Maybe My Dash Isn't Dead After All

With apologies to Mark Twain, the reports of my dash's death have been greatly exaggerated. Tom filled my gas tank yesterday afternoon. He put in 10 gallons and guesstimated (remember, no odometer) that I got around 22 MPG on my first tank. Not too bad, but since much of it was on the interstate, it should be better. With a full tank, my gas gage works again. Maybe there's a dead spot in the fuel level sender that causes the gage to read empty when there's over four gallons left. My 'ometer pair (od' and speed') still aren't behaving. Od' is still stuck on 19949.9, and speed' jumps around a lot. On the way home yesterday, Tom held me to an indicated 60 MPH and did a measured mile in about 68 seconds. That means the speedometer is roughly 13% too high. It is cool, however, to see the needle flopping around the 80 MPH mark when you're really only going 70.

When we got home, Tom adjusted my points (the dwell was a little high), and moved my timing up a little to 12 degrees BTDC (it was only 9). He also measured the vacuum level at the right-side carburetor. At roughly 1500 rpm, it reads just slightly lower than it should. Not bad considering it's been over ten years since I was going down the road.

I now have a name. Actually, I've had one for a few weeks, but forgot to share it. Ariel has christened me Ringo. Tom doesn't use the name when referring to me (he thinks all car names should be feminine), but everyone else in the family (all girls) does.

I also have tunes. Since my in-dash radio is not functioning, Tom used a power converter and a small boom-box to blast out music over my road noise. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of his choice of artists (this morning it was Little River Band and ELO), and I, obviously, have a preference for The Beatles.