Tales of Gunston

Two Saturdays ago, March 13, I started working on Jenny, particularly the driver's door handle. Apparently, it had been worked on before but the PO didn't want to fix it. So the parts were tie wrapped to part of the interior of the door. Most of the pieces were in there.

I didn't do much on the brake system, although I had previously purchased a bottle of the Hydraulic System Mineral Oil (HSMO) for the brake booster/shock level hydraulic system, and had put the bottle in only to discover the leak was one of the sensor switches on the accumulator. (It's a complicated system.)

Johnny V. came down and tried to clean up Rocky to sell. Gerald worked on it a little bit and bled the brakes on Emily's Nova. I left somewhat early.


Last Saturday, Gerald, having fetched the '68 Benz and another Volvo, spent that day taking the Benz to W.V. I on the other hand had glorious hopes of getting Jenny on the road. The previous Thursday, I fetched 3 more bottles of HSMO from Rosenthal, and ordered (with instructions to overnight) a door handle and the low pressure warning switch. They were from two different vendors, and the switch arrived on Friday, but the door handle didn't.

I got the one Pirelli put on the spare wheel, a new Uniroyal to match the others and the valve stem fixed on the other flat. However, Jade started having trouble, i.e., not starting. A tree fell down blocking Gunston Road and knocking out power all down that way. I managed to get the accumulator assembly off, but after comparing the numbers, it turned out I had ordered the wrong switch. I blame Coventry West because their website identifies the low pressure switch as the upper one, and it was my upper one that was leaking. So all I got done on Saturday was the tires fixed.

Sunday, Jade started up, and was fine until last night. I was going to go out and pick up some dinner for us after getting home, and she did the same thing as she did on Saturday. She wouldn't start. I check the spark, and the fuel pump relay switch and both checked out positive. I gave up, and tried it this morning, and she started right up. It definitely is a strange problem, and I have trouble deducing what it could be. Perhaps the fuel pump relay is indeed having issues. I'd like to work on it tonight, but I don't know what to look for, especially if it's running and not having problems.

Off to the beltway . . .

Gerald put the new tires on Sylvester and yesterday took it to a shop which recalibrated the speedometer. He went to court this morning and they dismissed his ticket. Then he went to Philadelphia to pick up Rocky, a Volvo station wagon.

On Monday, I put a bid on the Jaguar behind the bank. Welcome Jenny to the family, a 1989 XJ6.

Saturday turned out to be a nice day. My little family went to Annandale for donuts in the morning. On the way back, we stopped in Springfield to look for a Jaguar behind a bank somewhere. Deidre's mom had seen it behind a strip mall and mentioned it to us. We finally found it, and I took a look at it.

I arrived at the shop after Noon. Jersey was out of the shop, and Gerald and Emily were cleaning some of Gerald's stuff up. We did end up having to shoot one little bottle rocket off since there were a bunch of birds in a tree and they were annoying Gerald and Emily.

Abe rolls quite easily, and once we got him off of the dolly, I pulled and pushed him a couple times back and forth on the cul-de-sac. With Emily steering, we tried to slowly get him down the incline toward the shop. Gravity almost won, but we were fortunate to get him stopped before he hit anything. We tried using Jersey to push him into the shop, but it's only rear-wheel-drive without posi, so Gerald spun the back right tire until it started steaming/smoking. Then he got Red Cloud ('88 Jeep Cherokee with four-wheel-drive) and pushed Jersey, which, in turn, pushed Abe into the shop.

Abe has a 455 ci engine, which means it is not original (probably and Olds engine, late 60's - early 70's). Gerald took the plugs out and put oil in the cylinders. After putting a spare battery in it, we cranked it a couple of times to get the oil distributed throughout it. Then he put some gasoline in the carb, cranked it again, and it burst into life -- along with a cloud of white smoke from the oil in the cylinders. We let it run for only a little bit because it doesn't have a radiator yet. But it was glorious to hear it come to life.

I then hurriedly changed the oil in Jade, and left Gerald to close up shop because I had to leave.