1912Staver

Unfortunately it all comes down to the developer making the most amount of money in the least amount of time. When $ goes against history , history is virtually always the looser. In some ways it's sort of like an older aunt asking her 20 something Nephew if she should spend money fixing up a much loved 40 year old car she has owned sinse her college days but has fallen into disrepair, Or buying a new Tesla or whatever wonder car has the attention of the young set at the moment. The 40 year old car means nothing to the Nephew , but gee wiz a TESLA, do you even need to ask ! Instant cool..... for about 2 weeks. After that it is just another Tesla , in an ever larger sea of them. Meanwhile the 40 year old car has gone off to the crusher. Gone forever.

Chadwick's are a bit of a special case in that there are so few remaining . 2 or is it 3 ? You would do better to look at cars like Mercer Raceabouts. It seems to me there are something aproaching 30 remaining . And one or two people may own a couple but I am sure there are at least 20 -25 owners. The " knowledge " is safely spread out.

Unfortunately with old buildings { and old cars for that matter } either you own it or you don't own it. Why would any of us put substantial $ toward a building we don't own ? Your point makes even less sense than the things I brought up in the discussion with Peter. Very few of us are in a position to be generous benefactors to the public good. Does that mean our point of view is of no value at all ? I am with prewarnut 100% on this one.

My whole point was based on a $ per square foot basis. But yes, apart from a developer being involved it is an apples to oranges situation. But still a developer driven , for profit situation. I have to admit I have never visited Detroit. So I have no real Idea of land value in that area. Coming from an area where a crack shack on a 33 foot lot sells anyday of the week for at least a Million has probably skewed my way of looking at land. This one is in a pretty down and out area. Gives you a bit of an idea. In a good area you probably would not even belive the price. https://www.rew.ca/properties/3726851/3119-charles-street-vancouver-bc

It looks like a governor . Was the engine used as some sort of industrial power plant ? Pierce made them for many applications. { No connection with Pierce Arrow that I am aware of |

Are we saying cheaper is better ? Or are we saying that better is worth paying more for in the long run ? Such little long term vision.

Where I live in Vancouver it is at least as bad. The very wealthy " New Canadians " this area has been deluged with since the mid 1980's all want to live in the best parts of town. And no sooner do they buy a desirable early 20th century home it is bulldozed and a modern monstrosity is built in its place. They have in effect destroyed everything that made the desirable areas desirable except for the street address. All the Canadians that have lived here for decades are pushed out to the fringes or further. Changes beyond belief , but unless you are an Asian multi millionare you dont even want to drive through let alone live there. So much loss. It could all slide into the sea and 99% of the people that used to live here wouldn't even care anymore. Its like a city that has fallen to a invading / occupying army. Except not a shot was fired, China just bought anything worth owning. And then razed / rebuilt it out of all recognition.

My point was that giving a site this size to developers for that sort of price is practicly a city subsidised hand out. So many worth while things could be done to make that building viable, and generate jobs. Is the developer the Mayors brother in law or something ? Developers want new builds, they make more money. So many North American city's are becoming a wasteland of new commercial buildings that end up being a sterile endless sprawl. And very non human friendly. Once a city looses it history it is just another Hong Kong.

Sorry but I have a completely different view. Once buildings like this are gone it all just becomes a modern building blight. Cookie cutter like every other modern building. About as soul less as can be imagined. And selling a plot like that for peanuts. The developer must be rubbing his hands together. A single gas station { in a desirable location here in Vancouver } recently sold for $72,000,000.00. Yes, seventy two million for a single gas station. Canadion $ so "only " about $60 Million U.S.D. Buildings like this are a treasure , once they are gone they are lost forever. Such little vision. Sad beyond words . Don't these people ever travel to Europe ?

Strangely enough I was also interested in a Stutz basket case around that time . I expect it was the same car. That car is what led me to buy my Staver basket case. A somewhat similar car { or at least could be configured in a similar speedster form } but with a Warner gear conventional gearbox. Stutz has a great engine but the less than great transaxle. The Staver has a somewhat inferior and decidedly scarce Teetor Hartley engine. And in the case of my Staver about 2/3 of the engine missing. The initial buy was only about 1/10 of the cost of the Stutz, which at the time was a serious amount of money compared to my income. So the Staver came home with me and the Stutz went who knows where. I expect it is probably running by now. Any Idea where it ended up Wayne ?

Not really a wrong answer. Things like 1910 Packards are rare enough that a chance to buy one might only come along a handfull of times in a lifetime. But for a good number of us on the forum it is always a balancing act between desire and cost. There is always a collector car available , even for all but the smallest budgets. Early 1950's Mopar's, Comet's , Falcon's , Chevy 2's , Rambler's and lots of other less desirable cars are perfectly OK cars. And generally quite easy on the bank account. And as you say if one is missed it's no big deal. Something similar will come along before too long. No big prize , and if one is missed no reason for regret. It's the $10,000 GT 350's from 25 years ago that tend to be the missed chances that people today regret. All the more so as very few of us can afford one at the current going rate price. Same for early Z 28's , GTO Judges and the like. Lots of used to be able to afford them and possibly even owned them in our youth. But pretty unlikely to fit todays budget.

Thats a very practical attitude..... if you have the $ to just buy what you like. For most of us the regret is that it was a car that we liked and normally could not afford in a situation where we actually could afford it. Whole different ball game.

And about as rusty as I have seen. Wall art perhaps ? It might look better without the two trim strips.

That's an odd one for sure. Locally built cab on a Military surplus chassis possibly ?

I don't see much Tabot there except the engine and I.D. plate. Resto rod.

As a Canadian the subscription route becomes very expensive. I know postage is a lot more expensive to Canada so no real solution. But between the lousy exchange and the higher sub, the price any magazine is going to cost a Canadian close to twice as much as a U.S. buyer. And you guys are having a hard time justifying the cost vs. benefit. The only place I buy them anymore is at swap meets for pennies on the dollar. Crankshaft looks great, but my cost would be almost $25 an issue even with a subscription. That's a mighty expensive magazine. I can still remember paying less than a dollar for car magazines at the newsstand.

I am also a former subscriber to both HMN and Hemmings Classic car. I read HMN for decades , but as time wet by I followed it less ond less. Not for lack of interesting cars and parts, but more because anything that interested me was 99.9 % of the time too far away. And coverage of pre 1920 cars seemed to fall off in Classic Cars at least 4 or 5 years ago. So when it was time to renew I let that one drop as well. I am still very interested in early North American cars. But for a range of reasons the lions share of my hands on activity is on late 1950's to mid 1970's British cars these days. I think the fact they are very usable cars keeps my engagement up. The early cars are wonderfull artifacts but not very practical around here for use.

He has been trying to sell it for a few years now.

The slave should be reasonably easy to repair. The master may be more difficult depending on construction. Can you post some photo's . If possible lay out the internal parts in your photo's. Completely obsolete from Mazda ?

They are not a difficult engine to work on. They just have a few unusual design features. The stock Marvel carbs are so so at best , but with carefull attention can be made to run reasonably well. But otherwise once you get used to the things like the cage valves they are just a reasonably basic, later teens 6. Both the rockers , and the roller cam followers can become quite worn. But no more difficult to repair than most teens engines. Join the owners group and get the tech CD. A vast amount of good advice on living with these cars. They were very good sellers in their day. And still a reasonably popular car today.

If you can remove the head on a Buick cage valve 6 my hat is off to you. Buick used a one piece block head unit on these cars. That's why valve cages were used. The retainer nut is right at the bottom of the valve spring. It is not a hex nut, rather that circle of prongs something like a castle nut. You need a special tool to remove or install the retainer nut. Look closely at the base of the valve spring and you will see what I mean. Sometimes they are very tight and difficult to remove. Best done after a run when the engine is good and hot. The cages themselves can also be quite difficult to remove depending on how much of a carbon build up is present. Do you belong to the cage valve Buick association ? Dean Tryon's group. Tons of technical advice in the newsletters. I strongly recomend you join, all the tech info is available on a cd from Dean. These engines have several unusual features.

No doubt you will need an alignment. Yes it is a mistake not to replace the upper inners on both sides when you had it all apart. But I assume they checked out OK when it was apart so you should have years of trouble free use ahead of you. Those front ends should last for at least 80,000 miles. Which on a collectors car is decades in most cases. Any decent front end shop should be able to align a 1966 T Bird.

That's a very basic front end. If it is in good mechanical condition I would think any alignment shop can handle it. If it needs work the front coils are very high rate. Somewhat dangerous if the shop is not in posession of the correct type of coil compressor or inexperenced on these front ends. But for a simple alignment there should be no problem.

Hi Wayne. That's just a mechanical link that strokes the diaphram for priming. Reasonably common on older diaphram pumps. Many British cars had them up to the early 1960's. Great for engines that may sit for a month or two between uses. The gas in the float bowl might evaporate, but you just stroke the pump lever a few times and fill the float bowl with gas. Saves the battery from spinning the engine just to bring the fuel up to the carb on an engine that has been sitting for a few weeks or longer.

With the cages you can only check by removing the intake and exhaust manifolds. The cages are cylinders that have an opening that normaly is located so it matches the position of the intake or exhaust port . When you are assembling the engine you drop the cage into the recess in the head , rotate it by hand until it lines up with the port and lock it in place with the retainer nut. But other than pressure from the nut there is nothing that mechanicaly locks the cage in that position. Over many running and cooling off cycles the cage can slowly rotate and the port in the cage no longer aligns with the port in the head. Needless to say , very poor running results. More common with the exhaust cages, but it can also happen to the inlet cages. But unfortunately without removing the manifolds you can't see any of this. Not surprising you are not familiar with this problem. Very few cars other than pre 1924 Buicks use valve cages. And those that do usually have a way of making sure the cage can't move over time. Buick was one of the very few that had no mechanical locking in correct position of the cage. Valve cages are common on very large diesel engines right up to today, particularly on exhaust valves. But modern practice always has a way of preventing the cages from moving once the engine is assembled. Usually Diesel cages have bosses at the top that are located by hold down studs. Once they are bolted down there is no chance of movement.