quaddriver

Most of you don’t care, but those that do, read on….

So I take the olds to the car show Saturday. Get there early, park in the sun (it was a freezing summer day) open the hood, sit in chairs, walk around…you know the typical classic car cruise in.

After a while a 66 nova parks beside me, a pure drag car that just happens to have nova body parts hung on it. Checking it out, noticing the custom fabricated chassis and suspension.

So I ask the guy: “this might seem like a weird question, but is there any chance you got the chassis for this car from these guys who fabricate them in Indiana (state of) and sell them at Carlisle?”

He thinks for a second and goes “I did get this from Carlisle, from some people from IN, Checkered Racing”

(that’s them)

So I go “holy buckets, they have been my across the street neighbors are truck Carlisle show for 7 years now.”

So that was weird moment number 1, I recognized some people’s handiwork as installed in another person’s car, am I good or what…

But then, I was noticing that to hang the body panels on the chassis, the guy had fabricated out of round tubing the brackets and braces to work the frame of the car – mind you street legal antique/custom rod cars in PA are barely so…I would not drive this in the rain so I ask who did the frame work. Why he did in his shop. Seeing that it might be something I might want for our show truck (the Walmart towing big block suburban) I ask where his shop is.

(warning, local PA info coming) HE is outside of limestone, down 66 just past this old 1920’s stone filling station, turn left, turn right etc., onto ‘shannondale road’

“shannondale road?” I ask “well then you know my car..” pointing to the 1978 olds regency

He looks over my should and goes “I thought that looked a bit familiar, Max Shaffer’s old car”

For those that recall, I got the car at an estate auction a month ago, from Max Shaffer’s son, Dan Shaffer, at his father’s house on Shannondale road…

Turns out this guy lived across the road for 50 years, knew the old man, knew his son, and watched me buy the car. “You got a hell of a deal on that” he said

So Dan, old guys son, shows up at the show to see how I got his dads car back together, we talk and I say “you recognize the car next to me no?” and he goes “no” then looks at the people sitting behind it and goes “now I do…” as he recognized his long standing neighbors….(Dan himself btw has a 30K mile original 1969 Olds 442 W30 car he got new, still has the cancelled check for $3426 (don’t we friggin wish?) and will bring it to the next show.)

Small world eh?

Now, how did the car do? Well it was a non-judged show, and the pristiness of the car generated some good attention from the older crowd who used to love boating in these things. So after the show we cruised down to the river, got ice cream at my sons shop, took the long way back, pull in the driveway and garaged her (rain will never hit this car) till the next show (august 13 at the Venango county airport) and I note on my cement drive, a thin trail of blood. In the last 3 minutes of flawless running from the car who sat for 13 years, she decided to pop the tranny front pump seal, so now, when I get back from leave I gotta do a 3 hour tranny removal/install to replace a $2.49 seal.

$%#$%#$ <--those are bad words, do not repeat to your priest.

PS: The average age of the attendees was ‘older than me’ so I suspect when these guys are gone, the American love affair with the automobile will come to a whimpering end, but I will be damned if it will occur on my watch….

oldcutlass

Outside of your unfortunate break down, cool story.

Olds64

That is a cool story. It's a bummer about the transmission seal though.

quaddriver

update: picked the tranny up after work yesterday and had it back in in about 45 mins, hooked up all the external crap today before heading to the fair and the demos so I wont get to test drive until tomorrow, but for $220 I got a reman converter (old had a bad lip on it), resealed the pistons, pump seal, converter seal, converter bushing, rear seal etc, and got some NOS clutch plates....very reasonable tranny shop, I think I paid $75 for the hour labor it took

edited to add: after the rains dried up, took it for a quick spin...I have all 3 forward gears, kickdown, and a gear that goes in reverse so Im back in business.

Aug 13, venago county airport Pa, aug 27th, cook forest country inn vowinckel pa, are the next 2 cruise-ins in case anyone is slightly local with not much to do....