the glow of the instruments, and remembering how I longed for that freedom.... a freedom I now find myself experiencing in new ways.

Eulogies and Legacies

Last Sunday Nell was in her first judged, pay-to-enter car show.  She didn't win anything, but the judges were impressed with the fog lights!

The house behind just happens to be where L. Frank Baum wrote some of "The Wizard of Oz"!

 Here is a close up of the fog lights on the car.  I wrote about these in an old blog entry, but only installed them recently.  I really like the way they blend in, and how only seasoned t-bird folks even notice them!

This pic was taken at a cruise night yesterday evening.

Powering the foglights and the electric fan requires long runs of heavy gauge wire from under the dash to the front of the car, and heavy duty switches to control the current they draw.  I went ahead and ran the heavy wires and installed the switches, but I decided to also install a set of relays in the front of the engine compartment to switch the current.  These relays connect directly to the main junction from the alternator, which has the highest voltage in the car when the engine is running.  This is the best place to connect a high-current accessory.  I also installed relays for the high and low beam headlights.  These four things will regularly draw the highest current when the car is running.  The horn, window & seat motors also draw a lot of current, but they already use relays.

Using relays for the head & fog lights and the fan will make the switches more reliable.  Since they won't have to switch as much current, the contacts will stay cleaner and last longer.  The shorter wire run from the alternator will also give them a little more power.

I put the relays in an old voltage regulator box that I gutted.  It took a few evenings for me to cut holes in the backing plate to accommodate the relay sockets, and then dress the wires appropriately.  I set up this relay box so that I can disconnect it if necessary, and put the wiring back "the old way".  Here are some shots of the relay box with the cover off.

The device above the relays is a 30A circuit breaker.

 I like the way the engine compartment looks clean and stock when the cover is on the relay box.

 I'm still missing the windshield washer bag and plumbing.  I put the washer nozzles in back in the cowl, but I just realized recently that I installed a hard brakeline right in front of the place where the washer footpump goes in the firewall.  I'm not going to change it any time soon, so I may not have washers for a while. 
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I'm still amazed that this car runs and drives, let alone that I can take it to cruise nights and car shows!  What an amazing thing!

My Dad loved car shows.  He couldn't really repair a car, let alone restore one, but he loved them just the same.  As the oldest of his siblings, he was the first in his family to get a car... a 1929 Packard that he bought from a quarry that was using it to haul sand!  

He never restored it, but he did drive it, and gave it to his brother after it broke.  His brother eventually DID restore it, and made it into a national show winner!

While Dad was delighted that his old car had become so beautiful and acquired a certain renown, I think that he kind of resented his brother for doing something with it that he couldn't do himself.  Both of his brothers caught the "old car bug" from Dad, and subsequently restored cars... Packards and Pierce Arrows... but Dad never did.  He had another Packard briefly when I was a kid, but he didn't keep it.

Working on this t-bird has given me some insight into this.  Restoring a car takes more than just  money, it was a mindset and a tenacity, and a willingness to persevere through the inevitable setbacks.  I really don't think my Dad had the patience to do this, and I think he was very conscious of that fact.  I suspect that he knew his limitations, and avoided situations that exposed them.  That may be why he didn't play a very active role with me in restoring the t-bird.  It makes me wonder if I should have been more encouraging to him.  Just the same, I'm grateful that he decided to pay for the paint, and that we got to ride in it together.

Last Saturday I went to a church Men's Retreat.  My goal was to spend some time alone on the mountain to write Dad's eulogy.  I was able to pound out a rough draft, but I found it increasingly hard to say anything nice about Dad.  I found that my heart was full of bitterness for this man who always seemed to be on the edges of my life.  I understand his limitations and his brokenness, but that doesn't change my need for a father who was seldom there, or was too self-conscious to offer me much encouragement himself.

At this point I recognize my own need for therapy, prayer, and healing.  I will begin seeing a counselor next week.  I will resume journaling in more private media.  I will invite God back into those broken, dark places.  Right now, however, I continue to feel unsettled.

Dad's first memorial service is 25 May.  I hope I can write a better eulogy by then!

Goodbye, Uncle Toronado!

Emblem for the 338th Fighter Squadron, RAF Ridgewell, Essex, England 1944

This is a P-38 of the 338th, taken over England in 1944.  Uncle Toronado could well have been the pilot!

Uncle Toronado, who lost his wife of 60 years in January, died comfortably in his armchair yesterday morning while reading the paper.  Even though he never got my Grandma's t-bird running, he owned and cherished it for 20 years.  He finally got to ride in it when I visited him in January.  I felt privileged to share this car with him!  It was a sublime blessing to drive him to breakfast, and then to the hospital to visit his wife.  I regret that I didn't get a picture of the two of us in the car.

Uncle Toronado called me last week, just to see how I was doing after Dad died, and to thank me for spending time with him during his wife's illness.  He was always a thoughtful and compassionate man.   I longed for my own father to be more like him, and was jealous of my cousins for having such a caring Dad. I wish I could have spent more time with him.

I will miss him.

So much loss.  It seems more than I can bear.
Lord, help me to more deeply cherish each relationship you put in my life!

Let's have a Parade!

Nell and I were in our first parade together this morning.  We attended with other members of the local Classic Thunderbirds club.  I'll confess that I was a little nervous about doing this, especially after the overheating incident two weeks ago.  But, I took reasonable precautions, and I felt it would be a low-stress way to participate with sympathetic, helpful t-bird owners.

The parade is in a small local town.  We queued up an hour and a half before the parade actually started, surrounded by high school students on big-rig hay ride flatbed "floats", Shriners, and Boy Scout trooops.  It was a slice of small-town Americana.  It was also over 80°F, and crystal clear.

Queueing up and waiting

Nell fits right in, and yet still draws attention.

Seasoned club members have lots of advice.

Backing up a minute, I should probably mention how I prepped the car earlier this week.  In my previous post, I showed the auxiliary electric "pusher" fan I installed in front of the radiator.  I also spent a few evenings converting an old voltage regulator box to hide a bank of relays... I'll probably post on that separately.  I did get a replacement high-flow thermostat (Mr. Gasket #4637)... I tried to get one from Amazon, but they shipped a Fel-pro gasket with the same number instead.  Twice.  After I brought this to their attention the second time, they removed it from their inventory system.  It turns out that O'Reilly's could get me one in a day, local pickup.  Yay!

Put it in the right direction this time!!!

 On advice from the good folks at y-blocksforever.com, I installed a 3/16 orifice in the thermostat bypass line.  This limits how much coolant bypasses the radiator when the thermostat is open, and improves hot weather cooling.

 OK, I also ordered several bottles of Radiator Relief from Amazon over a week ago.  Still not here.  Strike two, Amazon!  As it turns out, a local Pep Boys keeps it in stock.  God is good.

I flushed the cooling system with tap water until there was no more brown in it, then drained it and added the Radiator Relief and about 5 gal of distilled water.  I also hooked up the fan to a dash pull switch.  Idling in my driveway, Nell kept her cool, and never exceed 180°!  We were as ready as we could get.   I carefully reinstalled the grille and front bumper, and drove down to top off the gas tank.

Back to this morning...  The adage that "parades move as fast as a 5-year old can walk" proved true. Getting to the start of the parade was mostly stopping, with occasional moving.  We shut our engines off when we were sitting for more than a minute, and just left the cars in neutral if we were sitting for shorter times.  I turned on the fan when the temp gauge reached 170°.  Even in the stop-and-go 80° heat, the gauge never exceeded 180°!  No dieseling when shutting  of the engine.  Success!

Near the start of the parade, getting passed by a flock of Model A's

I didn't take pictures of the crowd, even though they were taking pictures of me.  I just thought it would be rude to stop waiving and take out my camera.  I did take a shot of the temp gauge in the staging line:

This is about as hot as the original gauge got.  Quite a change from two weeks ago, when it pegged high!

The mechanical temp gauge is on the right.  The pull switch between the gauges is for the electric fan.

 At the end of the parade, two other club members pulled over and opened thier hoods to let their birds cool off.  Nell was doing fine, as long as I kept the electric fan on.   The other members declared her to be a "good parade car", and expect me to show up in future parades!  I couldn't have asked for better.
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Being in a parade in Nell was a uniquely satisfying experience, and not just because of the temperature gauge.  Driving down the road, I kept thinking of how the car looked 2 years ago, of how it looked 40 years ago, and about how restoration has worked in my own life.  I kept thinking about how I had longed for a moment like this...

As I was driving by, young and old folks kept saying "nice car" and "great color"!   More times than I could count!  I felt flooded with affirmation, and savored the feeling.  I tooted the horn and revved the engine for the school kids.  I waved at everybody who looked, and they all waved back.  I waved and smiled for every camera.

It's like all these people where there to see me, to appreciate my legacy, and to affirm me.  Well, at least for a moment.  I was buoyed up by the crowd, and the outpouring of enthusiasm and affection that Nell engendered.  I wanted to tell each of them Nell's story.

One radio announcer asked on the air as I drove by "What color do you call that?".  I answered "Peacock Blue."  "What year is it?" "1955...  It was my Grandmother's car."  "Oh, how cool!  It was his Grandmother's car!  It was his Grandmother's car!"  Some folks applauded!

Very sweet.  I wish that Dad could have ridden with me down that parade route.

Oh, and I also got the foglights working.   Very jet-age!

Cooling the Burning Heart

Business has had me out of town for the past week.  It was a good trip, and rather affirming for me, but I did not feel productive.  In my current frame of mind, I doubt that anything I could do would feel productive.

Next Saturday, I'm scheduled to take Nell on her first parade.  I'm a little concerned about the overheating incident, so this weekend I decided to refresh the cooling system on the t-bird.  I drained and flushed the coolant, then opened up the thermostat housing.   I had a nagging suspicion that something was wrong with the thermostat... I was right.  I had installed it backwards!  This high-flow thermostat design isn't very strong when installed in the backwards direction. The first time I revved the engine, the water pressure acted like a gust of wind under an umbrella, and  separated the poppet from the frame.  I found the poppet rattling around inside the housing.  This unnerving, but I feel fortunate that it didn't block the upper hose completely!  Then instead of taking a little longer to warm up, Nell would have been really damaged by overheating!

The thermostat isn't supposed to be in two pieces!

 I ordered a replacement with next-day delivery.  The cooling system can't be put back together until I get it, which will probably be Tuesday. 

While the thermostat housing is apart, I decided to move the mechanical temperature gauge sensor from the bypass line to the engine side of the thermostat.  I started by stuffing a rag in the water side of the manifold, drilling a hole, and tapping it for the 3/8"  NPT sensor fitting.  It was then a simple thing to clean out the shavings in the manifold, and install the sensor.  This should give a more reliable temperature reading than the previous location in the thermostat bypass line.

The inexpensive electric fan that I ordered last week came while I was traveling.  I knew that I would have to take the grill out to install it, and that would take considerable effort.  I had some things I wanted to do for work this weekend, but I put them off in order to get the fan in this afternoon.  This was something I knew I could do, and I needed to feel that I had accomplished something.

I started by removing the bumper and the grille.  That didn't take long... putting it back will take longer

 The fan is designed to run in either direction, but is set up out of the box as a "puller".  Since I was putting the fan in front of the radiator as a helper for the existing fan, I had to remove and flip the fan wheel, then reverse the polarity to make the motor run the other direction.  This makes it a "pusher", which I successfully tested using a spare battery.  For 5 times what I paid, I could have got a kit specifically for the t-bird with fan, brackets, relays and wiring.  As it is, I was able to make brackets out of metal from my scrap bin, and I already had wire and relays.  Two satisfying hours from the time I started, the fan was installed.

Looking good!  I won't reinstall the grille until all of the wiring is working.

My plan is to wire up a dash switch and relay tomorrow evening, check for correct operation, then reinstall the grille.  Tuesday night or Friday I will install the new thermostat and fill the radiator with distilled water and DEI Radiator Relief.  Gotta love their video demonstration, using a '55 t-bird with almost identical engine modifications to Nell!

It's been a good weekend.  I feel optimistic that Nell will be ready for Saturday's parade.
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Today's sermon focused on the restorative power of love.  The young assistant pastor delivering the sermon related how several older men have stepped into his life, and provided the close, masculine, supportive, accountable relationship that was totally missing from his abusive father.  Needless to say, this resonated with me.  I talked to him after the service, and expressed how much I long for that kind of restoration!  Though therapy and through these men investing themselves in him, my pastor friend has come to terms with his father.  He still maintains boundaries, but now he has the self confidence to seek a relationship with him on healthy terms.

I like to think that I had reached that point with my own Dad before he died.  I also like to think that restoring Nell has opened meaningful relationships with other men, some of whom are nurturing and fathering me.  I am particularly grateful for the deeper relationship I now have with Uncle Packard and Uncle Cord.

Also, I am very grateful for Uncle Toronado, the WWII fighter pilot.  He called me just days after Dad died "just to see how I was doing", and to express how much he appreciated me being there for him when his dear wife died in January.  He is one of the few people that I can really open up to without reservation.  He has no agenda, no time schedule, no demand.  He doesn't blow his top, he isn't grouchy, and he loves to engage in meaningful conversation.  Most importantly, he has a way of letting me know that he cares about me, even when I am feeling inadequate or unproductive.  He cools my burning heart.  I think I need more men in my life like him.

And, you know what?  I want to be more like him.

Nell's First Cruise Night

#1 Son and I took Nell to her very first cruise night on Friday.  It was a great, affirming experience!  Nell got a lot of attention, and a steady flow of compliments!  It was also great to feel like an active participant, rather than a gawker.

You may note in this picture that I installed the new V8 emblem on the grille, made from a '55 F100 grille emblem and a custom backing plate I shaped out of aluminum and painted Ford Red.   I also installed the projector fog lights in the bumper guards, although I haven't hooked them up yet.

I had a few minor disappointments on Friday morning, but my son reminded me about cruise night over lunch.  I was determined to wash the car before we left.  As I started working, I kept getting distracted by little things in the garage that needed to be fixed... the work light was broken, but just needed a little glue.  I needed to install a new outlet strip, but first I had to run to the hardware store to pick up some new #2 Phillips bits.  Then I started making little mistakes washing the car.  The hose got tangled.  All the while, I found myself getting more anxious.  I didn't get the car finished until 4 PM.

In an attempt to "avoid Friday traffic" on the freeways, we took the back roads on the 20 mile trip to cruise night.  We were quickly committed to very slow stop-and-go traffic on a narrow 2 lane road.  We got to experience first hand the overheating problem that early 'birds are renowned for.  We were stationary, or near stationary, for half an hour.  As we sat idling, stopped in traffic on this warm spring afternoon, the electric water temperature gauge continued to rise and finally maxed out.  The mechanical water temp gauge that I installed in the coolant bypass line also climbed to over 220 degrees.  I was getting more and more anxious, but there was nowhere to go.  I pulled the hood release, which opened the rear-facing hood a few inches and let the trapped air out of the engine compartment.  My son turned on the heater.  Eventually, I resorted to shutting the engine off... which I should have done much sooner but is a bad idea if the car is already overheating!  At this point, the engine was so hot that it dieseled a little after I turned the key off.  That was rather unnerving!  But, there was no steam, no geyser under the hood.  I'm not familiar enough with the car yet to know what is normal, or when I should "panic"!

Once we got the car moving again, it cooled right down to normal levels.  I really don't think there is anything wrong with the car.  I may invest in a "pusher" electric fan to mount in front of the radiator, but first I need to flush the coolant and run some experiments.  Perhaps just popping the hood and revving the engine a little would increase the flow of air and water enough to cool her down.  That is something I can try in my driveway.
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I've set a date for my Dad's memorial service.  I've gone through old pictures, and created a slideshow of his life.  I've called his pension fund, social security, bank, and insurance company.  There is more to do, but  the major flurry of activity is over.  I'm still not sure how I feel.

I find that I'm inefficient at work, and get distracted easily.  I'm forgetting appointments and the occasional word.  I'm vaguely uncomfortable with myself.  I'm told that this is normal, and is associated with grieving.  That may well be true, but it is hard to embrace.  I'm impatient.