Day 27, Car show and shiny wheels

The morning had a feeling of fall, with cloudy skies and a cool temperature; it even looked like it could rain. Today I was going to take a little time away from the trailer and go to a car show in Terrebonne with the Packard.

My neighbor had just gotten the second cutting of hay off my fields and was starting up the irrigation again, which is a series of moving the wheel lines across the field. Today the wheel line was at the position closest to the house which means the chicken coop gets soaked. Usually they do this position at night as to not bother the chickens when they are out in the pen, but they must have forgotten. I decided to leave the chickens out in the yard even though I was not going to be around. This would at least keep them from getting soaked.

Car show in Terrebonne, OR

The car show was fun with many of the usual cars from the area. It’s always fun to here people’s comments about the Packard. I had one elderly lady say she and her girl friend used to go out in a Packard and drive around thinking they were very special, and look for boys. One guy told his wife after being asked who made Packard that Packard was made by American Motors.  Another person said “Wow a Rolls Royce”.  Mostly people just asked about the engine, how long have I had it, or make a comment like it sure must be fun to drive. It’s fun to share the Packard with people and tell them about this once great american car company.

The car show was over by 3pm and I drove home, but first stopped off at Lowes to by more steel wool, 3M pads and a can of gloss black spray paint.

The chickens were running about the yard and seemed happy to see me as they all came running up when I drove in. I tossed them some whole wheat and they were very pleased. I checked of eggs and the count for the day was at one.

Before and After

I changed into my work shorts and went to work on the trailer. My first project was to clean up the trailer wheels, since they seemed to bother my father and now that he pointed it out, they bothered me too. I had bought a wire wheel brush that could be attached to my grinding wheel and I wanted to see if I could polish up the lug nuts to the trailer as well as the two nuts that hold the spare tire to the bumper bracket. I love to use a wire wheel brush, because the result is immediate and it is fun to strip away years of rust and tarnish. The can of black paint I bought was for the wheels. Eventually, I want to have the wheels painted to match the trailer, but until I decide what that color might be, I’m going to paint them black. I have ordered chrome trim rings, which should be here any day and once I figure out where to get 11” center caps, you really won’t be able to see much of the wheel. I figured for now, they would at least look clean and not bring down the overall appearance of the trailer.

Before with a light sanding, 3 lugs removed for cleaning

I removed each lug nut and polished them on the wheel; I also removed the center grease cap and the wheel brushed off years of gunk, old dirt and grease. I then took a new 3M pad and scrubbed each wheel and whipped them clean. I knew this was not going to be perfect, but for the time being, it would at least make them presentable. After about an hour I had the old tired wheels looking pretty good.

Now that the wheels were looking descent I went to work on the right side of the trailer. I started at the front and worked at removing the scuffed up marks. I worked for about an hour and it started to get dark. With the cloud cover it seemed much darker, earlier than usual. I had cleaned up the front of the trailer including the door and that was going to be it for the night.

After - looks a little better and should make my father happy.

I did one last check on the chickens, even they seemed to think it was getting close to bed time and were heading to the coop. There was one more egg, so it was a two egg day. They all followed me to the pen and with them all accounted for I put them to bed and closed the door to the pen.

I was ready to go in and thought I would spend a little time on the computer trying to find center caps for trailer. The best I could do was find a place called Hub Cap Mikes, who is supposed to be the expert when it comes to hub caps. I’ll have to give him a call on Monday.

That was about all I was up for and I was done for the day.