[njsteve]

It's been a while since I did anything with Grampa's Lincoln. After 4 years of sitting in the garage I decided to pull it out a couple weeks ago. Operative word being "tried". Or should I say inoperative. Turns out that 5 quarts of Type F transmission fluid had wicked its way through the cork pan gasket and I couldn't get it to do anything in any gear. So after a couple days I was able to hunt down 6 quarts of Type F. Who'da-thought it would be so hard to find these days?

I filled up the transmission and pulled her out of the garage and washed her off. It took several minutes for the engine oil to get up through the valvetrain from the sound of the clattering. After a while the old 10.8 to 1 compression 460/365 hp smoothed out.

I took her for a ride and noticed that the 15 year old BFG's that I stuck on there after the 30 year old generic radials blew out, were making weird noises when rolling. So I splurged and bought a brand new set of whitewalls for the beast. It took a Michelin 225x15 originally. I still have the original spare in the trunk. That translates to a 225/75R15 now. I found set of some Venezia Classic 787 whitewalls (made in China) whitewalls and installed them. They balanced up very nicely and I couldn't believe the cost: around $55 a tire! I've been driving the car around for a week now (over 100 miles) just to use up the old gas.

I then siphoned out the remainder of the vintage 2021 Costco Premium for use in the lawnmower later this week. Surprisingly the gas still smelled fresh. I did add a ton of Stabil back in the day as well as some 100LL aircraft fuel over the years so that probably helped. I then went to Costco and filled her up with more 93 octane premium. For giggles, I checked the receipts in the ashtray and it was only 10 cents more a gallon than it was in 2021 when I filled it last.

I changed the oil yesterday with some Valvoline VR1 classic/racing 10W30 high zinc oil and a new Wix filter. She's been my daily driver now for the past week and a half or so.

This week I have an appointment with the body shop that repainted the Suburban to have their paintless dent guy give me a estimate for removing the several dozen dings in the doors and fenders that my dad installed while using the car as a garden tool storage rack for 20 years. Wish me luck!