Hello Gents,
I've had my restored car back for 3 years now, hard to believe. I think back to when I first got it from my Aunt in 1999 (as a basket case), and I began the process of finding out information about the car and the people who knew it. Bruce Adams, Tim Kidder, Dave Payne, Hans Utke and others--like a mantra--all asked the same question. "...hasn't been sitting too long, has it?" Of course not I said, only about 14 years!
So the answer to the question of how best to "lay up" the car for winter is...don't. Well my car lives up north for the winter (freeing up a garage spot for my daily driver), and when I do venture up there every 6 weeks or so, I pray for dry pavement. Well, last Saturday--(Happy New Year Everyone)was perfect. Temps well above freezing, no snow, ice or wet pavement. The car has been sitting for nearly 8 weeks. Well, it started right up; I let it warm up a bit (goodness what a pile of condensation under the tail pipe. This is why I have a SS exhaust I guess)and then took it on the proverbial Italian tuneup. After a bit of low-speed driving to "warm everything up", I did several longer jaunts with high-RPM shifts, near the red line. After a bit of this (I did take a friend for a ride who just happens to be a Bosch engineer
)sadly the car went back to sleep until the end of January.
Next time I probably won't be as lucky with the road conditions! As "up north" is in lake country thankfully they don't use salt, but nonetheless I don't think I'll take it out in the snow!
Michael Salemi
1969 280SL
Signal Red w/Black Leather
Restored
