|
1982: The Color Purple For the new finish I wanted a two-tone paint scheme— a deep maroon and white. Looking at the DuPont Imron paint chip chart, I selected what I believed to be a very nice maroon. The shop owner's son recommended I go with a metallic color rather than a straight, non-metallic one. I chose one I thought would look fine with the bright white.. By early May 1982, the car was done. When Marshall called me to come out and look it over, I noticed tell there was a bit of anxiety in his voice. "The color looks a might rosey, but it looks good," he warned. Rosey? Hmmm. My dad and I went out there and apparently my face betrayed my thoughts when I walked in and saw it. The freshly painted Chevy was NOT maroon and white, but PURPLE and white! "It's a might rosier than what we figured it would look like," Marshall Burkhead told me. The paint job quality was good, though some orange peel would need rubbing out, he said. I was in shock, but said little. On the way home, my dad convinced me not to demand he repaint it -- or to pay him to reshoot the purple in another color (something that would have been fairly easy to do at the time. I had to borrow some cash to pay for the paint job, so a respray was an expense I really didn't need. Besides, I only had about a month (four weekends) to get the car back together. My girlfriend's parents were kind enough to give me a spot in their garage to complete the car once the paint work was complete. My girlfriend tolerated my obsession with getting the car back to the Nationals. Those weekends were a blur of activity. I dyed the entire interior, installed new carpet, detailed the trunk, painted and detailed under hood and installed new weatherstripping. I also had to put back all the exterior chrome and stainless trim. I bought lots of new repro trim ditties from O.B. Smith, a classic Chevy parts dealer in Lexington. O.B. gave you a free O.B. Smith t-shirt for every $75 you spent at his shop. From mid-1981 to mid-1982, I had spent a bundle, and had O.B. Smith t-shirts for every member of my family and my girlfriend's family.
Fortunately, the factory where I worked had shut down for its annual two-week break, giving me time to work on the Chevy — time that I desperately needed. The work on the Chevy continued right up to the night before we left for the Nationals, which moved from Indianapolis to the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, Ill, for 1982.. From Bardstown we took I-65 north to Louisville, then I-64 west. We exited I-64 at Centralia exit and drove north on SR 51 through Greenville, Vera, Ramsey, to Pana, where we completed the last leg of our trip going northwest on Hwy 29 into Springfield (see map for our route). After growing up and living in hilly Kentucky, my comments on Illinois are summed up in one word: flat. I was amazed at how far you could see oncoming cars coming down the road. We stopped in Pana, Illinois and called our campground to let them know we were running late. It was dark on the final leg of the journey past Pana when we hit trouble. Driving at highway speed, I hit a minor bump in the road and the headlines went out! In the dark rural Illinois countryside, I pulled over as best I could. Armed with a flashlight, I began to troubleshoot the problem. The doghouse wiring (lights, signals, etc.) had been cut to allow it to be unplugged when the doghouse was removed. The connector was fine, so I started tracing the wiring. A guy riding a motorcycle stopped and with the help of the light provided by his headlight, I found a broken ground wire on the headlight housing that supplied the ground for the entire doghouse. I fixed it and continued on into Springfield (thank you, anonymous motorcycle rider!). Check out the other parts of the site for details and photos of my experiences at the Street Machine Nationals. On the way home on Sunday, we were only a few miles south of Springfield when I noticed a haze behind the car. The oil pressure was lower than normal. The haze quickly became smoke and within 50 miles it was a definite cloud. Something had let go in the motor (I later discovered that the cylinder bores of the small block were very worn and the top rings in every bore had broken in at least one spot). Compression was dropping and oil was being used as fast as I could put it in. Combustion blow-by was pressurizing the crankcase, forcing oil out the breather and dipstick. What oil didn't burn in the cylinders dripped onto the headers and burned. It was a very LONG trip home with the motor consuming nearly as much oil as gasl. The rear of the car was coated with a slick, oily film from the smoke belching from beneath the car. Because it was Sunday, minit marts were closed and I had to buy oil where I could and put it in every 10 or 15 miles. I thought I could get home safely on my last few quarts, but I got as far as Bernheim Forest, 15 miles from home, when the car ran too low to run and there was no store open. My dad brought me six quarts and at midnight, I pulled it into my girlfriend's parent's garage. Our 12-hour drive home was over. |
