There are two projects I pursued this year, the first was new rubber cones for the suspension. I became convinced that the terrible ride was due to the 1979 vintage rubber loosing it's elasticity. I replaced the front two cones first in September, here's a picture of the old/new cones side by side, as you can see the old ones are much shorter.
After completing this on the front, I decided the ride improvement was significant enough to warrant changing them on the rear as well, this was done in November. These new cones plus adjusting the adjustable shocks to their softest setting have resulted in a much better ride.
The second item was this month I was driving the car and was not able to get any heat out of the heater. Matter of fact, then engine ran so cold on the temp gauge it was like there was no thermostat in there. Turns out it had a Motorad Fail Safe thermostat, which was in the open position. See pics:
There are clips that, if the thermostat EVER opens entirely then the clips engage and the stat stays wide open. I had tripped the plunger out of the clips in these pictures, btw. I have not been able to figure out under what conditions that this is a good idea. But I replaced it with a regular 180 degree stat and the engine is much happier in this cold weather. Still not much heat, although I have blown air through the heater core and heater valve to confirm no blockage. Still working on this one.
