TerryB

It’s a 1 1/2 ton from the pics. As mentioned the wheelbase would be good to know. Bigger trucks bring less money than 1/2 pickups due to the size of the garage needed to store it. Regardless, it’s a nice looking truck so finding a buyer should not be too hard. Old Dodge trucks are very popular.

Beginning of the week will be humid besides temps being above normal. Doesn’t feel much like October so far.

I know you like EV photos so here’s a Tesla prototype pic. ?

Go electric, no filter or oil!

Looks like your car is solid, that’s a great starting point. Thanks for the picture!

Bottom one looks familiar!

You have really made that air cleaner look great but...I could not recall having one like that on my 1951 Pontiac Chieftan. Looking at the 1951 Pontiac sales brochures on eBay confirmed my recollection of mine having the typical round oil bath air cleaner that had a support arm coming off a head bolt to the air cleaner body. My car had a bad distributor cap when I first bought it that would cause a backfire through the carb that would in turn pop the air cleaner off the carb. The support arm kept the filter from becoming road kill until I was able to find and fix the distributor cap problem. Post a pic of your car, I’d enjoy seeing it.

My Dodge was not adjustable, so yes it is not accurate to say all are not adjustable. Live and learn!

Lots of good information from many sources here. Hopefully not too confusing. Sometimes an easy job sounds more complicated than it really is.

If you go the auto supply ammeter route for measuring current, that meter could be hooked up in a temporary mode at the output from the cut out relay or temporarily in place of the cars ammeter. What concerns me is if the meter in the car is connected correctly? If not correct you can be mislead to believe the battery is not charging properly. A voltage check at the battery will quickly tell you if the battery is seeing any charge. Measure the battery without the engine running to see it’s at rest value. Then start the car and measure the volts at a fast idle speed. Volts at fast idle should be higher than volts at rest. That will tell us current state of charging. From there changes if needed can be made to the third brush.

Is your ammeter in the car accurate? Look at it and measure the voltage at the battery when the engine is running. It seems the unknown here is the accuracy of the car’s ammeter and if it’s hooked up correctly. A lot of handheld digital multimeters have a 10 amp range. You could measure amps by putting the external ammeter in series with the output side of the cut out relay. If you accidentally exceed 10 amps to the external meter, it should have an internal fuse that will protect the meter. You could also go to an auto supply or tractor supply store and see what they sell in add on ammeters. A lot of old tractors run on 6v so they should have an ammeter that has a range that works for your car. You could use that new meter in place of the existing meter in your car. Lots of options here. I still think you need to monitor the dc volts at the battery. Have you measured that yet with the engine running? It will establish a reference point before you start any adjustments. I set my Dodge to 7v with no lights on and that worked fine.

Me too! I have a manual push wheelchair so my big issue is parking. If it’s too far away I’m out of energy by the time I get to what I want to see or do. Some parking lots put handicap parking on their non level spaces. That’s what drives me nuts! I either fly out of my van or can’t get back in. Such fun!

Sorry, I was thinking out loud asking about the cut out relay. It has no adjustment as you mentioned. As stated above, you may want to operate it with full lights on and accessories on then adjust for a positive ammeter reading. My only issue with that method is you can get the generator output quite high and boil out the battery. I liked setting mine by voltage, around 7.5v at the battery as not to over voltage it. Also, most times I did not drive at night so setting it to run with high beam lights and accessories was overkill for me. It is not a precise science as there is no load sensitive voltage regulator as on later autos. You kind of pick a value with the third brush setting ang go. Hope this helps!

Says it’s a certified pre owned, by who? Those alligator clips with electrical tape on them are strange too. Still, a nice looking car. If you are of the proper age you might remember a cartoon called SuperChicken. His mode of transportation was called the Super Coop, first thing I thought of seeing the thread name. Can’t be the same one as I don’t see SuperChicken in any of the photos?.

Is there a cut out relay on top of the generator? They can be adjusted by setting the voltage to about 7 volts at the battery. A third brush unit is a kind of fixed output device that just gives a constant output regardless of load.

Sure sounds like it’s fuel, is the fuel tank vent blocked?

You can edit your first post to include this information, keeps things a more simple this way!

They are real cars, not little econoboxes like many early EVs or the current Leaf and Bolt. Believe me, if it’s any bigger than a June bug you don’t want it hitting you on the highway. Been there, done that?, have the scars to prove it.

Since I was the wise guy, thanks for adding the underhood photos!

Never as exciting as I hoped they would be, nonetheless I’m sure there is a group that follows them as you mention.

Read the biography of Henry Ford. A lot of parallels to his early business frustrations with the investment bankers.

There is a mandate that refiners use renewable biofuels or purchase credits from those who do. Philadelphia Energy Solutions filed for bankruptcy earlier this year claiming the mandate to use biofuels or buy credits was their second biggest liability after crude oil. That generated lots of discussions about the continued use of corn based ethanol as fuel. The company has come out of bankruptcy but the debate over the biofuels mandate continues.

When you can’t decide if you like or don’t like whitewalls ?. No under the hood pics?

Very hard to find non ethanol gas in my area. One station in a 10 mile radius has it. I’m surprised there are as many places listed here that have it available. One of our cars is e85 rated but we’ve never used. The car has enough issues just using e10.

Open mouth, insert foot. Tesla is on track to deliver 50,000 cars in the quarter that ends Sept 30th. No other EV even comes close to those numbers.