Grandpa, tell me bout the good ole days............

[Oldpath05]

I have a headlight ring for one of those. Or it might be to a 40 Merc. I was going to make a wall clock out of it. I did some custom body and paint work for a 1949 Mercury and the owner gave me a few boxes of parts he was going to just toss. I sold the Corvette heads he gave me for $400. I think I still have the tools that were in the boxes but I Ebay'ed most of the smaller parts. I kept the headlight ring. I was going to use a motion sensor and turn on an LED in the parking light segment. Just haven't gotten one of those roundtoits. :ashamed:

Those things are to expensive for me and one of the biggest reasons why I cant get things done, but a clock sounds like a good idea.

 

[Fuddy1952]

Gear Reduction drive!

Yes!
And that slant 6 was great except reaching distributor. Ford, GM, AMC all great inline 6s also...last forever.

 

[Oldpath05]

The distributors on my 68 Pontiac weren't easy to get to either, Ford had a better idea, up front on their V8's, made much easier to change points. I think Chrysler was first to go electronic ignition.

If one gets a unwanted harmonica for Christmas here's an idea, what are friends for.........

 

[Peter 315]

The distributors on my 68 Pontiac weren't easy to get to either, Ford had a better idea, up front on their V8's, made much easier to change points. I think Chrysler was first to go electronic ignition.

If one gets a unwanted harmonica for Christmas here's an idea, what are friends for.........

Funny ............

 

[pmsmechanic]

The distributors on my 68 Pontiac weren't easy to get to either, Ford had a better idea, up front on their V8's, made much easier to change points. I think Chrysler was first to go electronic ignition.

If one gets a unwanted harmonica for Christmas here's an idea, what are friends for.........
View attachment 680846

I wonder where there are cheep harmonicas....

 

[California]

If one gets a unwanted harmonica for Christmas here's an idea, what are friends for.........
View attachment 680846

Now that one is an instant classic. I LOVE IT!

 

[Oaktree]

Them ole slant 6's was one of their toughest motors.......

318s too.

And I seem to recall we'd get about 35 MPG.
You simply could not kill those old Bugs but rust usually got to them first.

ISTR their gas mileage being closer to 25, but still a lot better than anything else in their day. I saw a bumper sticker on one at a car show that said "0-60, eventually". :laughing:

Didn't those engines need to be rebuilt every 40k or so? ISTR something about one cylinder running much hotter than the others and it would cause some sort of problem. Easy to rebuild though.

 

[California]

ISTR [VW] gas mileage being closer to 25, but still a lot better than anything else in their day. I saw a bumper sticker on one at a car show that said "0-60, eventually".
Didn't those engines need to be rebuilt every 40k or so? ISTR something about one cylinder running much hotter than the others and it would cause some sort of problem. Easy to rebuild though.

The distributor cam was asymmetrical, that hot cylinder fired later so it wouldn't work as hard as the other three.

Dunno if it was accurate but Volvo owners back then claimed 10 mpg better than VW. And the Volvo that looked like a baby '47 Ford was light, with much better performance than VW. I bought two of them well-used. I discovered the first was built from halves of two crashed cars so I sold it. The second was nice. I had it repainted and ran it several years including an adventure halfway down the Baja California peninsula. Had to disassemble the SU's after that, to pour all the fine sand out of the float bowls. Mexican gasoline back then was weird. The people we had seen filtering their gas through chamois were right.

 

[turnkey4099]

My first car was a 1951 Chevy Coupe. I was 14 and bought it from my older brother for $50. Paid cash! I turned around and bought a Sears rebuilt engine for, I think, $125. That was a lot of money in 1965--About a month's wages for most. I had been saving my grass cutting money for a year. Spent the next two summer months cleaning, polishing and adding chrome "goodies" to the engine. I even polished the top of the radiator to new looking brass. I was ready for my first year in High School. I already had my driver's license and wouldn't turn 15 until October. School started in September back then.

I had a new to me car, a bright new school parking lot pass and gas was $0.19 a gallon. I was ready for the World. Except my Dad said; to and from school only until I was 15. Man, that was the longest six weeks of my life.

As a note: I took Driver's Education after school in Junior High. They weren't going to let me take it because I was 13 when the class started. But I would be 14 before the end so they let me in. Ya Hoo!

I don't recall how old I was before I got my license. Back then just walk in the door and buy the lic. No training or testing required.

 

[California]

Twice in recent years I've gotten barely passing scores on the DL renewal test. Got every question right except ... I failed every question asking the $ amount of traffic fines.

I never thought to study that part of new traffic laws.