Luv2Wrench

Sorry, the car cannot be fixed. It will never run again. It is only worth scrap value, but I'll give you a little more... call me..

I'm happy with a wrench in my hand whether it is putting something together or taking it apart. Just the thought of getting my tools out to go do a job brings a smile to my face.

Make sure and order your screws from a reputable supplier. I'm afraid that the hardware stores (mainly the big boys) are selling garbage that is brittle and easily strips and breaks. It is really incredible that it has come to this. Having to order nuts/bolts and screws from McMaster Carr rather than drive down the street is a monumental pain.

Yeah, I figured that it wasn't a 100 year old lost stamp. When I saw it I thought of you and the emblems you made. Thanks for taking a look at it and confirming my suspicion.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EXTREMELY-RARE-1900S-AUSTIN-AUTOMOBILE-CO-WALTHAM-METZ-DIE-STAMP-FOR-EMBLEMS-/351187712726?pt=Vintage_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item51c46b3ad6&vxp=mtr

I've lived a very happy life to date. I thought I had friends. I read you post above and I went and looked at my profile page. I see that I have no friends. I am now sad. I guess it is because I don't use Facebook. Just joking... of course I have friends... as does everyone else on the forum. It is funny to read a profile about yourself... it can seem rather plain. I'm just too busy doing real things to update my virtual profile.

Maybe this is what happened to my car.

Congrats and thanks for sharing this car with us!!

Nice job on the truck, I'm sure your customer will be thrilled. Looking forward to more work on the Hotshot. Fun little car.

I don't have a gauge to measure with but it seems to be the same thickness as a piece of 18 ga scrap I have. It seems a little thicker but it definitely isn't as thick as a 16 ga piece I have. It also appears to be galvanized. I don't know if the skin is original or not, however, there is a very interesting stamping as pictured below. I guess it could have been a piece of scrap from some other application but the word 'Front' is indeed facing the front. I tried matching the numbers to the parts list but no match there. I'm not surprised the numbers didn't match as I've found multiple cast pieces that have numbers in the casting and they don't match the parts list either. Perhaps someone with a muffler that is known to be original could look and see if they have a similar stamping.

I've switched to pure gas as well. My small engines just wouldn't run on the ethanol crap and I started buying the premixed ethanol free gas at HomeDepot for my small engines. Then I figured the cost per gallon was about $20. At that point I decided I would find a gas station that sold ethanol free gas and quit the nonsense. Ethanol was a bad idea and it is time someone admits that and stops the nonsense.

David, I just posted a thread about my muffler. Hopefully this should answer your questions. If not, just reply in that thread with what you need to know and I'll try to answer it.

And finally, the end caps and brackets. The bracket appear to just be simple flat stock that was bent and drilled (ie; it isn't cast). One detail I find interesting is that the bracket mounts to the frame rail at the same point as the bracket that holds the clutch/brake rod. In addition, and rather strangely, the cut-out (or bypass) is directly into the wooden cross members that support the fenders and side steps. I can only imagine that the muffler was from a previous design or maybe the bypass was rarely used.

Next are the two rods that hold the muffler together. Each rod is hollow and is 11/16" O.D. and 1/2" I.D. You can see the length of each is 22.75" The threads on the two rods, however, are different. The lower rod is threaded 5/8"-18. The upper rod (where the brackets are) is just slightly bigger (but obviously not all the way to 11/16") and even finer pitch. I have no idea why the two rods are threaded differently. The outside of each nut is the same at 7/8". The hollow rods also have grooves cut in three places to let the exhaust gases inside the muffler enter into the rods and then escape the muffler. The grooves are 3" long and 1/4" wide. It appears they were cut with a grinder. The placement is pretty simple. One groove is centered on the rod. The other two grooves are about 1" from where the threads start on each end. Note that the two grooves on the ends are 180 degrees from the groove in the center. The center pipe is 1.5" dia and tapers down to enter into the end caps. The pipe is full of holes to let the exhaust gases from the exhaust pipe out into the muffler.

Since I know there are a couple of owners that don't have mufflers or only have parts, I thought I would take apart my muffler and post some images and dimensions. As I mentioned before, I will be sending the end caps off to Cattail Foundry to get some additional parts made. If you are someone you know needs a set of end caps, please have them get in touch with me in the next couple of weeks. I don't know what the cost will be and there is really no way to know until Mr King calls and says what it will be. My guess is about $100 for the set. First shot is the muffler after taking the skin off. I took the two rods out but couldn't get the end caps to come apart. I took the skin off to see how it was put together. It was just rusted together and while the center pipe is tapered at each end, there is nothing holding the center pipe into the end caps other than pressure. If it wasn't rusted, mine should have come apart without issue. Second shot is the muffler skin length which is about 21.5" Note the cutout for the end caps. Third shot highlights the cutout in the skin on each end for the end caps. You can see in this one it looks like my end cap was modified at some point. Maybe it broke and something was brazed on to it.

I've seen two different radiator caps... one goes over the fill spout and the other screws into the fill spout. Which style is your radiator? ie; on your radiator, are the threads on the outside or the inside?

The tube that connects to the end caps has lots of holes drilled in it. The two rods that hold the end caps together are hollow and have slots cut in them. With the cutout closed, the exhaust enters in one side, escapes through the holes in the main tube, moves around inside the cylinder and eventually makes its way through the slots in the two rods and exits. I'll add a picture or two later today.

Another task I recently completed was to disassemble the muffler and isolate the end caps so that I can send them to Cattail Foundry and get some more pieces made. There are not many Metz mufflers to be found and it took nearly 3 years to find this one. I know of one other person that needs a muffler so I'm having the end caps duplicated for them. If another Metz owner needs these pieces, please PM me soon so I can order the pieces.

About 2 years ago I broke the bearing cases for the chain drive shaft while trying to get the bearings out. These pieces were cast iron so really the only option was to get some new ones cast using the broken one as a pattern. I patched one together and sent it to Cattail Foundry and 6 or so months later they sent me back some nice news ones cast in bronze. They did a great job but there was still some machine work to be done to get them cleaned up and the bearings pressed in. I also had some fabrication work I needed done so I took everything to a machine shop that I had worked with in the past. They were busy and said it would have to wait for a slow time. I called once or twice and they were always busy. Somehow 8 months or so went by with nothing done. I went up there yesterday to check on them and fortunately everything was done!! Attached is a picture of the broken original. Next to that is one of the raw bronze pieces I got back and then finally, the machined piece with the new bearing in place. I'm still not able to devote much time to the project but at least things are still slowly creeping forward. I've got a couple more small jobs for the machine shop and they think they can get them done this fall. That'll get me just a little closer.

"Selling my daily driver". You call and ask basic questions about it (like the color) and they don't know.

Thanks for the blow by blow Roger. I see you point on the pricing and the 'just need it gone' but willing to part it out. Some of the rest of the story seems to check out but that reminds me of a recent scam here in Atlanta. A scammer was listing cars on Craigslist that were located at a Honda used car lot. He met people there and 'sold' the cars and took a 'deposit'. When they came back with the balance he wasn't there. He managed to 'sell' several cars before everyone figured things out. Unfortunately for him, the security cameras on the lot documented every step of the scam. Oops.

Sorry to be so slow, but I need this one spelled out for me. The guy's phone number matches the limo service. The address for the limo service matches the Google Maps address (Oxford, MA) in the ad. The car may not be something everyone wants, but someone obviously wanted it at one point. If you need the windshield or grille then those prices probably are not too far off. I get that it probably takes a lot of money to make this car but then don't buy it. I guess I don't see the scam which, obviously, kinda worries me as I thought I was pretty good at catching them. Guess not.

I guess I'm stupider than the scammer, 'cause I don't see it either??

I've lived in Atlanta all my life and I can tell you that you're wrong. You have up to one minute to change lanes.

A quality table saw with a big table and a very high quality fence should be the starting point. Have the table big enough to drop in a router that can have it's own fence and also share the main fence. You'll need to spend some time getting the saw tuned precisely. Get several zero clearance inserts, high quality blades and a stacked dado set. You'll need to build a multitude of jigs but you can do those as you need them. The table saw will be a big help getting your wood dimensioned correctly as your project is going to require odd dimensions. On that note... where are you going to get your wood? Don't expect to be able to go to the big box hardware stores and get the wood you need... it won't be the right size and probably will not be dry. You'll need to find a source for wood and if you look hard enough you might find someone that will be a tremendous help in getting you wood that is close to the dimensions you need. I have two places close to me that I can order wood at about 1/8" over in thickness, maybe 1/2" wider and with one straight edge. That cleans up real easy on the table saw and doesn't cost that much extra. I find that having the saw mill handle the thickness for me is better than having a planar. A band saw with an oversized table and fence would be my next choice. You'll build a lot of jigs for this as well and a big table and sturdy fence will help with those. A nice drill press will save you some frustration by, among other things, allowing you to clamp boards and drill holes in the correct spot. Quality hand tools can really help and to some extent you could do everything with them. In addition to saws, chisels, hand planes, drills etc, I've found a spokeshave to be extremely helpful. You can make several straight cuts on a length of board to get the basic shape correct and then quickly produces the correct curvature with a spokeshave. There are several different styles and with them you can shape just about anything. I've found that, in addition to having high quality tools, having your tools in top shape (sharp, aligned and tight) is such a huge help. I'll never forget taking a class on hand cutting dovetails. Before the class I had tried for days to cut some decent dovetails and really couldn't get it to work. When I used the tools the teacher had prepared it was so, so, so much easier. They were the correct tools and there were tuned precisely. I had no idea it would make such a big difference. It wasn't just the better tools either... it was the tuning. I brought my tools the next week and we spent the time getting them in shape after which I could use them with no problem. My best advice would be to find someone in your area that has these skills that will work with you to help you along.