1912Staver

I am a big MG fan . However as far as TC's are concerned I find their performance very underwhelming. Gorgeous cars to look at, just way underpowered for North America. And very small inside. You need to be quite a compact person to feel comfortable. MGA's don't have the visual charm but are so much more satisfactory to drive. Greg in Canada

There is a lot to be said about the simplicity of older vehicles. 20 years ago my "rough around the edges" MGA was my 8 months a year daily driver. I hid it from the salt each winter. Two trips from Vancouver BC to California, one just down to the Monterey Historics and back. The other all over central California and Nevada. The long trip resulted in the failure of a coil. A few $ and a 20 minute hitchhike into the nearest town. The Monterey dash resulted in a blown headgasket. 100 + mph for a few hours out in central California was a bit too much for my trusty MG. We were being paced by a cute girl in a VW Rabbit convertible and didn't want German engineering to triumph over British. But the obvious age difference finally was our undoing. Pull over and luckily enough the roadside ditch had a trickle of water flowing. We filled up the rad with water, plus a couple of empty containers for insurance. Very slowly limped into the next town and bought a head gasket. I was sure thrilled they had one in stock. Took our chances and limped on to Laguna Seca and set up camp. Only about 40 miles so just doable. The next campsite over had a fellow Canadian racing a MGTD who was kind enough to lend me a torque wrench, the one tool I had not brought with me. A few hours later the job was done and we spent the next 3 days immersed in vintage racing nirvana. Drive home was trouble free however for safety sake I kept things below 65 MPH. Greg in Canada

I have very limited TV channel availability. All the cable stuff is way too expensive in Canada. I have yet to see any of the car hobby related shows that are truly watchable. Most I find too painful to endure more than about 10 minutes of air time. I don't know who the target audience is but from what I have seen I hope it isn't car hobby people otherwise we are in troubled waters. Greg in Canada

That looks like a very sporty body. Anyone have a shot of the whole car ? Greg in Canada

As far as a more modern condenser is concerned I would start with something as close as possible to the sort of engine you are working on. For example a 4 cyl. Jeep from the 1950's or a small industrial Continental 4 cyl. Go far enough back that they use a 6 volt system. Condensers for 1950's engines are modern enough, you just want to get away from the troublesome mica plate type from the early days. Most of the 1950's / early 1960's condensers are commonly available and very inexpensive. You may have to experiment a bit to arrive at the correct MF value but for the time being concentrate on making the system work. Refinements are relatively simple later on. Looking at your and hddennis's photo's the condenser is a structural part of the distributor so you can't just remove it. It looks like it is used to mount the points as well. You need to ensure it is no longer in the circuit and a potential source for a ground. As well you need to make a connection for the new condenser at the same location as the original . It will take a bit of re- engineering however your system should work reliably afterword.

You might be out of luck using a Delco. I was just looking at a thread by hddennis back in 2008 and he shows some better pictures of the unit. It looks like there is a built in 90 degree bracket on the Maxwell units. It looks like they bolt to the side of the block with horizontal bolts rather than vertical bolts like a mag. You might try to PM hddennis, he might have a better idea . He has posted recently about these units. Greg

I see them from time to time at swap meets. They were intended to replace magneto's when they went bad. As long as your unit attaches from underneath with 2 or 4 bolts you should be able to use the Delco. Note they come in LH and RD rotation just like the magneto's they were to replace. Make sure you get the correct one. I have also seen nearly identical units made by North East. In the mean time I would take a stab at making your existing condenser electrically inert and wiring in a modern one. It can't hurt to experiment a bit. Greg

That looks like one of the mica plate condensers. Any NOS ones will also be suspect. If I were you I would attempt to fit one of the Delco units. They also use a mica plate condenser but it is external and so more easily substituted with a modern wound foil condenser. The way your unit is constructed makes using a more modern condenser very difficult. You could open up your existing condenser and remove the plates , and make sure no grounds exist . Then fit a modern condenser. It might be worth a try. As others have suggested fitting new contacts to existing point units can be done, and not very expensive. Its mainly Attwater Kent's odd and unique condenser that is the problem and expense. I see a set of points that look very like yours on ebay for $30.00 NORS. Listed for Stearns Hupp, Peerless etc. For type CC and CA. units Greg

Definitely time pressure makes a bad situation worse. Nearly any longer distance drive I take involves crossing a mountain range. If you are going to break down with an older truck ,trailer and load you have pretty good odds it's going to be on a long ,steep mountain slog. And usually narrow road on these stretches just for added entertainment. Less blacktop to clear snow off of, and less material to move after a rock slide. Living somewhere like Kansas starts to look a lot better over time. Greg

I get the same distance anxiety as mrcvs bellow with my truck and trailer. I only have my 1987 Ford 150 with near 200,000 on the clock and my wife's Ranger with about 130 ,000 on the clock as tow vehicles. I have lost out on a couple of deals recently because they were too far to retrieve with either truck and still have piece of mind I won't be broken down in the middle of nowhere with my trailer and a load. In short up S**t creek. New or even newer trucks are way out of my reach and commercial hauling on the usually sub $10,000.00 range cars I am looking at makes the whole deal unfeasible. A definite catch 22. Greg in Canada

I see from some of the older posts on Maxwell's you may be dealing with an Atwater - Kent system. That may be part of the high price. If it is the one that bolts down like a magneto, Delco built a similar unit that you can probably substitute . Delco parts from the teens are still quite available and much more reasonably priced. Caps can be pricy but most teens caps and rotors are { often around $100.00 } Greg

Buy an issue of Hemmings and try some of the ignition parts specialists. I doubt your Maxwell uses anything too exotic. Otherwise do a bit of surfing and find out who is online with obsolete ign. parts. There are people out there with very large stocks of obsolete ign. parts , sometimes OEM but often NORS. Who makes the Maxwell's ign. ? Some of the really long established venders may not have stepped into the computer age yet. But I think nearly all have. Greg in Canada

Unless the car is something really odd your quoted several hundred $ sounds very high. There are a few ignition parts suppliers out there , have you tried at least a couple of them to see if that quote is accurate across all of them ? Most ignition systems were used on at least a few different cars. What are you working on ? Many early capacitors are the mica sheet type. Even if you find a NOS example they are very prone to failure . Discretely wire in a modern rolled paper film capacitor . You can always leave the old one mounted if it is important to the appearance of the distributor like on early Delco systems. Greg in Canada

Possibly an aftermarket, dress up accessory ? Greg in Canada

Not just quieter; although that was a automobile selling point , but more reliable. Early poppet valves were prone to failure. The metallurgy of the day meant poppet valves were still a developing idea. It wasn't until heat resistant nickel steel alloys were developed that poppet valves became truly reliable. Sleeve valves were less stressed and ran cooler than poppet valves. Particularly exhaust valves. Sleeve valve aircraft engines were still being successfully used in WW2, mostly by the British. The Bristol Hercules was a very successful sleeve valve engine, powering many British aircraft. Greg in Canada

Back when I was involved with British motorcycles I was always on the lookout for Triumph and BSA based choppers. They were very out of style in the 1980's and 90's and could sometimes be picked up for peanuts. Great parts bikes. I sometimes found the engines were like new inside. People would build them in the late 1960's and early 1970's from nearly new bikes and then find they were no fun at all to ride. They got stuck in basements and garages for a couple of decades until the owners got tired of tripping over them. It might happen with some modified cars as well, particularly cars with impractical engine swaps like this Chrysler. It can always be swapped back to a stock chassis as long as the owner is stuck with it long enough in its present form and drops the price to something that represents the value of the remaining stock parts. Greg in Canada

There is a definite question of how much use you can get from a 1920's car. As Bernie points out above actually driving a 1920's car ; especially a lower end of the market , closed car , can be a very uncomfortable experience. For many of us true semi deserted , country roads may be many miles away. Higher quality cars ; especially open cars with decent 360 degree visibility , will often be a bit more speedy than lesser steeds, and overall a much more enjoyable experience. That Studebaker or Essex above probably start to feel a bit dodgy above 40 mph, less than many farm tractors these days. I think it is this limited speed potential that leads to many of the cars in this class ending up as street rods. Then they can be driven at normal traffic flow speeds. Higher quality cars might be able to maintain 60 mph in very light traffic ,accounting for safe braking considerations. That extra 20 mph can reduce the stress other drivers and being overtaken produce. And unrestricted vision is also a definite confidence builder. There are numerous 20's cars I like and would consider owning, but none of them in a closed body style. Greg in Canada

Certainly it's a valid point you raise Matt. It is just a hobby and personally I have never considered the hobby as a way of making money. However collectors in many different areas of interest offset the out of pocket cost with horse trading. And the basic investing principle of buy and hold. It is a fact that if you have participated in the hobby for a number of decades; like some on this forum have, that from time to time you encounter cars that for one reason or another are undervalued / offered at a very good price. I generally don't buy things purely for resale however at times it can be financially rewarding to put all that decades long knowledge and experience into a paying position. On the few occasions I have dabbled in this area the profits have always been re invested in the hobby. And now that I am retired I now have more time and less money, why not re focus at least a bit of attention to offsetting the hobby's overall cost. And one can't deny that dealers have played a role in the runaway pricing of segments of the "hobby". Back in the 1970's and earlier there were relatively few dealers in the hobby car arena. Prices rose but slowly. Now there are many, the profit and overhead cost has to come from the pockets of hobbyist's. It has to add to inflation of the cost of the hobby over time. All those cars that have appreciated out of reach of most of us made someone money. Sometimes a lot of money. Why should the hobby always be a direct sinkhole for cash for the little guys ? Like I have always said , all those cars that priced out of my reach over the last 40 years are not important to me because they are now expensive. They were important to me when they were within reach. If I had of bought a few at 1982 prices I still would not be selling them even though many have seen at least a tenfold increase in price. Over the same period of time my income possibly tripled. I would be using and enjoying them until the end of my days. And I would be just as happy if they only increased in price scantly. It's the car that is important, not the price tag. At least in my household. If you find a Lotus 11,or 23 or early Elva at a 1982 price please give me a call, you have my word I won't flip it. In fact I will even leave it to you in my will. Last time I went to look at a Lotus 23 for sale it was 1981. The car was partially dismantled but all genuine, the price was $2500.00. I had just started back to University and couldn't swing the Lotus and tuition both. By the time I had finished school all those cars and many more had climbed aboard the price elevator, never to be in my reach again. These days they are $150,000.00 ish, don't try to tell me someone along the line didn't have a very big payday. Greg in Canada

Keep digging !! Thomas automobiles are VERY desirable. Anything you find will be of great interest to someone owning a Thomas. There are not a large number of surviving Thomas cars but all are treasured by their owners. The number on the Selden plate should give a rough idea of the year of the car it was attached to. If you find the actual serial plate of the Thomas rather than the patent plate you will really have something. Greg in Canada

The guys on Smokstak probably know something about these engines. Could be the same engine used in McCormick Deering W6 tractors or a close relative. I believe all of them were related to one of the International truck engines. Greg in Canada

The other common thread I detect is the change in pre war car turnout at lower key shows. I think there are two separate things at work here. First is that a very sizable number of the lower cost pre war cars have over the last 40 or 50 years been turned into street rods. Many ;but not all of course , of those ten's of thousands of rods were at one time car hobby Model A's, Dodges, Plymouth's , Chevy's , Essex's etc. etc. As the antique car enthusiasts aged out of the hobby and the cars sold a good number metamorphosed into rods. Go to a modern street rod meet and you will be astounded by the number of bread and butter , pre war cars living a new life as street rods. The other factor is that in the 1950's and early 1960's many quite high end cars were owned by moderately well off "enthusiast " owners. Owners who used the cars quite frequently at events of all levels of status , not just a few select very high end events. And this group of owners would often have only one or two hobby cars and therefore the public had a decent chance at seeing some pretty remarkable cars at average events. As the 1960's wore on the car hobby caught the interest of seriously wealthy people. One by one the cars that were often used climbed in value and became in many cases one of many cars in a single persons collection. And in many cases became cars that were rarely used , and if used almost never at anything less than a "Pebble Beach" stature event. The cars in effect dropped off the radar of average old car fans. I know that all throughout the history of the hobby there have been some people who were able to amass a collection of old cars. However I think the trend has accelerated in recent decades as the cars began to be seen not just as historical objects , but as Investments , and as hedges against inflation. The old time multi car collectors seemed to be more interested in saving and documenting history. And in many cases made sizable amounts of the cars available for the public to see and experience. These days it seems like many high end cars are treated like bullion in Fort Knox. The purchasers identity and cars location are top secret except to a very select few. Possibly on public view once a decade at a pinnacle venue. These trends seem to me to be the changes in the hobby that have altered it almost beyond recognition from the "old days" Greg in Canada

I think C Carl hit the nail on the head several posts back. His gist was that as long as you are wealthy then of course now is the golden age. Just as Restorer 32 states directly above. For those that can afford the services of a restoration shop then the age of the client is immaterial. What matters is that they have the means to just get on with enjoying the hobby today. Why would not today be their golden age ? For the rest of us things are not so cut and dried. The golden age tends to stop at whatever point it became impossible to participate in the main stream of the hobby and were consigned to the fringes. Thus a tendency to look back in time at what was for us our own golden age. Greg

It's a 1930, last year for the 6. Greg

Actually I know Ben and his Buick quite well. I talk to him weekly . It's a very worthy car but needs a fairly comprehensive restoration. It is probably worth the $8,000.00 asking price but only if you have the further $30,000.00 it needs to be a usable car again. And spare time for probably 5 + years to restore it. Tons of potential but a big commitment . Greg