Hugh:
I am confident that the repair will get you to the cruise. I bet that the
whole unit was pulling too much current and heating your starter button
wires too much. A rebuilt one should do the trick. I can't believe that the
shop didn't have a 392 Hemi starter for your Imperial in stock! The very
idea! It should have been shelved alphabetically after Hudson but before
Packard :)
If I was a little closer I would gladly go over and help you put it on just
as I am sure anyone else on the list would that has a little mechanical
experience. Can't wait to hear how it turns out and about all the fun you
have on the cruise.
Dave Knight
>From: "Hugh & Therese" <hugtrees@xxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: "Imperial Mailing List" <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: IML: Never give up!
>Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 16:25:24 -0500
>
>Yesterday, poor old Mrs. Blueberry, my estimable 1958 4 door Southampton,
>failed to start. The solenoid finally quit. maybe it was all the abuse
>from slow starts when warm, a problem rectified, somehow, by changing the
>timing. Who knows? The starter was weak, and the solenoid gave out. I
>had
>to get the car taken by wrecker to the museum. I had been using the car as
>a daily driver while the repairs to my 1992 Chrysler, recently totaled out
>by the insurance company, crawl along. It was supposed to be returned last
>Friday. It wasn't and tomorrow is no longer a reasonable prospect either.
>Well, not to the repair company, anyway.
>
>So, I went out to the museum, getting a lift from a friend, and, with a
>little over an hour's work, managed to remove the starter. The confined
>space is a huge factor here, plus the design of the unit which prevents
>using a ratchet wrench on the main nuts. I got it to the rebuild shop by
>11:00 AM. I was told if they made it a rush job I just might get it back
>tomorrow afternoon. They recognized it as a Chrysler Corp starter but did
>not have a 392 Hemi starter on their shelves to swap out, strangely enough.
>
>So, I thought I had run out of options. I informed my work I would not be
>in tomorrow. I also ruefully contemplated not being able to take part, yet
>again, in my favourite automotive event of the year, which is on Saturday.
>Two years ago, my drive shaft broke. Last year, I cracked a head. And
>this
>year the starter had quit on me. Sigh!
>
>But, enormous changes at the last minute! I got a call from the rebuilder
>a
>few minutes ago. The starter is done. Good as new. Unfortunately, I am
>now in the wrong place to pick it up, having been brought home again. A
>friend of mine is going to pick it up, however, and I have just paid the
>very reasonable fee of $170 approximately, for the work. Once my wife
>comes
>home, I will borrow her car and go out to the museum again and try to
>reinstall it. On paper, It's easy. In practice, it will be a tough job.
>I
>think I am up for it. I just hope I have not damaged any of the other
>electrics when I was trying, repeatedly, to get it going yesterday. there
>was a faint smell of burning and the wires at the back of the substitute
>start button installed long ago under the key were too hot to touch.
>
>If I can get it started, I am back in business. I can go to work tomorrow
>and to the cruise on Saturday. I can stop worrying about the Chrysler,
>too,
>if the Imperial is more reliable. Isn't life grand and exciting?
>
>Hugh
>
>PS. Have you noticed that in theory, practice and theory are always the
>same but in practice they never are?
>
>
>
>
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