Last month I decided the car was put together enough to take a real test drive. I loaded it on my trailer so we could take it to town. Then we got so busy with other stuff that we couldn't find an open day for its first drive on city streets. It sat on the trailer for three weeks but didn't go anywhere. Until yesterday.
I hitched the trailer up to the F250 Tuesday morning and my wife, Nita, and I headed down our 16-mile dirt road and another 24 miles of paved road to the parking lot behind our friend, Jared's, shop in Prescott. He specializes in restoring old Mercedes so we figured it was the best place to start our test drive. If something went wrong, we had an expert on hand.
I started it up and we took a spin around the parking lot. The car was noisy but it all seemed pretty OK so we decided to take a little bit longer loop - about 2 miles. On this loop the car got noisier. There was an engine noise that vibrated the whole car plus it sounded like there was a rock or something rattling around in the right front hubcap.
When we got back to Jared's shop we took the noisy wheel off and found that one of the pins that holds the auto-adjusting part of the brake had extended too far out and was grinding a groove in the aluminum brake drum. He popped it out and put a washer behind the cotter pin so that it wouldn't stick so far out and that noise was fixed. Easy!
We decided to drive a longer loop. We took it where we could use all of the gears, which worked fine, but the car made even more noise. The engine vibration was worse and there seemed to be noises coming from all four wheels and just about everywhere else, too. The car sounded like an airplane dragging cans of bolts down a runway. We could hardly hear each other speak. We abandoned our plans to drive it to lunch. Jared said he thought it was a successful drive since it made it back to the trailer without dying out on the road somewhere, but it sounded bad. Really bad.
The next day I took the car to Rich Biel's automotive repair shop so we could put it up on a lift. Chris was the lucky mechanic assigned to help me figure out what was causing the noise and how to fix it. The plan was to start with the loudest noise first. It turns out that the motor mounts are shot and the front ones had collapsed enough that the fuel pump was hitting the steering box. That was the source of the vibration. I ordered new mounts but they won't get here for a week. In the meantime, Chris put shims under the front mounts to raise the engine up just enough so it doesn't rattle against the steering box. When I started the car, the difference made me smile. It no longer sounded like an airplane. It sounded like a normal car. Almost. There were all the other noises to deal with.
The next target was to take both front wheels off and re-mount all four of the pins that hold the automatic brake adjustment washers in place. It turns out that the cotter keys holding the pins in place were too small and allowed the heads of the pins to drag on the brake drums. Bigger cotter pins were in order plus some washers just for good measure. The dragging-can-of-bolts noises should be gone.
Now for loud rattle number three. We found that the exhaust system was not attached to the frame in a key place, was attached badly in another place and, as a result, the muffler was rattling against the car's body. Chris got some generic exhaust brackets and adapted them so that the whole system was attached at the correct spots with rubber to absorb the vibrations. This moved the muffler up slightly - just enough to clear the body. Another problem solved.
While the car was up on the lift we discovered that the gas tank was leaking at one of the gas line fittings. That took a few more minutes to tighten up. We are not sure we fixed it, though. Time will tell. I also noticed a hole in the bell housing where there shouldn't be one. Apparently the clutch had exploded at some point in the past and something punched a silver dollar-size hole in the side. It's in a spot where it shouldn't cause any problems, though. Best to leave this one alone. A new bell housing probably costs a fortune if it is available at all.
Now for the second test drive. Wonderful! It was so much quieter! I could actually hear the engine run instead of listening to it vibrate against the frame. It sounded damn good to me. I drove it around some more, went to the store, visited some friends to show it off, and stopped by Jared's shop. He admitted that he was trying to be supportive the day before, and only said nice things, but he was thinking, "what a pile of junk!" The difference between Wednesday's drive and Tuesday's drive was amazing. It was a different car. A really fun car!
Of course there are still lots of things to work on. The interior needs to be done. There are still some lighting and electrical issues, and there are still some noises to deal with. Fortunately they are practically insignificant noises, some of which will go away by themselves and some will be muffled when the carpet kit goes in and the rubber for the doors and trunk is installed. I doubt it will ever be as quiet as a modern car but it will sound and feel the way it did when my brother, Rick, and I drove it to the mountains to go rock climbing back in the 70's.
