If it wasn't for this website and the generous help from everyone on it, my Panama would still be rusting away and full of mice. Thanks to everyone here my family and I can drive and enjoy it.

Count me in for another donation.

-Kevin

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225/75-R15. The smaller tire would bug me. In my opinion the cars look best when the tires fill the wheel wells.

Kevin

Thankfully mine kicks down when I hit 11mph. But between that and say 25 it doesn't kick down when I push on the gas again. I'm not slamming the gas though....just normal pressure.

-Kevin

I'm interested in the answer to this as well. My car does the same at slow speeds. Say I slow from 45 down to 15 or 20 and have to accelerate again (stoplight turned green before I got to it)...the transmission doesn't always kick down and the engine really lugs until it gets up to speed again.

I remember reading somewhere that the direct drive kicks off once the car hits 11mph, and goes back into torque converter. Am I making stuff up here?

-Kevin

Thanks for the attachment Howard. I've seen pictures of some cars with and some without the stripes, and I didn't see any evidence that mine had black on it previously. But if the brochure shows it, then that's good enough for me.

-Kevin

Does SMS require your seat covers to use as patterns? I assumed they had patterns there to use. They had patterns for my headliner, but maybe the seats are different?

-Kevin

Did a quick project last night that I've been meaning to tackle for a while. I've noticed on pictures of other Clipper Super's that the additional front trim pieces had the "whiskers" painted black. I can't tell if that is original, or if that's been added by owners over the years.

Regardless, I like the look because it looks more finished.

I used wax remover and acetone to clean off the stainless, then covered the whole thing with masking tape. I used a new Exacto blade and gently cut out the lines. Then sprayed primer and gloss black. After I removed the masking tape I cleaned up anything that looked bad and put them back on the car. Once the paint cures I'll wax both pieces to help protect them.

They aren't perfect, but probably acceptable. I think it gives the front of the car a more finished look.

-Kevin

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Thanks for the info! That gives me a lot more confidence. The difference in temps from front to back is interesting. I'm assuming that's normal?

Was off work today so I washed the dust off the car and went on a 30 mile drive with my daughters today. Ambient temps were about 80 and the temp stayed pretty constant on the Panama. Right between the E and M except for a very long gradual hill at 50mph, when it moved to mid to upper M. Really not bad. I'm trying to burn up gallons of gas so I can fix my fuel leak at the tank and maybe drop it one last time to fix the sender issue.

Stopped by a vintage gas station/restaurant in town for a quick photo grab.

Then to NAPA to grab a couple of windshield wipers. I used NAPA 6-1233 Classic Wipers (https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/WIP61233). They are the same size as my original 11" Trico blades. I only had one blade left, and it had no rubber. These replacements aren't 100% like the originals but they look the part. I polished up the wiper shafts and installed the new wipers, looks much better than it did before.

-Kevin

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Sweet!!

The 55-56 hardtop glass is different than the 53-54, so not due to the fact that the cars are hardtops. They are 70 yr old glass and not always in the best of condition. They must be stored on edge, preferably very padded and secure. Can't have any vibration.

-Kevin