7/12/04
CONDOR
It has been completely painted, buffed, and ready for reassembly. I have paid Nick in full, plus $500 for misc mouldings.

7/17/04
CONDOR
It is slowly getting there. The body is mostly reassembled, and Nick is ordering some rubber trim pieces, weatherstripping, etc. FINALLY. The interior pieces are all done and waiting at Miranda s. Nick pulled the speakers out of the doors to let Rob do his hifi thing later.

7/20/04
Nick has the car nearly assembled. He pulled out the rotted out door speakers, and Rob will deal with them later. I will be bringing a seat over from Miranda to allow him to drive it to Chinto s for detailing. Nick is also getting the upper roof mouldings. He has repainted the black plastic door handles again black. I still have to do some assembly on the car with Nick once he is done at the shop. He is going to bring the car to my house and he and I will put some pieces on. He claims he does not want the car sitting in the shop for final assembly, as he feels it will get hurt.

7/21/04
Went by Nick s earlier, spoke with Steve, who said he is working on my car tonight. I will bring him a seat tomorrow. At 6:54 PM, I am calling Nick to see if he can work on the SC2 front bumper which I displaced whilst towing it. He says bring it over later tonight. The Condor is looking sweet. Steve showed me some new window moulding, and they are getting more. I ll take the driver s seat over there tomorrow. I have
been eyeing the LS1 Chevy VERY low rise TPI injection system. While I do have more hood clearance now, and I might well be able to fit a Vortech carb box on it, I think I ll be needing injection and computer control. Randy feels I can use a factory Mustang system on it. We ll be doing some measurements soon. There are a couple of problems using a Chevy unit, as the Ford motor has a distributor up front, RIGHT in the way of the inlet. But that is for a little later.

7/22/04
SC2
The very lovely Elizabeth came with 3 friends to view the Bird today. She liked it, had a friend drive her around the block in it, and is bringing her mechanic uncle by tomorrow to inspect the car. I revealed all flaws, and noted I was going to replace the power steering pump tomorrow, as I had found a leak. Her friend is HOT for my Regal Ltd at $20K. We ll see about that.

SC3
Roy found the lifters were WAY noisy in the rebuilt motor, so is pulling it apart to replace the lifters. These are roller hydraulics. Too bad we didn t just do that when it was apart.

CONDOR
Looking to get the seat over to Nick tomorrow. Door handles are in, one moulding to be put in tomorrow. Waiting for one more moulding set. Talked with Steve, who is somewhat confused as to what Nick was to order. I clarified that I want all new rubber as needed, and to order it ASAP.

8/2/04
CONDOR
Met with the graphics artist, Bill, on Sunday afternoon. I told him what I wanted, and he waffled, asking that I get WAY more specific. So I printed a bunch of 72-point samples here, and settled on Bauhaus, very bold. I also found some pictures of Condors, and I have two to choose from, perhaps use each. One is a head-on in flight, looking like a stealth plane without a head (lost in the front view of the huge wings and body), and the second is just a profile of the bald eagle-looking Condor s head. Funny in its own right. I ve sent both pix to Steve at Hamrick s.

SC2
Replaced the power steering pump, and both hoses. Unfortunately, the alternator charge bolt broke off, so that got replaced, too. The car is really nice now, runs fine (I m driving it everyday), just needs the AC vacuum lines corrected, although it works great. I had Sam redo the pump seals as they had gone bad, and it had lost some freon. Works like a chiller now.

SC3
Got it back, and it drives GREAT! However, it has either a slapping piston or loose wrist pin. It makes the same noise as SC2, but 20 times more of it. Sounds a little like a rod knock, but that can not be, as it has new bearings and about .001" clearance. Roy will probably start with pulling the pan off and checking the rods. If need be, I ll have him pull the engine out and start over. I had Miranda fix the torn driver s seat bolster by changing all 4 bolsters to gray vinyl to prevent further wear. Looks good. I now have to reinstall the radio, fix the AC, and find out what the noise is. But man, this car rides and feels SOOOOO good. The 5-speed makes the engine torque feel more direct, like a big block V8. I buffed a few areas, and they responded nicely. The paint will probably come up. I MAY just do some little ding repair here and there and repaint it. Still waiting for a new bumper cover. Had I known my Condor front bumper cover was not usable, I would have left the original on this car and just got the new one for the Condor. Large waste of time and money here, but great for the next owner!

8/4/04
SC3
The AC is fixed, with w/NEW (from Ford) compressor, dryer, and hose (with line filters). A mere $653! OUCH!!

SC2
The vacuum lines are ALL screwed up on this car. Some are hanging, others are going to odd places. I m bringing SC3 over to Jeff in the morning to compare. Hopefully the 5-speed SC3 has better routing and can help Jeff figure it out. There is still an odd diesel-like sound on the SC3.

CONDOR
Was referred this afternoon by my cabinet guy to a fellow named Frank across the alley from him doing CNC cutouts on aluminum panel. I went over and he can probably do it out of 1/8" aluminum, which we would then clear anodize. Still going to run about $300. I will be getting a color printer tomorrow in order to print the two Condor (bird) pix for possible use on the car. I will give these to Steve and Nick and see what they think. In all likelihood, such a picture will be made into a vinyl.

8/13/04
CONDOR
I drove the baby home the other night from Nick s!!! It feels SOOOOOOOOO good sitting in that car. Nick is scheduled for tonight, Friday the 13th (!!!), to come over and assemble the rubber, set the rear quarter windows, door wipers, basically all the exterior stuff. He has STILL not ordered the cowl pieces (only 6 months of asking), and we have to get a few misc pieces from Ford or other suppliers. The car looks absolutely fantastic, and once assembled completely, I will post numerous pix, of course. It ran beautifully, did not overheat, notwithstanding the triple digit temps while driving home, but the AC appears not to be cooling. I did not chance testing it for long on the drive home. I ll run it over to Sam at Allstate and let him check it today. I saw a CONDOR logo and name for a trucking/shipping company. I might use their simplified bird for my logo.

SC2
A friend of mine has expressed interest in the automatic Bird. Nice car, I hope he gets it.

SC3
Roy came over and we did some testing to attempt to discern the odd noise. We disconnected spark to each cylinder and one did reduce the noise, but did not eliminate it. We disconnected the supercharger belt, and promptly snapped the primary idler drive belt. But it was NOT the supercharger making the noise, unfortunately. It took some hunting, but I got the replacement belt, and got a list of the Gates # for the other belts so as not to have a problem in the future getting these items.

8/28/04
SC2
John bought the automatic SC2. It required two new catalytic converters for the smog check, which I split with him.

SC3
It got its new bumper painted last night at Hamrick s, and I should have it here Monday. Roy and I will pull the engine on Tuesday and begin looking for the odd noise source. As usual, the "interested" calls are no-shows to drive it.

CONDOR
Rob says he will be done today with the reinstall of the hifi. It drove like a dream up to Ventura, other than the old problem of the vibrating driveshaft. If you read the entire SAGA, you might recall that we found rotating the u-joint 90 degrees seemed to solve the problem. I will endeavor to do that once it is back here. I just need to keep it under 2200 rpm in top gear on the freeway to avoid the major vibration. If I
do get it back here this weekend, I will boogie over to Miranda for the finishing touches on the upholstery, including carpet and headliner. Nick should then come over and help with the final installation of the new mouldings. I did not get over to Sam to check the AC. That will be first thing on Monday morning. In driving the Regal, I now long for the plusher ride of the Condor. It is SUCH a dream to drive! I have a mind to keep the SC3 as a daily driver and save my two honeys for weekends. We ll see. Meanwhile, Randy s wagon will leave the premises on Monday for the paint shop, and that will clear a space to park in the garage. Of course, that is AFTER we push the SC3 out Tuesday afternoon once we pull the engine. The SC3 can reside under the awning with a car cover along with the Regal for now. The Condor gets the Garage Mahal spot. Once the dually EVER gets done, then both the Regal and Condor can snuggle inside. As an interesting aside, I have owned FIVE Super Coupes.