John S's Journal

It’s been a little over a year since the day that someone ran a red light while I was happily motoring through the intersection in my split bumper ‘70 roadster. After toiling away on that car to get it roadworthy and respectable looking, I only had the use of it for some 3 months before it’s inglorious end. Happily though, I found a gem about 60 miles up the road within days of the accident. With money in hand from the settlement, I purchased and towed home through a very thick layer of wildfire smoke, a soot covered ‘71 GT that had been sitting unused in a garage for 34 years and had only seen the light of day briefly just prior to the fires. Not running for all those years was a bit of a gamble but I had a complete parts car with lots of new bits as I chose to part my ‘70 out rather than take the whole amount offered and turn over the car.

First order of business after getting it up the driveway and under the carport was to clean it up, go through the fuel system, brakes, and carefully rotate the engine with liberal doses of Marvel Mystery Oil. Then transfer the carbs and various other bits from the donor to see what kind of shape the motor was in and to my pleasant surprise, it was healthy enough to drive it around the parking lot across the street albeit with a bad clutch.

Knowing that the original engine was good and that I had an OD that I was going to resurrect, the plan was made to shelve the car until I was able to part out and get the wrecked ‘70 gone as room is limited.

Pulled the motor and transmission out of the ‘70 and set it aside and then moved it under the carport and the GT in the garage to wait while I stripped everything off the wreck. Managed to get it down to the bare shell and find homes for a lot of the parts that I didn’t need and proceeded to exceed the amount that I surrendered to the insurance company. With Winter of 2020 upon us, the motivation to spend time on the GT was not great and was put on hold until the New Year. A very serious health issue developed with my wife that put the project on the back burner until this Summer when she was recovered sufficiently for me to spend some time in the garage now and again. Which brings me to today and the following picture. It is ready to go I hope. But that won’t be known for at least another day or two as it’s the end of the day and tomorrow’s schedule is filled with appointments.

A long and winding road.