Vic Faces the Cold With a Friend

Vic faces the cold with a friend...

141,000 Miles

UPDATE: Sealed and Delivered...

Windshields for late Vics come with the black rubber trim already attached, unlike the '88 Grand Marquis I had, which involved prying off chrome trim.

About a month ago, I noticed that the black trim on Vic's windshield was loose at the top-center.  After all these years and multiple windshields, I've never had this happen.  I've seen the trim come off the bottom of the rear windows, but not like this.  At first, I thought it would snug back down and that would be that.  But that wasn't that.  I could see that water was seeming under the trim, instead of rolling over it.  Just a little, but enough to make me worry.  I couldn't decide if I should try and fix the problem myself, or call up my glass people.  Instead I decided to wait and see if the cold weather, ice & snow caused the trim to lift more.

It did.  So did a car wash.  Water got under the trim, iced up, and lifted it off.

So I made the call, and on a windy 17º day, a man from Precision Glass came out to see what could be done.  I didn't stay out there to watch, but I did periodically peek through the kitchen door to see what he was up to.  He seemed to use the same stuff that is used to do the actual window installation.  Sort of a black goo that they warm up in the van so it will flow.  It took him about 15 minutes, wasn't messy, and so far, has worked.  And it didn't cost me anything, either, which was a BIG help.

I need Vic to last as long as possible, and I didn't want water getting into the window frame and causing rust.  It has been too cold to really get a good look at the work he did, but so far, so good.

Just another chapter in the life of Vic...

UPDATE: Wipe Away My Tears...

Tomorrow is the first day of winter, and we have already had a decent amount of snow in the Boston area.  It looks like a lot of it will be melted before Christmas, but that won't help my rusty fenders any...

Crummy pic of chewed hose

Last week while helping someone shift around his AMC collection, we found out that the hose that carries wiper fluid from the tank to the sprayer was in 2 peices.  It looked like something actually chewed it!  There has been a rat problem in our area for a while, so this made me want to kill the stupid things even more than before.  The next morning was supposed to get snowy, so that meant I had a small window of time to do the repair.  My boyfriend picked up some used hose from Taxi Guy and I knew what I would be doing the next morning.

What Todd thought would take a half hour took me 2 hours with freezing hands and feet, and the loosening and tightening of many bolts.  But finally the job was done and just in time, as it has snowed a couple of times since.

I also have to think about changing out 2 of my Goodyear snow tires.  Two are fine, but two are older and are showing cracks.  Todd gave me some more generic snows last year, and I think I may have to put them on for safety sake. 

Vic Hits 140,000 Miles

Vic has hit 140,000 miles.  Average fuel mileage 22.4MPG.  Snow tires went on 12/4.  Fronts may be too old, thinking about swapping out with 2 more generic snows I got from Todd.  Fenders still rusty.  Hoping Santa will bring me a bag of money for Christmas...

Vic at the Wayland MA Depot on what was once the Mass Central RR line

UPDATE: Chitchatter... Part 3

It has been almost a month since I had Vic's transmission fluid changed in an effort to stop the chattering.  SO FAR, it has worked.  (insert sigh of relief HERE) 

The car hit 139,000 on 10/9/13.  Tried to cover up some of the rust on the front left fender, which is getting real crispy.  Not happy about that at all...

Ultra Small N Scale Crown Vic! (AKA: Mini Vic)

Recently I decided to order something off Ebay.  What was it?  An N scale Crown Vic!

A company called Willmodels sells resin model railroad items, mostly buildings and cars/trucks.  They offer both wedge & final bodystyle Vics in different styles.  I went with a simple stock one.  And it is SMALL!  Well,  compared to the usual die-cast scales.

The headlights are "sunk", not flush, there are no side mirrors, and the wheels, while nice, are not accurate.  But what do you expect from a cottage industry-made model?  ANY Vic in N scale is a wonderful thing!
Having a little Vic for my Not Quite Model Railroad will be a hoot!