January 21 to 26 2015 we took the 1953 Kaiser "Karens Kaiser" to the Grand National Roadster Show "The Grand Daddy of Them All" We stayed at the KOA RV Park next to the Fairplex, unloaded the car from the trailer on Thursday morning and carried the display carpet sticking out of the passenger window. Waited in line an hour before they would let us into the building. We got in, unloaded the carpet & lay'ed it down, moved the car in place and started the display setup that took 2 hours including the cleaning. One of the outstanding was this hand formed all aluminum car. This 1947 Hudson truck won first place and best paint. Moor beautiful hot rods. This is one of 13 contenders for most beautiful roadster. The theme was The Grate Gatsby and lots of people dressed up. This 1959 Cadillac De Ville is from Italy and was hung up in customs untill just before the show. Lots of low riders...
To get the car running it needed a fuel pump as the front cover on the engine did not have a opening for a mechanical pump (it is a fuel injected block with a in-tank pump). I have converted it to a carburetor that requires a low-pressure pump. I bought a Carter electric pump as I have had good luck with them on past projects. Next expensive item was a drive shaft that cost $350.00 from South West Speed Driveline in Arkansas. The driveshaft was painted before it was installed. It came with a transmission slip yoke that did not fit the T5 and I had to order a different one to fit the u-joint and transmission. I did not read all the information that's on their website and could have avoided the extra cost but that's what happens when you assume you know what your doing. When I tried to start the engine, it would not start using the key and did start using a handheld start switch on the starter solenoid, so I started tracing wires and found some misconnected wires from the wiring...
I ordered a complete pre-wired set of gauges and received a do-it-yourself set. When I called the manufacturer, they said the box was mis-marked, and they would send the correct one and return this one. 7 days later I received the pre-wired and complete gauge set along with the senders. The advertisement and instructions said it was a direct fit and all I had to do was wire the 12-pin plug/pigtail into the painless wiring kit. Wiring the pigtail went good after all the wires were ID, as there were several spares or not used wires. Then when I tried to put the panel in place it would not set flush to the dash. The dash and steering column support metal interfered with the wiring and the back of the speedometer and tach. The wiring was moved and rearranged to clear, but the speedo & tach hold down brackets were too deep to clear the support. I cut the long machine bolts on the back of the speedo\tach but still had to bend the support to get it to set flush. The dash is now compl...
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