It is a good thing that cold March day was
overcast. Just sitting in its owner’s driveway, the sparkly,
strawberry red convertible still managed to reflect most of the
neighborhood’s wan sunlight. I guess I sort of just looked and
said nothing.
The little
Detroit News ad said “300H” and one just has to check
that sort of thing out, just to confirm, if nothing else, it was
another Dodge 880 or Chrysler Newport. I wasn’t really in the
market for another car --- my F convert driver ran fine and looked
great, except for its interior that had been seriously muddled by
some previous owner. My C however had been temporarily retired with
a severe case of Michiganus Rustosis, so one could possibly see a
“need” for a back-up 300, I suppose. I was not an
especially H fancier though, and in fact harbored a suspicion that
they were not “Real 300s”! So, even if the car in the ad
turned out to be an honest to gosh 300H, there seemed little
likelihood that I would be the one to buy it.
As my eyes
adjusted to the glare from what was actually a well applied metal
flake paint job, I looked the car over. It had chrome wire wheels of
the 1955 – 1956 variety, a fair top, not bad interior and four
little chrome characters on the decklid: 3-0-0-H. (In 1971, that was
likely to mean it was a 300H). It also sported a strange lever
sticking out of the console! No-no not a manual --- just a 300K
tranny installed with the 300K engine (bored to 426 the owner said)
which replaced the original, blown while drag racing. An immediate
look under the hood allowed me to breathe easier --- the 2-4s were
still there. The car still had its original 4.56 racing gripper
which he wanted to keep (I didn’t care) and sat up high ---
like when the local spring shop boys replace your stock springs with
reverse arched springs leaving you the only recourse of cranking up
your torsion bars --- if you don’t want to keep sliding off the
seat!
The guy
actually wanted to sell one of two cars; he didn’t care which.
Since the other car was a Corvette, I didn’t have the same
choice --- I just didn’t know if I really wanted an H. Well, I
finally bought it --- what’s a few hundred dollars, and
besides, I might find a B someday to use the wheels. More
importantly, he produced the original wheel covers in mint condition,
to gladden the heart of this old purist and clinch the deal! I was
later to find out that if I had dallied a little longer, George Riehl
would own it now instead of me.
Driving it
home, my first impressions were: (1) How short the hood seemed and
(2) How choppy the ride felt compared to the F. Apparently, this car
was going to have a hard time endearing itself to me.
The H’s
first Club participation was a trip to Kokomo, Indiana, for our first
annual Spring Meet. I don’t know what club members originally
thought of my glow mobile but they were tolerant anyway. Besides, I
had stiff competition at the meet from a yellow F convertible with
yellow metal flake plastic upholstery! Ah, those early meets ---
weren’t they great?
At any rate,
I had to get my H back to its original festival Red. By the Ann
Arbor meet of spring 1973, that had been accomplished; but not
without flaw. Inexperience with paint stripping (attempting to leave
the original base) and block sanding (not enough) had left the H’s
body surfaces, ah, less than glossy smooth. The H was destined to
show up at meet after meet with lepro-look paint until the mid
eighties when I repainted above the chrome strips. I should quit
assuming that I can paint. Trouble with the spray gun and the spray
gun operator resulted in moocho sunkisstness on the deck and hood
until 1989 when I sanded and polished to finally reduce embarrassment
to a tolerable level. (Apparently fear of embarrassment has not been
that strong of a motivational factor, over the years.)
Over those
years though, the H did manage to endear itself to me, primarily
because of its reliability. It never stranded us or even gave us
much trouble. Even at the 1977 Pocono meet when it lost its over
running clutch (so much for the ’64 tranny) it still made it
back to Michigan under its own power, albeit the last hundred miles
or so accompanied by ominous sounds. I cannot begin to recall all of
the places the H has taken Carol, myself and our kids without
incident. New England several times, Florida, back and forth from
Michigan to South Carolina when we lived there, plus 21 Chrysler 300
Club Int. meets --- very likely a record.
There has to
be a first time for everything so they say, and the first time the H
stranded us was one night in Virginia while returning from Don Rook’s
1986 Spring Meet. The torque converter bushing failed, wiping out
the Torqueflite’s front seal and dumping “type F”
all over I-81. I could not scramble enough to get out of that one,
so we took a motel. It was fixed the next day and even earned a
retro-active hard luck award from Don at the Rochester meet.
The
SC to Rochester to NYC to SC was incident free but luck, whatever
that is, was starting to wear thin. 1988’s spring brought a
new sound from the old cracked block (yes – I bought it,
unknowingly, that way) ever faithful 413. Peremptory teardown, found
a large chunk of #3 piston in the oil pan. Since I did not have a
proper 300H engine and didn’t have the time to look for one, I
decided to have the K engine welded (wrong decision, another story)
and then rebuild it. Unfortunately, the man that I bought the car
from was telling the truth about the engine being bored out to 426.
Ever try and find an 8th match for a set of .060 O.S. TRW pistons in
1988? I was rescued by Cotton Owens who has an extensive Chrysler
parts operation (late model, mostly) near me in Spartanburg, SC. He
happened to have a set of 426 street wedge pistons that were just
what I needed. The vast difference in weight between the TRW and
Chrysler pistons mandated balancing --- probably for the good anyway
to take advantage of the new valve springs, lifters and club
camshaft. George Riehl even passed through Spartanburg about that
time and rebuilt my Torqueflite (nice coincidence eh?)
Now the H
resides here in Tallahassee and driving has been reduced to weekends
instead of every day as was pretty much the case in SC. However
questionable, no really bad luck continued. The trip to the recent
Pittsburgh meet turned into somewhat of an adventure, the H consuming
a gallon of water every hour if we were lucky! Our pit stop time and
performance steadily improved through the night and early morning
hours. By Pittsburgh arrival, we had become really good at hot
radiator cap removal and water jug filling. A radiator, borrowed
from Jeff, alleviated most of the problem, allowing us to make it
back to Florida. Well, not quite. We had to locate a crankshaft
pulley in Columbia, SC but at least I now know of a new junkyard with
lots of old Chrysler products.
The water
consumption problem is not over yet; but this story is going to be.
After returning home, water was getting into the oil so off came the
heads. They needed a .012” shaving and passed the magna-flux
test but some water still disappears. The final solution awaits
totaling the car off in a traffic accident or the location of a 300H
uncracked block, whichever comes first.
Through our
relationship, my 300H has given me considerably more than I have
given it, even considering recent “rough sledding”. Such
should, perhaps, be the case with some poor faithful old Newport or
hapless abused Dodge wagon --- not a 300 Letter Car! It certainly
deserves better than the intermittent “Defensive Restorations”
I have given it over the years. So what can I say? Just this:
“300H, the nineties will be better, I promise!”