JV Puleo

That's interesting. If they were heading bolts that early – or at least major manufacturers were – I wonder if the material they were using wasn't rather soft. I'm thinking of some of the car companies that made their own fasteners. I seem to remember reading that both Locomobile and Cadillac did and, if so, would they have used that process? Brown & Sharpe made a lever operated production milling machine that was advertised as ideal for machining bolt heads. I think they made their own and its only on machine tools that I've encountered heat treated bolts that early. We used to have the Standard Nut & Bolt Company in Valley Falls. I've been in that plant. Everything looked as if it pre-dated WWI but I don't think I ever say the actual machines or, if I did, didn't know what I was looking at. You could go down there on a Saturday morning and the foreman would let you in and sell you whatever you wanted...at a very good price. Allen (of the Allen screw) invented a cold heading machine to make his socket head screws. They were first introduced in 1910 so it's clear the technology was there quite early on.

That's an excellent idea. I like the idea of testing all the components before they are locked in place,

I expect your brake drums are attached to the rear hubs. If so, when you peen the hub bolts you make it impossible to remove the drums if they need to be ground. I'd use bolts with split pins there, just in case they do have to come apart at some point.

Your observations are very valid. It's mistake to think that the "grades" imply that one bolt is better than another. The fact is that different applications call for different solutions and presuming a hard bolt, much harder and probably a good deal more brittle than the original, is in improvement is dangerous. There is a lot of "seat of the pants" engineering going on with enthusiasts much of which has no rational basis. Always presume that the original designers actually know what they were doing. Anyone who thinks that mechanical engineering was in the stone age in 1910 needs to read some of the period engineering manuals...if you can do the math they demand. (I can't...but I can tell when I'm reading something way above my pay grade.) Do I make changes?...yes I do but I am very careful about doing it and it's usually choosing a material that is close to the original and slightly stronger. If you want period engineering specs, find an early copy of the SAE handbook. The first was in 1926 (I think) but the specs cited in it go back to at least 1910 and the technical committee of the ALAM.

Walter Chrysler relates that when he first went to work for Buick they were painting the chassis with the same care as the body. He put a stop to that since, as he commented, the paint would be covered with mud and dirt shortly enough. Many years ago I attended the Dusters meet at Lars Anderson Park in Brookline, Mass. Present were two fabulous unrestored cars, a Stevens Duryea of about 1910-1911 and a 1911 Locomobile 48. Both were in original paint and upholstery...frayed and dusty but tremendously impressive. The Stevens had a red chassis with yellow pinstriping. It was much wider than we think of pinstripes today and it was nowhere near as perfectly applied. It rather looked like the apprentices did it and Stevens was a very high end car. Today, on a "restoration" it would be laughed off the field. This was well before the advent and popularity of trailers. Both of these cars drove to the meet and drove home afterward.

Heading does produce a superior bolt but I think that in 1913, when Jeff's car was built, they were machining them in screw machines from round stock and then milling the hex.

I don't know if what we know as black oxide was around then. I've looked into bluing which was common in the firearms industry and can give a blue/black finish. In gun work the metal is highly polished first. For automotive work I'd dispense with that. Nickel plating goes back to at least the 1870s and H.P. Maxim had many of the parts of his first motorized vehicle plated in 1897 so it's been around from the beginning.

And...where brass cars are concerned I've never run into a heat treated bolt. They are nearly always soft and I say "nearly" because I hold out the chance that some, for some special purpose, may not have been.

I'll play devil's advocate here. I see no point in grinding off grade markings. The heads of modern bolts are so different from those in use in 1913 that you can tell at a glance if they are modern whether they are marked or not. Personally, I just make whatever bolts will show but I understand this isn't something everyone can do...but Luv2wrench can. It's tedious but once you have done it a few times it isn't hard and the results are much more satisfying. I suspect it's done because it's about the only thing most people can do. Lock washers were always used in period...or at least every untampered with car I've worked on had them. Where they are missing it's because someone had it apart and didn't replace them. I would use new lock washers. They do occasionally break and the risk is much higher when reusing old ones. I do polish off the zinc plating. That's just there to keep the bolts or screws from rusting in the box. I never peen the end of a bolt to lock something in place. That was done because it was never presumed the part would be disassembled. The very fact that the question arises means it isn't relevant to what we are doing. It was also the cheap way...and lots of car makers chose cheap over good. I'd either use lock washers and Locktite or, if space allows, castellated nuts and split pins. That is an equally "period" method but one that was obviously more expensive to do. I also never used tapered pins unless I'm making a part that is not intended to be broken down. This is usually where I'm replacing a casting or forging with machined parts and it's easier to make them in separate pieces. If they were originally one part they are useful. If there is any chance they may have to be taken out they are a major PIA. When restoring...or rehabilitating (which is probably a more accurate word) very early cars we have to ask ourselves if we actually want a working machine or not. Many times is simply isn't possible or practical to replicate the part as it was originally made. The best we can do is make a new part that blends in with the machine and isn't jarring to see. This is very different from bringing back common prewar cars...or virtually any post war car. The same criteria simply cannot be applied unless we want a static display rather than a working machine.

Yes...I have a Snap On breaker bar in that size. My understanding is that they were made for the military in a size that would minimize how many tools "walked" away.

Is there any way to search inside a thread? My own thread now has 96 pages so finding a particular picture is extremely time consuming even when I know it's there.

You might also consider free entry for pre-war cars. The simple fact is that local shows have become the gathering place for late models, hot rods and resto-mods. As someone who has no interest in those I wouldn't bother to take an early car...but those are the cars that, more often than not, excite real interest in the spectators. I've completely lost interest in local shows for that reason and I am certain other owners of earlier cars feel much the same. I have no idea what the demographics are in your part of Texas but here in New England there are still many early cars that rarely see the light of day, partly because the owners are simply not interested in being lumped in with the muscle cars and hot rods. As Christech above points out, at the least separate the cars by era so that if any pre-war cars do show up they can be grouped together. If space is limited it may be impossible to break parking down into narrowly-defined eras but at least separate the original cars from the modified ones and assign a small area to the earlier cars.

I like the basic idea ... to encourage community involvement but making it work so that everyone understands that anyone could win might be a challenge. Anything that implies that one car is "better" than the others is likely to generate hard feelings. If awards are deemed necessary, I would stick to those that can't be challenged on the basis of the car itself.

Some time ago a member of this forum related a story of a show that did just that. The Mayor asked his secretary to pick the winner...she picked one of those VW/Mercedes/Gazelle contraptions which made virtually everyone furious.

I think both John S and Walt G have made some very good suggestions. Judging at a local show is simply impossible. I've been in old cars for 40 years and I wouldn't dream of trying to judge anything from the late 30s on and not many of the cars earlier than that. If you must give awards, make them the sort of thing that no one can argue with...like longest distance driven, oldest car etc. Dash plaques...I have an envelope full of them. I never look at them and the only reason I save them is because the artist that did them was an old friend. I've never attached one to the dash and won't. Music...if you must have it, make it soft and put it over in a corner where the folks that don't care for it can ignore it. If it's so loud you have to shout to be heard by the guy next to you it's nothing but a detriment. I've literally driven by local shows with loud music including one held last week literally within walking distance of my house.

During WWI W.O. drove a V8 Cadillac. He enjoyed taking it to the RR factory where he'd point out that it was quieter than the RR cars...they did not have much sense of humor about that.

Early engines, especially those with aluminum crankcases were painted inside and out. This was to seal them because the castings were often porous. I'll be sending my aluminum crankcase to a local place that does vapor degreasing and a sealing technique that features a resin forced into the casting under pressure. This is a current industrial process because many modern aluminum castings are so thin that they are porous despite the advances in metallurgy since the early 20th century. I've no idea how important it is with a cast iron case but a friend who regularly built racing engines always did it.

The English PI was considered over the top when it was new. The original owner collected Louis XIV furniture and wanted the car to reflect that. In a closed car I prefer fine fabrics in subdued colors...real wood trim and a minimum of garish plating. In an open car I'd prefer high quality leather.

I may be off the air for a few days. I'm going to work at home tomorrow and over the weekend but, having made this square hole, I had an idea for a slightly better technique. I've ordered two 1/2" end mills and they won't be here until next week but I see no reason to hurry this job since I am close to getting it just about perfect.

Moving on with this piece, I finished it today. It's easily the best yet. It did come out a tiny bit too big - not enough to prevent it from being used but not quite what I'd wanted. It is, however, the spare and I think I now have enough experience to go on to the finished pieces.

I think I'd look into the Ross pistons first. Since you have to buy pistons in any case the difference in price may not be significant and it would solve all the fitment problems. The Mitchell also used that "extra ring to hold the pin" system. I think it was fairly common. Remember, this was before the invention of the oil-control ring so they saw the extra ring as an "upgrade". The floating pins are an advantage in that you don't have to deal with pin locks that can fall out...think Buicks of the period. The teflon plugs are readily available. My only question about them is "how long do they last". I say that because they are commonly used in racing engines which have a very short running life. I've never seen any reference to their long-term viability. You can also turn them out of aluminum. That was suggested by British authors Morgan & Wheatly. Their book, "The Restoration of Antique & Classic Cars", is long out of print and probably at odds with a lot of the "show-car thinking" today but contains many valuable tips regarding mechanical restoration. Needless to say, they were interested in driving old cars...a trailer is never mentioned. And...I find it impossible to do any job to a lesser standard on purpose...not just with cars. That doesn't mean everything I do is the best, it isn't, but its the best I can do. Besides, you have time on your side. I wouldn't see the Metz as the end but rather the beginning. As practice for eventually doing a bigger and more powerful car. Maybe even one of those that is all paint and bling with worn out or butchered mechanics.

I don't like sounding too critical but that reminds me of my one and only experience with giving a brass car engine to a machine shop. The man in charge had a sterling reputation but he did a number of things that I now shudder to think of. His reasoning was "it's only going to be used for parades" or some such idea. He had no conception of anyone actually driving a brass car any distance. I've said this before but it bears repeating..,this was the experience that convinced me that I had to learn to do it myself if I wanted the sort of job I felt comfortable with.

.025 could be fixed just by surface grinding. That's not very much but I like the idea of using the Metz rods. You'll have to take some measurements of the wrist pins but you should be able to make any wrist pin. Model T pins are fairly large...the number I remember is .750 but I've never had any interest in Fords so you can't take anything I say about them seriously. What size are the Metz pins? The length is immaterial...only the diameter counts.

Porosity was a significant problem with inexpensive cars at the time although more so with aluminum than cast iron. Iron casting technology was very good but, in my own case, the gentleman who bored the jugs told me that there was a significant difference between the two, one being quite a bit denser than the other. I have some reservations about modern insert bearings so I'd be curious to hear comments by someone who has put a lot of miles on a car so equipped. The "bent hairpin" cranks of the time flexed quite a bit and the Babbitt layer on inserts is very thin. I would never use them on main bearings but I'm wondering about connecting rods. If the inevitable crankshaft flex does not effect the rods then it should work but the thicker Babbitt of poured bearings is probably still preferable as it absorbs the flex without wearing through the surface.

Yes. The two piece valves I'm familiar with are very obvious. I'd go with a .312 reamer. If the stems are a little tight use a 5/16 barrel lap to open them up.