10/24/02
Overdrive, and my 300th Post!

I had a bunch of little things to tend to today, but most importantly, I continued to work on the overdrive. Each portion of the overdrive system that gets repaired brings me closer to slaying this beast! The solenoid that pulls a plunger up into this hole was giving me some problems. It seems that the plunger gets jammed inside this hole, and has trouble sliding back out. I cleaned it out thoroughly, but it was still jamming, so I used some fine sand paper to remove the corrosion. The inside of the solenoid is brass, and is probably made this way to avoid corrosion. The plunger has to be steel so it can magnetize. After cleaning, it seemed to work all right. Time for a test drive.

It takes about 10 minutes of driving from the shop until I can get to a road that’s fast enough to test the overdrive. Doh! It still doesn’t work! It was such a nice day and the car was feeling real good, so I wasn’t going to let the overdrive spoil my day. I continued driving enjoying the sounds of that engine and the feeling of that shifter in my hand. As I drove, I tried to imagine what is wrong, and I will attack it some more next time!

When I finally returned to the shop, I took a walk around the car to check for leaks, and problems. The first few hundred miles is where I really have to be careful. I immediately saw some dripping at the back of the car. Touching the drips with my finger and smelling it, I found it to be gasoline. Gas was dripping on one of the mufflers before it hit the ground! The leak was at the electric fuel pump banjo fitting, and it needed some tightening. I jacked the car up and got to work so I wouldn’t torch three years of hard work!

Today’s journal entry marks the 300th one I’ve made since I began this odyssey. Wow, three hundred pages, and the story of this restoration is still not finished! Thanks everyone for hanging in there!

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