Our little Bluesmobile story...

[77granfury]

Update to 12. General Maintenance

We haven't been online in a week, but we're not lazy. Secretly we're preparing our Bluesmobile for the longest trip we've ever done with it, and pressure is high. Under no circumstances can I risk breaking down on the way TO Joliet, because if my little man misses the Blues Brothers Convention and his chance to see Dan Aykroyd, I'm not sure how I could ever make this up for him. He's talking about it - A LOT - since we found out about a month ago.
On the other hand, money and free time aren't unlimited, so my preventative maintenance has to be reasonable. I'll bring tools, some spare parts and odds and ends that I assume could go wrong, but after all, you never know. So in the last weeks we had to prioritize and focus on what's REALLY important:

1. Movie Props.

No road trip could ever be successful without a leather briefcase, leg shackles, a harmonica, a Yankee screwdriver and a can of Marine Epoxy, the really strong stuff. While we ordered the shackles
on ebay to avoid being caught by the wife browsing through the local sex-shop, we already had a harmonica, the Marine Epoxy will be an easy task with the label being available online, yankee screwdrivers
are basically owned by almost every retired neighbor and we've even seen them on amazon, of course the Chinese version with fire-red plastic handle - and we can't support that.
The leather briefcase was a little harder to find. On ebay, on kijiji (because in Canada, craigslist isn't popular) and even in local thrift shops we found countless similar versions, but our criteria was pretty simple:
1. It needed to be black
2. The handle has to be mounted on top, no straps along each side
3. It can't have a flap, we needed the belt with brass closure as close as possible to the original one.
4. It must be affordable. 

And none were exactly what we were looking for. Either they were correct, but too expensive - ($1500 for a 70s briefcase because of the brand-name we didn`t care about? Nope.) - or the design
was wrong, or they weren't black, or they were falling apart, hell, there was something wrong with every single one. Then I just had enough, and because we didn't care THAT much about a 100% 
correct briefcase for a crazy amount of money, I just grabbed the brown one below at the local vintage shop for $20. It was close enough. The other bags were $10, but the seller didn't budge because
of the "Bermuda Customs" stickers on it. We ordered Fiebing's leather dye on amazon and hope that'll do the trick. 
Updates will follow!
 
  

2. The ticket light is finally in! 

I finally found a moment to mount to install the ticket light/Roadrunner dome light! It took me a while because I didn't want to take the chance to pierce the roof, so I asked a friend of mine if he could
send me some pictures of the Monaco roof without headliner. Well, there's a lot less meat up there than I thought - but I made another observation!

  

This was a windshield mounted mirror car.
Do you see the THREE pre-drilled holes for the mirror? Most of our cars had the plastic visor-holder screwed in there, while the mirror was glued to the windshield.
After finding out the mounting holes were the same for the 69-73 full size roof-mounted Chrysler mirror, THAT makes me believe our cars were meant for the roof mounted
mirror - as everyone can easily screw in the 3 required screws and mount a mirror to the ceiling/roof.
Now this car is a 74. Can anyone confirm that 75-77 cars have the same pre-drilled holes? Or only 2?

But back to the ticket light:

  

Now, it's not flush, I'd have to cut-out the headliner as it's a little recessed where the bulb is mounted. And, please don't be mislead, where I mounted the light, there's no metal support bracket.
This might be what police cars had as an optional "roof bracing"? Be careful. What I would recommend, since this light is incredibly light, slide a piece of thin plywood from your dome light opening
forward towards the spot you want your ticket light to be. Once you have it screwed into the plywood, it'll never come down. It won't support your headliner either, but it'll work just fine.
On a side note - we have something like a "grease stain" above the driver's visor, it's not wet. I have no idea how to ever get rid of it. Maybe the previous owner used the driver's visor to hold
his freshly sliced cold cuts and hams within reach? Fried chicken maybe?

   

3. Paint accents...

Our "white" is a rather creamy colour but it looks "vintage", "aged" and a little dirty. Looking at the 1/18 scale Bluesmobile, we suddenly had an idea: if we paint some REAL white onto the doors, then our original paint
looks a lot dirtier, almost filth-yellow-ish. 
To do exactly this and bring out the desired dirt a little more (because it rains here so often this year, that it's really hard to keep a dirty car dirty), Lil' Elwood and me snuck out to our preferred paint-booth:
the upper levels of the local train station parking garage. After 8pm it's mostly empty, it's free, it's lit up, and it's protected from some of the elements, besides strong winds, but that's ok. It blows the dust and paint
overspray right out and gives us better air to breathe. I admit, the idea was great on paper, but we'll have to work on the results a little more:

  

The yellow-ish light in our paint-booth-garage doesn't help, but the idea was also to fake some Monaco bodylines by brightening up the lower Gran Fury bodyline - so it looks more contoured. 
We need some wet sanding and tweaks here and there until it feels right. 

   

Next step will be Lil' Elwood's certified rust aging treatment, some around the door handles and locks, some on the bottom of the fenders and doors. He promised to come up with a new recipe,
this time with EVEN MORE dirt. Hey, in the worst case, it'll crumble off and he'll have to re-freshen it once in a while. 



4. Spare Parts Run!

As I'm writing this, my wife is already breathing down my neck. Heading out to the US to pickup some badly needed Summit and Rockauto parts, including a rad (FINALLY!),
waterpump (just in case), all possible hoses, filters and belts (just in case), a 1-wire alternator (just in case) and a lot more odds and ends - oh ya - the shackles, too.

After this weekend I have 2 weeks of work and a few days left to do my very best - AND get a push bar up front. Our tail conversion will have to wait until after our trip, but more about that another day.
We're looking forward to August 19th, to meet some of you and to be part of something absolutely awesome! Until then, we'll try to get work done and maybe a few posts...

[77granfury]

It's been over 2 weeks since our parts-run to the U.S. - with hard work, mixed results, lots of swearing and the big question:

ARE WE READY FOR JOLIET???

Before we get into this, I think I owe you an update, because after all, we were quite productive:

1. The Briefcase!

We couldn't find a black one for an affordable price, so after some research, I just ordered "Fiebings" black leather dye on amazon and the results were quite amazing:

BELOW: The briefcase how we found it in an antique store...                                                    BELOW: The same briefcase just a few weeks later...
  

To be honest, i was pretty amazed by the results. I didn't use any fancy "deglazers" to clean up the leather, I just applied the dye after a wipe-down, and it covered next to perfect after one coat.
After a second coat it looked already better than expected, so I brushed it down, polished it a bit and....PERFECT. Well, with the exception of one thing: you touched it, you had black hands. That's 
not really acceptable, especially because certain 7 year-olds were already making plans on the down-low on how to chain the briefcase to the steering wheel and what to hide in there. And those little
black hands will be everywhere.
I watched some more videos and apparently "Resolene" is the secret solution. So, I placed another order on Amazon and 24 hours later, I held a bottle of Resolene in my hands and did two coats on the
briefcase. After drying, I kid you not - I wiped the surface with a white rag and no traces of black rub-off on it! It worked! I can really recommend those 2 products, the results really look like they've never
been another colour than black.
Oh, one more thing...the handle wasn't leather, it was plastic, and I didn't want to start taping and spraying black SEM etc... I figured it's easier - and safer - to just drill out the handle and change it over
to an already black one of an old guitar case... perfect fit, won't rub off. EVER.


ABOVE: the leather dye and resolene. Apparently also great on leather car seats?
 
2. The Radiator (this might be interesting to all SB guys looking for a rad...)

It took me a while to find a radiator that fits a small block C-Body. To my knowledge, the only difference should be that the upper coolant neck is on the opposite side than on the big block rad, 
however, this is apparently a big deal. I have no AC (well, it's in the trunk...) so I had access to the filler neck from either side, but because I wanted to have the option to re-install the AC at some 
point, I wanted to go for the correct rad.
The options I've found were:

a. The SPECTRA radiator, black, full metal construction, sells on ebay for $140-$190, locally for $350 and more. It's not always sold under the SPECTRA name, but it's most likely the SPECTRA rad, and that 
means: the upper coolant neck is on the passenger side - as we found out after delivery - after countless messages with their customer service team to get a picture of the ACTUAL item.




b. The CHAMPION aluminum rad, unpainted, nice welds and solid construction, sells on ebay for $260 - $400 and more. It's from what I can tell off the pictures, a nicely built rad for not much money. Unfortunately
the small block version is sold out, and they offer to modify a big block version by welding the coolant neck on the opposite side for $80 extra.

c. High End aluminum rads, different manufacturers, from Cold Case to Northern (I believe summit has that one, too - under their own name) etc... They are closer to 4 digits than you assume, especially after tax and delivery.

The bad news: if you have a small block and want to keep AC, you only have option 3 - but if you somehow can, have your old rad fixed/re-cored, or fork out big money and get a proper aluminum rad.
If you choose to listen to the wife, watch the budget and buy the spectra rad, welcome to the shit-show. It's not only a horrible fit, no, the lower coolant neck is only 1.5" instead of the factory 1.75" (water pump is at 1.75" too)
meaning, you're running into a different problem - all the rad hoses you bought are now useless. Gates makes the upper "25808" hose, that "flexibly" connects the rad to your water neck the wrong way, and Continental - now selling
all Good Year hoses as well - makes a flexible 19" long hose that connects your 1.75" water pump outlet with the 1.5" rad inlet. 
Modifying the brackets on the sides of the "suitable" Spectra rad is the easiest part, at least if you're not running a shroud. If you are, I recommend test-fitting to find out which side of the shroud your fan will shave off first, but once it's centered AND you found a way to mount the rad to your rad support, it's easy cruising.
Oh, I forgot to mention: the transmission cooler lines were actually matching +/- 1.5", which is ok given that there's some play. And the shroud magically bolted on, too - not to bad for a rad that has definitely not been designed with anything "c-body" in mind. Another bonus: if you're able to return the correct rad hoses you bought, you might cash in big as well!

BELOW: Radiator from hell                                                                                                     BELOW: at least my assistant worked tirelessly on the swap, so most of my swearing was muted.
  

You know how it is...once you dig into the engine compartment, "you might as well" - especially when you plan on a long roadtrip with Lil' Elwood. It says if you have spark, fuel and the coolant,
not much can go wrong. We replaced almost every single ignition component. We replaced almost every single fuel delivery part, and we replaced everything that has to do with keeping the engine
cool, from the "creme de la creme - deluxe Spectra rad..." to water pump, every hose in the engine compartment etc, we should be fine. We "rebuilt" the transmission quickly with a lucas
transmission treatment, just in case. Charging system performs flawlessly, we have a new battery, a good running alternator and a new chromed one in the trunk, and as soon as I'm done here
on my quick internet break, I'll try to change a wiper bushing and the engine oil, then we're basically good to go!

BELOW: The basic maintenance got a little out of control, but honestly, we both feel that the car runs a lot better now...

BELOW: Are there rodents living under the hood? (the pro's of not having to fix a modern car)
 

So are we ready for the road trip? Heaven knows... We did our part, and we're giving ourselves plenty of time in case something goes wrong. We're leaving tomorrow for the 
first leg down to Windsor/Detroit, and on Thursday we'll tackle the remaining 5 hours or so to Joliet.
I know one thing for sure, Lil Elwood is so excited that I simply can't afford to break down on the way THERE. I don't care about the way back, but if we don't make it to Joliet,
I'll get to hear this for the rest of my life -  that he missed the Blues Brothers Con - and his big idol...Elwood.
I hope we'll meet many of you there, and I hope many of you see us arriving in our Bluesmobile, not in a tow truck.... 

Have a safe trip everyone!

[77granfury]

It looks like packing and getting ready for our two day road trip to Joliet went well, we're almost good to go, that means I have some time for our latest ESSENTIAL add-on to the Bluesmobile:



THE PUSH BUMPER!

No Bluesmobile is complete without it, although I have a feeling that our Bluesmobile will never be complete, there are so many odds and ends, so many little details and parts we have to track down, and I'm sure once all is checked off, there will be the big 440 elephant in the room...you kinda need that, too...
But for now let me show you our take on how to "master" the push bumper.

Was it right to shy away from adding probably 100lbs to the front end? Probably not.
Was it good to have a push bumper that doesn't do its name any justice, given that it's not even nearly as strong as its steel counterpart? Probably not.
Will we be able to push any vehicles - let alone CPD police cars - out of our way without messing up our front clip? Definitely not.
But....will it be easy to modify, drill holes into (you know...the CHP rubber pads), bend back into shape, give us excellent quarter mile time gains because of it's weight - actually make us even faster than before - and set speed records on the Bonneville salt flats? MOST DEFINITELY.

It all started with a 50% off sale on aluminum at the local hardware/car parts store, and that's usually enough to guide the budget savvy Bluesmobile pilot into the wrong direction.

  
ABOVE: It was really easy to work with. The chop saw with carbide blade easily shaped our pile of Aluminum into a somewhat acceptable looking mock-up with close to original dimensions.

  
ABOVE: Mr. Elwood Little taught me how the use of rivets slims the bill for the professional welder - because I simply can't weld aluminum without melting everything into a liquid ball of shapeless disaster.

  
ABOVE: Width, height and depth are correct. We didn't bend the 1" aluminum tube (yet), but you never know who crosses your path when you're on a mission from god... A friend's friend,
who identifies as a welder, stitched two 1-1/4" sleeves to the bumper so that it basically works like a hitch/receiver and re-enforced our push bumper with professional welds to make it sturdy.

   
ABOVE: Painting aluminum isn't lasting without self-etching primer. And even then it'll peel off easily if you're hitting something. Like your mother in-law.
We still have to mount the bottom bars as we ran out of time, eventually Lil' Elwood's black hands will be clean again (you know, we had a leaky paint brush...)
but besides all of this, we love the look, it cost $50 in materials and $200 for the welder to spend 2 hours on us and it easily takes the weight of a 7 year-old
Blues musician including harmonica without moving at all. Mission (almost) accomplished.

[77granfury]

This is my second attempt at writing this...my whole afternoon of work disappeared with one wrong click, so let's try this again...

WE MADE IT!

The Report: 2000km with a 45 year old car to the Blues Brothers Con in Joliet, Illinois! 

It has been my dream for a long time: Driving on Route 66. Driving with a real Bluesmobile (not a black 96 Caprice 9c1 with white doors) to Joliet and take the picture below.
Combining both was far beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
But I've been blessed with a son that gave me the reason and helped me to build one last year, and that shares my passion for cars amongst many other things, including the original Blues
Brothers movie: Lil' Elwood.
Lil' Elwood never doubted our Bluesmobile. Daddy did. When we took off last Wednesday, 2 days prior to the arranged meeting point at Joliet prison to give us enough time, I've already put in
days of work and replaced every single part that could cause trouble, from water pump to rad, from belts to hoses, from fluids to gaskets, from complete ignition to fuel pump
and then some. For the first hours I didn't even trust our Bluesmobile to run trouble-free through Toronto and then outside of the Greater Toronto Area. An older car has to prove
itself before I can trust it. And so far the longest trip we've made was barely over one hour. 
While we drove our first miles on the highway towards Toronto, no music was allowed. Every single noise was analyzed to detect leaking coolant/oil/transmission fluid or even leaking
gas that could result in an engine fire, there was a lot of tension and cold sweat on my steering wheel.   
But against all odds, the 360 just purred and pulled us trouble free towards the no-return zone, 300kms from home. From now on, I'd have to pay for my CAA/AAA tow back home, and it would be more by the km.
Surprisingly though, this worried me less and less, and the silence inside the car was soon replaced with tunes from the radio, laughter and stories from daddies times as a 7 year old.
The good ol' shitbox Dodge - at least if you go by emblems - proved itself.
Even though we lost our wipers along the way due to crumbling bushings, and rain-x mastered the job through several rainstorms.
Even though our exhaust seemed to suddenly identify as NASCAR exhaust and automatically lower backpressure by blowing through the seams.
Even though the "detected" burnt oil smell came from a small valve cover seal leak. It was so minimal that I didn't even have to refill oil after 2000kms of driving, and that's quite impressive.


ABOVE and BELOW: The East gate off Collins. The classic Blues Brother's shot. We took these on Thursday, it would have been impossible after that.


We decided to cut our trip into two 5-6 hour legs - to keep Lil' Elwood from getting too bored. The engine loved speeds between 65 and 70 mls, and was pretty efficient during
those speeds: 15 - 17l/100km. If you took her up to 80 mls and more, you could almost see the fuel gauge go down, but what did we expect when missing an overdrive or 4th gear.
Our first stop was Windsor, which is basically the Canadian part of Detroit - or to NOT step on any Canadian toes: the smaller but safe version of Detroit. Known for several Chrysler
plants (and a Ford engine plant - no, not the "Cleveland" 351 - the "Windsor" v8!) and to be the home of Canadian Club, we felt like home already.
Our cheap motel room brought us back into a time when our C-bodies were built, beautiful wood paneling, rich orange and olive green curtains, and the exclusive mahogany-stained
particle board furniture gave us the relaxing feeling of royalty. That is exactly what we needed to tackle the Windsor/Detroit-Joliet second leg tomorrow. 


ABOVE: Detroit skyline as seen from the other side of the Detroit river, Windsor, Ontario. Also home of the Chrysler K-car, if I'm not mistaken. And mini-van.
The trunk-lid is open because I brought a quite rusty 74 Monaco rear bumper to a friend in Windsor - who has some awesome parts for me...


ABOVE: Lunch for all of us: fuel stop with fried catfish at Arlene's Kitchen in Michigan. Not sure about the gasoline, but our food was excellent.

And off we went. The rather un-eventful drive through Michigan's construction zones and the heavy traffic around Gary, Indiana, paired with questionable quality of the I-94 proved
to be an engine and suspension proving ground for our car. Again, no issues to report. No rattles where there should be none, but the urge to upgrade to a Police suspension (cop shocks etc lol)
grew during this trip. Then during the last hour, Lil' Elwood's eyes got bigger and bigger. Anything with the name "Chicago", "Illinois" or "Joliet" on it had to be photographed and I could feel
how his level of excitement grew - and obviously, so did our speed... Unfortunately our fuel gauge did the opposite and we were punished by an unplanned gas-stop. We exited the I-80, parked the car and
went on a little recon through the downtown core of Joliet. What a beautiful place. Police officers took Lil' Elwood into a cruiser and let him play with the siren, the day was already a winner, so what could possibly
make it any better? The prison (see the first 2 pictures)! We almost caught the sun through the open gate like in the movie, but I managed to mess my timing up with other pictures.
I assumed that we'll do these shots in black suits on another day but this never happened. Next year maybe?

 
 

The friendly Police officers also informed us that our "Red Roof Inn" - home for 3 nights - was basically the prostitution hub of Joliet. We were not concerned, because a Waffle restaurant and a Whitecastle (both aren't in Canada!) were close and that clearly made up for it. The lady in the room besides us was nice, too, but she must have had a bad accident, had a black eye and lacked some teeth
We found countless Mexican restaurants EVERYWHERE, and that excited us a lot. In Canada, it's hard to find any Mexican restaurants, there are Peruvians, Guatemalans, Brazilians, Argentineans, Chileans, Paraguayans, Ecuadorians, Uruguayans...etc...basically all the Latin American soccer countries have representatives, but we have next to NO Mexicans - which might explain our lack of Mexican Restaurants - unlike on Collins street in Joliet - there should be at least 10 alone!!! I was considering re-naming Lil' Elwood to "El Woodinio" as he seemed to develop a slight Spanish accent from all the Tacos and Burritos he had...
 

ABOVE: Pictures from the festival are everywhere, so we'll just post this one here representing all 2 days - with Jeff's and Steve's amazing Bluesmobiles. The weather gods weren't good to us...

    
ABOVE: Lil' Elwood spent his time working out instead of praying to the weather gods - which he started wayyy too late - as seen above. It's therefore his fault that the movie was cancelled

Yes, weather cut the 2nd day of the Blues Brothers Con a little short, and the movie as well as much of the afternoon program was cancelled. We used our time wisely and proved that we are great at multitasking by 
driving straight to to the mural close to the prison to take some pictures AND going to the Mexican restaurant "Luna Mexicana" next door - the red house (that's how we remembered where the mural was - right besides
the "red house"). I'm not sure if our opinion counts as we're lacking a little bit of experience to compare, but this place was excellent - we had crispy baked cheese with andouille sausage chunks (basically the Mexican
version of a DIET carb free pepperoni pizza without dough - I think I just chose my new diet plan in the last sentence), garlic shrimp tacos, steak burritos and more...and when we were done, most of the rainstorm was
over, too, so our non-functioning wipers were of no concern anymore (we really need low-speed rain-x) 


ABOVE: Bad idea: In no time several people pulled over and wanted pictures of the mural/car combination - but their plan to keep us from Mexican food failed!


ABOVE: Lil' Elwood gets to feel the consequences for swearing, and you can also see a rare Bluesmobile station wagon on the mural.

We took it slow for the rest of the day, although we had big plans, but rainy weather, the Blues Brothers movie cancelled, too much food in our stomachs, so we just drove on Route 66 to see a few more sights before
passing out early, after all we wanted to leave our Brothel...cough...Hotel I mean...cough... before 7am and follow the advice of our local friends to avoid the "hoodlums".

   
ABOVE: Dicks on 66... Kicks on 66... Mexican delicious food and the reason why Elwood's name is Elwood: The village of Elwood, just a few miles from the reason why Jake's name is Joliet Jake.

 
ABOVE: Plymouth Fury/Gran Fury car meeting on I-53. Unfortunately neither one has a 440, cop tires, shocks and suspension nor runs on regular gas...BUT: at least from what I can tell neither one has a catalytic converter. We're on the right track. 

Sunday morning came on quite harsh. My alarm clock sounded nothing like the sweet music we've gotten used to in the last days. Between attempts of waking Lil' Elwood up from dreamland and packing our belongings 
into the oversized, tool-filled trunk, I had a few seconds now and then to dream of coffee. The weather was a lot friendlier, that was great, but by the time we made it on the road and said "good bye" to the amazing city
of Joliet, it was already 8am and I secretly crossed out Daley Plaza from our "to-go-to" list. The triple rock church and East 95th Street bridge it is, and I carefully prepared my excuses in case if Lil' Elwood questioned me 
why we don't speed down Lower Wacker and park in front of the Cook County Clerks building. The best excuse I had was: "bad karma". We don't want to go where the Bluesmobile eventually falls apart, because we still 
need it to get home. He never asked...
As we approached the bridge, we were both really excited. We were at the spot where such an iconic scene was shot, where 3 Bluesmobiles were used for a couple days to master the most important jump
in movie history. In my books at least - and I love the General Lee and the Bandit's Trans Am, but they just jumped for fun. This one was serious. It was going to make or break the relationship of Jake to 
the Bluesmobile. While Myles devoured smoked salmon and fried catfish, I figured out that a closed bridge just doesn't look that great on pictures. I'm glad I took a couple in Joliet of an open bridge, now is
the time to sneak them in to impress...

 
ABOVE: In both shots clearly the East 95th Street bridge. My passenger doesn't seem to like the car. What to do? What to do???

 
ABOVE: THE bridge. There's nothing else to say. ABOVE RIGHT: Lots of newspaper clippings from 1979 inside the Calumet Fisheries. I have clear pictures of them, it's quite interesting.


ABOVE: This is "Wiz". He turned around on his way to church to get a few pictures - he told us he worked at the pawn shop (Ray's Music) before it was 
burnt down by George Floyd protestors - he lost his job back then. He promised to send us pictures of the inside before the fire!

The "Triple Rock" church is only a stone throw away from the bridge, and when we saw the building and made a right turn, the correct parking spot seemed to have waited for us. As we pulled in,
the service was just done and the leaving church-goers had a blast seeing the Bluesmobile on the same parking spot it stood 43 years ago! The gentleman in the pink shirt was Reverend Kevin, and
he was happy to not only take a few group pictures with us, but also to show us the church although he just had a grandchild and was rather in a rush to go to the hospital.
Kevin told us an amazing story - the church caught on fire - hence the missing window - and was completely remodeled, however, the balcony and actually the whole interior reminded us strongly of 
James Brown - and Jake seeing the light.
The church had to sue the production company - as the "triple rock" sign hasn't been taken down after the movie was shot. It took until "the late 80s" until the sign was finally gone! 

 

Kevin showed us the way to the State line, as gas is apparently a lot cheaper in Indiana, but we didn't want to leave Chicago without eating a delicious deep dish Pizza! A quick google search
revealed that the "most recommended" Pizza place in the area was "Pucci's" on South Ewing and Indianapolis, and since it was almost noon, we decided to wait for them to open at 12pm.
During the wait, a gentleman came over with his dog to look at our car and pointed at the exact spot where Jake threw his lighter out the window... this would have been on South Ewing between
101st and 102nd Street - and he told us that his friend's dad still has it! We've heard so many great stories about the movie over the last few days, we're not even questioning anymore if they
are true or not.
But back to our Pizza, well, apparently google, their signage and us two were all wrong. We waited, tried calling, knocked all doors - nothing. While we saw so many great things and were incredibly lucky to be
part of all the happenings, we were on national TV, Lil' Elwood had his picture taken with Dan Aykroyd and James Belushi and was even on the first page of the "Herald", at the end we simply fell short on our
last day: We had to leave Chicago without trying the famous deep dish Pizza of Chicago...IN CHICAGO. We didn't speed down Lower Wacker and have our car fall apart, we didn't smash in the lady's washroom
window with our hat at the Palace Ballroom, we didn't attempt to run over a hoard of Illinois Nazis by the Museum we wanted to see the German Submarine at, we didn't lift a briefcase with $1 million dollars at
the Chicago federal reserve, we missed to take pictures of the beginning and end of Route 66, fix our sideburns in the mirrored image on the Chicago bean, sneak out the secret tunnel in Al Capone's favourite bar
instead of paying our tab, and we didn't try to buy secondary wives at the fancy Chez Paul restaurant, hell, we didn't even do a donut on the empty lot where the proud Harvey Mall once stood.

That can only mean one thing: we have to come back. We had an incredible time in Joliet, we created memories that will last to the end of our lives - in Lil' Elwood's case maybe even over 80 years. 
  

ABOVE: That's the famous intersection of Lower Wacker Drive and Indianapolis Avenue, right where the Bluesmobile did a 360 before crashing into the mall...



At this point, the least I can do is thank you all for your incredible help and support to make our dream come true, but some of you I just have to mention below:
-Markinblues as my local "go-to-person", for all your help and for getting me to write our story down, I'm actually really enjoying it
-Jeff from Georgia for blindly trusting two Canadians to guide you on the quickest way to the hotel - I think it only took us 2.5 hours? And...your props collection is unheard of! Awesome!
-Tony and Steve for being so helpful and guiding us along the way, without locals like you we would have been totally lost 
-Brian, Michael, Chase, Steven and everybody that was there with their beautiful cars. Sorry in advance that we'll steal some ideas off you...

See you all next year?


 

[cynot]

Amazing pics as usual! glad you guys had a great trip.

[Steam McQueen]

^ Absolutely agree 100% the pics are excellent. 77 is a patient man, getting the right shot, and re-typing posts d'oh. (Not sure what happened there but with longer posts I'll type 'em up in Word to your mother first, er sumthin'.)

This is such a fan-driven shot, incredible memories created for Lil' Elwood all the way, great stuff ! It even looks like he's attained Jake's stance for the shot.





Tons of great pics, 77. Thanks !

[77granfury]

cynot and @steam mcqueen ...THANK YOU. I'm not sure if I'm rather patient or lucky, but I'm glad that you like the pics and they turned out nice, it was quite an experience!


I just read through my last post, and it sounds a bit like we're done with our build, we did everything we've ever dreamt of and reached our goals. DONE.

Nope!

To prove the opposite, here's a little preview... I mentioned that we brought home some parts from a friend in Windsor on our way back from Joliet - it's not only what you see below:  
we also picked up a dash-pad that is perfect for cutting into (you know, the 8-track player that we cut rather than our minty dash pad), the lower dash panel - all in black -
with the passenger ashtray (cough...I mean..."passenger's cell phone holder"...cough) that the 74-77 Fury/Gran Fury doesn't have.
I need to pickup some Police upper door panels and a passenger mirror as well before my junkyards get rid of all their old cars, maybe I'll find a 74' lower driver's door panel
for the pocket, and once we're done in the "looks department", we'll look into beefing up the suspension, torsion bars, add somehow a dual exhaust and maybe...maybe...
we'll figure out how we can get a little more excitement into the engine compartment - but that all depends a bit on our "play money"... 


The fender extensions are a little rough, the outer shape on the quarters is not exactly matching, however, the mounting holes/bolts are in exactly the same
position. It won't be easy, I feel that combining both would make the best solution. The bumper will mount perfectly, so does the shorter Monaco fuel door.
The trunk lid is identical anyhow, but the Monaco taillights are mounted lower and none of the mounting holes match, that'll be a little bit of a challenge.
We'll try to mix and match parts from both cars, like the lower bumper fillers seem to be better taken from the Gran Fury bin, but we'll see. Unfortunately we'll
have to "pioneer" the rear panel swap as I couldn't find any cars where this has been done before, but we'll make a long-ish write-up once we're done on 
our road to make our Bluesmobile a little more authentic.

The picture above shows that I'll have full support and professional help from the car's owner, below should show the challenges with the shape of the quarter
extensions and taillight placement... I expect the rest to go smooth like butter. I always expect that. Wrongfully.


The good part is - the '74 rear bumper we traded for our rusty '74 rear bumper will clean up nicely - the guy intends to make a mold to shave off some 
weight, so he didn't care for "natural weight reduction", you know, the brown-ish kind...

We'll keep the updates coming...

[spyphish]

When you switch to a big block you will need the Mancini motor mount conversion as the SB/BB K frames are different. Good job on the car as I drive a Furyco as well.

Attachments:

[77granfury]

spyphish

Thank you. I love your car. I'm honestly not sure which direction to take, our budget is quite restrictive and I have a few other projects on the go that finally need to see the daylight again.
If I could, and if fuel prices didn't bother me, I'd go the 440 route, add every police option to the suspension and maybe even holley/sniper it. But that's not realistic at the moment.
What will most likely happen is that the now proven 360 - that doesn't even burn any oil - will have to stay for a bit. I'd love to add an overdrive transmission so that I can play with 
the rear gears without going broke on the highway above 70mls, should we go to Joliet with the Bluesmobile again. I'm not sure where my options are yet, I'll have to do some
re-search. Important is just that I keep the car running...

[airborneranger]

Aug 24, 2022 7:07:07 GMT -5 cynot said:

Amazing pics as usual! glad you guys had a great trip.

DITTO! AWESOME Story & PICS!! (My Buddy Chase SHOULD be joining this group soon as well... he will love your Story!) We stopped by your Red Roof Inn...but didn't want to disturb ya! We chatted w/ Jeff diligently working on his Car in the Parking lot of his Hotel! GOOD times; was super meeting you guys - next year for sure! (GLAD you made it home safe!)

[77granfury]

airborneranger THANK YOU!

It was awesome meeting you and Chase, too - and thank you for bringing in the Oldsmobile early this year! We hope to see you soon!

[77granfury]

SEPTEMBER UPDATE 1.0

We've been working away and didn't get too much done of all the things we've planned for our Bluesmobile, time flies, my vacation is over and Mr. Lil' Elwood has his first day of school on Tuesday.
It's been an awesome season - and although there might be a few more sunny weekends to go for drives, I'm not sure how much time I'll have to work with my little man on the car.

HOWEVER: please look at the picture below and the look at his face...I had to laugh so hard - he's an absolute superstar amongst the ladies. Being on the title page of a newspaper AND having a picture
taken with Dan and James to show off makes every girl want to sit on the dirty, unwashed hood with you.


ABOVE: Guys, if you're on this forum but don't have a Bluesmobile - AND you and/or your son are still single - you know what to do!
 
Yesterday Lil' Elwood wanted to go to our local car show before life gets in the way, so he took all his dash trash out of the black briefcase, placed it on the dash,
bolted the Illinois license plates back on and in the meantime I put the car quickly back together - having the back end somewhat disassembled at the moment.
He was not impressed as you can tell by his facial expressions although I guaranteed him that nobody will notice.

 
ABOVE: The lackluster effort of his dad to put the tail end back together correctly in 10 minutes resulted in Lil' Elwood being almost embarrassed. However, I think the "Ray's Music" sticker makes up for it...

So what happened with the possibly-never-done-before tail section swap? I think I have it figured out:

1. I can't take the quarter extensions from the Monaco over without major work to make the bodylines match. The main difference are the lack of the more pronounced "fins" on the Gran Fury. While the Plymouth
tail end is smooth and matches the contours of the trunk lid, the Monaco "fins" stick out almost 2 inches. I will have to extend the existing body line on the Gran Fury fender/quarter extensions and lengthen the fins
with fiberglass to match the bumper contour.

2. The bumper fillers have to be taken over from the Gran Fury as well, as the lower quarters are angled quite steeply inwards compared to the Monaco. The Gran Fury bumper fillers are long enough to fit between
the body and the Monaco rear bumper. 

3. Now that trunklid, quarter extensions, bumper fillers, bumper and fuel door are all "correct", all that is really left from here on is fitment of the taillights plus taking over the "eyebrows" above the taillights. Nothing
really fits, the Monaco taillights sit lower and are narrower than the Gran Fury tails, but I'll worry about that when I get to it.

  
ABOVE: He's really happy we're tackling this - he's even drawing the rear end of Monacos every day. Ever since we were at the Blues Brothers Con, it bothered him that
some people pointed out that it's actually a "Plymouth" - as if it wasn't that great - and I feel I have to straighten this out for him asap.

It's the interior that got most of our attention. We fixed our "secondary, cracked, green Monaco" dash up (because, you know, you can't just cut into the minty tan coloured stock dash),
gave it some Palomino at first, then Camel paint and did what we should have done from the beginning: cut the dash out for the 8-track player.
We then replaced the lower dash with the Monaco version - because Gran Furys don't have the passenger ashtray/cellphone holder - after giving it a few coats of black to freshen it up.
That makes quite a difference! We're both happy.


ABOVE: If you look close, you can see the 3 cracks we filled - hoping it'll last for a while. It probably won't and we'll then have to cut our "saved" original dash, realizing that we wasted a bunch of time for nothing...


ABOVE: The satin black "fake wood delete" paintjob looks excellent. The way-too-glossy paint on the rock hard, cracked dash not so much. But finally the 8-track is where it belongs!
The radio by the way is from China. I apologize. It was $25 shipped, looks not horribly out of place (rather than the flashy Kenwood we had in there before) and has bluetooth. Not that
we badly need that, but on our latest roadtrip we found it pretty convenient to receive and answer mommy's regular check-in calls at the push of a button. And it plays SD cards and USBs.
If you are interested, it's on ebay - and from what I've seen, you could actually get the original Chrysler knobs to work on it - after deleting 98% of the chrome on the face plate.

[77granfury]

October 18th, 2022...

OCTOBER UPDATE...

First of all, let me apologize for the lack of posts and news to everybody who enjoyed seeing our little project take shape and read my regular nonsense here. It's been a bit of an up and down lately, but that's a long story I'll hope to get into a little further in this update...

After our return from Joliet in August, our Bluesmobile earned all our trust. It ran like a champ, didn't eat any oil or develop any leaks and was solid and reliable. Lil' Elwood developed sort of an "obsession" - to me very understandable - into the topic, and his whole world seemed to evolve only - and I mean ONLY - around the Bluesmobile and the Blues Brothers movie. There was rarely a day where my little man didn't come home from school without Bluesmobile drawings in his backpack, hell, he even drew Bluesmobiles for his best friends (with ceiling mounted mirror and ticket light of course) and if there was a way to involve the Bluesmobile into daily school tasks - it happened. I particularly looked forward to every Thursday's "Think outside the box Thursday" tasks where students are asked to be creative and change half of a given subject (i.e. water, a ladybug, the earth, etc.) into something they like. I HAD to share these here as well...


ABOVE: It's fair to say I have probably hundreds of Bluesmobile drawings collected so far, each one of them getting better with more details...

  
ABOVE: If it can't be water, a lady bug or the earth, it definitely has to be half Bluesmobile, maybe also a "1977 Dodge Royal Monaco/Chicago Police" cruiser...

ABOVE: Not sure what other students did, maybe flowers? Half earth, half soccer balls? (cough...sorry...we're in Canada...I meant HOCKEY PUCKS)

We went regularly to car meetings where Lil' Elwood developed his own "car show chores" and refined the execution down to a tee: Similar to Formula One precision during pit stops,
Lil' Elwood's job was to jump out of the car the moment we arrived at our parking spot at the show - screwdriver in hand - and flip out the regular license plates to his "custom aged" BDR529 plates. That
always draws some attention - surrounding car owners seem to think there's a kid stealing license plates, but I usually enjoy to stand back a few feet and watch things unfold... their
concerned actions - including checking if the plates are still on their own cars and asking him if this is actually his car... The responses are priceless.

 
ABOVE: His own car-show-chores/rules: 1. Switch out license plates IMMEDIATELY. 2. Arrange all props nicely and chain briefcase to steering wheel. 3. Do NOT look at any other cars, just stay in close proximity to the Bluesmobile and correct/surprise grown men with knowledge about movie stats and more, carefully researched on his tablet... 

I'm not sure if it was during our stay in Joliet or on one of the car shows, but Lil' Elwood took some comments quite serious about our Gran Fury not being an actual Monaco and therefore not being a "real" Bluesmobile. He always knew the difference and never cared, but then I noticed that his drawings - as they got more and more detailed - suddenly all had "Monaco" bodylines and showed the tail section of the car, and he referred to our Bluesmobile as "the Plymouth", mentioning that one day we should have "a real" Bluesmobile. The tail conversion is no big problem - some floral foam, fiberglass, sand paper and just about 288 hours of labour, however, it hurt me a little. While he was right about a Gran Fury not being a Monaco, I knew I'll never be able to find rust free fenders/doors/rear quarters to "convert" the bodylines - let alone a whole 4-door Monaco with a body as rustfree as ours, and an equally low mileage. And I mean - to an affordable price at a time where I actually have "play money" on the side (thanks to my good old buddy Murphy and his laws, there is generally no great car deal in sight from around a month before the "play money" becomes available, to about an hour after it's gone. Then suddenly you check the internet and find what you just bought for about half the price - just in way better condition...) 
Then, in September, things went a little crazy:
I received a FB message from an Italian guy that showed quite some interest into our Bluesmobile, and loved the pictures he found online. The amount he wanted to pay seemed almost too good to be true. I was torn, but secretly replied to his email, sent him some more detailed pictures and agreed to do some legwork for him. I got in contact with a local Italian shipping company for a quote, my brother in-law is Italian and from the same area as the guy and helped with some translations. I learned a lot along the way, for example - if you ship a car to Europe - ship it to Belgium. They won't charge a ridiculous customs fee like in many other countries. Once in the European Union, any shipper can transport the car for a fraction to the destination. And: our cars are nearly 20ft long with push bars installed - a shipping container is 20ft as well, there COULD be an issue...unless you share a 40ft container! That's not only cheaper, but you also have no issues whatsoever when it comes to length. 
I immediately stopped my "rear conversion" project, thought of parts/pieces that I'll have to source/track down if I buy a Royal Monaco and started making lists. Then I found a mint Royal Monaco around 35 hours from here. I looked up parts and pieces and started visiting my favourite junk yards, once again looking up Brian's "Chicago Bluesmobile" page for his conversion report - the blog that helped us so much and inspired us in many ways. It seemed the right thing to do at the right time. 
But...it all came down to the elephant in the room: the biggest hurdle: "The talk" with Lil' Elwood, after all it was his car, his sweat was on it, too, and although I've always wanted a Bluesmobile, without him I would have never gone to that extent.

The plan was easy: I explain him that the deal is great, that we can buy that Monaco roughly 3500km West from here in Saskatchewan AND take a plane there AND drive it back home through Chicago (that usually works...) but also get some other projects done that require some loose change at the bottom right of the pocket. AND get ice cream. Popeyes?? A puppy???
I thought it'll work and he'd be happy. He'd have a nearly identical Bluesmobile by spring of 2023 but WITH Monaco bodylines - and therefore a REAL Bluesmobile in his books.
Nope.
While he was ok with buying a Royal Monaco in the middle of nowhere in Saskatchewan, he wasn't ok with selling ours - AT ALL. And I must say, I was a little happy about that, because after all, it's OUR very own Bluesmobile.
He wanted both, and I wasn't too happy about that. His plan was to buy the Royal Monaco "and make it a Chicago Police car" - well, Sir, unfortunately I can't recall you making at least 5 figures yet, but nice try.
At around the same time, the Italian guy started to show some weird behaviour that threw some red flags, i.e. refusing to send a downpayment or payment in general via online banking, paypal or similar. If I understood it right, he wanted to pay my brother in-law in cash once the car is on the ship, however, that's not how things work. No car leaves my driveway without being paid in full. Selling sounded like a great idea (or was it the sound of "money" that made selling sound like a great idea?), but having a Bluesmobile project in the driveway that is nearly done is a pretty great feeling, too.

Or is it?

Still in September, the wildest month so far, I'm running accross this add:

 

Niagara Falls is a whole lot closer than Saskatchewan, to be exact, over 2000 miles closer. I got nervous. Niagara Falls is about one hour from over 10 million potential buyers, the largest concentration of people in Canada - about a third of ALL Canadians live here - the golden horseshoe between (help me out?) Hamilton and Oshawa on Lake Ontario, and if there is a serious buyer, there will most likely be 10 of them. The car was a 400. I'd love to have some more power, and being a Big Block car, throwing in a 440 eventually would be a breeze. It had the passenger side mirror I'm trying to find. It had dual exhaust. There were pictures from underneath, didn't look bad! There were pictures from almost every angle, yes, it was horribly dirty, probably sat under a tree for a few years, but the dealership ("Billion Dodge") made this to be a car originally from Montana I think, and that means fairly RUST FREE! The interior was great and near mint, if you disregard a cracked Newport or New Yorker dash, ripped-to-shreds seats, rough plastics and door panels as a result of a non-working driver's side window, moldy carpet and - taken from the facebook comments - not a single good piece, but who cares, I wanted to see it. Nothing a gallon of paint and child labour can't fix :-)
The facebook comments got worse ("sounds like a monster truck, straight piped, no mufflers, rear quarters are bad, windshield cracked, driver's door doesn't open", etc) but those comments could have been from interested buyers that didn't want anyone else to snag that Monaco from them. I wasn't going to give up that easily.
The guy that replied to me wasn't the owner. The owner was at a derby for the weekend and wanted to text me back, which he never did. I tried a week or two later but no response. I assume the car sold as the add disappeared eventually, I still think that these $3000 would have bought the perfect Bluesmobile foundation, trashed tan interior, vinyl roof is bad enough so that nobody could guilt-trip you for destroying a "museum piece", the floors were excellent by Ontario standards and the quarters, come on. A 10-year-old Korean or Japanese import has worse quarters here. Decades of Montana weather clearly spoiled the car rotten. Whoever bought it has a great car to convert, congrats.

Back to our Bluesmobile. While all the above delayed the progress on our own car a bit, I had to focus again. Focus on converting the rear and enjoy the car. If I ever find a Monaco with 400 or 440 for a decent price, I might still buy it, but my little man is absolutely right: This is OUR Bluesmobile. We should never get rid of it.
After all the confusion, we had to attend a photo op: Lil' Elwood's 8th Birthday Party! The kids, although none but one knew the movie, were all amazed that you can park the Bluesmobile anywhere without getting ticketed and Lil' Elwood was the proudest 8-year-old I've ever seen. I almost had a heart attack when I heard and saw the roof dent under the weight of the kids, but no damage done, it popped right back out. No photo op for his 9th birthday though! Too heavy!!!


ABOVE: Happy 8th Birthday Myles - and... the chrome ball in the background is probably the closest thing to the Chicago bean you can find in Canada.




 

[AZBlues]

Just read this entire, epic thread. What a great story, from the father/son collab to doing all the cool Bluesmobile stuff that everyone wants to do but few actually do. That Chicago trip was outstanding, making friends there by taking the car to the movie sites and talking to people. I think Lil' Elwood is right about not selling the car, it's yours and the memories cannot be duplicated in another car. I would proceed with the Monaco tail conversion, modifying the Monaco 1/4 extensions to blend with the Fury 1/4 panels. Shouldn't be real hard; a pie cut here, a section there, and look at that, whydoncha. Maybe fenders, doors, and 1/4s will show up eventually, but big deal if they don't, the car looks great as it is, and with the rear treatment, it would take a real Monaco wonk to spot the difference. I look forward to more installments and I might bug you for an update from time to time.

-AZB

[77granfury]

AZBlues

Thank you so much - we're glad if you enjoyed our little write-up, I promise to keep the updates coming, but over the winter months (and without a heated garage) the projects around here slumber for a few months.
I believe you're absolutely right - I'll finish the rear and some details first, and maybe - if I find some time during the summer, I'll stock up on clean doors and fenders if I find some, before the last great junkyards disappear. I can always tackle the "bodyline project" down the road if I'm getting bored. Finding a Monaco is hard as it is, but finding one that is in a similar shape than our Bluesmobile AND not thousands of miles away AND affordable is going to be a problem.

To all of you a HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023, may we all find the parts we need - and may they be cheap enough so we can afford them... I hope all of you find the necessary energy and drive (and change...) to finish their projects, their engine rebuilds, their paintjobs and more and take the cars out on the streets for some smiles and thumbs-ups, and maybe we can all meet up in Joliet again, with or without concert, even if it's just for a movie. It was amazing. 

Oh, and to all of you guys that need some rare parts badly but have a hard time taking the money from the wife's wine budget without getting caught: try writing to Santa before Christmas, many of us forget this option, or think because we're adults, we passed our time. Not true. Santa got quite a wish list from Lil' Elwood this year (I did add a few things here and there) and he got a lot of the things he asked for - best part is - I basically didn't have to pay for any of it - like a Yankee screwdriver in its original packaging with 3 common elevator-bits, 2 Chicago Police Officer action figures so that he can finally arrest his Jake and Elwood action figures, Chicago Police hat, shirt, patches, and a few Greenlight Monacos as well. Had daddy had to fork out money for all this in these hard times, I can guarantee we would've had a vegetarian Christmas dinner on the 25th.
And if you're a little too shy - just take that wish list of your 4-year-old daughter, cross out the "Barbie house", "shimmer and shine unicorn" and other nonsense that'll clearly only serve the purpose of cluttering up the house and replace it with "rust free 74 Monaco fenders", "14o mph speedo" or "working cigarette lighter" and see what happens. You'll thank me later.
  
ABOVE: The Yankee Screwdriver Santa brought looks great. Will try it out in the elevator at work downtown                RIGHT: CPD Action Figures and merchandise: Lil' Elwood was happy and glad he didn't get the "girl"...(female officer)

ABOVE:
Santa also brought 3 copies of the bestselling children's book "Lil' Elwood goes to Jail" where an 8 year old decides to quit his job in the stone quarry against the will of his father and drive to Joliet to get arrested, so that he can finally meet his idol Joliet Jake and his brother inside the infamous Joliet State Prison.
Nope, that's not the full truth. I went on the vistaprint website to write a funny-ish story and create/design a photobook, so that Lil' Elwood's memories about the Joliet-road-trip are all in one place as the star of his very own book. I loved the idea, not so much the price, and sat down for weeks to put it all together. On December 19th the book was delivered. Looked good on the outside, but badly cut pages on the inside, badly centered, the first line on every page was literally cut off. I called customer service and complained, they confirmed that it's their fault, promised to re-do it on the same day and have it delivered before Christmas. Fair enough, I thought.
On December 22nd the 2nd book came. I was all happy - until I opened the envelope - it was WORSE!!! I called customer service and was NOT behaving as Canadian as the first time (polite), I did however apologize to the customer sales rep as it was really NOT his fault. Nice guy, said he feels embarrassed about the repeated failure to print a book for a kid for Christmas, absolutely unacceptable. He sent me back half my expenses, sent another rush re-print order out to have it done a final time, although it was clear that this won't make it for Christmas. It arrived yesterday. It's an exact copy of their first attempt, the top 1/4"-1/2" of each page is cut off.
While it's not nice to rant about a company in public, I took this quite personal, maybe because of the countless hours I invested in - what I believed could become - a highlight of this year's Christmas.
But then it became all clear.
Vistaprint's printing plant responsible for this is in Windsor, Ontario. You know what else is in Windsor, Ontario? Correct. Hiram Walker...namely the "CANADIAN CLUB" distillery, the largest of its kind in Canada and one of the largest distilleries of North America. I think we're on to something...

Updates will come...eventually...when the snow, the cold and the winter are leaving... Have a great start into 2023 and all the best!