The car has indeed been on the back burner for a couple of weeks. Between weather, visitors, dog-sitting, home repairs and honey-do’s, I’ve not accomplished much restoring.
It’s funny how the smallest things can be the most annoying and time consuming to resolve. I wanted to terminate the transmission cooler lines at the radiator and needed two tubing nuts since the Champion aluminum radiator has male connections. I had the male version and thought it would be simple to find the others at any auto parts store, but no one locally stocked any for 5/16” tubing.
O’Reilly found four in one of their stores in Oklahoma City, and the counter guy here said he would order them and that it would take two days. Two days later, I went to pick them up, and though the request had been sent, the parts were never packed for shipment, so the local store re-ordered them for overnight shipment. Two days later, their computer showed them on a truck that was due in a couple of hours. They didn’t show up on that truck, so the store located four more in a different city and ordered from them. Two days later, the parts from both sources arrived.
It took over a week to get my parts, and I made four twenty-mile round trips! If I had ordered online, they would have cost half the price O’Reilly charged, plus they would have arrived on about the same day and I wouldn’t have had to drive eighty miles. The result is that the local store knows I’m not happy with them and they now have a twenty-year supply of Mopar-only 5/16” tube nuts!
I did finish fabricating a shroud for the two SPAL fans, and here’s a picture of the parts getting a fit check. They clear, but not by much. The info I found said a shroud was probably necessary with two nine -inch fans and suggested at least a half-inch spacing from the fins to permit drawing from a larger area. I still have to do little trimming and then paint it.
I think the fan shroud looks nice and tidy.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ray. It didn't come out too bad so I hope it does the job!
ReplyDelete