She's gone. Stolen by the Police--never to return again. Awful news, but I do have a new obsession; a 1982 245 turbo 4-spd (withont rust!). I'll leave this page up so other 140 owners have something to look at, but nothing new will be added except for a link to the new 245 blog once it's up and running.

It's now April, I'm in the process of moving to Chicago, and Sally has been sitting in Eric's garage with a broken transmission since January. I have every intent in fixing her though, since I do have an extra 4-speed. Finding the time is the hardest part.

I learned how to get past the synchro problem in 3rd gear--powershift from 3rd to 4th. This sounds like a bad idea, and in fact is. I lost the transmission on a drive out to Sterling Heights the other day. Towed back to the house....again. I want to switch in the 4-speed for now, but it's too cold outside. With my new job starting [flight attendant] on Feb. 7, I don't really know what is going to happen to Sally. For now she will just have to sit.

I think the synchro for third gear went. I'm having trouble shifting into third (grinding), and fourth is 95% impossible to find. I'm up in the air over changing to the spare 4-speed, but it will sit for December. Just one thing after another recently, but on the bright side, I'm replacing everything with new parts.

She's running again! I had begun to forget how much fun it is to drive this beast. Sally is the only car I feel comfortable just crusing in. The radiator turned out great. I painted it glass black, and with the recent temperatures below 60 degrees, I have no need for the fan. While the radiator was being recored, I decided to paint the grille and spruce up the front end.



And while I was at it, I painted the taillights to match since one was painted gray and the other black....

Yesterday, in a brief heatwave during the Michigan winter, I took out the wounded radiator and repainted the front grille while I was at it. I'll be installing the newly re-cored radiator Wednesday night--hopefully. Pictures will be up by Thursday.

It's been slow going these past couple months. A week after the Tennessee trip, I was driving to Detroit from Lansing, the car started making an awful noise. I stopped at a gas station to find that the transmission was pretty much dry. I spent the next 1.5hrs trying to squeeze in SAE30 motor oil into the side of the transmission through a washed out Elmer's Glue bottle--definitely not the best solution, but I got some oil in there anyway. The car was still clunking on the 30-mile drive home. I let it sit for a week, and then started it up to hear no sound. I soon came to the conclusion that the sound was the fan clutch slipping. I figured there would be no harm in driving the car while I waited to find a new fan clutch on eBay. Well...the center bolt on the fan sheered off, and the fan flew off the front of the motor and into my radiator.



I found a local shop to recore the original radiator for $205. I'll have pictures of the new piece by the middle of next week.