D Cluley
Active Member
The project for this summer is/was supposed to be replacing the top on my convertible. It was last done almost 20 years ago, and it has been pretty ratty for a couple of years. It isn’t 100% weather tight, but I normally park in the carport at Jen’s so it hasn’t been a problem. Ordered a new top last year, and it is sitting in the basement just waiting for the weather to get nicer.
As is typical, the car sat from November until late April, when we had one very nice Saturday evening. I hooked up the battery, put some fresh gas in and after a jump start went for a ride and everything seemed pretty good.
Which brings us to this past week. Decided to use the car on Wed and it needed another jump, and then had to put it on the charger at home to get it started in the evening, so gonna need to get the battery checked and I noticed that something in the front brakes is making an occasional noise, so that’s going to need looking at.
Put the car back into the carport, and then saw the notice in the building that the maintenance crew is going to clean the carports with leaf blowers on Thursday, so I jump started it again and moved it across the lot.
On Friday, determined that yes the battery is toast and bought a new one. Can’t actually complain about that, the old one was left over from a previous daily driver, so was at least 5 years old and probably not quite big enough to begin with. At this point the turn signals decide its their turn for attention. Front, rear & the fender top indicators all work fine, but all of a sudden both lights in the instrument cluster light up together for either right or left. I’m guessing a bad ground in the cluster somehow, but everything else seems ok, so I’m not sure, and I haven’t even looked at it because when I went to park back in the carport I couldn’t get reverse to work!
This moment has probably been coming for years. There has always been something off with reverse. When the car is cold you can shift to reverse and after a delay of somewhere between 10 seconds and eternity it finally kicks in and moves. Once driven for 10 minutes or so it warms up and the delay is only a second or so. It has been like this for at least a decade, and never got worse, so I’ve never dug into it. My assumption has been that the seal on the reverse servo leaked a little when cold, but that is based on the internet and not any actual knowledge of the dark magic that is the inside of an automatic transmission.
So, I parked it out on the lot again where there is enough slope to roll back out, and some day next week will see if I can get it home, drop the trans pan and see what delightful surprises I find. At this rate, I’m going to be lucky to have the top done by Fall.
As is typical, the car sat from November until late April, when we had one very nice Saturday evening. I hooked up the battery, put some fresh gas in and after a jump start went for a ride and everything seemed pretty good.
Which brings us to this past week. Decided to use the car on Wed and it needed another jump, and then had to put it on the charger at home to get it started in the evening, so gonna need to get the battery checked and I noticed that something in the front brakes is making an occasional noise, so that’s going to need looking at.
Put the car back into the carport, and then saw the notice in the building that the maintenance crew is going to clean the carports with leaf blowers on Thursday, so I jump started it again and moved it across the lot.
On Friday, determined that yes the battery is toast and bought a new one. Can’t actually complain about that, the old one was left over from a previous daily driver, so was at least 5 years old and probably not quite big enough to begin with. At this point the turn signals decide its their turn for attention. Front, rear & the fender top indicators all work fine, but all of a sudden both lights in the instrument cluster light up together for either right or left. I’m guessing a bad ground in the cluster somehow, but everything else seems ok, so I’m not sure, and I haven’t even looked at it because when I went to park back in the carport I couldn’t get reverse to work!
This moment has probably been coming for years. There has always been something off with reverse. When the car is cold you can shift to reverse and after a delay of somewhere between 10 seconds and eternity it finally kicks in and moves. Once driven for 10 minutes or so it warms up and the delay is only a second or so. It has been like this for at least a decade, and never got worse, so I’ve never dug into it. My assumption has been that the seal on the reverse servo leaked a little when cold, but that is based on the internet and not any actual knowledge of the dark magic that is the inside of an automatic transmission.
So, I parked it out on the lot again where there is enough slope to roll back out, and some day next week will see if I can get it home, drop the trans pan and see what delightful surprises I find. At this rate, I’m going to be lucky to have the top done by Fall.