240,000! Congratulations! One certainly could not tell by looking at the car. And your Grandmothers went 400,000?!?
Can you give a brief rundown of the major maintenance items you've performed and the approximate mileages to keep your car running for 240K miles? And do you have any recall of your Grandmothers major maintenance?
For the record, my '63 has about 130K, and the '81 about 125K (I'm fairly certain they've only rolled the odo once). The '68 has only 44K. The '63 and '81 had been retired to fields, the '68 sat in a barn from 1984 to 1999, having last seen the road in 1979.
The '68 is as tight as I would expect any new car to be. The engine ran very well once I got the fuel system flushed (it has since suffered a collapsed a lifter). The '63 continues to amaze me. The engine is smooth and powerful, more so since I loosened the purse strings a bit and started feeding her premium fuel. No trace of smoke from the tailpipes at any time. The transmission shifts are crisp and well timed but not harsh. The doors still open, close, and align well. Basic needs such as lights, wipers, horn, turn signals and brakes needed only regular maintenance to be fully functional (those items perhaps being why she was sent out behind the wood shed in the first place!). Incredibly (to me, anyway) the dash pad shows no large gaping cracks.
Quite a testament to the quality of these cars, I'd say.
Steve Charette
This is sort of a random subject, but . . . while on
the way back from Carlisle in m '71 Imperial a couple
of weekends ago, the odometer clicked over 240,000.
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