Autumn in New England

So things have been pretty hectic around here and I think its obvious with the lack of posts I've been generating.  November is here and the car scene in New England is about to shutter up for the winter......so this last weekend featured a final flurry of activity.

First off,  before the weekend even started I had an interesting week leading into it.  On Tuesday, I took my Cougar for a quick blast on a curvy road near my house in order to play with my GoPro....or should I say what was supposed to be a quick blast. At the end of the run there is a large parking lot (which happens to be where the state's Department of Public Safety is housed).  I turned into the lot and went to perform a 'K' turn in order to head back home.  While making the turn and turning the wheel lock to lock I heard a pop and then the steering wheel spun freely!  The aluminum u-joint that connects my column to my aftermarket rack and pinion setup broke! My car lost the ability to steer and I was in the middle of a crowded parking lot at an awkward angle. My mind jumped into problem solving mode as I had to figure out how to straighten the car out in order to park it in one of the lot spaces.  Then the realization of what would have happened if the u-joint broke 2 minutes earlier or later while I was driving like a madman on a sinuous tree-lined back road. Then I went back to problem solving mode. To get the wheels of the car to turn I employed a hunk of asphalt curb I found and placed it under one of the front tires and drove forward a tiny bit to force the wheels to turn to full lock.  Once the wheels turned I moved forward to the desired angle lined up with a parking spot and then re-used the curb chunk to force my wheels back into the straight position......and finished pulling into the space (a little before dark).

I happened that on Friday (November 1st) I was moving into a large storage unit which I was going to be converting into a  shop and storing the Cougar and Mustang.  I already had plans to rent a trailer Friday morning so I could tow my engine-less Mustang to the unit......I simply modified my plans to also tow the Cougar there.  So I left the Cougar in the lot for a couple days and hoped for the best (I think it may have helped that I was parked next to a couple state police cruisers).

On Friday I took my Discovery to get the Cougar......and of course it was pouring rain.  I used by curb chunk trick to back the Cougar our of its spot and turn it perpendicular to the parking spot and facing the trailer.  It was so easy I thought I'd have it loaded in minutes......then came my lesson on how hard it really is to load a steering-less car onto a trailer alone in the rain!  The amount of finagling it took to line up the trailer perfectly since I had to be able to drive the car up one-shot without any steering correction was ridiculous. Add in the fact that my Hankook Ventus R-S3's hated the wet steel ramps and I must have put on an entertaining display for the state workers in their cubicles.  Eventually, I persevered.

Round two was the opposite story.  The Mustang had steering.....just no drive train. This was much less of an ordeal...just some pushing and the creative use of a come-along to winch the car into the trailer and we were on our way.   

Cougar in its new home.....more to come.

Onto the weekend....

The weekend featured two of the area's biggest swap meets.  On Sunday my brother and I went to a semi-annual event organized by a local club and held in the parking lot of an amusement park.  The turn-out was fantastic.  There were all sorts of odd and interesting cars there. There were even more odd and interesting people.  With regards to deals, there were some to be had, but in general the prices on the cars in the car corral were inflated compared to other years.  There was a really nice Comet convertible for sale that was a deal.....there was also a beat 80's Monte Carlo with a built V8 in it that could have been had for about a grand that would have been fun to beat on.  We had quite a few conversations about what specific cars/trucks we owned in the past would be worth based on the asking prices we were seeing.  In general, the event wasn't productive from a great find point of view....it was just a nice time to get outside on a sunny day before the snow comes and look at cars and people-watch.

One event I missed on Sunday that I wish I attended (and will attend in the Spring when it starts up again) was the final gathering of Caffeine & Carburetors....check out their website.  Info on our new shop coming soon.    

Still have some fall foliage

This needs to be hanging on a wall in my house

Where did the summer go?

In the blink of an eye a month has gone by since my last post! And in that same blink, a chunk of prime New England summer has flown by.  Soon enough the days will be getting shorter and the leaves will be changing .  I realized I have spent the bulk of the summer wrestling with the suspension on my Cougar rather than driving it.  I actually had to replace the front coils again since the set I cut (twice) kept unseating themselves on test drives.  I think I eventually traced the issue to the tired 1 inch spring insulators a the top of each coil.

Anyway, the car is just about road worthy again and now the goal is to drive it and attend as many local shows and event as I can while the weather cooperates.  Yesterday was a local event called the 7th Annual Sgt. Jeffrey Boucher Memorial Auto, Bike and Truck Show. This show really has become one of the best in our area for a variety of reasons.

First and foremost, the show is for a great cause and completely backed by the local Police department and as a result the debauchery that ensues is sanctioned by the boys in blue. For instance, the event features a burnout contest, rock crawling course and even mud pit racing.  The venue this year was at our local municipal airport so the event even offered helicopter rides. 

The show is a free for all! Every faction of automotive enthusiast is represented. There is no 'hot rod' club frowning down on every post 1949 vehicle on display. There were vintage muscle cars, new muscle cars, hot hots, low riders, imports, lifted trucks, slammed trucks, sport bikes, choppers, military vehicles, etc!

The organizers of the event did a great job. I hesitate to call it a 'car show' since the rock crawling and mud racing made it feel more like a competitive motorsports event that happened to have a couple hundred cars on display as well.  My 8 year old son, upon entering the gate and looking around, asked me if we just arrived at a fair.  When I said it was a car show he replied to me with certainty 'No, its a fair.'

Irregardless, the event provided the motivation to get the Cougar out to upcoming events.  More to come....and enjoy what's left of the summer.

    

Cougar Life

Stuck to the side of my toolbox are a couple old newspaper clippings advertising a few Mercury Cougars. The old yellow clippings were retrieved from the inside of a closet door. The closet happened to be in what was once my bedroom in my childhood home.  I was probably 13 or 14 years old when I clipped these from the 'Bargain News' and hung them in my room.  It was only a few years ago when helping my parents move from our old house that I found them and took them to put on display in my garage.

The Mercury Cougar was always one of my favorite muscle cars.  The electric razor inspired grill with hide away headlight was just plain cool.  The sequential taillights were even cooler.  If you asked me at that age what car I wanted when I grew up I would have said a Mercury Cougar with a 428 in it. My brother's truck had me in love with the Ford FE power plants.  In fact, in 8th grade, our English teacher made us right a letter to ourselves as seniors in high school.  The cool thing was that the school took the letters and gave them to us 4 years later. What was one of the first things I asked the older version of myself? What did I drive!!!  I even asked specifically if I had a Cougar with a 428 in it.  At the time I read the letter I was driving my 69 Mustang with a 302 in it....I think the prepubescent version of myself would have been satisfied with that answer.  So the point is I always wanted a Mercury Cougar.

As I mentioned in my post about my first car, the day came when I was ready to invest time and money to get the Mustang exactly where I wanted it.  This was going to involve updating the Mustang's chassis, suspension, brakes, and transmission.  While researching online (it was now the internet era) I came across a 1967 Mercury Cougar for sale.  It was an original S code car....meaning it came with a big block 390. While not the 428 I dreamed of, it was part of the FE family which I was always fond of.  It came with a 4 speed top-loader and had a complete Total Control Products front suspension on it.  It even had Wilwood disc brakes on all four corners. These were all the goodies I wanted for my Mustang and I couldn't even buy these parts for what the guy was selling the whole car for.  So my plans changed and my brother and I drove to Cleveland, Ohio pulling an empty U-haul trailer behind his V-10 powered  F-350.  We drove straight there, picked up the car, stopped for dinner with some relatives in the area and drove right back with this gem...

 

I still have the Cougar and you will be seeing many more posts featuring me doing dumb things with it as soon as the Spring arrives!!!