Once the daily high drops below fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and the rain, mist, fog, and even snow kick in, the natural instinct for most people is to shrug off everything that isn’t absolutely vital. You’d like to go change the shocks, but it’s misting and breezy. You know you’ve got the time to get the transmission dropped and sent off for a rebuild, but flakes will be falling soon. The thought of cold and damp usually equates to being sick, and right about now the last thing you want to have is a mild cold going…people will run from you as if you’re a known carrier of the black plague. Not a good look normally, a full-on horrorshow currently. And then, almost like insult to injury, you have the lack of sunlight. If you work during the week, then by the time you get home you might have an hour or two of daylight in the best of circumstances. And once the sun dips below the horizon, that breeze really begins to cut. So it’s not surprising that Dylan’s progress on the Ford Maverick he dragged home is going to be slow. But progress has been made…for example, the car not only idles, but it now will drive. Yeah…we were a bit surprised, too.
Now, being fair, all he did was defeat the brakes to bypass completely trashed drums and he only drove it in that big field near where he lives. But that’s enough to warrant further work. It’s that milestone most of us need. Okay, there’s hope. It moves. Sure, it’s puffing smoke like a 1880s businessman on a retreat. Yes, he’s working the throttle via baling wire, thanks to a missing throttle cable. But now he has a fairly functional, early Maverick. How do we know it’s an early car? Easy: four lug hubs.
So it moves. That is only proof that things function. Now it is time to bring this Maverick back to life, properly. Given the work that he’s done with the Challenger that came from a similar situation, we expect good things.
