Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021 — The weather yesterday was cool but sunny, so I drove the Plymouth to the Cruisers Monday gathering at Burger King. Good turnout, and had a new guy — actually a couple — originally from Hillview in Bullitt County. He was driving a gorgeous 1979 medium blue Pontiac Trans Am, just like Jim Lansford’s T/A, but medium blue instead of dark blue.
It was a good meeting of the automotive minds. Whoever owns the Kool Bus drove it; the GTO guy had his beautiful car there. There were several coupes there, but I didn’t go look long. I wanted to get home before dark.
I bought new LED headlights for the Plymouth, and already had an upgraded wiring harness to power them directly from the battery using the original wiring and relays to operate them. I pulled the passenger headlight out to check how much trouble it will be to upgrade the wiring. Ugh! The original wiring is gathered in a sheath that runs thorugh a grommet on the inner fender, then makes its way to the back of the headlight bucket. To get the original headlight connector out, I’m going to have to either cut it off or probably disconnect the original wiring at the terminal strip on the radiator support. I THINK if I disconnect the wiring that leaves there and goes to each headlight, I can remove each section of original wiring. I’m probably going to have cut and splice the upgraded lighting harness to get it installed. My thought is instead of plugging the control plug into one of the original headlight plugs, I’ll simply remove the harness plug and wire it directly to the terminal strip. As long as the inputs to the relays come from the original headlight wiring, I’ll be in good shape.
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. My son had a great idea for a winter project. Because I’m planning (hoping) to get another season out of the Plymouth’s paint job, he suggested that this winter I tackle a repaint of my old farm truck.
Its a 1987 Dodge D150 Ram 1/2-ton pickup truck with full-size bed and a romping, stomping Slant Six engine that has always run well. The truck was originally a Kentucky Department of Highways truck, and like all highway department trucks of that era, was painted Safety Yellow. The guy who bought the truck and owned it before I did repainted it a standard Dodge Truck green (1986 Forest Green). They did a decent job, but over the past 20 years, the paint has weathered.
So my son says I should practice my paint/body work skills on the truck and paint it Safety Yellow, and make it look like a highway department truck again. He’s even suggested that instead of the state seal, that we have his sister create a faux seal that features likenesses of the 3 Stooges and our ‘new’ state motto: “All for one! One for all! Everyman for himself!”
If nothing else, using the truck for practice will give me a chance to improve my skills prior to painting the Plymouth.
I would like to also lower the truck, which technically isn’t super difficult — replace the lower control arms on the front with Dodge van LCAs and then mount the rear end on top of the leaf springs instead of under them. The change in the look is pretty radical — and no spring cutting, etc.
PLYMOUTH PLANNING. In about a month, we have the local Christmas parade, and I plan to have the Plymouth in the parade. We’ll use the same lighting schemed we used last time, and the same large Christmas wreaths in front and back of the car. I already have a 400 watt inverter I’ll use to power the lights.
Something new I have ordered — and should be here next Tuesday — is a 40 inch wide, 8 inch tall LED programmable sign board. I plan to place it in the back window of the Plymouth and have it flash something like “Merry Christmas / Nelson County Gazette”. The challenge may be getting the thing programmed … some reviewers say its not so easy to do. We’ll see if I spent $170 for nothing!
The won’t allow you to throw candy from your parade entry anymore, so we have to have people walking with our entry to hand it out if we wish to pass out candy. Not sure that’s going to be worth trying to recruit folks … easiest solution may be just not handing any out!
Anyway, in regard to the Plymouth, I’m not going to really be able to start on my door panels or headlights — or even body work — until after the Christmas parade. Right now, my plan is to fix the rust spots in the light blue. i can repaint the entire light blue lower body if necessary. I have some spots on the dark blue I need to touch up, I’m more nervous about those given the fact I’ll need to blend the repairs. We’ll see.