Happy Birthday Don Shilady

Happy Birthday, Don

Best wishes for a great day.

Richard

Yeah. Happybirthday Don! :3dSMILE:

Dave

Happy Birthday, Don!!

Happy Birthday Don, how many candles on the cake this year? :LOL:

Mike

:LOL: :LOL: Happy Birthday ya old teen aged rocket scientist hot rodder you!!!!! Some want to know how many candles on the cake,,,I was wondering how many cakes does it take to hold all the candles?????:LOL: :LOL: ?

Thanks folks, it would seem I am 71. Since my recent visit to the NSRA meet in Richmond last Sunday I am fired up to make good use of the remaining warm weather to make good progress on my '29 while I can. It looks like I have a bit more work crawling underneath so I want to get that done before it gets cold. Here is the present state of the car. I had to remove the radiator to install the Zip pump riser and then reinstall the radiator. I just installed some neat aluminum rings with rubber grommets around the nasty holes in the firewall for the heater hoses. I was very lucky to find the 2" diameter grommets through discussion here on the Forum at:

http://www.sealsit.com/firewall.asp

That went from an amateur disaster of large holes to something which looks more professional. I also bit the bullet and bought the expensive "Its-A-Snap" H4 headlights with the built-in LED turn signals along the bottom so now I can work on the hood and the fuel line from the rear tank with an electromagnetic valve to prevent fuel siphoning from the tank which is about 1" higher (when full) than the carb on the engine due mainly to my big & little tires and wheels with the "down hill" look. There is so much left to do but for now I am enthused to make progress during the remaining warm months; a thermometer on the garage wall will warn me when the dreaded "sinus headache" season is here again. I am in the third year on this build and the past two winters I have learned that for some reason getting down on a cold dusty floor leads to sinus colds to the extent that it is better to just do something else and last winter I switched to assembling a home computer built from four PCs with duocores for an 8-core Beowulf; this winter I may just run that thing on some long computations till it gets warm again in the Spring. But first some time off for yellow cake with chocolate icing; just a small piece! I could easily ignore birthdays but my wife is very family oriented and basically we always seem to be celebrating some birthday in the family and she really seems to enjoy these events! Thanks to many of you for the excellent technical help this Forum provides!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Happy Birthday Don!! Hope you have many, many more. You've got a few more years on you than I have, so hopefully I'll do as well as you have at staying perpendicular.:LOL: :LOL:

Hope to be able to catch you and that beautiful roadster on the road one day. I would sure like to see it up close. Let me know what how you like those headlights. I had been thinking of getting a pair, but had heard that it is difficult to see the turnsignals when the beams are on.

Happy Birthday Don!

Happy Birthday Don and welcome to the 71 club.LOL,LOL.I understand that getting down and under the car multiple times thing.I don't have much of a problem getting down but getting up is a pain.

The roadster looks awesome,I like that color and windshield.Look forward to seeing it finished.Looks like 1st. classwork.

Happy Birthday Don

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Do-onnnnnnnnn,
Happy birthday to you. :D

Mopar 34, I have looked at several of the LED-in-headlight models and at the Richmond meet they had a demo light which looked pretty good. I think there will be a problem with the high beam on but you can see in the picture that there is a partition at the bottom of the H4 part of the light which cleanly separates it from the yellow LED part. At this point I just want the H4 brightness and to have a turn signal to pass Va Inspection. I also looked at another interesting local roadster which was rescured from a rolled over Shay roadster and has a Pinto engine. He has a light with an LED in the bottom and I admit it is faint when the high beam is on. I saw his car in the parking lot of the meet but did not take a front view. He really rescued a wreck into a very nice roadster and probably gets good mpg with the Pinto engine. When I looked at his headlights, which passed Va Inspection, they were washed out quite a bit with the headlight on but as I say I have the H4 lights in my wife's 2003 Saturn and just sealed beams in my daily driver 1998 Pontiac Sunfire and there is a big difference between the H4 and the sealed beams so provideing I pass Inspection I will at least have bright lights.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Tech1, Thanks, it is good to see your picture!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Happy B-Day Don, I wish you many more

I'm a little late, but I hope you had a happy birthday Don

Me too! Happy Birthday Don!:D

Yep, I missed this thread too, so I'm a little late. Happy Birthday anyways, and many, many more. :D

Don

Dang it Don - I'm late again. Happy belated birthday to you. You have a bit of moldiness on me - but I do have to say, not much. One of these days I'll get enough time in the Richmond area to visit you and kick some tires


(I think I have to post that H4 write up again - see my electrical post)

Happy Belated Birthday Don! Hope you have many more (not belated)

Pat

Don A belated birthday . Hope you had a great one. You have 6 years on me but I feel like I'm your age after a day at work.. By the way, what color is your car.?

Chevy37 and others, Thanks for well wishes but it is a bit embarassing to me since I am trying to ignore birthdays! Chevy37, the color came from one of about 200 paint chips at "Haskins Auto Body" up the road in Ashland Va. I could get you the exact formula if you really want it but they just called it "Haskins Merlot"; actually it is just a formula that they put into the paint machine and out it comes. It does have a fine metallic content and has several coats of clear over the color. The paint job was probably pretty much of a bargain these days at about $1800 but I had to get a written promise to bring it back to the shop to paint the wheels which are still in epoxy primer AND to clean up a few gas-out holes. I had the body outside for at least six months before paint but it was still outgassing and had a slight "fiberglass smell". Anyway the pro who did the paint job did move on and there is another pro there now but I brought up the written guarentee for a touchup when the wheels are painted and he said he can do it and boasted he is better than the previous guy, but you know how these things drag out so I need to keep in touch with the shop. On the one hand it is sort of a lucky pick on the formula but maybe I had a good eye when I looked through all those color chips? I look forward to seeing the wheels in that color with my baby moon caps! If you REALLY need the paint formula, bug me again and I can get it, but actually any modern paint shop should be able to come up with a similar color since they have to be able to match almost anything the wrecker brings in. Today I finished the simple insertion of the Bratton LED tail lights which replace the stock Model bulbs and I installed stainless conduit on the wires to the headlights. I was able to easily get all six wires (three for LED and three for H4 bulb) through the conduits. Interestingly the Its-A-Snap folks replaced both H4 bulb free since whoever but the H4 bulbs in the housings I bought were broken off their alignment welds. If you replace H4 bulbs you cannot get any finger prints on the glass AND when you insert the bulb only twist the base and push the three blades with a flat blade screw driver. If you try to insert the H4 bulb by twisting the three prong connector on the base it easily rips the small welds around the base of the bulb. I think I could maybe epoxy the damaged bulbs for spares if need be but the bulbs are about $17 each and Its-A-Snap replaced them free!


Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

happy birthday man

Chevy37 and others,

I stopped in to the Haskins Motor Car Co. today to renew acquaintance with the new No. 1 Painter who replaced the guy who painted my car and to get the formula for the paint. Just for the record the color chips they have number not in the hundreds but in the thousands. They use a "Color Max" software program and the formula for my paint is M8237A. They used Diamont/BASF paint with two coats of clear over the color. As you can see from the pictures it is basically a metallic maroon but seems to look different depending on background light. They called it "Haskins Merlot" but that is a meaningless local name which would not be useful in any color search, just one of many, many color chips in the metallic red/maroon range.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder