the whole chain of events so far is pretty disheartening.... so
much for the rumors of it being out of the ground already for prep...
the article[s] in old cars weekly were really good.... some good info
that may have been previously unknown. its unfortunate that even at the
time of burial the concrete wasn't even dry yet, so much for the pride of the
true gun-all concrete vault, but it did withstand the test of time without
collapsing, considering the walls seem rather thin. and i too saw no
signs of any try at sealing the upper lip of the vault.
all in all, from its proper shape within its "bag"... its still in better
shape that some cars that have been resurrected.
funny note.... notice that even when brand new--- the front bumper didn't
align so well on the passenger frt...
as for being under water... the efects are truly less detrimental to the
car being entombed... case it point, underground- its temperature has been
somewhat steadily maintained compared to air temp/seasons, it has seen 0
sunlight for UV deterioration, and most likely little to no oxygen, other than
what air entered/exited at a very slow rate to displace the water in the +/-
direction... so the effects of water as we know will be different on this
plymouth.... would be nice to see a different rot pattern if it has one
anyway- not the typical fender eyebrows, inner rockers, frt seat bracing, rear
body mounts, rear window and cowl tracks.... all the commonalities attributed
to collections of [crap] where it cant escape and thus rot our beautiful
poorly built plymouths..... as for underwater-
my 59 fury [daily driver] was in a garage from 1969 until 2000, probably
with no sun contact- it was removed from its garage 1 year after being under
water for 17 days in lodi, NJ, after hurricane floyd put that town under
water... it was one of those garages under a house... the year later the carb
was still topped off as was the trans and rear to their vent holes [and
remember- when under water- the eng/trans gets 100% water filled as the
gas/oil/atf is molecularly lighter and floats out to displace the water]
needless to say- the sheetmetal was hardly hurt, some extra surface rust under
the headliner [which had an interesting stain from the air bubble it
maintained]. all said and done- i stripped it to a shell, new
drivetrain, interior 100%, most wiring, restored gauges, etc... 45,000
miles since 2001, snow rain sun... gets to work all the time.. and now...
virgin fenders starting to rust through..... it had original paint too until 2
summers ago- shined up after the rivermud was powerwashed off and nicely
compounded.
so lets hope that the slow egress of water in the tomb allowed a nice
coating of the engine's oil, the 1/2 tank of gas, and all of its type A and
rear gear oil to slowly film the entire car for the next tomb fillings, as a
rust preventer of sorts...
1 more day
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