Legends, Legacy and True Stories

The automotive world lost Carroll Shelby on May 10th, a sad day for us “car guys and gals.” Even for a self proclaimed “Chevy guy,” I was saddened by  his loss. But, rather than mourn the loss, I prefer to celebrate the life.

Even if you’re not into cars, you probably recognize the name Shelby. It has been a name badge on performance Mustangs for more than 40 years. Shelby was not only a legend in the car world, he was an icon that may ever again be matched in scope or influence. His vision changed the landscape of the automotive world forever and everyone who considers themselves a gear-head owes Shelby gratitude for what his cars accomplished.

A few facts that some may not know. He was born in Texas and reported to have been a “sickly” child. During WWII, Carroll was a flight instructor in the Army Air Corps. After the war, he began racing. Shelby’s first race was a quarter mile drag race, he then moved on to sports car racing driving MG’s, Jaguar’s, Allard’s and even some seat time in Ferrari’s. While running sports cars, Shelby won often and impressively, many times driving inferior equipment. His race career as cut short by a heart condition, which was probably the best thing that could have ever happened for the car world. In 1961 Carroll learned that British sports car manufacturer, AC, had lost their engine source. Through some shrewd maneuvering, Shelby married the small, light car with the Ford V8, and a legend was born. The AC Cobra was an incredible car and began winning races around the world. However, in its early stages,  Carroll only had 1 car, but needed to show more to keep the project moving forward. As the story goes, he had a body shop paint that 1 car daily for different photo shoots to present a larger stable. In 1965, Shelby American debuts the 427 Cobra and the Mustang GT350 is introduced. As a proven winner, Ford turned over the development of the GT-40 to Shelby. In turn, Carroll takes on Ferrari and handily beats them at the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1966 and 67, ending Ferrari’s 5 year win streak. In 1990, Shelby receives a heart transplant. Shelby starts the Carroll Shelby Heart Fund to help finance organ transplants children in need a year later. These are just a few nuggets on Carroll Shelby.

Carroll Shelby led a full life and accomplished an enormous amount, leaving a legacy unmatched by anyone. Cheers to a wonderful run Mr Shelby!

Should be a nice day w/my boys off for M

Should be a nice day w/my boys off for MLK, but instead scrambling to fix a blown coil in the ‘Burb, again… 3 in 2 years = a problem.

Trying out hootsuite, we’ll see how thi

Trying out hootsuite, we’ll see how this goes…

Bizarre Winter…

So this winter has not been very kind so far, at least when it comes to my resto-projects. Between winter beak, a couple bouts of feeling pewy and a lot of regular old maintenance work (how boring) I have not spent enough time with my older friends. So, what’s on tap? Completion! I’ve got to get the Scout out the door by the end of month, so it’s time to get back to getting after it. Pics to come…

Holey Metal…

While sand blasting my favorite corn binder today, I gained a new appreciation for how bad the rust is in the structural portions of the body (pics to come). Not so bad that it’s too far gone, but enough to make life a little rougher. Unfortunately, there aren’t replacement pieces that can be purchased, so I’ll need to fab up some patch panels with flat stock. They don’t need to be gorgeous, just functional and well constructed. Just another step down the rabbit hole…

On the bright side, I did get to use my new blaster, it’s always fun to break in a new tool.

The Sky is Falling!!!

Well, winter is nearly upon us and Mother Nature has bestowed a little snow on us here in Reno. While driving on CLEAR roads this morning, can someone please explain to me the need to act as though we were on a skating rink??? Just saying.

Bad Little Grease Monkey…

Well, it has been over a month since my last post, which I am not pleased about. But, I only have one person to blame for that. The good news is I like him a lot, so it’s easier to forgive…

The Rover progress has been slow, mostly test fitting body panels and tracking down parts sources. Tuesday we hope to finally get the green light to order what we need. Then I’ll start working on the body while things are shipped to us. All of the galvanized body parts will be painted to look like they are galvanized. This will be my first attempt at a faux finish, we’ll see how that goes.

The Scout has moved along nicely overt the past couple weeks. In fact, it’s been my main focus for the past 2 weeks. The owner came home early and needs wheels, so I’m a bit more under the gun now. The new wire harness is in and about half the wires are run and the interior is gutted. I need to weld in some patch panels on the floors up in the foot wells, dye some seats, paint the dash, spray the bed liner material and then put it all back together. It’s going to be a busy weekend and week.

Pics of my progress to come…

Absence Makes… Let’s Just Say I was Happy Today

After a little more than a week away from the Rover, it was time to get back after it. A few parts arrived, but many more questions remain unresolved.

The spring shackle bolts and shock bushings were waiting for me, so today I was able to button up the frame mechanically. It’s nice to have a big piece of the puzzle more or less wrapped up after a few days. Although questions still remain regarding the paint on the frame (more on that later), the frame is mechanically sound. Now if we can start getting some more parts in, it will finally start looking like something.

Now, about that frame paint… After some investigative work, I’ve learned that the frame came with a galvanized coating on it, then was painted on top of it. This isn’t necessarily a problem, assuming the surface was properly prepared. However, based on what I’m seeing it does not appear that it was prepared the way it should be. Seems the guy who painted it forgot his “6 P’s”… Now I need to find a fix.

Any way you slice it, I was most pleased to see the old gal again and am looking forward to continuing tomorrow.

Parts Hunting, Running and a Late Night Finish…

Thursday was my Friday and it was rather fruitless with regards to the Rover build. Still waiting on some communications from England, we spent some time looking on websites for all the rubber we need to order and little more looking at pictures to make sure we know how these rascals came from the factory. The pics we found were completely useless. It is unclear how the frames were painted, which is the biggest question I currently have. We found restored Rovers with black frames, frames painted the body color and a couple with galvanized frames (which I fear is what it should be). I’ll dig deeper into this later…

After my extremely short day poking around online, it was time to run down to my favorite store EVER to pick up some parts for my Suburban, which is now 12 years old. Can I consider it a classic at 12? Anyway, a coil, ignition control module and spark plugs later and I was off and running, at least I was after getting the boys set up with afternoon homework and music practice. On top of the new ignition parts I got to solve an intermittent gremlin, the ‘Burb got a new header gasket and Stage 8 bolts on the passenger side (drivers side was already done), I relocated the ground strap on the engine, cleaned the mass airflow sensor and added a ground wire to the bracket the coil and control module mount to. 9:30 rolled around and I gave her a quick test flight and all seems well (I hope).

Today we play. After dropping my youngest off at school a morning snowboard session will be in order with my oldest (who earned a day of hooky) and my bride, Lisa. Next week is spring break, so I won’t be posting for the next few days, although the Scout is going to get some TLC at the end of the week while I’ve got the boys at home. It’s good to be busy.

More Part Hunting…

Funny thing about today, it was more parts hunting, but for the Scout I’m preparing to restore. What’s more amazing, we were able to find most of what we needed in our back yard!

The first order of business for our “corn binder” is a better wire harness and ignition. So today we went down to the Summit Racing store (I LOVE that place!) and picked up a few items, 2 more will be drop shipped directly to me. A Painless Performance wire harness will make our old Scout more reliable and safer with all new electric circuits. They really do a nice job with their harnesses too, it’s nice when it’s all labeled and grouped by area of the car.

For better spark, we chose a Davis Unified Ignition HEI distributor and plug wires. I am a big believer in electronic ignitions over points and this unit in particular is water and dust “proof” making it ideal if this rascal ever gets off road. Unfortunately these were not in stock, so I’ll be waiting on them to arrive.

The good news is I’ve got plenty to keep me busy. The Scout will not wire itself and my ‘Burb is still not quite right, so the mail man won’t find me waiting by the mailbox for my package…