Anybody Remember Back When?

[bunyip]

I bent the floor in a 4WD when it fell in a hole (cattle grid at night and the grid had been removed).
Strapped down both ends and jacked up the middle and left it for 24 hours, bend gone.
Never felt quite the same after that though.

 

[MossRoad]

I bent the floor in a 4WD when it fell in a hole (cattle grid at night and the grid had been removed).
Strapped down both ends and jacked up the middle and left it for 24 hours, bend gone.
Never felt quite the same after that though.

I suspect they did something similar with the bus.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Remember how the windsheild washer bottle was pressurized by the spare tire? I still have one of those bottles that I was always hoping to find a use for. On the way back from the farm, there was a rather large hill, and my Dad would always put her in neutral and implement a mexican overdrive, to save even more fuel over the Bugs already impressive consumption.

 

[Jim Shooz]

It never got really warm in the VW in Glennallen. Never went far enough in the winter. I remember - driving down the road and great clouds of "breath fog" inside the VW.

With the VW car the heater was driven by the cooling fan diverting the spent cooling air past the exhaust. There were a couple of roads that had fords (water ones, not the Found On Rubbish Dump ones) and if the water was deep enough it would flow around the cylinders. The steam would then be pumped inside. If you could get the nose up under acceleration the flat underside would hit the water and you could 'plane' almost to the other side. Of course when you lost momentum and the engine sunk...........

 

[dragoneggs]

Okay Moss... you are reminding me of another story.

My best friend's parents were members of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra back in the day. We were sort of legal to drive. They made their annual pilgrimage to Ashland, OR to attend the Shakespeare festival. My buddy and I drove down from Seattle with his parents, dropped them off, and hijacked their VW bus to go agate hunting. We struck 'gold' up near Klamath Falls. We loaded up the bus with agates, geodes, and other incredible specimens and made our way back (down hill) to Ashland at the end of a glorious day.

My buddy's dad the next morning got a good look at our precious cargo and ordered us to lighten our load. Not by a little but a lot! We were begging and pleading because we had big plans to cut and polish and make bookends and make a fortune. Buddy's dad saw it another way.

To this day, I am still rueing that we couldn't haul our treasures home. Hindsight he was right... we wouldn't have made it over the pass but crap!

I do remember that even with two people and a little baggage, that VW bus was simple to drive, floor it, clutch it, shift, floor it, clutch it, shift, floor it. One pedal or the other was on the floor.

 

[ultrarunner]

Working at the car dealer I found old price signs for the used cars with removable options... one was Radio-Heater... so at one time it must have been an option... there were also signs such as Fluid Drive, Air Conditioned, V-8, Deluxe Model... etc... think Whitewalls included in the stash too.

Several of my military friends bought cars while stationed in Hawaii and all were factory delete for heater... just a blank plate on cars such as Camaro...

The VS Bus actually had a 2000 there abouts payload which was quite respectable... today... few tires of 14" size meet the Bus Load Range...

I use VW Bus 14" Load Range Tires for my box trailers... they have the extra capacity.

My VW Thing had a Gas Heater... the former owner removed it and would not provide it when I bought the car... he believed it to be unsafe...

 

[Jim Nelson]

About 35 years ago I lived in Colo. and an old friend and I car pooled over Monarch Pass every day. The cheapest car we had to make the commute was my wife's Karmann Ghia which had a mickey mouse heater that was supposed to transfer heat from the engine compartment, probably exhaust, to the cab. My buddy named the car "******'s Revenge" Very appropriate.

 

[PILOON]

Up here in Quebec most VW vans had a small propane 'space heater' mounted in the rear cargo area.
The better installations had the bottle clamped to the outside but some actually had them inside.
Actually I have a mall 30,000 BTU heater similar to what were used in the vans.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Possibly during the war years but not as late as 48. All the older kids in HS had old cars (mid/late 30s and into the 40s) all were factory heater and radio.

I agree; they were all installed by the original purchaser, but as an option. In Oklahoma, you would be a fool to buy a car without a heater, but they did...(very rarely)...show up from time to time, and the occasional older car with the gas heater. I suppose some of the old tightwad farmers bought the occasional truck or car without a heater, but it still makes no sense. Radio was different; I don't think I ever saw a radio in a 30's vintage car (original) and most of the early 40's that I recall didn't have a radio. I had a 30 Chevy, a '41 Chrysler and a '41 Chevy and don't recall a radio in any of them. Both my '50 Chevys had radios, and everything since.
I believe that radios were not available in '30's vintage cars until quite late, and they were very expensive.

If you lived and grew up in rural Oklahoma in the 1950's, your car had to have a radio, especially if you ever expected to have a date! If you went out parking, you parked on a hill so when your ran the battery down, you could put it in gear, push in the clutch, and push it down the hill and start it that way. You either double dated, or your date had to know how to push-start a standard shift! Ah, those were the days.

My Dad told me that on the '20's vintage and earlier cars, bumpers, self starters and I think Windshield wipers were all options.

 

[ovrszd]

How many of you all drove a 5x4 truck. 5 speed main transmission and a 4 speed auxiliary?
If you could keep it straight you had 4 speeds in reverse.

Yep. Owned a dump truck with that setup. 4spd auxiliary wasn't synchronized, got real good at double clutching.

When upshifting the 5spd from 2nd to third for example, you also had to shift the 4spd from 4th to 2nd.

I had no problems with it. Great range of gears. Super, super low gear, would just crawl at wide open engine speed.