1912Staver

Bring a trailer seems to be more seriously in the collectors car market than ebay. And the auction deadline extends if a bid goes in until everyone is finished bidding. No sniping nonsense. Greg

That's sort of what I did except I took a more round about way. I was trying to avoid cutting the inside flange of the rim as necessary in the way you chose. It wasn't a huge job to cut the tread portion away from the sidewalls. Sawzall's work reasonably well on old, age hardened tires. Greg

Hi Harry ! This a is a Ford AA wheel. It's one of the few wheels of this type that are still reasonably common. I have several spares although this being the wet Pacific North West they all have a degree of rusting. It must be nice for the people who live in places like Arizona to be able to find old metal parts like wheels that have little to no rust. They don't use a lock ring { 3 piece wheel } like the Firestones on my Packard 2 ton. Rim[ 1 ] full circle side ring [ 2 ] and lock ring [3] . Just a split side ring with a groove that locks into a corresponding groove in the main part of the wheel. What make are the rims on your Dodge Bros ? It's unlikely but I may have a spare. I am having a big clean up and reorganisation of my parts and project cars. About 30 various teens and 20's rims to sort and find new homes for. Most are wood and steel fellow car rims but a few truck as well. Greg

Padgett, I apreciate the suggestion but these were WAY beyond a bead breaker. A 10 ton bottle jack and my 1946 2 ton GMC truck were used as a improvised press. It deflected the sidewall a bit but just raised the truck in the air. Any space where the tire could move inwards was filled by the shrunken and very hard flap. As well there was a combination of rust on the rim and swelling of the bead area of the tire due to the bead wires rusting over the decades . What should have been a close but loose fit had turned into a serious interference fit. Nothing was going to move before I physically severed the bead wires. Greg

Ed's great thread on his White mentions installing new tubes and flaps. This means he has to dismount tires that probably have not been off the rims in anywhere up to 75 years or so. Is there a good way to do this ? I have just finished removing a very old tire from a Model AA . As far as I can see there was just no way of doing this without destroying the tire. I would have saved the tire if I could have , strictly as a display piece . There was a 2 " or so split in the inner side wall so it was of no further posible road use even if I could have gotton it off the rim intact. The flap has shrunk and completely filled the space inside the bead seat rings of the sidewalls. In order to remove the side ring of the wheel you have to push the outer sidewall inwards enough that you can use a rim tool and remove the side ring. Between the flap and the rust in between the tire and the rim there is simply no way the side wall tire is going to move at all. Like it is welded in place. It doesn't help these are 10 ply truck tires and a good 60 + years old at that. I had to cut the sidewalls on each side with a sawsall, and remove the outer tread, an old " boot ' repair where the sidewall damage was, the inner tube and the flap. The sidewalls still would not budge. I had to cut the sidewall right through to release the outer sidewall. Then I could remove the sidering. And with a sharp prybar sever the bead wires from the inside. I cant see there being any way to do any of this without sacrificing either the rim or the tire. I am sure they all came apart properly when they were 5 or even 10 years old but this style of rim is often nearly 100 years old. I have another , quite a bit older one to dismount next, one of my 27" universal rim style wheel and tire assemblys . Once again I see no way of doing this without destroying the rock hard 90 year old tire. Any tips or suggestions ?

What does the front gear on the crankshaft drive ? # 13, the page is cut off just above the description. Is that the fan drive sprocket ? Greg

Commercial vehicles often used gas lights at a later date than cars. It could be as new as1916 - 18.But judging from a few other cues about 1914. RH drive and outside shift were almost gone by 1915. It does have a Olds resemblance but the rad shell doesn't look quite right. Greg

Ed, I get the impression your spouse is much along the same lines as mine. For the first 20 years my wife and I were together I always had one sports car or another as a driver, usually a MGA or TR 6. And my wife often drove them and enjoyed them. Even went to the odd car show with me. But she had 0 interest in " old " , mid 1950's or before cars, or swap meets , or working on cars. Unfortunately $ and time pressures { demanding career, paying for a house , raising a family} for the most recent 15 years got in the way of keeping one of my sports cars road worthy. She now views all my hobby car " stuff " as at best a minor pita and at worst ....well we won't even go there. Greg

Ditto, That's not really a 5 stud wheel flange. It looks to me like a artillery wheel ; 10 wood spokes , hub. It looks like a reasonably high quality unit ! Greg

No, T series cars just used a regular ring and pinion.. There are a wide range of pre war British cars that are largely unknown here in North America. Greg

Those Triumph's are quite nice. They do however have a drawback as shared by many pre war and early post war British cars. { and most pre late 1930's cars in general } Coach built bodywork , metal skin panel work over a complex ash body structure. A strong factor in why these cars are fairly rare these days. Rebuilding the body is a major undertaking. And as far as I know no " wood kit " available like for T series MG's and Morgan's. Just expensive, hand labor by a very experienced woodworker. Greg

A time capsule, par excellence ! Greg

The impulse will be at the other end. I will see if I can find a picture. ...Here is a DU4 with an impulse. It is the drum shaped part right where the drive connects. Greg

I agree about the dates you quote, but by 1917 virtually all automobiles had electric starters and HT coil ignition. Even on earlier brass era cars I don't recall seeing a impulse style mag. D 4's , DU4's regular and Dual and duplex, yes they were often found on automobiles. But the only impulse mags I come across seem to be from hand crank only engines. That is the purpose of the impulse feature after all, a nice hot spark at a very low rotational speed. If you have a starter motor, the impulse feature is a largely unnecessary complication. Greg

The mounting shouldn't be different, the impulse is at the drive end and makes the mag. slightly longer. You would just have to shorten the drive shaft by the appropriate amount. Actually the photo you posted does not look like a impulse mag. Greg

Are you sure the impulse on the mag is O.E.M. ? I only normally see them on tractor and early truck mags that are hand crank start only. Greg

I am probably somewhat like you. From a quite young age I had a fascination with mechanical things. About age 10 I became very interested in old cars; a couple of neighbors had mid 1920's hobby cars just Dodges but in my small world I wasn't really exposed to any of the great cars. My father liked the mid to late 1930's lower end classics , LaSalle's and small series Packard's cars that were dirt cheap in his youth but he never owned. The only antique car he had was a 1929 Nash sedan when it was just a $40.00 used car. But he would take me to the vintage car shows such as they were in our area. Mostly Model A Fords, the occasional Chevy or Dodge or Model T. I knew there were very early " gas buggy " type cars from books although I didn't see one in the flesh until many years later. But the cars from what I consider the best era of Brass Cars , 1908 - 1912 and medium quality and up were totally unknown to me, there were only a small handful of these cars in my area and I just never saw any. In about grade 9 I was introduced to one of the " ground floor " collectors in my area. He had saved several very good condition cars from the 1906 - 1914 or so era , primarily in the mid to later 1950's. I was hooked. It's been very up and down since. Old cars from my favored era are quite rare around here, very rarely change hands, and when they do as often as not quietly between people who have known each other for a long time. And usually an easy decade older than I am. So buying a running early car has been for all practical purposes impossible in my situation. I bought my Staver 40 HP basket case 20 years ago, but it is really just at the limit of my resources. I am too far away from the meets that could make a difference Hershey, and Bakersfield, and too short of ready cash to pay others to make needed parts or buy much " long distance ". Progress does happen, but at a glacial pace. The main thing was I could afford it , it is after all a total basket case. And it was on the open market where I was exposed to it, any experienced brass era guy's no doubt took one look and kept going. When my son was born I started to gather up circa " 1914 " Ford T parts. I thought what would be better for a developing young person than a Model T project. But in reality I was subconsciously creating the situation I wanted to be in 40 years previously , not something that made any sense to a young man born in the year 2000. He wasn't even remotely interested, and to be fair the very abstract concept that a big pile of old parts could become a vintage car is most likely something that would fail to take hold with 99 44 / 100 % of his generation. I hope that over the NEXT 20 years the " T " at least will be running. The Staver might become a car in my ownership but I better have a long , productive life. My son likes Nissan Sylvia's { JDM 240 SX's }and Subaru BRZ''s . About as far removed from a 1914 Ford T as can be imagined. Greg

It sounds like the ideal old car fan set up. Aging is effecting all areas of collecting. The "I thing " generation, for a large percentage at least, seem to think a long time ago is 5 years. In their world anything old is obsolete / and completely worthless. A disheartening state of affairs. In this case it sounds like 98% of the cars and parts were top tier and easily found new and appreciative homes. I do wonder however about what the average age of the new owners is ? Are most of these cars going to be on the market again in a decade or less ? The Eastern U.S. sounds like a old car guy's dream come true, decent old cars in reasonable supply, property values in many cases quite realistic. It makes quite a contrast to the conditions in other parts of the Continent. Greg

I find the quality of my welding has been effected by my changing eye sight as I age. And for close examination of very small things I have to remove my glasses and get right up to within a few inches of the part to really see it well. That is sometimes quite difficult depending on the location of the part. All part of the aging process. In some ways life really does start to go downhill from 40 onward. But we adapt as best as we can. Greg

It looks like something Cruella De Ville would have used in the original 101 Dalmatians. Greg

For me regarding Cadillac it would be the stereotypical image of a Cadillac owner. Older , flashy , looking for a status symbol. " I really do deserve the best ". Just not who I am. I may be in my 60's but I am still a Sports Car guy. And not the fussy guy at a British Field meet with the spotless MG with chrome wire wheels , screen headlight covers, and porcelain union jack emblems added to the front fenders. Just a regular dirt under the fingernail guy with a beater sports car I have usually owned for decades and just kept running. Probably never to be restored in my ownership. We all do have our reasons. Probably a bit of anti - snob at work in my Psyche. My wife has had one new vehicle in her life and the closest I have come is my Accent, a 1 year old trade in. Too many years as UNI students just getting by. We both spent several years in post secondary ed. in our later 20's . Once you develop habits of deep frugality they are hard to shake. In these parts we would never have been able to buy a house unless we both practiced that approach. In this part of the world even a middle class / border line upper middle class income really means the family is just getting by without going into a little more debt each year. The income vs cost of living relationship is way out of wack in South Western British Columbia. Greg

You can't be serious about the pads !! Not that I was ever going to , but another reason why I would not touch one of those things with a 10 foot pole. Greg

I know it's no Cadillac { in both a good way and a bad way } , but my 2010 Hyundai Accent is a very well engineered car. 260,000 KM { Canada remember } almost no trouble, 1 crank position sensor changed on warranty. Regular servicing is dead easy, even the cam belt change was a very simple process. Still the original clutch, { long highway commute for most of its life }. A couple of sets of tires and brake pads and that's about it. It's only a Hyundai but hands down the most reliable transport box I have ever owned. I do all the maintenance myself even when it was under warranty, I am a journeyman auto mechanic, although I haven't worked in the trade since the 90's , the dealer just told me to keep records of service work up to date and keep parts bills for reference . North American manufactures could learn a few things from those crafty Korean's. I hear the fancier Hyundai's have more problems. Makes sense , more do dads , more things to go wrong. K.I.S.S. usually wins over the long haul. Greg

That sure is a Steam Roller of a car ! Ed ,once again you are a lucky man ! Greg

Is that the White that has the odd Continental { Same brand as the tires } rims Split radially with many little locking tabs . Twist one of the rim halves slightly to lock or unlock . Greg