JV Puleo
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Posts posted by JV Puleo
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14 minutes ago, CChinn said:
Reality tv shows or the internet are not the places to learn about anything ....
I'll second that. The most popular oxymoron in use today is "I researched it on the internet."
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Virtually everything you see on TV about this hobby is so distorted as to be a caricature rather than describe the character of the old car world. It is bad enough to create a real problem for genuine collectors that often find themselves trying to deal with members of the general public that have an insanely unrealistic impression of what things cost and how much work is involved.
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Probably not many but we've had several ladies on the forum. I guess it also depends on what you define as "collecting"...there may be more have a single car and aren't actively looking for more. That fits a lot of the men as well...myself included. I've a friend whose husband had 3 MGs,TC, TD & TF)...when he died she kept them and continued on as a member of the local British Car club, driving them regularly. The machine shop forum I participate in has several women members that appear to be very competent machinists so, like cars, it's mostly men but not exclusively so.
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Dynamic balancing machines weren't invented until the 30s. They had little effect on driveshafts when they were solid because a solid shaft is inherently balanced. It had a much greater effect on engines & flywheels. The value of balancing was understood very early on however. Flywheels were statically balanced...you can often see balancing holes drilled in the outer rim of early car flywheels. That was sufficient for the speeds these engines turned at but not for the higher speed engines that were being developed, or for tubular driveshafts.
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20 hours ago, Angelfish said:
If you have to ask you can’t afford it.
The quote was supposedly by JP Morgan when asked what his yacht, Corsair, cost. The first Corsair was converted mine sweeper so you can guess how big it was.
I'll go a little further than John S and say that attitude does the old car enthusiasm a great disservice. I've always thought of old cars as an essentially blue collar interest...which doesn't preclude some very wealthy enthusiasts. I've know a few myself but, for the most part they were self-made men, none of whom I can imagine saying that. I very much doubt it was meant in any sort of derogatory sense but it conveys the message that those of us who do not have a lot of money aren't welcome here. That's silly...since it probably includes the vast majority of old car enthusiasts.
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To answer the original question...because they simply aren't available. I would much prefer a standard transmission but I drive a 34 year old Chevy blazer...when the constraints are that you need some sort of small truck and have very little to spend on it you have to take what you can get. Beggars can't be choosers.
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A good restoration story Bob told me...
The Packard was donated to a local historical society that had no way of displaying or restoring it...even if they had the money. It was complete but in sad, neglected condition. Bob bought it from them and brought it home. He had the engine apart and wanted to clean up the jugs so he waited until his wife was going out, brought them into the house and was scrubbing them in the bath tub. His wife forgot something and came back...she was not amused.
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The 1910 Peerless is interesting as well. It has a period (and and almost certainly factory) installed electric starter. Of course it probably got electric lights at the same time but restorers love gas lights...even when they aren't appropriate. I forget now exactly how it worked but it's not the usual "ring on the flywheel) arrangement. I think it runs through the transmission which would have required replacing that in order to install it. It was an elaborate and very well done job. The starter running operating the transmission was the method used on RR Ghosts and PIs. (I was under it once to study this but that was years ago.)
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The 1912 Packard was restored by a friend of mine, the late Bob Hilberg, an extremely talented firearms designer. Bob worked for Winchester during WWII. One of his many projects was the M1 Carbine but he also designed special arms for the military and the CIA and was the inventor of an automatic pistol called the Whitney Wolverine. He traded the Packard to Heritage Plantation for a new Corvette...and told me it was the dumbest thing he'd ever done. When I met him he was in his 90s, in a wheel chair and no longer driving but there was an Offenhauser powered Jaguar in the garage.
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2 hours ago, CarNucopia said:
I’m curious, is your goal to get young, non-enthusiasts to become enthusiasts? Or is it to get enthusiasts of newer cars (Fast & Furious), into older cars?
It's not my place to put words into the mouth of the OP...who is both well spoken and an enthusiast as well but I wonder if there isn't much difference. Obviously, people who are already enthusiasts of some sort are potential enthusiasts for old cars but I wonder if there aren't more. I can only speak for myself here but I was in HS at the time of the "muscle car" boom. I had absolutely no interest in them (and still don't)...in fact, had no particular interest in any modern car. One of my closest friends built a heavily modified '56 Chevy and while I admired his work it was nothing I cared to own or build. We can go on endlessly about this subject among ourselves but it would be interesting to find out if there are others who have an interest but are effectively barred from participation either by price or the hesitation of older collectors to take them under their wing.
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Very interesting...your results don't seem to agree in some aspects with the impression you might get by reading this forum. Overall, I think it's encouraging. One aspect that hasn't been touched is what percentage of the under 25's or perhaps 30's would be involved in pre-war cars were they not effectively priced out of the market. There are some very clever and innovative younger people out there who would be able to restore an early car were they encouraged to do so. I have such a friend...very capable and a self-taught machinist and blacksmith although his day job is writing software. It's anecdotal evidence but perhaps worth considering. If I were just starting I think reading this forum would be very discouraging...the constant refrain is "you'll be underwater in no time". Well, that's true but we should be promoting old cars as a worthwhile earning experience...not as a money-making enterprise.
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It would seem to me that the fundamental problem with AI, as far as highly subjective topics such as antiques are concerned, is that no electronic brain is going to be able to discern between good information and rubbish. I'm thinking here about a subject I'm currently writing a book on...a family of 18th century gunmakers that are very well known to American collectors because they exported literally thousands of arms to the US between 1792 and about 1830. They have been mentioned in American books back to 1912 and virtually everything that has been written about them is simply wrong, albeit often based on well-meaning conjecture. It's only since the advent of computerized library and archival records (and none of those are available on the internet...only indexes that give clues as where to look) that it's even been possible to unravel the story but the bad information is still out there. People are still relying on long outdated sources and the internet makes it possible for that bad information to be shared with the entire world.
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9 hours ago, Cman640 said:
Thank you for your response I might reach out to you later about a possible contact to the community.
By all means. Send me a PM if you'd like and I'll provide my email address.
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I read the survey and it seems straight forward. I'd have filled it out if my observations had any value but I haven't attended a car show in years and none in my area show any promise of being of interest to me. I should add though that I bought my first serious antique car, a 1927 Cadillac, when I was 19 and before I was 25 had several more, including a 1910 REO and a 1929 Rolls Royce. This was all done on a very limited budget. I do not come from a well to do family and received little or no encouragement from my parents. This was fifty years ago but I assure you it was considered VERY unusual then, certainly as unusual as it would be today. The constant "doom & gloom" prognostications about the demise of the antique car hobby are, to me, greatly exaggerated. Interest, like knowledge, is something that grows over time. Discounting the influence of fad and fashion I think serious interest will persist in a small portion of the population...but it was always a small portion. One of the failings of all collectors is that most of their friends share the same interests and thus give the false impression that everyone does. For my entire life I've been surrounded by people who considered my interests as, at best, eccentric...at worst, outright crazy.
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I second Walt's comment. The word "Classic" has come to mean absolutely nothing...it can be anything from a 68 Buick to a coach built 29 Rolls-Royce.
Needless to say, you aren't going to find many people under 25 collecting or working on the luxury cars of the 20s and 30s. The cost alone would preclude 99% of them. Which is not to say there isn't an interest in them but I don't see how that is possible to measure from a general survey. It would be good to give us more background details on yourself and what you are trying to discern. The members of this forum are always happy to help a younger enthusiast but we are constantly assailed by scams and most here are very wary about what they will share with someone unknown to them.
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1 hour ago, Highlander160 said:
...I've had people ask me what I paid for something....
Relatively few people are that crude but it has happened to me as well. I ignore the question. If pressed I'll say, as politely as possible, "that's between me and the seller."
You're not the bad guy...it's just your reaction to a question that was absolutely no one else's business.
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A good example of a rare part that there is practically no demand for. How may pre-1910 Stevens-Duryea cars even exist...probably less than 20 and what proportion of those need side lamps. One of the most unrealistic things about ebay sales is that the sellers rarely recognize that even if something is rare there may be nearly no demand for it. That lamp would probably be easier to sell if it didn't have the car name on it...though if I had a Stevens, I'd want the one with the name.
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Still plugging away at my house. I've decided to finish the master bedroom. I'm going for the rooms that I can't reasonably close off. This is one the 2nd floor. I built the 2nd floor and had to work with the post & beam frame of the house. As a result, the layout is rather odd. This little alcove is adjacent to the staircase and rather than build a wall here, which would shut off light from the window into the stairs, I'm going to make a screen (eventually). I'm also incorporating another bookcase here...the alcove will actually be used as a closet since one of the shortcomings of 18th century houses is that they had very few closets. I've been thinking about how to do the inside of the windows for a long time and finally settled on this...you can see what I started with and (although it isn't a good picture) and what I've ended up with. There are five of these dormers so this one was the test. Overall I'm pleased with it...
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6 hours ago, John_S_in_Penna said:
Have scammers ever thought of the punishment
that awaits them for lying, cheating, and stealing?
What punishment? At least in this world. I've often wondered why, with all the "surveillance" we are subject to, no government agency has ever taken this problem seriously enough to do something about it. It beggers belief that the technology is not available and it wouldn't be a matter of finding all of them...just finding a few and and making a public example of them would likely slow things down. I realize many are out of the country but many of those countries receive millions in foreign aid and I find it hard to believe they would baulk at unmasking a few thieves.
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I certainly wouldn't call you crazy. Focused may be more like it.
A very good friend in another collecting interest once told me that there was no substitute to quantity...it's only by having a lot of some item that you can appreciate its gradual development.
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GM did the same thing with Cadillac ... A dealer could get reimbursed by the company if he smashed the engine block and junked the car. I was told that by Bill Gregory of Bills Auto Parts, a character several members here will remember. His junk yard was a treasure trove of pre-war stuff going back to when he started it in the late 20s.
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A lot depends on what was used. Tapered Roller bearings were just appearing on the market in the brass era. Early on they were used almost exclusively in big, expensive cars. They were so expensive that most mid and low price makers simply didn't use them. What we do see a lot of are drawn-cup "bicycle" ball bearings. Those had been around for ages. I've spent a huge amount of time replacing them on my car because they were in terrible shape...most of the bearing cups were actually broken. Like all parts of a brass-era car, bearings needed regular maintenance. The period literature often covers cleaning and repacking them and recommending it be done far more often than would be the case today. What we think of a roller bearings were also a headache since the most popular type was the Hyatt bearing with rollers made from rolled metal strips. Those were used largely because they were cheap and they allowed for a certain amount of misalignment. You see them in rear axles and torque tubes. They would take a lot of abuse but when they were common they were not expensive or hard to replace.
Keep in mind that cars had a very short life expectancy. In most cases they wouldn't wear out during that time frame and no one expected a car to last 20 years much less 100.
And...that's a hub cap. Calling it a dust or grease cap is another idiotic ebayism from folks who don't know what they are.
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The fuel pressure for carburetors designed to work with a vacuum tank is what it gets from gravity...in other words it is VERY low and it unlikely, if not impossible, to find an electric pump that will work at a pressure that is even close to what is wanted. To test it, I would arrange a tank to simulate this. You could even take the mechanism out of the vacuum tank and just use the canister, being sure to seal off the vacuum line. If it doesn't stall after a few minutes you know it isn't likely to be the fuel system from that point back to the tank.
ramir makes a very good point...whatever debris was clogging the vacuum tank is almost certainly in the carburetor as well...the fact that it starts tell us it's not an electrical problem but it is very unlikely that it's something just a few adjustments will fix.
Problems like this must be addressed in a methodical manner...one issue at a time. If you start making all sorts of changes and adjustments without knowing exactly what the problem is you'll end up with a major problem rather than this minor one.
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It will probably not be a drop-in replacement but a Model T buzzer could should work fine as long as the box is modified to accept the contacts. I've fitted Model T coils to a couple of early cars but it wasn't a simple job...
There are people that rebuild them. We've had them advertise here and a search might turn up a source. (I've never had much luck with the search engine on this site.) That would probably be better and easier than trying to fit the wrong coil.
Are there many women collecting cars or is it a man thing?
in General Discussion
Posted · Edited by JV Puleo (see edit history)
I'm glad you mentioned that Billy. When I was starting out it was my mother and grandmother who encouraged me...my grandmother loaned me the money to buy a set of tires for my '27 Cadillac. My father couldn't have cared less and regarded the whole endeavor as a stupid waste of time...I have to give him credit though, he never made any effort to stop me.