Oozed the Cadillac into this General Motors town at 1 pm. What a great place to be in a collector car–the home of the Corvette and the Cadillac XLR. After a nice segment on WBKO http://www.wbko.com/home/headlines/44551572.html, I went off in search of a someone to fix my window.
It has been my experience with classic cars that the average chain fix-it shop isn’t the place to take your baby. No, no. You need someone with a three-letter name to lay hands on what ails your ride. Think: Joe, Jay, Ted or Stu. Motorpool’s office manager, Catherine Russell, began making calls ahead of my arrival for someone who knew electrics.
She found “Buddy’s Auto Care.” Now “Buddy” is a long name in the automotive world, but the manager’s name was “Joe,” so that fit. Five minutes at Buddy’s had my window back in the up position and they very kindly didn’t charge me a cent. If you’re in Bowling Green and having a little car trouble, I’d highly recommend a visit.
Somerset, Kentucky
The first 500 miles on any new engine is the most critical. Before starting this journey, I thought it best to rebuild the Cadillac’s 1958 powerplant–the venerable 365. The only boys to do it? Howton’s in Hueytown, Alabama. The Howton brothers are machine geniuses–and really friendly. The shop, however, looks like a bomb hit an automotive assembly plant, throwing metal parts and shrapnel in every direction. I admit that I had some hesitation dropping my rare “Q” engine off.
Cadillac ran a lot of promotion material back in the day about their machine assembly process. Pictures of assembly shops look like modern art galleries: clean, white, and pristine. Cadillac technicians walked around in what looked like space suits, assembling blocks and pistons.
Howton’s didn’t have all that. What if they lost a bolt? What if metal filings fell into the bore? What if old man Howton forgot what he did with my harmonic balancer? I told Brady Howton about the space suits and the filtered air at the Cadillac plant.
He just smiled. “That’s just a buncha window dressin’,” he assured me. “Cadillac only got those cylinder walls to a street tolerance. We’re going to get you to a racin’ tolerance.”
And indeed they did. I really shouldn’t have worried. The Howtons are masters of the automotive universe. They boiled and cleaned my engine, bored it .40 over, honed it to within .001 mm, installed all new pistons, rods, bearings, valves, etc. Then they balanced the whole shebang to within one (one!) gram. It’s runs as smooth a Chicago politician.