'54 radiator and swap meet

Finally found a company that had a radiator for the '54... Well, they had to build one custom for it, and it wasn't cheap.

Griffin radiator on left, stock on right

Very clean, very light, and from what I can tell very good quality. That being said, for the astronomical amount that I had to pay for that radiator, they should have included fan shroud brackets on the side and top and pre-drilled the mounting holes... But they didn't, so I did

I don't have the setup for welding aluminum right now, so I bought a piece of aluminum bar stock and cut, bent, and bolted it to make the side fan shroud brackets. Then I had to bend up a piece for the top to secure the top of the fan shroud. It's not the cleanest, but it works.

Behold its glory! All the holes I drilled and flange modifications worked perfectly, the problem was with the lower hose which was in the most inconvenient position in the hood. This hose took about 45 minutes to just to hook up, and left me with cut up hands and arms. My father-in-law came over to help and was actually the one to get it secured on with a combination of channel locks and brute force. Once that was out of the way, filled up the radiator and went to start the car, and it won't crank. So that's charging now, maybe I'll get it to turn over by midnight...

Oh well, at least the swap meet on Sunday wasn't a bust

For $15,900, this Ducati racer could be yours

I passed... But bought this box of goodies for $50

Well actually $100... The '45 Harley jockey shifter was $50, everything else in the box was another $50, and the MOA anonymous books were free. I appreciate the thought behind the book gift, but they're pretty much like old phone books...

It's difficult to make out the contents of the box, but it's all internals for an R69S (crankshaft, camshaft, NOS con-rod, one of the two pistons, valves, springs, oil slingers, timing gears, and this and that). Now for $50 that was a steal to me, but I didn't have anything to use it with at the time of purchase. Now, however, it looks like I'll be getting possession of a '59 R60 frame and engine case, so now that box just got interesting.

I had originally planned on building a conversion bike with my spare R90 parts, now I'm thinking R69S. Pretty psyched about this project, more to come later.

making the Chrysler air-cooled

My wife's car reminds me about everything I hate about American cars

* Water cooled
* Left hand threads on driver's side lugs, what's that about?
* Huge and heavy
* Mainly automatics

I removed the leaking radiator, so at least it's air-cooled for now. The guy at the radiator shop was really impressed with it and said it's likely all original. If it just needs a clean and repair it'll be $80-90, if it needs a re-core it'll be $500... ouch

I'm glad Rock Auto stocks so many parts for this car, with any luck she'll be able to drive it around reliably by the end of the month

this guy's not smiling about the car, he's smiling about the road-head