What did you do to your classic today?

[The Continental]

What an awesome Caddy! I'm a fan of whitewalls, but when you're riding in luxury whitewalls are fitting and more doors are acceptable.

I just went out cruising in my more door '62 convertible tonight. Need to detail the interior and start considering a paint job for it.

[keiser31]

It FINALLY "cooled off" to 98 degrees here today, so I was able to get back to the fuel problem on my 1931 Dodge coupe. I turned the key on, hit the "ON" for the electric fuel pump and heard the usual low "DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD" from the pump. Mmmm.....it used to stop when the fuel line and filters were partially filled with gas.....not today. Replaced the fuel pump and took it for a long ride. Then I took it for a longer ride. Then I put $20.00 worth of fresh regular gas in it for tomorrow's old car tour. It will be our annual "poker run and picnic in the park" tour that my wife and I put on for our little old car club here in Phoenix, Oregon. I will keep you informed as to how it went. Wish me luck.

[dei]

JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS

Well, with the best of intentions to start the Whippet Saturday afternoon for a show on Sunday I had to get the 1952 F1 started and out of the way first as the 1958 Buick is beside the truck up on stands waiting for a complete brake job and the Whippet is in the back (As George Carlin used to say, A bigger place is for MORE STUFF, so a bigger garage can be a curse for me?)

After charging the truck battery (6V) for the night I hop in, turn the key and press the starter button. Turns over really slow thinking I might have to boost it. Hook up the battery out of the 1920 Overland with ever so slight more speed but..... dump a bit of gas down the carb and with only one slight attempt to fire just cranks and cranks. Thinking I've flooded it, stop, let it sit for 15 minutes and start checking things, connections, wires etc. Clean the battery quick disconnect (not really bad), put a wrench on the other cable (not loose) and jump back in the cab. No choke, cranks.... no fire. Half choke, cranks...... no fire. My Son comes by and we pull plug wire off no 1 and check for spark. No problem, plenty of spark. Hop back in (after straightening out my back from bending under the hood) crank and crank till I see smoke coming from under the hood and that smell of burning rubber! It's the battery cable going to the starter solenoid on the firewall. What??? Find the post is a bit loose so put a wrench on it and turn on the battery disconnect only to see sparks and more smoke! Naturally have to change that out and start to look for my spare truck parts (that bigger space more stuff thing). Having no luck with that find (and less and less patients) call on a fellow car club member and yes he has another 6V solenoid. Drive over and he says, try it and we'll settle later. Back to the garage, hook it up and now the started button won't work! Jump the solenoid and she cranks but still no life. Decide to pull a plug or two and........ Holy, Holy! I knew the old flathead blue a bit of oil but...... no wonder there was no attempt to start! Now to look for spare plugs???? See where this is going?

So........ off to my local parts store this morning and see if by chance they have a few things or not. I'm figuring the way things have been going that my College Alumni Car Show will find me as a spectator only today.

I love my cars but....... are we having fun yet? ha ha.

[smithbrother]

Fun, "FUN IS GOOD", but sometimes not as GOOD as other times.

When I look at my 41, often I say to myself, DAM, that was a ton of work, but it was FUN.

I am beginning to think I enjoy working on my two Buick's as much as driving them,, MAYBE, not!

Sorry for your delay,

Dale in Indy

[R W Burgess]

Dusted my '65 Corvette off after lunch yesterday, while trying to get her started. I had not driven this car since April, and since it is fuel injected, it does not like to start the first time after prolonged sitting periods. I'd crank a while and wait a while, crank a while, wait a while. After 4 cranking sessions, I got the old screw driver out and removed the intake hose. I poured a little gasoline into the intake, quicky got inside and cranked once more, she lit right up. Darn! I was aggravated that I had burned the battery down that far before pre-fueling the 327!


Reinstalling the intake hose, and moving out outside the rented garage, we took off for a 40 mile trip down to the small town of Reedville, Virginia where the Northern Neck Region was having it's annual picnic. First, I stopped at the local gas station, filled the tank up and added a whole bottle of Seabrezze additive. Needless to say, this car has a little stumble off-power. (the worse thing in the world to do with your antique car.....not drive it)

Well, the rest of the day was uneventful, although I was late for lunch and all of the chicken was gone...DARN!

I drove her back home, and it sat outside overnight, the first time in ages. I will be driving to Richmond Virginia today to take in one of Mike's guitar gigs at a local restaurant. All together I will have driven her about 150 miles this weekend, hopefully burning all of the old gas out of the tank. A real shame, I don't drive this car more. A club member yesterday suggested I hire a teenager to keep her loose.

Ummmmm, teenager? I remember those days!

Nope, it won't be a teenager!

Wayne

[smithbrother]

Fuel injected?, what 327 engine is in that 54 Vette.?

Dale in Indy

[R W Burgess]

Fuel injected?, what 327 engine is in that 54 Vette.?

Dale in Indy

You're right Dale, two incorrect numbers posted, but the picture should tell the tale, as it would show either a 65 or 66!

[keiser31]

Went out this morning to try to figure out why my '31 dies. Thinking that the problem might be a loose piece of flaky rust, I removed the DRT-08 carburetor, took of the bowl and cleaned it out a bit. No real sign of crud. Put it back together and re-mounted it. For some reason, the choke cable was kinked or on wrong and I could not get it to work freely. Pushed a little too hard and the whole cable fell apart. The crimping came loose and the spiral cable cover slid out of the handle base. Tried to fix that and got the car running again. It ran really rough and when I went to look at the carburetor to see what was going on, fuel was pouring out of the air cleaner hole!! I will be riding in my wife's 1997 Buick Skylark on the old car club tour today.......she will be driving and I will be handing out playing cards on the annual poker run. I am giving up on the '31 for today.

[smithbrother]

Don't we hate a BURNT biscuit?

There is ALWAYS tomorrow,

Have fun though,

Dale in Indy

[TexRiv_63]

Wayne,

You can leave that car with me down here in Texas for the next four months and I'll keep it loosened up. I'll even come and get it and you don't have to pay me anything!

[Bill Miller]

Hi everyone,
I just last week picked up a new pair of wooden spoke wheels for our '15 Dodge Bros tourer, made for me by an Amish wheelwright Noah Stutzman in NE Ohio. Some guys from the E-M-F club referred me to him. He did absolutely great work for a very reasonable price and I can highly recommend him. Takes about 3 months. The bare wood wheels are so pretty I gave serious consideration to simply applying light stain and finishing with spar varnish or clear urethane like a lot of people do. Then I studied a photo of the car I have showing the original owner posing with the car in 1915 and the wheels were clearly painted so clear finished bare wood was not the way the car was made originally. I decided I would restore the wheels to original condition so I masked and prepped them for paint. Before making the decision I stripped some paint from one of the front (painted) wheels and although the wood is solid, they won't clean up well enough to stain and refinish as bare wood, which also influenced my decision to paint the new wheels. So I basically made some more work for next weekend.

Bill

[bhambulldog]

Filled it up with fuel.
12 gallons at $3.899 + 2 bottles of fuel additive at $4 each wore out a $50 bill
The rest of the afternoon, I proceeded to burn up my $53+ investment.

[stock_steve]

I got pretty daring and drove the gnarly project ’69 Bug to work a little over one week ago, on Monday the 13th of August. It got me to work and back, not running super-well, and also died mysteriously right at the corner of my street—which required me to tow it back up to the house, and also kind of took the wind out of my sails a bit.

It sat for the next week, until I finally got to tinker with it again yesterday afternoon after work. One thing I finally got around to replacing was the spark plugs, and a brief test drive after that seemed to indicate smoother and improved performance.

Still have more “proof driving” I want to do before attempting the work commute again, but I feel that I’m once again cautiously optimistic…

[dei]

JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS - to continue

While waiting for a new set of plugs and wires for the 52.......

today......

Talked to Dad about the '28 Whippet. It was his car and after 40 plus years (he is now 88) suggested that I check the float and sure enough! The side draft carb had leaked down over the winter and the float was stuck open!
Seriously guys & gals, the old saying that a screw driver (and bail wire) and you can repair these (old) cars is not far off!

The truth is that the carb most likely will have to totally come off, be cleaned carefully due to the casting material and reassembled with new gaskets but...... it lives again right now! Even the Vacuum tank works well supplying the carb with gas so....

Still need to get the '52 going, or will have to push it out (such a disgrace) to go for a spin in the Whippet but at least this is the 1st running vehicle of 6 that will be getting some exercise. Looks like Sunday will be the test day.

"Orphan Car Show 2012" here we come.

Doug BCA#35039

[4 bufords]

drove my 62 invicta vert to the hemmings cruise in this afternoon in bennington,saw lots of cars and old friends.two hour trip each way 4 bufords from ct

[stock_steve]

Getting cautiously more adventurous with the project gnarly '69 Bug. Had it out for local pleasure driving two evenings ago (starting to get dark earlier, I've noticed--depressing trend of late summer), and it ran good, then did some more yesterday. Here's a shot from about 7:45pm Wednesday evening, at the side of the scenic shoreline CT Route 146, not far from the Branford/Guilford border:



Tentatively going to try driving "Creeky" up to a fun-sounding car show at the Berlin Fairgrounds tomorrow, ref: http://www.100percentkulture.com/Ima...12-4inx6in.jpg and http://www.100percentkulture.com/Ima...12-4inx6in.jpg ...

[keiser31]

Figured out why the fuel was pouring out of my carburetor on the '31 Dodge. When I had taken the carb apart to clean and took the pin out of the float, I inadvertently dropped the needle valve somewhere on the ground without knowing. Put the carb back together like that and caused the flooding problem. Good thing I had an extra DRT-08 for parts! Running like a dream now.

[Kingoftheroad]

Figured out why the fuel was pouring out of my carburetor on the '31 Dodge. When I had taken the carb apart to clean and took the pin out of the float, I inadvertently dropped the needle valve somewhere on the ground without knowing. Put the carb back together like that and caused the flooding problem. Good thing I had an extra DRT-08 for parts! Running like a dream now.

That is good to hear !!

[Kingoftheroad]

Think maybe I'll tinker with my 64 for a while tonight or tomorrow. See what kind of trouble I can get into or what kind of troubles I can solve !!

[dibarlaw]

I did reinstall my vacuum tank on the 1925 Buick, just haven't replumbed it back in. It does seem if I get down to the last gallon it starts to starve. Since I have not put on more than 25 miles since I got the car last October and have gone through 10 gallons of gas(2, 5 gallon cans). Even with some extended idling to check overheating and setting up of engine. I would hope I could get better than 2.5 miles to the gallon!! Took it out to my first car show today. I thought I could get at least some recognition as I thought I was the only entrant in the Antique class. Except they considered cars 25 years or older Antiques. I had the only pre-1953 original type (unmodified). No pre-war class. Only 1 mile away and it cooperated (no overheating). I am still reluctant to drive much farther. That is because there is heavy traffic after that 1 mile distance. I am still having issues with the sticking clutch. This overworks the brakes. As I attempt to stop you feel the engine still driving the wheels with clutch in and brake on, almost to stop before the clutch breaks free and dissengages. On our local highway (route 30) to try to stop short in an emergency and have the clutch not dissengage would be disasterous. I did get brave and drove 2 miles away to get 10 gallons of gas. So this weekend I did about 10 miles so far without issue. Would love to get a tank of ethanol free stuff but the nearest place is about 40 miles away.
Larry

[oldcarfudd]

Yesterday I made a new gas line for the 1907 one-lung Cadillac, to replace the one whose flare fitting had cracked and was (via the exhaust stack!) spilling gas all over the road. Today I drove it to Cars and Croissants, and parked next to another 10-horse, one-cylinder vehicle - an early post-WWII Messerschmitt. What's the chance of that? Some nice older vehicles: a couple of open Alfas, a Beetle, a Karmann-ghia convertible, a TR-6, an MG-TD, a Fiat cinquecento, a 12-cylinder XKE, a Chrysler Town and Country convertible, an HPOF-certified 4-cylinder Tempest convertible, a Model A sport coupe, and the usual bevies of Ferraris, Corvettes, Porsches and other modern exotica. Fun morning!

Gil Fitzhugh, Morristown, NJ

[mikelj]

I spent the morning replacing the incorrect Lucas fog lights on my '68 Shelby GT500KR with the correct ones (took a long time to find correct NOS ones), and adding the correct engine code sticker to the head to continue the detail work for future judging.

[stevefranken617]

Rode to Rico and back.........160 miles, half in the rain. My bike is a "Dirty Girl" but it cleaned most of the bugs off my leathers!! We'll spent some quality time out behind the shop tomorrow.......starting with the pressure washer!

Also added a set of Paul Smith fork protectors. I'll add a photo soon. They're a little 'rustic" but I like the look of them on the stock forks.

[stock_steve]

Attended a fun little cruise night, just one town over, last night, benefitting a high school robotics competition team (hard-working, motivated kids, in other words), and drove the gnarly '69 Bug. Enjoyed parking next to and chatting with owners of a very beautiful '71 or '72 Super Beetle Convertible...



Gotta do our best to maximize these remaining beautiful summer days & nights...

[Yellowriv]

Got a phone from my brother from where I store my cars. Among others, we both own E36 BMW M3s.

His has been broken into and the ECU stolen. They took the kidneys out, opened the hood and then took a panel off the firewall to get to it. Smashed the passengers side window as well. Luckily no vandalism to the car. My M3 which was nearby was not interferred with so I bought it home.

Very unsettling when I think of the damage that could have been wrought.

Today we tow the car up from the basement so the tow truck can take it for repair.