Finally on the road

[uncleaud]

All the stars aligned yesterday, and the roads were dry! Was able to take the Saratoga for a shakedown run, first one since 1987. Only about 2 miles but purred like a kitten, great oil pressure, no water leaks, transmission worked smooth. What more could you want? First time I've driven one of the famous fluid drives and I was expecting more of a clunk between gears. Actually it was so smooth I question if it was doing its thing, but the seat of my pants feel seemed right. Will have to give it a better work out next time but it is raining today.

 

Now that everything appears to working as it should it is time to invest in a real gas tank and do away with the dune buggy tank in the trunk. I see three or four places that have them available, all at about the same price. Any insight from the group here as to one being better than the other. I have the straps, gauge and ferrules for the tank so all I need is the bare tank.

 

As I'm starting on the carpeting I have to address the lack of positioning dimples in the new sills for the rubber step plates. I see that they make new rubber replacements and it appears they don't have the pins. As they are kind of pricey I'm planning on recycling my old ones. My options seem to be to cut the pins off or try and drill quarter inch locating holes. How has this been handled within the group? Thanks for help.

[Dan Hiebert]

I got replacement rubber sill boards for our D24 some time ago.  Here's one option - our sills are good with the mounting holes, the replacements do not have the mounting pins, so we're the opposite situation than yours.  I just put them in place, there is enough molding in the boards to fit around the bottom of the jambs to hold them in place well enough for my purposes.  We haven't had any issues with them not staying put.

 

With the new sills that don't have the mounting holes - if you go the route of using the boards with the pins and want to keep the pins, the mounting holes in the door sills are more like 1/2" because there's a rubber grommet in each hole that the pins fit into.  Bernbaum used to sell them, but I haven't checked for quite a while if they still do.  Off the shelf grommets would probably work just as well but won't cover the whole shaft of the pin.  I'm not sure what would transpire if you simply drilled holes and didn't use the grommets.

 

Some have installed either replacement sill boards without the pins, or restored boards that for whatever reason don't have the pins by simply gluing them down, and that works well for them.  If I were to decide to do that, I would use a more flexible glue like a silicone sealer, so it can be removed easier later if need be.