I really needed one more week to work on the OG before I left for Zcon. Just one more week would have made the whole drive so much less stressful. I would have known that I had a radiator problem and I would have mitigated it before I left. But I lost that week waiting for struts because Amazon screwed up.

So here's where I am today. I took the leaky radiator I got at the show to a local radiator shop. They sealed up the leaks and pressure tested it. I swapped it into the car, and.... Driving around with no thermostat, it wouldn't even reach proper temperature!! Way better than what was in there!

So just to see where the gauge would land, I put a 160 degree thermostat and went for a drive. It stabilized about here:

So next chance I get, I will swap out the 160 for a 180 thermostat and check again to see where the gauge lands. But the bottom line is I'm a whole lot better off than I was with the previous radiator!

I blame Amazon.
And photobucket.

I swapped out the 160 thermostat for a 180, and here's where the gauge stabilized. Higher than the 160 thermostat (duh), but still lower than I was running with NO thermostat and the old questionable radiator. Good deal!

Here's where I am now:

I also made a set of battery cables and swapped out the ratchet strap hold-down for something a little more appropriate. I know it loses some of that road-kill character, but it's much cleaner now.

Here's what I started with:

And here's what I got now:

And I included the ground wire directly from the battery to the firewall now. Didn't have this before:

After seeing your battery upgrade you have the 3rd white/blue early car that I have seen. Eiji had one in Atlanta, a guy that lives not too far from me has one dismantled in his garage and even asked me about helping to put it back together but he's been in bad health and I can't get in touch with him. That's one of my favorite color combinations.

9 hours ago, siteunseen said:

After seeing your battery upgrade you have the 3rd white/blue early car that I have seen. That's one of my favorite color combinations.

Only the third one? Someone at the show suggested that combo is rare, but I've not looked into it.

The current paint on the OG bugs me. A previous owner sprayed the outside blue, and the inside black. So it left the factory white with blue, but now it's "blueish with blackish". I spent some time before zcon working on taking the black off the inside, but ran out of time against other higher priorities.

I also spend a little time experimenting with taking the blue off the outside, but could not find a chemical that would work on the blue, but not the white. In other words... I can take the blue off, but the white always comes with it.

The car is very original in so many areas, but the paint is not. Bugs me.

@Captain Obvious

How did you make your cables??

My battery cables? I was poking around online and discovered these things called "military battery terminals". Sometimes also called "Marine". The neat part is the basic shape is similar to the OEM lugs, so on a whim, I bought a cheap set off Amazon.

So the shape is similar to OEM, but they use a bolt/nut to hold a cable onto the lug. They look like this:

Then I removed the original bolt and threaded the hole that the bolt goes through. My first experience tapping lead. Went OK and I learned some about the process. 1) Easiest if you don't have to reverse the tap, and if you DO reverse the tap, do it often, like every half turn or so. 2) It's much easier on a (shallow) through hole because you don't have to reverse the tap, just run the tap all the way through. If the part you're tapping isn't shallow enough to do in one pass without packing the flutes and binding, then you're going to have to reverse the tap, which is a PITA because you have to do it so often.

So, all that said... I took the bolt out and tapped the hole:

Then I made a brass threaded insert on the lathe:

I bought a length of battery wire off ebay. Came with lugs crimped on both ends. I got 5/16 hole on one end and 3/8 on the other. Cut that piece of wire in half (so now I have two lengths with different holes on the ends. Larger for the starter mounting bolt, and smaller for the starter solenoid connection.

Stripped back the insulation on the ends, and inserted the cable strands into the brass piece I made:

I used a small torch to solder the cable into the threaded insert:

Looks like this after sodering:

Screwed the threaded brass into the lead lug, and a completely unprofitable amount of time later, I have this:

It's not OEM or one of the aftermarket replicas, but it cost a grand total of maybe thirty bucks in parts*.

*And at least six hundred dollars in unrealized labor cost. Hahahaha!!!

@captainobvious Nice work Bruce, What gauge cable did you use?

Edited 14 hours ago14 hr by Yarb
Edit

Yes, a very near solution!

More lathe envy...

11 hours ago, Yarb said:

What gauge cable did you use?

I used #4 gauge cable. Bought a 60 inch length off ebay with 5/16 lug on one end and 3/8 on the other. Cut it in half* to make two cables. Was cheapest that way.

I don't know if this is the exact vendor I used or not, but here's an example:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/141679228250

Today's price for the cable(s) is about $16, and the military lugs were $10. So my out of pocket for my two original-ish looking cables was $26 for the pair.

*After having been through this once, I would skew the cut point maybe two inches towards the positive side. In other words, I would steal two inches of cable from the negative and add that length to the positive making the positive four inches longer than the negative.