The way Clunkbucket learned about how and why to run a compression test on an engine came only after bolting almost every conceivable replacement part onto a 318 V-8 in a 500-dollar '67 Plymouth Barracuda. Only after a compression test was it determined that the engine was closer to a V-5 than a V-8. As Foghorn Leghorn often trumpeted, there's a right way – and there's a wrong … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Compression Tester
From the diagnostic tools division of the garagelet comes the compression tester - or compression test kit. While there is a danger in gathering so many tools with blow-molded cases that you have to start labeling them in Sharpie or '70s-vintage DYMO labeler to tell them apart, the compression tester can more than pay for itself with the discovery of one or more dead cylinders. … [Read more...]
Citroen Ami Le Fauves!
From the Cubists and Fauvists together at last department comes this Citroën Ami Wagon. If art history recollection serves correctly, the Fauvists were all about using paint directly from the tube in reaction to all the fussy mixing and blending at the snooty Academy. A dark shadow? Forget tertiary color relationships. Vermillion from the tube! This strategy was evidently … [Read more...]
Mercuric Luxury
Rolling the definition of American-style executive level customs out of the late seventies into the new century is Kevin Wood and his ultra-luxurious 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis. This purple and gold beauty looked at much at home on the lawn at the recent Goodguys Rod & Custom gathering in Pleasanton, California as it would on the boulevards of Brooklyn - driven by guys that … [Read more...]
The Previa Effect
Seeing or talking about a particular automobile can trigger an unusual, yet commonly experienced phenomenon. Recognizing one will suddenly reveal others. A day after running into a first-gen MK1 Ford Fiesta, there was another sighting near a local wash-o-mat. Take mental and visual note of one Pinto rolling down the road, and more will appear almost immediately. This effect … [Read more...]