A couple weeks later we went to the Blacksmith Lounge's Annual Pig Roast & Car Show at the same venue. It's a good thing we got there early because there was easily 1000 cars by mid afternoon. The '69 Swinger parked next to the GTX in this picture belongs to my brother in law Ron, he just picked it up in early August.

June 2007: We had a few sprinkles during the day on Saturday at Mopars in the Park but the heavy rains held off until it was time to go home. Did I say heavy rain? Deluge or monsoon might be a better description. I had just left 169 heading east on 94/694 when the sky turned black and it started pouring. Thanks to zero visibility, traffic slowed enough that the almost treadless drag radials on the GTX handled it OK. We left the highway and found some cover until it looked like the danger of hail had passed, then we hightailed it for home. It took several hours to clean and dry the car so it would be ready for the next day.

Sunday morning started out with more rain, after checking the weather sites it was obvious that the day would be a washout. The prospect of a 90 mile round trip in the rain just didn't seem worth it, my Mopars in the Park weekend was over...

Midwest Mopars - Mopars in the Park 2007 Photo Gallery

May 2007: I cruised to Porky's a couple times in early May then parked the GTX and stared cleaning and detailing in preparation for Mopars in the Park on the first weekend of June. The picture at the top of this page was taken on Saturday morning just prior to the 45 mile drive to Shakopee. During the Winter I scored a pair of tail light bezels off Ebay and sent them to Paul's Chrome Plating in Earlsville, Pa for refinishing, the ones that were on the car were poorly plated and much of the detail in the recessed area had been ground away. Paul's did an excellent job and I got them back just in time to paint and install them on night before the show.

April: Spring has finally arrived and the urge to get out and drive the GTX was so strong that when Warren called and asked if I wanted to go to a show on April 15th I didn't hesitate. It turned out to be a beautiful spring day and the drive gave me a chance to put a few miles on the car and find out if the changes I performed over the winter made any improvement. The most noticeable change was the total lack of driveline vibration thanks to the new driveshaft. I also discovered that the speedometer gear wasn't "clocked" correctly so the speedometer didn't work. Otherwise, the GTX ran flawlessly.

January - March 2007: Much of the Winter was spent working on my friends cars and replacing the side glass, window channel and weatherstripping on my '37 Packard. I did however, manage to pull the tailhousing off my transmission and install an A&A 5600 rpm governor weight kit. At the same time, I installed a new transmission mount and had the driveshaft checked by ProvenForce, a local driveline shop. The driveshaft had been previously checked by another shop and they said it was ok but there has always been an annoying high speed vibration. It turned out that the original shaft had .060" runout just in front of the rear u-joint, the factory maximum allowable runout is .010". Considering the speed the driveshaft is turning with 4.10 gears, it's not surprising that there was a vibration. Proven force built a new driveshaft and had it back to me in a few days.