I just got my beautiful powdered bronze lady (60 Crown Southampton) back from the body shop. The mechanical/body restoration has taken about 9 months but the effort was well worth it. She has a minor tranny leak and the gas gauge and radio are both inop but they are more petty annoyances than problems. I have 2 questions for the group.
1. An old time Chrysler mechanic told me that the leak was probably the connection for the speedo cable. He said the cables had a long rubber boot where they attached to the tranny and they had a tendency to dry out and crack. My car sat since 1979 so this made a lot of sense to me. I haven't crawled underneath yet to verify that's where the problem is but has anyone run into a similar problem before with this kind of leak. If so, is there a fix other than trying to find a NOS cable boot?
2. I spoke to my insurance carrier today about the agreed value of the car. It is probably a #2, -2 or so. Still a few things left to do...a few chrome parts, carpets, detail engine bay, etc. They said they didn't have any information on late 50's early 60's Imperials. I sent them pictures of the car and they bumped me up to $15,000 for the agreed value. Does this sound reasonable? Most of the 60's I've seen sold during the past 9 months have either been parts cars, in need of total restos or customized jobs. I know I could go to an appraiser but before I spend the money I though I'd ask the older...I mean more experience Imp owners their opinion on the general value of my lady. Does anyone know of any restored/survivor 60's that have sold recently? Oh, mine has a grand total of 16,000 miles which I can document with service receipts.
Thanx
Tom
60 Crown Southampton, big, bold , beautiful and on the road again
80 NYer 5th Ave
82 Cordoba LS
99 300M