48th Bennington Car Show

We had the Corvette out to the Bennington Car Show this past weekend. There were over 380 cars shown, with heavier traffic on Sunday. Saturday afternoon became a wash-out.

There were four Corvettes on Saturday, but by 2pm, Mutt was the last one standing.

She did alright in the rain coming home, but I need to give the wipers another adjustment in their range of operation. Rain-X to the rescue.

Sunday the C4 didn't return, but the 1960 did, as well as a shark that was out on Saturday, and a couple of mid-years and several sharks. We pulled third place out of about ten cars in the Corvette class.

Mixed crowd on preference to original vs. modified. Had some people, including Ray who owned the 1960 that like the idea of a resto-mod, but the people's choice was Ray's 1960 coming in first. A silver big-block midyear came in second, and Mutt took third. Best of show went to a 1965 GTO that was freshly restored. More on the show can be seen at the Bennington Banner.

Hemmings Musclepalooza Coverage

Hemmings posted a blog a few days ago of the show winners from Musclepalooza. Here's a shot of mutt coming down the road in front of the grandstands to pick up our Favorite Modified Muscle award. My son Andy is in the passenger seat.

Full article is at http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/09/04/1969-chevrolet-chevelle-ss-396-l89-takes-musclepalooza-xx-best-in-show/

Hemming's Muscle Machines Favorite Modified Muscle

Hemmings Muscle Machines was hosting the 20th Musclepalooza today, so I drove the hour out today to New Lebanon Raceway in New York with my son Alexander, who was visiting from California. 

Mutt sitting in the car show. Would have been nice to run her down the 1320, but Hagerty doesn't appreciate such things, and the track has trouble with convertibles running faster than 13.99 without a roll cage. 

Thanks to Terry McGean and the crew at Hemmings Motor News Hemmings Muscle Machines for naming Mutt "Favorite Modified Muscle". 

One happy owner. 

Mutt's first trophy.

Got Engine?

Hundreds of pictures of the car, and did I have one of the engine bay handy for Hagerty for Mutt's new insurance policy? No. Now she has one - here's her L33 5.3 liters of all aluminum horsepower.

500 mile debug done or doing?

Friiday I crossed the 500 mile mark and things have been running pretty well for the past few weeks. I took the car in to get the alignment done - I knew the rear had way more camber than I wanted for the street (turned out it was about 2.5 degrees negative camber per side).  The final 300 miles to cross to 500 went pretty quickly with a run to Troy, NY for lunch with friends, another Hemmings Cruise-In night, and some driving around town.

Last night I had a friend up from Virginia, and he wanted to see the car, so I gave him a tour of Arlington in the car. Shortly before we finished the ride, I heard a sound like we were in gravel, but the road was clear there. The sound went away, and nothing was amiss in the gauges. When I parked the car, I saw something dangling under the crossmember. Turns out my six rib serpentine belt self-mutilated itself into a five rib belt. I suspect a pulley alignment issue, since the belt is running in the outer five grooves on the power steering pump and the inner five grooves on the alternator pulley. Bill was able to go home with the latest memorabilia from the Mutt hall of flame. Thankfully it's an easy fix - shim the pump and install a new belt, and it made it home without losing the belt.

National Collector Car Day at Hemmings Motor News

Sitting at Hemmings Cruise-In

Friday, July 11th was the National Car Collector Appreciation Day, a good day for Mutt to make her appearance at a Hemmings Cruise-In behind the Hemmings Motor News facility on Main Street in Bennington, Vermont. I got there a bit late, and the lot was full, so they were parking cars on the hill across the street, but they announced they had space for five more cars, so I jumped back in and managed to get a spot in front of J&J Auto Polishing. The car got lots of looks, but didn't pull one of the trophies handed out that night. I did have a short conversation with Terry McGean about a possible article in Hemmings Muscle Machines. Pulling the car back into the garage at the end of the night, the odometer finally crossed 250 miles, so starting to work through the 500 mile debug. 

Driving

Sitting in the front yard after a wash and quick detail

Fourth of July was a bust with rain, but Saturday the 5th was a good day to put more miles on Mutt. The goal for the week was to cross the 200 mile mark on the odometer, and she crossed the 160 mile mark today. We took her down to North Bennington in the morning, and took the old Route 7A back up to Arlington, then after a quick stop at home, took my 86 year old mother in law down to West Arlington out by Norman Rockwell's old home and the West Arlington Covered Bridge. Lots of thumbs up from kayakers and folks tubing the Battenkill River.

On the ride home she got a little warm. Debugging showed that the fan harness connector had come apart, and tracing the wire led to finding the ground wrapped around the steering intermediate shaft. Obviously I didn't secure the harness well enough for it to get caught in a moving part.