Monday 7 July 2014

The Bitch Goddess of Vintage Cars taketh away and giveth....



As you dear constant reader may remember I broke my big toe by dropping Corvette t roofs on my foot.

So my right foot along with the rest of my apparently healthy body is restricted to the couch. After I binged watched the latest season of Orange is the New Black I started to loose my mind....its only been three days!

the horror...the horror

I guess I have been so busy the last few months enforced rest was not at all welcome. Never mind that if I can't work I don't get paid. I can't even work on my Stutz restoration project.

Today I am with my daughters making grilled cheese sandwiches and driving them to the library, being very careful of right foot and braking with the left.   

I have been a little naughty and brought the Stutz's seized windshield wiper motor along. Sitting down I managed to disassemble it and clean out all the rust. Seems that Stutz designed the space where the wiper motor sits beneath the cowl without a drain. The motor had clearly been submersed in water at some time in the past and stopped working.

The wiper motor is Italian made by Magneti Marelli. (the car was coachbuilt by Padane in Modena on a Pontiac chassis and uses a variety of Maserati and Ferrari components. I believe a modern replacement is still available but somewhat expensive in North America so I am hoping a little elbow grease and ingenuity will get the original working.

What I was upset about was that the chrome windshield wiper trim pieces were missing. In fact I hadn't seen them since the car was disassembled back in 2006. I had an idea that Stutz used Alfa Romeo parts judging by the wiper motor assembly but they could also be unique to the car. As only twenty six 1971 Stutzs were built replacement trim items are nonexistent.

Poking my nose into a few boxes I had searched fruitlessly before I came across a clear plastic bag with all the missing trim pieces!!!!




Ah the bitch goddess of vintage cars can be merciful....too bad about the toe.


Since we have been talking windshield wipers here is a really wet song Dion and the Belmonts...