New Starter.

Got Persephone a new starter today just for kicks.

Friday the 13th.

Spent Friday the 13th wrenching on the Ol' gal.

13 3 3 P

Alley.

Heater Core.

Yeah, I can see why my car kept overheating… Needless to say I ordered a new heater core... now I'm equipped with a classic car part sprinkler to combat the Oklahoma summer heat.

Motor Is In!

Transmission Dropped In.

My friend Joe has been a godsend. While my arms have been healing he has been helping out tremendously. Here is a shot Eddie sent me of them disassembling my dash while I took care of family business out of town.

Check out the rat’s nest the boys found while excavating the broken heater core.

Car Wash.

The amount of dirt, gunk and rap crap that came out of it was unreal.

This is the first side before the cleaning.

This is the first side after cleaning.

This is the second side before the cleaning.

This is the second side before the cleaning.

Head Gasket Kit

Head Breakdown.

Here is what has been going on:

     She blew a head gasket some months back and we considered an engine swap but the replacement wouldn’t fit without cutting the frame and removing parts I didn’t want to lose. So as we don’t have machinery or money for a total rebuild we bought a gasket kit. We have removed her motor and disassembled it, and upon inspection of the heads found that the left head is cracked and blown out.

     I had been raking over Craigslist since I got her scouring for parts so luckily I already knew of some for sale for a while before I knew I needed them. The guy selling them still had them so we gave him a call yesterday and he still had them, so we drove to Irving, Texas and back with new heads.
     I just cleaned them and they look pretty decent. A guy named Kenney sold them to us, and we got to see his gorgeous 1966 Caddy convertible that the heads had been from.

     Hoping to have her finally put together this week.

Thanks to Joe, Eddie, and Joe B. for all of the help today.

Spooky Fin

Original Jack

Lo and behold Kayla and I found the original professional car jack stand, tire iron, and block in the compartment under the floor in the back of the hearse. It needs some TLC, but what a score.

Rattlin’ Rachel helped with moving the Cadillac motor. Thanks to Ron, Eddie, and Joe for all of the help today.

Loading up the Cadillac engine into Rattlin’ Rachel.

Stripped.

Stripped the black spray paint from the Landau panel with laquer thinner and stainless steel scrubs. The original paint looks to be the same as Persephone's: Aspen White.

The hearse being on the grass left us some issues on finally removing the disconnected motor. We pushed the Sierra back and hooked it to the hearse and bit by pit used the pulley to drag it out from underneath the lifted motor. Not the ideal way to manage it, but we made do with what we had.