We had to wipe all this detail out to re-chrome plate these insane door handles for the 166 Berlinetta so the engraving shop scanned in the scrapings so they could reproduce them when it came time to re-finish the part. Not too half bad .  Not even 7/16 bad neither. Nice chrome Mickey, like jewelry, you are killin it Mickey.

D&S Custom

From a diner in a Philadelphia Neighborhood, a great T-Shirt from the Fairlane Diner.

Fairlane Diner

Can you imagine if the USPS went out of business and we didn’t have this beautiful sticky currency! See the New River Gorge Bridge stamp, I was just there earlier this month on the Mountain Mille Rally with Vintage Rallies. It’s an incredible span in West Virginia that has become famous for hurling your body into the deep gorge with a bungee cord attached to your ankles. Without researching this, I believe the company who built this bridge also built a similar structure that I crossed in Burma over eight years ago.

The guy in Italy will be more excited to see these cool USPS stamps that the contents of the package and I’m more excited because instead of paying $300 to ship the package through FedEx or DHL, I am paying a little over $50. I was trying to think of what little American memento to include in the package but these stamps are a good gift to Sergio.

So is the USPS a US Government organization or not? If they are, how was it possible for them to sponsor the Cycling team in the late 90′s and how can the US army sponsor a NASCAR team? They didn’t ask me!

USPS Stamps

These headlight rims were purchased with headlights and buckets to “bolt in” to the front end of the Touring Body 1949 Ferrari 166 Coupe. The parts are beautiful and very expensive (even though the chrome plating is flaking off) but there is no way to secure them to the car! I have to make these brass tabs which will be soldered onto the rims so I can use a bolt to secure them to the bodywork. I drilled the holes in the parts for more surface area for the silver solder to adhere the tab to the rim. Once I am done I’ll send the rims to the engraver to have the delicate “Carello” script scanned into the computer so when they get re-chromed we can engrave this important detail back in. What an expensive detail!

Carello Ferrari Headlight 250, 166, 212,

Trim Rim Ring Carello Headlight

Cylinder heads 911 Porsche

Porsche 911 Crank Case

Inside view of the 911 engine

Over the last few years we have overhauled a bunch of Porsche 911 engines that have the same description as this one, it runs OK but smokes and leaks a bunch of oil. Once we get inside and check things out we find a whole host of issues from collapsed chain tensioners, broken piston rings and wiped out bearings. This engine has a few severely scratched piston skirts and hosed thrust bearings and intermediate shaft bearings.

It’ll be great to get all these parts cleaned up, freshened up and dialed in so the customer can have the car rocking and rolling for the spring. The engine is equipped with Weber Carburetors which seem good but are they better than the Bosch Mechanical Fuel Injection?

The 4 cylinder Ferrari Monza engine came back from England last week so in order to create some space, Casey took it out of the crate and threw the engine in the chassis. The shop who overhauled the  engine is a specialist on the 4 cylinder Ferrari engines and has made this a turn key, dyno tested unit for us to bolt in.

Nate is installing new brake components on the XKE after having the calipers overhauled and other things like cooling fan motors and a inoperative coolant temperature gauge. We have been so busy with Jaguars and brakes lately, new cylinders in two XK-140′s and all new brake parts on this XKE.

Shop images of the Monza and XKE

XK-D Jaguar

Here’s Peter bring the XKD to the false grid at Lime Rock over Labor Day weekend. The car is to die for, broke a starter motor pinion gear over the weekend but performed nicely otherwise. Has anyone heard of a fuel filter with a red foam element? Something is getting into the fuel system and plugging the idle jets and I think it’s the fuel cell bladder but it is rumored that it doesn’t have that type of cell…

Here is a cool engine, a Meadows truck engine that was “massaged” by W.O. Bentley to be in a 1934 Lagonda M45 Rapide Racing car. We have it in the shop to check all kinds of things such as the valve lash, fix a few oil leaks and make sure the oil pressure is high enough. It’s amazing how well this engine ran with valve lash everywhere from .004 to .024″! These pre-war English cars are similar to the American cars I described in the previous post, so overbuilt and rugged that if things go out of spec they still drive well. Or maybe it’s because the cars drive so poorly that if something is out of spec, you don’t really notice..

Meadows engine

Maybe we should narrow our focus on a specific brand of car but at the end of the day, we have relationships with people and our customers like a bunch of different types of cars so we end up working on all kinds of stuff. It’s amazing how great American cars are, they can sit around for years with the battery connected and start and drive without drama, USA, USA!

The driveshaft U-Joints in the green 1949 Ford Pick-up were totally blown out but the truck still drove beautifully and was quite smooth. With ignition advance stuck, a carburetor with a plugged passage and brakes sticking, a quick test drive relieved all of these ailments on the ’48 Chevy Woodie Wagon. If this were a Ferrari with any of these issues it would be sidelined!  Once we get some time, the pedal car in front of the woodie wagon needs a valve job.

Ford and Jags with a 1948 Chevy Woodie