MTFCA Forum

It became important for me to do something with the 1919 Harley-Davidson engine. The bike has been gaining in value and parts since the acquisition of a basket case in 1973. A total rebuild isn't an option for me at this time but I believe I can reassemble it and at least get all the parts in one place and maybe fire it up. One of the crank pin bearings is missing a roller. My temporary solution was to make a roller from a broken drill bit. Clamping a Dremel tool in the tool post worked very well. As with many things I do what I need to get projects moving. I have lost a lot of time waiting to do things the proper way. I hope to see some other interesting OT projects on this thread.
Rich

The shank of a drill bit isn't tempered the same as the cutting end, I am not sure that a drill shank would make a good bearing. Just my thoughts.

Rich, check this out...if you haven't already.

http://www.competitiondist.com/index.ph ... ory&path=1

Drop me an email, I have a great guy nearby with a two story machine shop FULL of old H-D parts, specializes in J-D models. And a few other people with parts.

Loving it
Dave

I showed this before and still haven't set down and located the before pics.
My cousin's 29 J-D 1200, hopefully this summer I will get to see it completed and ride it with the sidecar.
I got it to the state it's in shown. I disassembled everything and had powder coating done and he had the sheet metal painted somewheres else.
Engine was supposed to have been rebuilt and not started. We needed ignition parts to fire it up and he felt he could handle it from there.

Cousin Phil. Phil has a 15 touring he is thinking about putting a starter on, since his back is not great. He's getting back with me after I reminded him, "you probably don't have a ring gear"

It would probably be a poor roller for extended use. When I get this all together I will evaluate the possibility of a proper overhaul. I thought this is better than leaving a roller out. I am documenting all the short-cuts I take for future reference. I don't want this bike to be parts scattered over two shops and a basement for another 40 years.
Today I am scuffing of rust from the cylinders. These were sand blasted thirty years ago. Then one winter the roof leaked. I could take them to a shop and wait. Meanwhile I would get wrapped up in another project and perhaps not get back to it. Some tedious work is good exerciser and will keep me on track. Many of my methods seem odd but that is me.
Thanks for the concern.
Rich Thanks Dave. If I get all the parts together I may get in touch.

Nothing cheap on old (or new) Harleys !!
H-D = Hundred Dollars...

Re-bushing a Zebra clutch.

Hey there Rich!
I loved your comment: " I have lost a lot of time waiting to do things the proper way."
One of the important lessons my dad taught me, entirely NOT meaning to. He was a "wanna-be perfectionist". He had many great plans. The cars and trucks he was going to restore. The businesses he was going to start. Don't get me wrong, he was brilliantly intelligent, in some ways. But he was dumb as a stump in others. He bought the 1927 Paige when I was fifteen, to be the "great family project". It was disassembled, and never restored. Within a few years, I had restored my first model T, was driving a 1929 Reo, and working on others. I restored one, then another, and another, bought and sold more, had, drove, and enjoyed many (I wish life had allowed me to keep some of them!). I figured out rather early, that although "perfection" was a desirable goal? Never doing a thing just because you were going to wait until you could do it "perfect" wasn't any good either.
Forced once again to sell everything I had worth keeping, any antique close to being drivable, I am again cutting lots of corners, to make a car that will not be anybody's idea of a beautiful restoration. But hey, If I can get it on the road, and on tours? I will love it! And besides, it is so bad that nobody else would likely restore it these days. So whatever I do with it will be a huge improvement.

Thanks for those comments Wayne. Your '29 REO reminds me of a local guy would owned a '29 REO Flying Cloud "Car of the Month". It has gold plated interior handles and many other special features. It was a great car even with a repaint that wasn't up to snuff. He didn't ever get around to restoring it and time has taken it's toll on it. He is gone now but a book could be written on the joy it brought him and the fun we all had with it.
I have a few projects I will never finish but having things to tinker with or move ahead on it is the best way I know to spend time. None of my finished cars are perfect but they bring a lot of joy to me and folks around me. They seem to be respectable enough to tour in and have won several awards that always surprise me. The old Yellowstone Bus was wrong in so many ways but the 3000 people who rode in it didn't seem to mind.
I always admire the perfect cars and the folks who can make them that way. I strive for that and have come close a few times but still work within my limitations. At 71 I only have a few decades left so I will proceed with what seems good at the time.
Rich

I've been working on this Model S project. I couldn't find a frame so my friend Jim Kraut and I made one from scratch.
I borrowed one from a new friend and copied it.,

WOW! Thanks for showing us. What a great project.
I am envious.
Rich

Wow Herb! That IS great! I have made many parts of cars that I didn't have or couldn't find. Somewhere I have the correct firewall brackets for my '15, I know I do. After spending two hours looking for them (most of the parts I have for that car are separated out from the general hoards), I made a pair. Wish I was better with photography, I should have shared the project. They came out so good that installed, almost nobody would even consider that they were made by a bum like me! Of course it does help that they are pretty well hidden between the firewall and hood former.
I do hope you can get that N completed!

The Reo was a fun car to drive, great power, handling was excellent! In fact, I sold the car because it wasn't antique enough for me. I often wish I still had it. But it was another one that really needed some restoration. The interior was very nice for 40 year old mohair. However some wood needed to be replaced, and it had a bad '50s paint job.

You can heat the roller to dull red and drop it in water. It will temper it close to what the drill is. Drill steel and rebar will temper well.

We recently changed the clutch in our museum's 1913 Empire.
It is a wet, cork clutch similar to the ones used by Hudson. Fortunately there are 2 knowledgeable Hudson owners available to give us advice.
This is one museum car that is kept in running condition and does get driven a little.

Really cool! Fun to see the transmission and levers too.
Thanks
Rich

Here is another photo of the Model S project.
These are speed levers. The one on the left is the new one. It was milled out of bar stock and the clamp on the end was welded on. The middle one is an original and the right one is a casting. I'm going to use the one on the left. I'm told the lever is supposed to be brass plated.

This 1915 Maxwell was missing the left door. To make a new one I built 2 wooden forms. The first one (at right) was used to bend the sheet metal edge over 90°all around. The second was used to form the bead around the door. A bar with a stem welded on formed the bead into the groove between 1/8" flat bars screwed onto the second form. This door has an overlap on three sides that covers the gap between door and doorway. A half oval bar was made to fill the bead. Backing up the sides with wood blocks the lip could be formed with a chisel dull enough not to shear the metal. The half oval bar can then be pried out.

Richard you remind me of a man called "Pop" Rice. That is going back a ways. Does anyone remember hearing about him?

Of course a hinge and latch also had to be made. The hinge is more complicated than a T hinge as it is concealed inside the door post. However it was possible to just copy the original, other side and make a satisfactory one. Finding the right thickness for the latch plate took some digging. A suitable piece of rusty sheet was final found. The guide is attached with slots like some Model T latches. I found I could make the odd spring by unwinding a coil spring and re shaping it. As luck will have it a real latch showed up at a swap meet and a hinge was on Ebay. Both several years after the fabrication. No doors yet. The satisfaction of making these things is worthwhile al by itself though.
Rich

Hi Herb. I had to go check. A 1969 CAR Classics had an article on a "Pop" Burnside. I thought it might be him until I read the name. He was an old school Blacksmith who built an 1893 "Velo" from scratch. (In his eighties) Several other projects including a complete Oldsmobile limited body. Now I realize how much influence the old timers had on what I do. They seemed so much bigger that life at the time but now I realize they were just regular guys like us doing what they enjoyed doing. Perhaps some of the bright young folks will find inspiration by things they see on these forums.
Thanks for taking my feeble mind back to that.
Rich

Nice to see people that wil make the odd parts. Sometimes it's easier than most folks think and it's fun to be able to say you made them.

It is fun. I was very frustrated with Model A reproduction parts back in the 60s. Many were not well made and I always bought the cheapest. When I started building non-Ford cars from junk making things was my only alternative. I found it much more satisfying than paying money for bad parts. Now that most reproduction parts for T's are well made it makes that nice. Since I enjoy spending time that way it makes for many pleasant hours.
Rich

Great stuff, seems impossible until you show us. Thanks

John, I think you would agree that part of the magic is being able to find the right materials to work with. I searched high and low to find some sheet the right thickness for the latch plate. I finally found it in the "For Scrap" pile I intended to take to the scrapyard some day. It was an odd thickness.
While I'm thinking Maxwell I needed a tubing size (7/16 OD X 5/16 ID). A sleeve for the magneto linkage fits over the throttle cross shaft. The original had rusted solid and no heating soaking or pounding had freed it up.
A simple item to find? No. I went to every shop and supply house and it was not to be found. I went online and could buy 200 ft of it but not a short piece like I needed. As luck would have it I has rescued some tubing from a former job and used it for wire conduit for my racer. (We were hard on head and tail light wiring). It was the perfect size and a 5/16 rod fit nicely inside of it. Keeping stuff around has saved my bacon so many times.

One of the charming things about the Harley JDs is the pocket valve arrangement. There are two indentations in the right tank for the intake valves to work in. The "Tower" that the rocker arm pivots in is very hard to find. I thought it would be fun to try and make a pair. Fortunately I had one for a pattern though it was broken at the bottom . A piece of 1 3/4" round bar came in handy for this. Machining the cones careated a lot of shavings. Then some discs were cut from sheet for the bottom flange and brazed on. The pivot arms were an odd shape and it took a while until I realized I could cut them from a slice of the same round stock. By machining the end flat I could drill perpendicular holes in strategic places and eliminate much sawing. The remainder of the shaft made a handy jig to hold the pieces in a vice or the lathe. A piece of 5/8 square stock was used as a jig to hold the rocker shaft holes in the same position as the original while brazing the arms to the cones. The rest of the project was to grind, file and sand the parts without destroying the turned cone shape. These will nickle plate nicely when I get some more parts made.
Rich

Awesome work, Richard!

Amazing !!
The 29 of my cousin's was that color before the blue.
I still haven't remembered to find the before pics when I am at my PC.

I hate, loathe and despise bleeding brakes on my old truck. It seems a leaking wheel cylinder allowed all the fluid to drain out of the master cylinder. With some vehicles that's not a big problem. You just fill the reservoir and pump the pedal until all the bubbles are out of the line. Not so with this beast. Once the master cylinder runs dry, getting fluid back into it is the job from Hell. I was finally able to get fluid flowing again by applying air pressure to the reservoir with a shop vac. Tomorrow I'll buy a new ground cable and hope that has me ready to get some yard work done.

Steve, on a vehicle that is hard to bleed like that, you can push fluid through the bleeder and fill the system one wheel at a time. Start at the furthest wheel and work your way to the closest. It pushes the air up into and out of the master cylinder. This can be used if you have to mount the wheel cylinder upside down for what ever reason.

Dennis, thank you for that information.

Well Richard I couldn't not look up "Pop" Rice.
I read and still have the article somewhere that is referenced in this AACA discussion:

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/148437-th ... -articles/

It is one of the earliest influences I had I regard to old cars.
Does anyone else remember it?
I think it was reprinted in one of the club magazines.

Herb

It is amazing how those fellows have influenced us. I wish I had known about him.
The AACA discussion mentioned Dave Rice. Certainly not the same person but a huge mentor in my Life. His humorous writings and technical articles in the HCCA Gazette were priceless. He was caretaker of a 1902 Tourist that he drove on many tours. His encouragement to find a 2-cyl cars finally landed my '07 Buick. He asked if I would do a painting of a young cowboy topping a Wyoming hill in a similar Tourist car. I failed to produce one before his passing. I will post a painting of him in my OT painting thread.
It is my fervent hope that some youngsters can enjoy some of the same kinds of things form the more knowledgeable characters here on the Forum.

Wow! What a great idea for a new thread. Thanks, Rich!

We put a new front suspension on my wife's '67 Mustang yesterday. As I have no way to do an alignment, it will have to go to a shop for that, but we called ourselves setting it up for a little toe in before driving it home from my son's house (He has a lift in his shop) . Hopefully, the tire shop has a competent front end guy who can set caster, camber and toe in on a car with old fashioned strut rods and such. I have heard of shops that only set toe in and call that an alignment.

I've been working at fixing oil leaks on my 64 Imperial and my wife's 69 Super Bee. Had to do some helicoils. I also had my 14 year old Daughter change the oil in the Jeep and put a transmission cover on the 67 Charger. Spark plugs all around. Ha!

The Imperial.

Is the Super Bee an original Hemi car ? Is it a 4-speed or Torqueflite car ? Rear gears ?

I hide this 66 Coronet in my shop:

Magnum 440, 4-speed, 3.23 Posi. A very easy car to wreck with that combo.

Yes all numbers matching. It's a 727. Dana rear. Has the Super Track Pack option but someone changed the gears out to 3.75. Love your B Body!!

Sorry for the Raoul confusion. Not sure how that happened ..... The Coronet was the first
car I ever really took notice of when new, and really took a liking to them. Watched them
being offloaded from the trucks at B.C. Hawk Dodge in Bellevue, Washington. I was five years
old. Years later, when I needed a car as a stand in, while I did major work on my DeSoto, I got
the Coronet in trade from a guy who wanted my 74 Powerwagon.

The 440/Hemi combination with a 4-speed/posi provides a serious challenge to not getting the
car sideways on hard lift-offs with one hand off the wheel to be doing the shifting. The A-833 is
a pretty "mechanical" transmission (not smooth shifting). With that much thrust to the posi, that
back end can easily come right on around, and with only one hand on the wheel, it can be a little
hairy !

I love all the 66-69 B-body cars. I have a special affinity for the 66-67 cars for their open interiors
and chiseled body lines, and of course, having seen them as a kid being sold new.

Welded up a bracket from scrap to mount a spare tire. (3) 1/2"-20 screws 1-1/4" long, 85¢ each, set of lug nuts $9.00.

Here you go Burger, my neighbor's 68 RR.
I will get some more pics this summer.
He has an old Desoto (39?) and he has a early Hemi for it, awaiting a Willis project before it...

Burger in Spokane wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 26, 2019 10:53 pm

Sorry for the Raoul confusion. Not sure how that happened ..... The Coronet was the first
car I ever really took notice of when new, and really took a liking to them. Watched them
being offloaded from the trucks at B.C. Hawk Dodge in Bellevue, Washington. I was five years
old. Years later, when I needed a car as a stand in, while I did major work on my DeSoto, I got
the Coronet in trade from a guy who wanted my 74 Powerwagon.

The 440/Hemi combination with a 4-speed/posi provides a serious challenge to not getting the
car sideways on hard lift-offs with one hand off the wheel to be doing the shifting. The A-833 is
a pretty "mechanical" transmission (not smooth shifting). With that much thrust to the posi, that
back end can easily come right on around, and with only one hand on the wheel, it can be a little
hairy !

I love all the 66-69 B-body cars. I have a special affinity for the 66-67 cars for their open interiors
and chiseled body lines, and of course, having seen them as a kid being sold new.

MOPAR or no car! Unless it's a T. Ha Ha Ha

Mopar_man wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2019 7:27 am

MOPAR or no car! Unless it's a T. Ha Ha Ha

Nothing wrong with Mopar - remember it was the brothers Dodge that did a lot of work for Henry in the early days of the T, before they went out on their own. Makes them kind of like a cousin of sorts!

Susanne wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 29, 2019 8:18 am

Mopar_man wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2019 7:27 am

MOPAR or no car! Unless it's a T. Ha Ha Ha

Nothing wrong with Mopar - remember it was the brothers Dodge that did a lot of work for Henry in the early days of the T, before they went out on their own. Makes them kind of like a cousin of sorts!

My first love was Mopar. I have 3 old ones and 4 newer ones.

I have very little use for Fords, in the main. They are "cheap" cars with below par engineering
and finish. I know, ... heresy around these forums. But I am not a brand loyal drone. I like all
sorts of cars, and the T wins my favor for being the iconic machine of early 20th century Americana.
Henry's intent, empire building, and legacy are all embodied in his T. What the T did TO and FOR
America is something I feel privileged to own/be a part of. But I like Hudsons and Packards and
even a lowly Chevy here and there, just like I like my Fords.

The T was an honest cheap car. As Henry adamantly insisted, it was nothing fancy and purposely
without frills. Had the world not been sold on fleeting fashion and gee-gaw, the T would have been
made even longer. But Henry ultimately was wrong about how his T was all the car any American
needed. Sad, but true. But for a dolid 15 years he was spot on in his assessment.

I hope to one day find the early 20's Packard sedan that sat in quiet repose in a neighbor's basement
garage when I was a kid. Like the TT I have now, it just embodies that steam era Americana I am so
attracted to. The Mopars I have had forever will likely get sold. I get so much more enjoyment out
of 20's vehicles. 1912 Overland, 1913 White, so many cars to love !

Maxwell competed with Ford. They were a bit more expensive but offered some finer details Fords didn't need. Among them was the linoleum covered floor boards and running boards. Tony Lauria makes this stuff available to restorers and I put this in my 1915. Lacking the proper trim I made some from sheet and aluminum shapes. I had a few original pieces to go by. Access to Maxwell parts books on the web made it easy to know what to make. Maple was used for forms to bent the edges. Sadly, building three more Fords have put this project on hold. I hope to get back to it soon.
Susanne, I call it Pre-Mopar.
Rich

Very nice work Rich !!

Workin on the beast - ‘22 Mack AC.

Need to have it completed by its 100th birthday. Bulldog Rescue !
In-frame over haul.
Nothing beefier than a chain drive.
Original Bulldog nose.


Boy do I wish there were parts suppliers for AC’s like we have for T’s.

Trucks are a whole lot to take on but so satisfying.
Good on you.
Thanks
Rich

What a beast! Keep us updated on this , I for one will enjoy seeing it come back to life. Just finishing up a two year TT project myself.

Sweet truck! Uh huh! Please let us see as you go.
Paul, I'm going to ask my own nagging question: Where does the warm air from the rad go/ get out?
Teens IH trucks, the IH 8-16 4 cylinder tractors were similar and a French car, jeez the name escapes me when I need it most.
I've been working on non vehicles mostly so that's beyond the scope of this site.
That's OK but I sneak one odd project in a bit on another OT thread.

Good question. Some real novel designs on this truck.

The intake air to the radiators comes in from a squirrel cage blower on the rear of the flywheel -
the lower cast aluminum housing is removed here - then the air flow is divided into two as it travels up in the ducting in front of the firewall
and
out each radiator from the sides.

I bet that was hot to drive in summer?

Thank you very much Paul! That explanation's Gold to me and makes perfect sense now! Very cool!
Remember the Off Topic side of this site if you'd be willing to share more as you go or a link for us.
I, for one would be very interested. My wife calls it blogging: I call it information sharing of important mechanical topics and your Mack is a vehicle and related to the automobile hobby.

Dallas Landers wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 29, 2019 10:01 pm

I bet that was hot to drive in summer?

What - You don’t believe the 2-18 air conditioner will be enough ?

One of our other non-T vehicles is a '52 Studebaker Commander four-door sedan with the factory 232 V8 and Borg Warner automatic transmission. It has just over 99,000 miles on it, and runs great. We've only had it a few months now, after it had been in a barn in eastern NC since 1994. I replaced the water pump and rebuilt the fuel pump. All the brake parts are new, as are the tires. It has Studebaker wheelcovers but they are a little later model than '52 and I hope to find the correct ones for it. I have been cleaning and painting the engine and under hood area most recently. We love driving it and family members that have ridden in it are impressed with the quite smooth ride. It draws attention everywhere we go in it, people even roll down their windows at stoplights and ask questions about it.
The truck that can be seen thru the windshield in the second pic is my '55 Studebaker truck, daily driver.

Love those Studebakers!
Rich

Studebaker always made good looking trucks, right up until the Lark trucks, ... which are OK,
... just not outstanding, like what came before.

The company had a bad habit of going down the "Rambler" rabbit hole of less-than-stellar styling
for their cars, and sales suffered accordingly. But when Studebaker got the bat on the ball, it was
usually a home run !

My brother owns one of the six Commander coupe show cars Studebaker paraded around the car
show circuit in 1953. Hard to believe a rather weak independent maker could field such a radical
car against the competition. Still, it was not the sales success it should have been. People were
stuck on buying dumpy, anemic Fords and more understandably, the more stylish GM offerings.

Good on you to go with an orphan make. Don't you just love the look you invariably get when you
get asked what kind of car you drive, and you reply "Studebaker" ! My DeSoto gets the same response.
I could have a similar Chrysler, and the reaction would be flatline. But say "DeSoto" and you can just
see the blank stare back, as they visualize a swamp-dwelling dinosaur !

The 1907 Buick I posted on the Journeys and Joyrides yesterday had overheated for many years. The original radiator core had been discarded and a new core installed twice trying to solve the problem. Nobody wanted to open up a water pump that wasn't leaking I guess. It was suggested I do so. I found that the drive gear had broken at it's square hole. Not only was the pump not pumping but the gears were not letting any thermosyphon effect through. These gears were made of a light porous material that has very little strength. I believe it was done to be the weak point in the pump and would break before the more expensive parts in the motor would should the water freeze.
I selected to make new gears from bearing bronze and just be careful. Not having a mill I simply scribed out the shapes and drilled and hacksawed them to shape. I checking to make sure they didn't bind. While they are not precisionally perfect they do push water which is noticeable looking in the radiator neck. It cools very well for an old car under 35 MPH. just more fun along the way.
Rich

Rich, may I ask why you didn't guess at straight cut pump gears instead of the "very little strength" bent over style?
Funny what a fella with a crazy mind, a hacksaw and a file can do? Been there, done that myself. NOT with an '07 Buick tho...
Good reminder for everyone. We CAN.

This probably won't be the most popular thing on this forum, but I stuffed some modern tech in a 50 year old car and have been driving it to its limits. EFI 383ci LS1 stroker made 434hp/449ft-lbs to the rear wheels. Lots of suspension upgrades, big brakes, and sticky tires make it handle quite well, beating a lot of modern sportscars at the autocross. (finished 22nd out of 101 yesterday)

Duey, I just tried to copy what the engineers decided on in 1905. When I try to improve things I lose out. Hacksawing is one thing I think I am getting good at.
Derek, this is a good place for those interests and it broadens our horizons. I don't understand the technology but like the colors.
Rich

The Harley rockers plated nicely The next step was to build the shafts to rock on. I waited til the plating was done for any size changes. Bushings were also made. The shafts are drilled for oil and have a little box at the end with a spring loaded cover. I made a temporary cover from a tin can bottom. It was a little tedious installing the spring. Coils springs can be pulled straight and modified fairly easily. Eventually I will build better covers perhaps out of stainless. I think they are a bit dainty to buff and plate.

Beautiful !! Uh, what is it ?!?

After your edit - I kinda figured that's what I was looking at, funny how so few words make it perfectly clear. I still say it's beautiful !!

I had written the text and previewed it but the text did not go with the post. Thankfully we can edit. I think it's more understandablr now.

I recently had to repair the muffler on my '14 Metz.

On July 13th I drove the Metz to the annual Metz Gathering at the Waltham Museum in Waltham Massachusetts, that being where Metz cars were built. The round trip was about 150 miles.
Well, as I was checking over the car a week later before attending a local meet I discovered that the muffler was falling apart due to one of the nuts which hold together the muffler and loosened and fallen off. No driving the car in this condition. Bummer!

These nuts (four of them) screw onto two thin pipes (or heavy wall tubing) which run the length of the muffler on the inside and exit through the two cast iron end caps. The pipes are 0.665 inch OD and the ends are 24 threads per inch. The only place to get these unique nuts is from the Metz parts room or from the chunk of steel on the table of the milling machine.
I spoke to my son-in law for assistance as he is co-owner of a small machine shop. My daughter married well.
"No problem" says he, "Let's make four incase another is lost later." They looked good and fit nicely.
After removing the muffler from the car to decoke it I discovered that the inner baffle was absent! I fabricated a replacement with a piece of appropriately sized exhaust pipe which I perforated as the originals were. I also added a small bracket and spring to hold closed the valve of the integral cutout valve.
It was a satisfying project.
The component parts of the Metz exhaust system, excluding the manifold.

The Metz has, I think, a very restrictive exhaust system. After the exhaust gases enter the muffler through the short exhaust pipe, they leave the inner baffle through the many holes. Then those gasses must enter the three narrow slots milled into the two inner pipes and exit through the ends of the pipes. The Metz manual mentions that the exhaust cutout can be opened on hills for more power.

These two holes (the ends of the inner pipes) and the two on the other end cap, are the exits for the exhaust gases.

Those Metz cars are delightful and seem like good cars when adjusted properly.
Muffler construction was quite nice in those years. The cast ends had lots of class.
Rich

There was a 1914 Metz 22 in pieces for sale in NY state on the HCCA classifieds. It came with two engines and was quite reasonably priced. If it had been nearby I would have jumped on it, but the cost of going halfway across the country and bringing it back would have been too much.

While I was pondering the NY Metz, I did some research and found out that Metz engines use a 1/2 inch pipe thread spark plug like a Model T, but with a much longer reach. When I checked around for the availability of spark plugs, I could only find one source, and he wanted over $100.00 each for them!

Senator Charles Bovey let me in a shed in Nevada City, MT where he had a Metz. He enjoyed leaving cracks between the boards of the shed hoping some folks would discover the 5 treasures inside. I was surprised to see how similar the 4-cyl engine looked to a Model T engine. Charley was a character and I am glad I got to meet him. The red car is a Cameron and is air cooled. Another Metz encounter is when we got to start this one.
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/599638/669330.html

I decided to fix up the body on my newly acquired Dodge. New front fenders arrived Friday...scuffed and ready for paint. Drop of at my buddy's body shop tomorrow and he can huff the fumes.
By the time I bought a pint of paint, reducer, clear and catalyst. He'll do it for very little more. The right front fender is about the worst.
Patching the bed will happen this winter, hopefully.

Well there goes your fuel milage Dave! Adding all that extra weight in steel?

Dallas Landers wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 18, 2019 9:27 pm

Well there goes your fuel milage Dave! Adding all that extra weight in steel?

Oh...it seems 9mpg loaded or empty is average. The Taiwan fenders are about the same weight as the MOPAR rusty ones.
Besides, it's all about aerodynamics at 200mph !!

Rich Eagle wrote:
" Those Metz cars are delightful and seem like good cars when adjusted properly."

Rich, I am so pleased to hear you say that. I think that they are good, decent cars when properly dialed in and not at all deserving of the lousy reputation they suffer from now. Metz won the 1913 Glidden Tour, how bad can they be? I have made it a mission to drive my Metz often enough to prove that they can be a dependable tour car and are not deserving of the slurs currently directed towards them.
Sure, they are not a large, powerful car such as a Pierce or a Winton, but like our beloved Model T, they were a popular car and did sell in moderate quantities. They were exported world wide.

The Metz team which won the 1913 Glidden Tour.



And Mark Strange wrote:
"There was a 1914 Metz 22 in pieces for sale in NY state on the HCCA classifieds. It came with two engines and was quite reasonably priced. If it had been nearby I would have jumped on it, but the cost of going halfway across the country and bringing it back would have been too much."

Yes, I, too, saw that ad. If it had been a bit closer and I had a surplus of time I would have traveled to NY to look at it with camera in hand for research purposes. I had NO interest in acquiring it as I am "all full up." The price did seem reasonable. The ad is no longer on the HCCA site, I just checked.

Friction drive is an interesting power transmitting system and is still in use in some agricultural and industrial applications, in addition to riding lawn mowers and snow throwers.

Got my fenders back from the paint shop.
Right one is done, left can wait a little bit.
These things are welded to the inner fender, air chisel and a spot weld cutter was still a PIA !

Thanks Bill !! Not a "bolt on" fender as I kinda expected...


Here's a little more "unexpected" annoyance.
65 Rambler American of a friend's, pulling transmission to replace front pump seal and such.
Anyone know how this driveshaft comes out ?
Chilton's says "remove shocks, U-bolts at leaf springs and slide rear axle back !!
I plan to just slide the slip joint out of the transmission. One of the U-bolts was already broken, so he's getting a couple made and back to it Monday.

Here's a picture of the whole Rambler...

Hi Dave,

Thank you for sharing the picture of the Rambler. It brought back memories of the two Ramblers which my parents had as my brother and I were growing up.

There was a 1959 station wagon with those vestigial tail fins. Ours was light blue.



That car was replaced by a 1964 330 wagon in green.



There were many camping trips with both of those cars. Thank you, again, for a blast from the past, Bill

I have spent a lifetime shaking my head in bewilderment at what must have gone on
in the board room and styling studios of 50's Nash, Hudson, and later AMC. AMC really
hit their zenith in the fin era with those wagons, but damn ! ... was there ever a company
so out-of-step with contemporary styling as AMC ?

Don't get me wrong, ... I love AMC cars. But quirky, weird, underpowered, and overall
UN-trendsetting they were ! Out of context, they are awesome for being so wonky, but
pick any year of cars from different mfr's, and AMC's stuff is from another planet. Like
someone slipped acid in the watercooler upstairs in Styling.

A long-ago girlfriend's Dad was an AMC nut and kept a stable of neat ones. Like a '74
Gremlin with a 390 and a 4-speed ! Another local had a black-on-black 75 Matador coupe
with burgundy interior and red pinstriping that was STUNNING, sitting on those rallye wheels
they had. But this one had more going for it. Little red tags on the front fenders let the
observer know a 401 hid under the football field-size hood, and a peek inside revealed a
4-speed there too. Boy, would I like to own that car today. Just a giant, elegant, but utterly
bizarre space ship of a land yacht ! A true testiment to what LSD can do, in the hands of
the American industrial complex.

I've been changing the oil and replacing some flexibles on an old GAZ-69 jeep as to prepare it for the warm weather! I'm planning to buy one of these apartments in Athens for the holidays and wanted to go on a trip on the old dinosaur if possible; I mean, it's supposed to be a robust vehicle, not a garage queen!

Come on Burger, what could be more "stylin" than a 76 Pacer ??
But really, I love the look of the early AMX.
About 25 years ago, I was sitting at a light and a copper colored Rebel was 90deg at the other light with a blue haired little old lady sitting behind the wheel. Much to my surprise, her light turned green and granny dropped the hammer !!
Let me tell you she was gone, blew everyone away !!

Un trend setting, wonky, underpowered? Hmmm. Sounds like those ford cars from the teens and 20s?
My buddy just picked up a 54 Kaiser Manhatten with flathead 6 and a Kaiser turbo charger. 44k miles and it was parked in 1961. Original jack and spare tire still there. The thing looks like part space ship part batmobile. Just cool!

I like the early Pacers. The humped-up grille of the later ones was a bad idea,
And yeah, the Javelins and AMX's were cool, but damn ! ... that ass end on them,
as the 70's progressed, was like a nightmare Walmart shopper bending over at the
checkstand !

Whether a person likes them or not, one cannot deny AMC was operating from
another dimension when it came to body styling. Pacers were nice driving cars.
And like I said, I would dearly love to own that Matador that lived in our town
when I was a teen. But they look like no Big Three car ever built !

AMC put out some good cars. Those near unkillable Gremlins... Solid and dependable. Had two of them in my woods a long time ago.

May-ur Keith rode a OT up The Hill today with son pulling, me right behind Just In Case. The OT has no brakes!
I've been lining up my OT up here in the woods. These OT, OT, OT and OT are looking pretty good!

Duey_C wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 28, 2019 8:58 pm

Sweet truck! Uh huh! Please let us see as you go.
Paul, I'm going to ask my own nagging question: Where does the warm air from the rad go/ get out?
Teens IH trucks, the IH 8-16 4 cylinder tractors were similar and a French car, jeez the name escapes me when I need it most.
I've been working on non vehicles mostly so that's beyond the scope of this site.
That's OK but I sneak one odd project in a bit on another OT thread.

And at last, here is the actual radiator.
For scale, the pallet is 48” wide.

Now off to the radiator guy to get it cleaned and checked out.

Paul, that looks heavy. There were no "rules" back then. Build it to what is needed. Thanks for the update.

What Dallas said and add a wow.
Hmmm, removable covers above the cores. Inspection and cleaning if need be. I think, very cool.
Weight: One of my mid sized trac...s... Eh hem OT has a radiator that is 130 pounds and I'd bet that truck rad trumps my OT rad.

Had to consolidate and park everything out of the way for the next week or so - to make room for the RV - (security is on duty)

As we have an uninvited ‘guest’ coming ....


Here we go again......

So much for Labor Day weekend !

More than forty years ago, a few friends of mine were working on big Mack trucks like that! I really enjoy seeing someone else tackle one of these. Wonderful and quite impressive trucks.

One thing about that "short term memory" you joke about on your signature line? Two weeks after the cleanup is done? You can forget about the hurricane. Just be safe in the meantime.

What hurricane ?

Well it’s still coming and now a very strong Cat4. But inland we finally got some good news this morning as the high pressure up north finally broke, which means the storm ‘should’ turn north along the east coast.
Good for us - bad for the Florida coast and Georgia - and South Carolina.

We will still get some rain (5-6”), but we can get that normally in a day.

So we’ll sit for a few days to make sure it turns, then move everything back out, and carry on.

That’s Life in Paradise !

(What were we talking about ?)

My best wishes for anyone weathering the storm.

My Harley fenders had seen some exciting times. I sand blasted them a few years ago and made a wooden buck to start straightening them. A month ago I started the finish smoothing and finally painted them this week. The final step was striping them. I use Scotch Magic tape and 1 Shot lettering enamel. After a few minutes of drying the tape can be carefully removed and the paint dries cleanly without a raged edge.

A couple of months ago, I finally got fed up with the exhaust manifold leaks on my 1971 Plymouth GTX. I thought that the gaskets were blown, but once I got the manifolds off it turned out that the driver side manifold was cracked into two pieces and the passenger side manifold had a circular spot with cracks radiating from it.

I purchased two good used manifolds and swapped them in, the exhaust is nice and quiet now.

As for the paint I use tractor and implement paint from our Cal Ranch store. I matched the Harley color using black and yellow. Perhaps a touch of red also. It's been more than a dozen years. The enamel has a very good shelf life if kept tightly sealed. However as the level goes down air lets the top dry to a skin. For that reason I pour the paint in a smaller can as it gets low. I mixed a quart and moved it into a pint can and then a half-pint can. After painting the fenders the half-pint can was half full. I have tried smaller jars and "touch-up containers over the years with poor results. This time I cut down a half-pint can and soldered it together. There are a couple chain guards to make and they will need matching paint.

Rich

for that very reason, I store old paint upside down. Often times after a few years mellowing, you can upright the can and often mix the paint without breaking the skin. At this point you very nearly have the equivalent to your smaller can.

Interesting tip Scott C, I may have to try that.


Mark S, You may want to check your exhaust system for some sort of blockage or flow issues. One of the few times I saw exhaust manifolds do like that was my dad's '68 Chevy pickup. He had always pretty much done his own repairs most of his life, but as he neared the end, he just couldn't. The exhaust system had been patched along a few times and was really ready to fall apart, so for one of the few times in his life, he took the truck to a muffler shop. This was over fifteen years ago, but even then wasn't like forty or fifty years ago when good people in good shops could easily be found. It only took a few months, and one side exhaust manifold bubbled out and broke. He replaced it. About six months later, the replacement did the same thing. He again got a replacement. By this time, I figured something was wrong, so I crawled under the truck and looked at it. Turned out, the highly rated shop instead of using or making a "Y" crossover/connector to run two banks into a single exhaust, used a "U" shaped crossover straight from the left to the right manifolds! To make it even worse, they cut into the middle of the crossover pipe, and welded the outgoing exhaust pipe in at a significant angle!
This horrible (choose preferred expletives and similes here) did TWO things that made short term failure a certainty! One, because the output was significantly angled, one side of the motor exhaust flowed nicely on out to the muffler and tail pipe. The other side, had to fight its way doubling back and pushing against the other side with a dominant flow. So slightly more than half the crossover pipe had one side that pressurized hot gasses and held them causing the manifold and crossover pipe to heat up way more than normal. And then two, because the shallow "U" shaped pipe went straight under the oil pan, the two two inch pipe formed bends with only a few inches of rise on each end had virtually NO NADA NONE flex. The overly heated crossover pipe, at about a thousand degrees more Fahrenheit than the crankcase, expanded more than the block did. Once the manifold bubbled and cracked like yours did, it didn't take much differential in thermal expansion to snap the manifold into several pieces.
Even if you have dual exhaust, if something has caused partial blockages in a muffler, it can create a significant back pressure and cause the manifold to do that.

Wayne, now that you mention it, I did have an exhaust blockage earlier in the year - the flapper in the manifold heat control valve broke off and got blown downstream in the passenger side exhaust pipe earlier in the year. It was causing an intermittent rattling sound. Thinking that the sound was coming from a loose muffler baffle, I removed the muffler and found the flapper stuck in the exhaust pipe just upstream of the muffler.

The heat control valve in the replacement manifold was already damaged, so I removed it and plugged the pivot shaft holes, so there will be no chance of a repeat occurrence with the replacements manifolds.

Paul, there’s a Mack AC model kit for sale here if you don’t already have one:

https://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php? ... Truck-7539

Duey C, Renault had a similar radiator setup.

John E. Guitar wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 02, 2019 4:58 pm

Paul, there’s a Mack AC model kit for sale here if you don’t already have one:

https://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php? ... Truck-7539

Duey C, Renault had a similar radiator setup.

Thanks but I already have 5 diecast AC’s in the case (and didn’t have to assemble them !)
Everyone’s getting a bit tired of waiting on this hurricane to move on thru, so spent the morning welding a crack in the rear cylinder assembly water jacket, just as the first outer band of the storm was hitting.
Tomorrow night and Wednesday will be the interesting days as it passes us.

Yes. Renault!
Darn it Rich, I thought I could almost call you out, showing those very cool pics of that old motorcycle but a Harley IS a VEHICLE isn't it! So I sure cannot.
A bunch of years ago a fella came thru from Cali at a farm auction and bought a 20's Harley frame for 2500 bucks. Knocked some of us over then.
Now, I understand.

Carry on.

Had I concentrated on the bike stuff rather than the T stuff 50 years ago it would have been a better move financially. The initial $75 for the bike and a couple hundred in parts has increased 100 fold. The wrong parts I bought will easily pay for anything I buy for it now. T stuff hasn't done nearly that well. Not being able to find certain bikes parts stopped me frequently and I have built a dozen cars since then. From time to time I find a bike part and it spurs the project along but I doubt I will ever try to ride the bike. It is a static display at this point but lots of fun to own.
A flathead V-8, a two cylinder car and my Yellowstone Bus have been wonderful projects but for fun and practicality I keep coming back to the Model T's. You just can't beat the fun of driving and working on them for my money.
Rich