Today I received a message from Val saying that my car will be ready to be picked up tomorrow evening.  He sad that he still needs to test drive the car to make sure everything is working OK.  He wasn’t able to do that today because he still needs to buy and install the exhaust clamps that hold the exhaust tips on.  He also needs to see why one of the backup lights isn’t working but he doesn’t expect that to be a big issue.

The message also said that he needed to pull the transmission and bell-housing to do some work on the clutch fork and bell-housing that required a bit of welding.  I don’t know the details on what needed to be done.  I’m not all that surprised that there was an additional problem in that area.  I was just unaware of the issue.  With everything in the clutch linkage that was replaced it should work better than it did when I bought the car used in 1974.  It may also explain why I went through so many clutches over the years, although that could also be due to the “loose nut behind the steering wheel”.

I hope that everything on the car works fine on the shake down drive tomorrow.  If all goes well I will be driving the car home tomorrow night.  The pressure is on Val right now to wrap things up because I leave the day after tomorrow for a week long vacation.  And I know he doesn’t want the car to sit in his shop taking up valuable space for another week.  I’m a bit nervous about driving the car home because it is a 1.5 hour long drive on the highway.  And timing is going to place me out on the road at rush hour, which can get ugly with the D.C. traffic.  I may try to plot a non-highway course back home, but that will turn it into a 2 hour drive.  I also need to find out if there is a break-in procedure for the new ring and pinion in the rear end.  I have heard that some have a break-in which includes driving at normal speeds for a short time and then allowing the gears to cool off for 30 minutes.  But those questions will have to wait for tomorrow.  If I do get the car back I won’t have time to post anything until after my week at the beach.  But I will try and take a lot of pictures for that post.  Stay tuned until then.