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When electronic ignition dies, it really dies! Points can be adjusted, cleaned or replaced. The problem of cheap Chinese points is easily solved, since EBay is full of NOS US-made points for cheap. I shudder to think where some of the electronic ignition components come from!

It is good to see a young man taking an interest in this great hobby. Don't despair, as you go on, you will gain more and more knowledge into where to find the hard-to-find. This forum is a great resource and all of us are glad to help.

There is very little reality in reality TV. Even if they were paying those prices for those cars, they are spending the production company's money, not their own. We have reached a pitiful state in our society when most peoples' lives are so uneventful that they need to experience other peoples' lives vicariously on television.

I would think that if the rings had not yet seated, the wet test would have sealed the rings enough to raise the number. I think you have a problem.

For what it's worth, I don't think I have ever seen a 1942 Mercury. Fords and Lincolns, yes. But never a Mercury.

Someone may correct me on this, but I recall reading somewhere that torque wrenches were not used prior to the mid or late 1930's. Did Chrysler use that engine in later applications? That may be your best chance to find possible torque specs.

My wife had the same complaint about riding in my 1940 LaSalle in hot weather. The muffler is directly under the passenger side of the front floor and seat. I just got done adding a layer of 3/8" thick foil faced insulation under the front carpeting and front seat. There was no insulation at all under the seat. While the floor still gets warm on hot days, it no longer gets as ungodly hot as it did. I am thinking of adding a heat shield to go between the muffler and the floor by spanning the frame rails on either side of the muffler. This would also help, but I am undecided about changing the look of the chassis.

For what it's worth, I have never had a bias ply tire shred or deconstruct itself. I have had many radial tires shred, lose their tread, and fall apart at highway speeds. Some of these radials were not even very old when they flew apart. When I was younger and radials were unheard of, I drove on some pretty crummy old bias ply tires. I had flats, but I never had them do the kind of things that radials do.

I would worry that anything I used would bleed through and stain the upholstery. These seat frames have survived till now without any sealer. I can't imagine any situation where a sealer would be warranted, short of the car being in a flood. In that case, the seat frame would be the least of your problems.

The owners manual for my 1940 LaSalle says that fuel should be no less than 72 octane. I suppose that that was the standard fuel available around 1939 or 1940.

I did this job on a 1940 LaSalle. I would guess it is close to a Buick. The moldings are not attached to the gasket. They are U shaped and cover the inside edge of the windshield opening. They are removed after the glass is out. The windshield is removed to the inside, not the outside. When the inner moldings are removed, the glass and rubber are pushed in, not out. Steele rubber is your best source for a gasket. They also have good instructions on their website. You should also get a shop manual. When installing the windshield, the center bar needs to be tightened first. Then you work out toward the edges. Rubber needs to be caulked where it meets the opening in the body and where it meets the glass. If you are careful, you can eliminate the leaks.

Cornering lights and bucket seats might be rare, but I have never before seen one with a remote RH outside mirror.

I see them come up on Ebay quite often.

Am I mistaken or did Randolph run into something and hurt that pretty grill?

Eastwood has something in their catalogue that claims to be useful for this. I have no experience with it. Has anyone tried it?

According to Bloomberg Business Week, auto assembly line workers in 1950 earned an average of $1.58 per hour. My late father in law was a machinist at DuPont with ten years experience in 1950. His tax return for that year showed wages of a little more than $2500.00. That was considered a good job. I believe that Ernie's 3.8 hours were his o/t hours. If you figure 43.8 hours with time and a half for over 40, it comes out to very close to the $73.00 Ernie made. According to the Inflation Calculator website, $73.00 in 1953 is worth $605.24 in 2011. I think that it is safe to say that for many years, uaw wages rose faster than inflation.

1960

The Howard Hughes car sold for 1 million. I remember the buyer crowing on TV that he had bought a piece of history. I remember wondering at the time if Hughes even knew that he owned such a car. His various companies probably all kept cars around for his use in case he showed up one day. I doubt if he personally had any involvement with these purchases. The Curtice car is far more interesting.

I think that this is the Harlow Curtis car. It has been written about in this forum previously. GM styling did for Curtis when he was president of GM. I think it still exists

The Chevy van and the Rambler American coming up out of the underpass on the left sure look to me like New Jersey plates.

My father had a 1963 Electra convertible that he bought new. I distinctly remember the well liner because my sister and I rode in the back seat. The dull cloth looking side was up. The shiny side was down and could be seen inside the trunk. My father only kept the car 4 years. By that time, the liner looked faded out from the sun. I would bet that very few original ones survived.

I have used gas tank renu twice. Both of my cars had had the tanks cleaned previously and both of them had rusted again. Gas Tank Renu seems to ba permanent solution.

In 1984, I was visiting the city of Kalinin, USSR. I was walking across a street when I saw what appeared to be a 1932 Ford coming toward me. On closer inspection, I could see that it had GAZ badging on it. I took a picture of it that I still have around here somewhere. Later on, I read that Ford built a plant in Russia sometime in the early thirties. The plant was owned by the Soviet government. Future UAW President Walter Reuther and his brother Victor worked there as machinists. He wrote about the experience in his autobiography. The cars they built looked like US model Fords except that they were adapted somewhat for the tougher road conditions. The car that I saw looked like it was just somebody's driver. That region along the Volga was devastated in World War II and I wonder how the car survived. I have never seen or heard of another one. I don't know when they stopped building them but I don't think that they made any after the war. i

It is not hard to do this with straight pieces from the local parts store. It is a lot cheaper to do it that way, even if you have to throw out a few mistake pieces along the way. Stainless is harder to bend than mild steel and is harder to seal at the joints. Mild steel, with halfway decent care, will last a lifetime.

Pass. Walk away. Don't look back. For free, it would be too pricey.