A Midlife Crisis (AKA The Other Woman):  My (Husband's) Love Affair with a ‘41 Ford Convertible

by Scott Gilday (and his better half, Nicole Plenge-Gilday)

At the end of our last episode, Scott had finally gotten the ’41 on the road only to run out of gas. This month, our saga concludes with the ’41 making her topless debut on the show circuit along with the exciting conclusion of the trans trilogy. We also spill the beans on those pregnancy impulse purchases that will keep Scott busy for a few more years.

Barrington Concours d’Elegance  It was early June and with the Barrington Concours just over a month away, I was worried whether the ’41 would be ready to show with all the interior work remaining. While Restorations Unlimited II had a busy project schedule at the time, we were able to strike a unique compromise:  Before the Concours in early July, they would complete the interior and install the convertible top boot, and before the Early Ford V-8 meet in Auburn in late August, they would finish installing the convertible top. I decided to take my chances that the Concours wouldn’t require the ‘41’s top up for judging and the weather would cooperate.

As I drove my car onto the showfield, I was incredibly nervous:  Not only was this the ‘41’s first show, but it was my first judged event. Aside from the bare top irons hidden under my boot, the car was still a work in progress:  I had a driver-quality grill and a potentially non-authentic single-core radiator; and I still needed to have pinstripes painted on the wheels. To add to my stress, storm clouds lingered in the distance the entire day. Despite adding a few gray hairs to my growing collection, I’m happy to say all the stress paid off. The ‘41 received one of three “Awards of Distinction” (out of 20 cars in the pre-war American class), and despite the thunder and ominous clouds, the rain held at bay. (Nicole:  Speaking of the clouds and thunder, we were very fortunate the weather held out for the Concours. Less than 24 hours later the area was ravaged by strong storms, and my car – which you may recall drew the short straw for a garage spot – was crushed by a tree in our driveway.) 

Transmission - Part II  My second gear issues were continuing to bother me every time I drove the car, so with the Concours behind me, I decided to take another crack at the transmission.  This time, I invested in a better rebuild manual from Mac Van Pelt and purchased some new synchros (from a different supplier) as I should have done when I first built it. The rebuild went well, but unfortunately, I was still having some issues downshifting into second gear. With Auburn around the corner, I didn’t have the time to drop the transmission again, so I decided to live with that nostalgic Model A feeling for the time being and practice the age-old art of double clutching to downshift.

Getting Ready for Auburn  With the Concours behind me, I focused all my attention on gearing up for Auburn as I still had a pretty good punch list remaining.

·  Chrome:  As I learned, show-quality front grilles are hard to come by, and when you find them, they don’t come cheap. They were also made of pot metal, so restoring them involves a special process that only a few places could handle. Restorations Unlimited II suggested I contact The Finishing Touch in Chicago.  Although it took a couple months, everything they restored – the front grille, hood emblem, horn ring, speaker grille – turned out gorgeous and were well worth the wait (and the price).

·  Horn Ring:  I was sharing photos of the ’41 with some folks at a NIRG club meeting, and someone pointed out I had the wrong horn ring. Well finding the correct ring was easy; finding the right color match for the horn ring was a different story. Thanks to some good advice from folks on the EFV8 forum and Ford Barn, I mixed a custom color on my own and was very pleased with the finished results.

·  Dual-Core Radiator:  I had an original ‘41 dual-core radiator in my possession, but was told by a radiator shop it was junk:  bad cores; bad tanks; not restorable. Before giving up on it entirely, I decided to dig a bit on the web for radiator restoration. To my surprise, I found a company just a few miles away in Algonquin that specializes in building and restoring antique radiators:  Independent Antique Radiator. I met with Peter Koch, the owner, and he agreed to rebuild my radiator within a couple of weeks. While I was there, he walked me though his entire shop and showed me how radiators are built, which was quite an experience. And as you can see from the before and after pictures, he does great work too.

·  Pinstripes:  When my original plan for painting the wheel pinstripes fell through, I needed a Plan B.  Again I turned to my trusty advisors on the EFV8 forum and Ford Barn, and I received a quick response from Ken Bounds. He suggested I reach out to Lloyd Duzell, who put me in touch with Gregg Widaman, owner of Widaman Sign Co. in Berwyn. Gregg was able to get my car in right away and did an amazing job. I passed Gregg’s name on to Joe Serritella, and Gregg painted the wheels of his ‘41 coupe a few days later.

·  Convertible Top:  Not surprisingly, the completion of the convertible top went down to the wire. Everything was finished the week before Auburn with one exception:  the buttons securing the boot to the car. They were finally finished the day before Auburn (Nicole:  which only added to the existing madness that day - that you’ll read about shortly).

·  Oh Cr@p!:  With only a couple of days left until Auburn, what should have been an easy problem to fix quickly took a turn for the worse. A wire had popped loose on the convertible top motor, and the top was stuck in the closed position. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue; but with the top closed, removing the lower back seat to get access to the wiring proved more challenging than I had anticipated, and I accidentally cut [albeit small] the brand new rear side panels of the interior. After freaking out for a few minutes, I called Ray at Restorations Unlimited II to see if he had any suggestions. He referred me to Dean Elston of Color Wonders who – as luck would have it – was wrapping up a job a few minutes away and could stop by my house that afternoon. He did a fabulous job repairing the cut, and as an added bonus, he also took care of a hole in my Mustang interior and reshot the floor carpeting.

To add to all the excitement leading up to Auburn, at the eleventh hour I decided to purchase an enclosed trailer to transport the ’41. I had been researching the topic with my Dad for a couple months, and after extensive analyses of the costs/benefits of ownership and towing capacities of our vehicles, I finally pulled the trigger three days before we had to leave for Auburn. (Nicole:  The Friday before Auburn, I had mentioned to Scott I was smelling antifreeze when I ran the AC in my car. The car was up in miles, and from the symptoms, he suspected the heater core might be shot, but he said there was no urgency to have it addressed. Of course when he finally got serious about the trailer and wanted to use my car to tow it, he quickly changed his tune about the heater core, and we had to get my car serviced ASAP. As you may know, replacing a heater core isn’t a quick job. And did I mention we also had to get my car to the trailer dealer to have the wiring harness installed and pick up the trailer before the end of business Wednesday?) Miraculously, we pulled it all off, and Thursday morning we set off on our maiden voyage with the trailer at the height of the morning rush hour. With the exception of Nicole forgetting our I-Pass, our trip went off without a hitch, and we made it to Auburn in four hours.

When we got there, we weren’t sure what to expect. Being our first Early Ford V-8 Club meet, the registration staff christened us with a special welcome reserved for "meet virgins." After checking into our hotel, we headed over to the showfield to park the trailer and get the ’41 ready for the safety check that afternoon. (Nicole:  Scott decided this would be the perfect time to tackle an ongoing issue he’d been having with the brake light circuit that he’d been putting off all summer. He had me sit in the driver’s seat to test the various signals, and at one point I noticed what appeared to be a metal button rolling around the floor. Apparently while sitting in the driver’s seat, I had knocked off the radio foot pedal. Now if you ask me, a small button like that has no business being on the floor. If I were to point fingers, I think most of the fault lies with the Ford engineer who put it there in the first place, with the person handling the restoration partly to blame for the installation.) Fortunately we fixed everything in the nick of time and raced over to the safety check with minutes to spare.

The following morning, Nicole and I got up early to finish detailing the car. When the judging began, the judges spent a lot of time on some of the cars in my class, which made me incredibly nervous. I also realized I was missing a rubber door bumper (which I later found on my garage floor).  Fortunately, fellow NIRG member, Joe Serritella, was able to lend me one after his car was judged.  Overall the judges were very complimentary of my restoration and had some good suggestions for correcting the items they identified:  gold oval on the battery; wiring routing (under the hood); rear spring shackles; interior steering column tube gasket; oil filler cap. From the debriefing, it seemed like the ’41 did pretty well and only lost a few points. I kept my fingers crossed that my read on the situation was correct. (Nicole:  After the ’41 had been judged and we could breathe again, we went to check on our car and trailer only to realize we had made a rookie mistake:  We had forgotten to turn off the light inside the trailer.  With our car as dead as a doornail, EFV8 club member and Foundation trustee, David Stonebraker, was kind enough to give us a jump.) The following day we were thrilled to learn the ‘41 had received a Dearborn award with a score of 990 points.  Personally, it was both an honor and a relief knowing all my work the past four years had paid off.

One More Meet  When we got back from Auburn, we learned the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) was having a meet in Oak Brook in two weeks, not to mention, the deadline to register was that day. Although we were not AACA members, we figured it would be a good opportunity to have the ‘41 scrutinized by a different set of judges, not to mention, the meet was close by and gave us another excuse to use our trailer. (Nicole:  Since we wanted to sign up at the eleventh hour, we needed the blessing of the registration chair to make it happen.  As it turns out, we had previously met him at the Barrington Concours:  He had exhibited his car in our class and Scott had even sat next to him at the awards dinner.) Once we had his blessing, I started detailing the ’41 for the meet and addressing some of the issues the judges had cited at Auburn:  correcting the wiring routing and oil filler cap; and fabricating new rear spring shackles. 

The day of the meet finally arrived. Since they pack the judging and awards ceremony into 12 hours, we had a long day ahead of us. As we learned, AACA judging is different from the Early Ford V-8 Club:  In addition to point judging (on a 400-point scale), your car’s score is compared to other cars in its class. And unlike the Early Ford V-8 Club, the AACA doesn’t share your judging sheet or point score with you, which only adds to the anxiety of the judging process. During the judging, the lead judge questioned the finish on the spark plugs (I learned they should be black), but he didn’t offer any other hints as to how the ‘41 had scored. After the judging was over, my relatives surprised me and stopped by the meet to see the ‘41.  Unfortunately I couldn’t stop stressing about losing 8 points over spark plugs. But as Nicole predicted, the spark plugs weren’t a deal breaker after all, and the ’41 received the AACA’s 1^st Junior Award.

Transmission – Part III  With the summer winding down and no more car shows on the horizon, I decided to tear out my transmission and take it apart again. When I was ordering some parts from Mac Van Pelt earlier in the summer (after my first rebuild), I decided to mention my transmission problem and see if he had any insights.  He suggested I try the “dime test” on the space between one of the new synchro rings and second gear. It came as no surprise, but the synchros failed the test:  No gap at all. Needless to say, I was disappointed yet hopeful this might be the source of my problem. I went ahead and purchased some new synchros from him, and they all passed the dime test with flying colors. Once I had the transmission back together (the entire rebuild process just took three days), I took her out for a spin.  The ’41 went from driving like a Model A to a full-fledged synchronized V-8. I was ecstatic. And it reinforced an important lesson:  You can’t always trust a part just because it’s new.

Aside from a few minor items that were pointed out during judging this past year that I’m still addressing, it’s a great feeling to have the ‘41 running smoothly and know it’s pretty darn close to what rolled off Henry’s assembly line over 70 years ago (Nicole:  with the exception of the plastic interior trim, which Scott is still looking for.  Of course, if you have a source, please let him know.)

The Rear View Mirror

(Nicole:  While there's been plenty of blood, sweat and swearing (though we do try to keep it out of earshot of the little ones) along the way, the past four and a half years have been an incredible journey. The last year in particular has been intense with plenty of nail-biting moments, dealing with unexpected delays while scrambling to meet show deadlines. And there were plenty of times I thought Scott – and sometimes both of us – needed our heads examined (like getting coerced into driving up to the Iola swap meet in the July heat while 8 months pregnant – though we did get a great deal on some Ford script tires). But thanks to Scott’s passion and hard work, we finally reached our destination with some sanity to spare.) 

Throughout my restoration, I reached out countless times to fellow EFV8 club members and enthusiasts through the NIRG, EFV8 forum and Ford Barn to get critical information on everything from engine and mechanical advice to interior details and sources for rare parts.  Had it not been for folks like you who were there for me every step of the way, God only knows where my restoration would be today. Your help has been absolutely invaluable, and for that I say, “Thank you!”  My only hope is that I can return the favor.  (Nicole:  My thanks go out to all of you as well as I’m so happy Scott has finally found folks he can share his car passions and problems with (other than me 24/7). I’m sure there are plenty of significant others out there who also feel the same way.)

The Road Ahead  (Nicole:  So what's next you ask?  ....'47 and '41 Ford Woodies along with a donor car – a '41 sedan with suicide doors – that Scott is having second thoughts of cutting up for the ’41 Woodie. (He’d love to turn it into a driver.)  And believe it or not, the Woodies were my crazy idea.  I was pregnant at the time with our second daughter, so I blame it on the hormones and our TV addiction to Chasing Classic Cars (WARNING:  The Surgeon General has determined that excessive viewing of Wayne Carini may be hazardous to your marriage and/or increase the risk of impulsive, irrational car investments). While I thought we might take a breather before embarking on our next restoration adventure, Scott hasn't wasted any time getting started on the '47 and has already painted the transmission; ordered the rear floor board from John Hogg in Ontario, Canada; dropped off his body parts to Redi-Strip to get dipped; shipped his Columbia parts to John Connelly for repairs; and given Cincinnati Woodworks the green light to start building the wood.  I'm hoping one of these days he'll get around to tackling my "honey-do" list and building a tree house for our daughters. But for now, he figures he's got a pretty good excuse.)

Epilogue:  Ken had been hounding us for months to write our story until we ran out of excuses.  Much to our surprise, we’ve really enjoyed sharing our story with you over the past three months and were thrilled by all the positive comments we received from folks at the Installation Dinner.  While it’s nice to finally have Ken off our case, it’s also been an invaluable opportunity for us to capture our story on paper before many of the details evaporate from our memories for good.  We look forward to sharing our Woodie adventures with you once they hit the road.