Why You Should Drive Your Classic Car

There is often a myth that keeping a car covered up with a dedicated fitted breathable cover in the garage will look exactly as it did when you get it out as when you put it away. Visually that may be true, apart from dust and visible debris on the dust cover. But what about the rest of the car? Providing the environment is ideal, like humidity, temperature, sunlight and wind all should be as it was and prevention is the better path than rectification. My dehumidifier which is always on, is set to the optimum range of 55% to 60%. In addition to that I have a dedicated radiator controlled by a thermostat valve in the garage which is set at a minimum low temp to keep damp and cold away in the winter. Some call it excessive or a waste of money, but it will help protect the car. It took me while to convince the wife, but she did see the point, in the end. The garage walls are insulated along with the roller door witch has a good rubber seal to the floor to stop drafts. Even insulating the concreate with dedicated garage floor tiles on the standing area can make a big difference to that prevent cold and damp rising up from the floor causing unseen damage under your car.

Humidity and temperature swings are two of the most underestimated threats to a classic car. Even when a vehicle is stored indoors like a garage or workshop, the air around it is constantly expanding, contracting, and carrying moisture. That moisture could settle on cold metal surfaces, creating condensation, the perfect starting point for rust. Brake lines, fuel tanks, exhaust systems, and even internal engine components can begin to corrode long before you see any visible signs. High humidity will accelerate the deterioration of rubber components, causing hoses, belts, and seals to soften, swell, or crack. Over time, this could lead to leaks, poor running from split vacuum hoses, or brake servos not working correctly, failures that seem to appear out of nowhere. The longer a car sits in these type of environments the more exposure to problems. Carburettors and fuel systems suffer as moisture mixes with old petrol, forming varnish and sludge clogging jets and making cold starts a nightmare. Electrical connectors oxidise, creating intermittent faults that are notoriously difficult to trace. Even interior components aren’t safe — dashboards can crack from heat and direct sunlight, vinyl can warp or split and adhesives can fail when exposed to repeated hot‑cold cycles. If there is no air movement in the car then you are inviting mould and damp to cause havoc. I always leave my windows a little open to allow the air to move. My dehumidifier not only keeps the humidity where it should be, but it also circulates the air and gives of a certain amount of heat from the motor, so my garages never gets cold as such. The main point is to avoid the extremes in your storage location what ever that may be. At weekends I open the garage door to either potter around or clean the cars, this will give a change of air and keep things fresh.

Classic cars have a charm that modern vehicles simply can’t replicate, the raw driving feel, the analogue simplicity, the unmistakable character ageless looks and even the smell. But beneath that nostalgia lies a truth that every classic owner eventually learns: these machines need attention. Not just the occasional polish or Sunday run, but real, regular mechanical care. Ignoring the mechanical side of a classic car is one of the quickest ways to turn a cherished vehicle into a costly headache. Just because you don’t use it, doesn’t mean things don’t go wrong. For reasons explained above being just some of them.

Even if a classic looks immaculate on the inside and out, its mechanical components could still decades old. Rubber hardens and cracks, seals dry out, and metal corrodes quietly out of sight. A very dear friend of mine, who has a one of the very first 64 1/2 Mustangs once said to me “Even with all this prevention in the garage, I can hear my car rusting in the house”. These problems are especially true with some modern and cheaper after market parts. A brake hose that looks fine at a glance can balloon under pressure and fail without warning sending you straight to the scene of an accident. Fuel lines can become brittle and leak, turning a simple start‑up into a fire risk. Gearbox seals could leak meaning no drive leaving you stranded. Suspension bushes degrade slowly, transforming a once‑tight ride into something vague and unpredictable. These aren’t dramatic failures, they’re the natural result of time, temperature changes, and materials that were never designed to last half a century.

It’s easy to assume that a classic car kept tucked away in a garage is safe from harm, tyres can develop flat spots, batteries sulphate and lose capacity, and clutches can seize to flywheels, brakes can get stuck to drums or discs. Even exhaust systems rust from the inside out as condensation collects and never burns off, the rubber hangers can perish and the next bump or pothole could dislodge the hanger and your exhaust is ripped from the car in the best case, in the worse case it cause huge damage under the car. The phrase “it ran perfectly when I parked it” is often the start of a long list of repairs.

After all those horror points above, the good news is that most of these issues are preventable with regular checks and a bit of mechanical sympathy. Running the car up to temperature, exercising the brakes, and keeping fluids fresh all go a long way. Replacing ageing rubber components, before they fail is far cheaper than dealing with the damage they can cause. Above all, driving the car — even just a short, gentle run — keeps everything moving, lubricated, and healthy.

Classic cars reward the owners who look after them. A little attention now keeps the big problems at bay, preserves the car’s value (which was the main winning point to the wife for the radiator), and ensures it’s always ready for that next drive making you smile and not grimace.

Why do I mention this again? Because a scenario happened to me. I always inspect my car, when cleaning it, especially before a new car show season and take my car down to Mustang Maniac for a full on once over and MOT. I a nice day was forecast during the week and the car was taken for the first drive this year. On the first drive out, it’s always careful and steady to make sure all is well before I start the sixty mile journey to Mustang Maniac. Over the winter I always run my fuel very low so it doesn’t go off or hold moisture. To get to the Mustang Maniac yard I would need a fill up at Shell V-Power which cost me £85 to fill up. Have I mentioned that our robbing government applies 53% ‘fuel duty’ onto every litre of fuel and then add another 20% VAT (Value Added Tax) onto that initial cost after the fuel duty as well, that’s tax on a tax!

The drive down was fine, a little clunk now and again on some parts of the road, every so often a little vague on the steering. A I pulled into the yard the car was lifted straight up into the air for the underside pre MOT checks.

The car was now filthy underneath on arrival, Adam and Mark checked things over as I freaked out trying to clean around where they weren’t checking. Mark did make a comment, not that I can repeat his comment on a family blog, but it was along the lines of; please can you get out the way 😂 He was right though, I was getting in the way, dirt was upsetting my OCD and I had to clean the white bits and the more difficult bits to get to when the car is on the floor. A large bag of new car cleaning white towels were taken with me just for this purpose along with some degreaser and detailing products.

Meanwhile inspections moved from the back to the front of the car where Adam found some play in the lower control arm ball joint on the passenger side. It was a very short discussion to replace it. Adam returned a couple of minutes later with a new boxed one. Since being restored eleven years ago now, the car has only done 7,000 miles since then. Why this particular ball joint failed we don’t know, it has always greased and there was no reason for it to have failed, but it had. This goes a long way to prove a point that I made at the beginning, you can’t take it for granted that if it looks new and not used, the car is actually road worthy!

The lower arm separated easily and wasn’t too much of a job, this part doesn’t need a geometry reset as it can only go back in one place. The offending arm unceremoniously hanging in the wind here as the cross member had to be partially loosened to get the main bolt out.

While everything was being bolted back into place at the front, I started to work on the rear brakes. The drums came off where the shoes and drums were checked over for any unusual wear or damage. Things still looked great after a little brake cleaner and a compressed air blow through.

The rear shoes were backed off, the drums and wheels put back on. The car was be lowered to the ground onto it’s own weight so that all the wheels could be torqued up correctly before being lifted back up in the air to adjust the rear brakes properly.

After everything was adjusted I took the car for a little road test and back to the yard as the guys wanted to know all was good before they let me take a longer drive. Adam called the MOT guys to say I was on the way, a little later than expect due to the suspension fix. The MOT centre was a quick drive some fifteen miles away. I arrived and was directed straight into the garage where I handed the keys over to the MOT guys to do their thing.

The car passed the test with flying colours and I’m all set for another year of safe motoring. The car needs a proper good ol’ clean now and a service of oil and checking of fluids once again. After the MOT I called back into Mustang Maniac as I have to basically drive past it. Adam gave me an old box to put my failed control arm in as I wanted to take it apart when I get a moment which was today.

I cleaned the arm up noting there was plenty of grease about which you can see and around the top of the ball joint. The rubber was in perfect condition and not perished.

I cut the rubber off the ball joint which was still substantial and needed a few cuts all the way round to get it off.

I cleaned all the grease away to expose the top of the ball joint, nothing out of the ordinary struck me, apart from the fact it was extremely notchy and stiff.

The grease nipple was removed and I checked the grease depth with a thin screwdriver which was full of grease and fresh grease at that.

I tried to take a couple of photos to show inside where the grease can just about be seen.

I turned back to the rubber and spotted one small point, a section inside the gator was dry, no grease there at all, but there was full grease elsewhere. Very odd, you can see the dry part where I just happened to make the vertical and slanted cuts.

Reverting back to the control arm I had another up close inspection, There top of the ball joint was scared marked with the arrows on the stud at the base (left side of the pic below). To the right there are a couple of arrows that are pointing to a sharp lip which looks to have broken.

The tolerances on that side of the collar (below left) are bigger than the tolerances on the opposite side (below right).

All I can think is that perhaps I have jammed my car down a pot hole, which I don’t remember as I always drive around them. Or I have caused damage driving over a crappy field or two to park up for a show, that I do remember, frequently. I did squirt some Gibbs Brand Lubricant into the grease nipple hole and around the top of the ball joint. Letting Gibbs penetrate for a while I could start working it around which did eventually free up and was movable by hand again, but it did still feel very grindy.

The only thing I can think of is that a piece has lodge somewhere and cause a seizure that I can’t see causing the wear and the eventual failure. The movement was notchy and what felt does feel like a score mark somewhere. But I can’t really see any thing glaringly wrong with the part in the first place.

Tips for greasing the control arms.

Locate the grease fittings on the control arms, bushings and ball joints. Wipe each fitting clean before attaching the grease gun; forcing grease through a dirty fitting can push grit into the joint. Pump slowly until you see the old, dirty grease begin to purge out of the boot. That’s your signal that the cavity is full and fresh lubricant has displaced the old material. While you’re under there, look for cracked rubber boots, torn bushings, or joints that won’t take grease at all, those are signs the component may be worn or damaged.

Never over‑pressurise the joint; if you keep pumping after the boot is full, you can rupture the rubber and shorten the life of the part. Never use the wrong grease for suspension components which typically need a high‑quality chassis grease, not general‑purpose or lithium‑complex greases meant for other systems. Never grease a joint that’s clearly damaged in hopes of “quieting it down” as lubrication won’t fix a worn ball joint or bushing. It goes without saying that driving on a failing suspension component can be dangerous, potentially lethal.

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Taking you back to the beginning of this post, older cars like to be driven. If these classic cars and not just American muscle, any classic car is standing for a length of time especially outside, don’t take it for granted everything is fine next time you get back in it. Always give the car a full check over before a new season starts, typically when many classic cars come out to play, or when you get the car out from any sort of storage. The annual oil change is an ideal time to climb around under the car, check the rubber bushing and grease everything. Check for oil leaks, or fluid leaks. Always check the brake fluid, transmission and radiator fluids, washer bottles etc. Take mechanical care to maintain your car and not just for the looks of it. Even with all that said, I still had a failure for no logical reason at all, as all initial inspections looked fine. Would driving my car help in this control arm failure instance? I very much doubt it, but something failed and a serious mechanical part at that. What I mentioned at he beginning is still very relevant and you really should pay attention to it and make it a best practice every year. After all that?

Bring on the first car show!

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Winterising Your Car

Now we are at the end of the car show season it’s time to put my pride and joy away and tuck her up for the winter. This is more important than the hotter climates like the USA or Europe. The point is that when you pull the car back out again the car has been as protected as it possibly could have been. I have been asked a few times what my process is over the winter.

One of the most important things I do is to make sure the car is running on fumes. This is due to the fact that the ethanol fuels will ‘go off’ after a few months as it absorbs the moisture from the air. My car tends to run like a bag of nails when the car starts if it has fuel that has been standing. It seems that my carb settings and timings are sensitive to bad fuel, as a result I only use Shell V-Power premium fuel. It’s more expensive but the car does run so much better for it. I do have a five gallon jerry can that I fill up with fresh fuel when I need to move the car again for the first time in the new year.

The classic Mustangs have a lot of chrome and unless protected that chrome could start to pit, usually down to moisture and humidity. I have in my garage a dehumidifier and a radiator with an independent thermostat which keeps the chill away from the garage. The theory is that the car never goes below freezing. I have written an article about humidity and car storage here.

The thing to consider is the environment where the car is to be stored. A decent amount of dry air circulation around the car, and in an ideal situation not standing on a cold concrete floor as this will cause damp issues rising up to the car. I have laid some heavy plastic tiles which insulates the cold floor and the car which I also wrote about here.

First and most obvious is to wash the car, but make sure it’s thoroughly dry, especially if you don’t have a dehumidifier before you put the car away. Use a dedicated car blower if you can rather than a drying towel.

I then wax the car with a longevity wax rather than a show car wax. This will form a micro barrier to the elements, not that it should be needed in a climate controlled environment. It doesn’t matter what wax you use just something to protect it. I used Chemical Guys Quick Detailer P40 this year as the car had a wax a couple of weeks ago. So this was a top up more than anything as this product has a level of carnauba wax as well.

The big piece of work is the wheels. These wheels are chrome and need proper protection. I always clean them and apply a wheel wax during the car show season. But over the winter there is a little process I follow. I clean the tyres and the chrome as normal then I apply a squirt of Gibbs directly into the join of the wheel at the top and allow it run down to the bottom where it will puddle. WD40 or similar will do the same thing. You want enough to penetrate into the gap all the way round but not wate it so it runs out. Don’t wipe it away, just soak up the excess as it pools at the bottom. You won’t be able to get the wax right where you want it, so a penetrating product will get where you cant.

With the excess spray wiped away it was time to protect the chrome. I use Angel Wax Bilberry, it smells wonderful and gives great results. This wax is much softer than normal paint wax and is just like spreading a room temperature butter.

Ideally you will allow the product to cure and then buff it away. I apply it liberally but I don’t buff it completely away. This will leave a thicker barrier than you really need, but I just like a thick layer. This will make the chrome dull, but just make sure the wheel is fully coated.

The rubber tyres can be susceptible to cracking and I over apply an amount of Meguiar’s Endurance tyre gel. This product protects the tyres and keeps the rubber nourished. Applying this much will usually give rise sling as the car rotates. But as the car is now stationary it won’t be a problem. While you are at the wheels check the tyre pressure to make sure they are correct so they don’t deform.

If you have metal dust caps like I do, before putting them back on, squirt a tiny amount of WD40 or similar product that will make sure the cap doesn’t corrode metal to metal.

Glass is given a good clean, to make sure nothing is stuck and will be difficult to remove after a time of being laid up.

Where the rain or water car wash water can get into the car I make sure there is some water repellent applied. This is especially at the end of the rain drip rails that goes into the rear quarters. I squirted an amount onto the drip rails so it follows the same path as the water.

As the doors will be shut you don’t want the weather seal to stick and possibly tear when you go to open the door again. I use a Chemical Guys Tyre + Trim Gel which is dry to the touch almost straight away. I could have used this on the tyres obviously, but I prefer the Endurance.

It’s applied around the door frame and also to the rubbers under the door. Around the screen glass both front and rear there is a layer of black mastic, not how they came from the factory, but it seals the windows properly. The top right photo below shows an arrow where the before and after on the sealant.

The two images above is the trunk area where the before and after can be clearly seen as it’s applied. For the chrome trim and the wipers these are given a a layer of wax, again not buffed to a shine. Before shutting the car up, open the windows a little so that the car doesn’t sweat and go mouldy. Allowing a change of air will help prevent this as well. Having an open ventilation into the garage can have a minor advantage for fresh air, but it doesn’t allow for the dehumidifier to control the moisture in the garage environment.

The battery trickle charger CTEK MXs 5.0 is connected as I always do when the car is in the garage.

I removed the screen washer bottle and rinsed it out and hung it up to allow it to dry. Previously I have left water in the bag and it had gone bad and stank with things trying to grow in it. I had a bit of a job to get it clean again, I won’t be making that mistake again.

Inside the car is a quick vacuum out. I tend to keep a couple of old air fresheners for the winter, give them a quick spritz them with Mitchell & King Leather scent. I hang the air fresheners back in the car being sure to make sure they are free hanging and not touching anything. Inside the car I tend not to pull the parking brake on as this may seize in place. If you’re worried about the theft you could use a T Park Handle lock here for a bit more peace of mind.

Finally the car cover goes on and the humidity gauge goes on top of the car in the middle to get the average reading of the garage. the sweet spot is 50%, with a couple of percent either side.

Last thing is to turn the dehumidifier on which I have already got set up from the previous years which sits around the fifty percent mark all year round now. On the back of the unit there is a filter which is removed, cleaned and replaced. It doesn’t hurt to squirt a little air freshener towards the back of the unit in order to give it a little freshen up.

I do have a little tip regarding the dehumidifier, hang an air freshener near the unit, this will fill the garage with your scent of choice. The downside is that the freshener tends to get dried out fairly quickly due to the functionality of the dehumidifier.

With the car now laid up for the winter I still tend to open the garage up in the nicer weather once or twice a month to let some fresh air in and make sure there are no leaks and that the dehumidifier and the the battery trickle charger are still working ok.

When the new season starts I have to remove all the waxes, and the over application of trim on the paint. this isn’t much of an issue as I give the car a service, grease, check the brakes, full valet and good once over before the first show anyway.

I hope that helps a little and gives you some tips to store the car short term.

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Protecting The Chrome Jewels

On a recent visit to a good friend of mine who also owns a rather nice and rare coloured Mustang Convertible I was shown around his latest collection of Mustang memorabilia where I spotted in middle of his (man cave) garage a dehumidifier. He went on to explain the benefits of it and I could feel the air was different to mine at home. that was it, I was sold on the idea and set about getting one. So I done a little research from various places and found these points where I have collated them and made them a little more readable, I hope. I have since seen references to classic cars with lots of chrome like mine as the “Chrome Jewels”. I quite like that sying in fact. Many storage companies of classic cars all have climate controlled environments.

Rust will form where the surface of the steel has air and water. The first step is to stop the elements reaching the steel, paint does the job pretty well, but even better is wax or similar coatings, or Waxoyl etc. Chrome is surprisingly porous and normally underneath the chrome plate is steel so it needs protecting. A covering of wax, ordinary car wax or Gibbs, will do the trick, it looks invisible, adds shine and protection. Don’t forget that a chrome cleaner is generally abrasive and removes any wax coating, by all means use it to clean, but it doesn’t protect the chrome.

Don’t get to hung up about the temperature vs humidity, as it’s often being mentioned to keeping humidity below 50% to stop rust, but it’s a bit more complicated than that and one of the keys is understanding about “dew” points. All air contains water and as the temperature drops that water tries to change back from a vapour to a liquid, that’s what causes rain, warm moist air pushed up by the weather cools and the water in that cloud becomes a liquid which is heavy and falls out of the cloud – rain. In your own home you see it as condensation around bedroom windows on cold mornings. It is around the window because that is normally the coldest part of the room.

There are 3 ways to fix condensation:

Heat the room so the air inside can hold more water.
Open the window (ventilate) in the hope that air coming in from outside will be dryer and therefore hold more water.
Use a dehumidifier to reduce the percentage of water in the air.

The theory of condensation effect is to take a can of cold drink from the fridge and put it on the table or work top. Even in a warm house you immediately see condensation on the can as the water in the air rushes to the can and condenses back into a liquid. This is the same principle as how a dehumidifier works, you present a cold surface to the air, the air in turn gives up its water which is then collected in a container. The fan in the dehumidifier keeps an airflow over the cold chilled surface so as much air as possible reaches the cold surface.

Back to my Garage; heating the space to about 20c works well (in fact any heat helps) because the higher the temperature the less the water has a chance to condense back to a liquid. This is why I fitted a radiator in my garage, much to the bemusement of my wife! unfortunately it’s not the complete answer though. Another example of the condensation is that you get condensation in a bathroom after a long hot shower even if the air temperature is 25 or even 30c. You could indeed heat a normal garage to 20c, the car would sit in there and not deteriorate, but even with insulation that is expensive way of doing it. Hence why the US “dry State” cars are so popular in UK as there is not much chance of the rust taking hold in the past.

I have done all the usual things; The heating and water boiler is in my garage and gives of heat to the room as the hot water passes through the pipes. I have insulated as much as possible, the walls are cavity filled, the ceiling has plenty of insulation up there and the all important plastic floor to stop the cold coming up through the concrete. The up and over door has brushes to keep the draft out and the back of the door has heat insulating sheets. That way I should then be able to keep the space at least 9c throughout the winter with no additional heating and that is obviously a big help.

On the other hand, when you open the garage door the same thing can happen on a warm moist day, the air rushes in and condensation forms on whatever is coldest part in there, that is mostly going to be your prized possession, your car. I found this rather good chart to show the relative ranges of humidity and what I am trying to explain:

So I have bought myself a dehumidifier. I have reviewed it here and is also under the accessory menu on the main bar. I wanted two things from the non-negotiable options. An option for constant draining and the low-cost of running it over 24/7 scenario. The options were a little limited for my modest budget. I managed to pick up a well rated PureMate PM412 for a modest cost of £120 reduced by sixty pounds from the recommended retail price. I also purchased a digital humidity gauge and left it in the garage for a couple of days to get a reading. There is a max and min scale for both the temperature and the humidity. The gauge is on top of the car in the middle of the garage.

The unit is compact and neat looking with a capacity of twelve litres a day. There is a digital read out and super simple to work and set up. The gauge above shows the first night was 45rh to a max of 50rh which I was super happy with.

The unit has a castor wheels and a recessed handle which is so easy to move around. There is a one meter length of tubing they even supply for the constant drain should you need it which I will of course. The ease of movement makes it ideal to shove out-of-the-way in the corner of the garage when working on the car.

The collection tray can hold one and half litres of water, and over night I think it was up to about a little under a litre. So I am having to empty it morning and evening now until I plumb it in. But, that is the unit settling the environment down then they should reduce considerably after a few days. It doesn’t matter if I forget to empty it as the unit will shut down when the tray is full.

removing the tray

some water collected over night

The power consumption os a max of 245w on full power, but as I only ran mine on a low setting it should work out quite economical to run especially as it will be on all the time. Has anybody else got any tips or tricks they would like to share storing their car over the winter? Please post a reply and we can all share the knowledge.

Roll on the spring so I can take the car out for a drive. I have an itch I can’t scratch when I can’t drive my car.