“I Will”…. but I’ll make you work for it!

Is there any chance we can use your Ford for our Wedding in March? Usually a question like this in December wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, but this time it was an issue. Having just completed the National Meet we had decided to have the car repainted and reupholstered. The car was heading off to the paint shop immediately after Christmas for some much needed TLC. I offered to find another suitable car to use for the wedding, and could only say that whether the car is available depends entirely on the painter. As the day drew closer it became obvious that the paint would not be completed. Three weeks out and the painter had not even begun stripping the car (this was not an issue as the instructions had clearly been that there was no rush). So the decision was made to retrieve the car and have it available for the wedding. This actually caused some tension but that is a whole different story.

Knowing that I was due to spend the three days prior to the wedding at a conference in Sydney, I had the forethought to start prepping the car the weekend prior. I went to start it on the Sunday morning and the battery was completely flat. This was a little unusual as the car had been to Bridwood to attend the Small Ford Show only 7 days before. Oh well, we shall assume someone didn’t check to make sure the brake light went off, as the return spring is a little weak and this sometimes happens. We jump started the car and brought it down from the shed to start polishing it ready for the wedding.

Even 88 year old paint responds to polish

I removed the battery and connected it to the charger only to discover the battery acid level was particularly low. Hmmmm….. maybe sitting out in 40+ degrees for most of the week? Added some distilled water and was immensely relieved to see the battery start to charge up. At the end of the day, I dropped the battery back in the car and it started first time, so I could put it away in the shed. It was while doing this I noticed the ammeter was showing a constant discharge, so the flat battery was the result of a larger problem. Fast forward to the following Friday…. (1 day until the wedding) Having done some research I hoped it was a stuck cut-out switch on the top of the generator that had meant the battery had been constantly discharging over the week and that #1 son had failed to notice this on the ammeter the previous week. It was mid-afternoon and I rang Chris, after determining that he was on a bus part way home, I asked him to put the battery back on charge just to make sure it was good to go. He suggested that I may well beat him home as the bus took a while……. Considering I was sitting in Sydney Airport waiting for my flight, I suspected not!

Bright and early on the following morning we brought the car out of the shed and down to the house to finish cleaning and polishing. It was looking pretty good, and I started removing the cut-out to try and sort the issue. It was only then I discovered the cap was welded on and I was really struggling to get it open. When I shook the cutout, it rattled in a way that suggested something had come completely loose. I decided to ring a couple of club members to gain an opinion as to whether running a wire to bypass the cut-out would enable me to temporarily allow me to charge the battery long enough to get the bride to the wedding (and get home again) We had a contingency plan in case mechanical failure caused a no-show….. but who wants to arrive at one of the most important days of their lives in an ordinary car? General consensus was I was likely to do damage even in that short space of time, but one of the club members I rang offered me a spare complete generator as he had one “laying around”. BONUS!

Christopher!!! Are you able to go and collect this 1930 generator for me? PLEASE? Sure enough, he was willing (I use the term loosely, but he did it) to undertake an urgent 100km round trip to collect it for me. I continued cleaning and prepping both cars (the Ford and the modern back up).and the rescue mission arrived back at T minus 90 minutes (where T was the time we had to leave to collect the bride). We fitted the part, and tested. Success! Then off to shower, get ready to do our duty. The next part of the journey was nicely straight forward, and we arrived early enough so the bride was not stressing. The plan was to get some lunch at the café next door. The service was slow to the point of glacial, and we had to settle for coffee and a muffin lest we miss the appointed leaving time. The journey to the wedding was not overly long or taxing, but I had neglected to allow for the impact of silk wedding ribbons on the front of the car. One side would not stay knotted and as we hit 50MPH it came undone, and the drag on the other side caused the quail on the radiator car to twist, come undone and flop backwards onto the bonnet. If ever there was a reason to stop on the side of the road……… The rest of the day was relatively trouble free, but it was a little more stressful than your average day out.