wayne sheldon
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Posts posted by wayne sheldon
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3 hours ago, rocketraider said:
If I said what I really think about what these pandering demagogues are trying to do I'd probably get banned from the Forums.
Suffice to say that we, as AACA types, have a vested interest in preserving history and should take affront at any attempt to destroy or rewrite it. Learn from it and move on.
This forum is one of the few places left in the world that I find any pleasure in spending a bit of time with like-minded intelligent people. So I have mixed feelings about the hard line on NO politics. I certainly understand it. To a point I completely agree with it? But some things in our pathetic world today cross a line and something needs to be said! And this is one of those things.
Frankly, I have been wondering when this was going to happen. The writing has been on the wall for over ten years now. This particular monument hasn't been around long enough to have a historic standing deep enough to survive the current state of affairs. But what comes next? Mount Rushmore? The Washington Monument? The Lincoln Memorial?
If the moderators want to delete my reply? They have my permission. I just hope they do not put me on restriction again. I don't think I could handle it right now.
History MATTERS! And if it doesn't? Neither do our cars, or us.
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3 hours ago, pkhammer said:
I'm happy that a nice guy won the auction and the parts will enable another car to live on.
A lot of money for what is there, but a lot of worse things could have happened instead.
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On 2/7/2024 at 4:22 PM, lump said:
they gave him a good-natured nickname after a Red Skelton drunk character, "Willy Lump-Lump." The nickname stuck, but eventually was shortened to just "Lump."
As a really longtime fan of Red Skelton, I will attach a special consideration to your postings! Just for that association.
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Fantastic! A friend in Idaho has one of these he did an incredible restoration of many years ago. It is still one of his favorite tour cars!
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Headlamps are universal sealed beam replacement lamps sold in the 1940s and 1950s. They would fit most cars from the early 1920s into the early 1930s that were still being used as daily driver cars. Used to see a lot of model A Fords with them!
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6 hours ago, Dave Mellor NJ said:
I thought the brass was only in early 16 and they went to black at some point. They used to have a lot of 16s with brass rads but they weren't correct but they're worth more. you could tell by the 50-50 or 60-40 windshield
A common misconception that persists to this day caused by faulty memories that were relied on in the early days of this hobby. Much of what was "believed" in the 1950s well into the 1970s was incorrect. Serious research didn't begin until the late 1960s. Numerous books and various guides were published before then that contained a great many errors. Serious researchers (including myself!) are still debating on many details and the timelines surrounding them. Hundreds of researchers (I wish included me?) have spent thousands of hours searching through Ford's archives! They have found mountains of important information! Unfortunately, even those records are sometimes wrong.
There are records of changes that have never happened, dated records that for whatever reason were written either before (planning stages) they happened, or "corrected" later and the dates given are wrong. There are also many things that were planned on, written into sales literature but then production delays of some sort would prevent them from happening (like wire wheels being standard equipment on 1926/'27 sedans!).
Ford, like most automakers, usually made a model year change about August to October of most years bringing out the next year's model. However, production delays had the 1915 open cars not going into real production until January of 1915! I generally refuse to debate the "model year" of model Ts built between August and December as too many people are passionately crazy one way or another!
Fact is, that there are at least FOUR different years to be considered. "Model" year, "calendar" year, "style" year, and "fiscal" year. Each of those varies from one year to the next, and for about a third of all model Ts ever built, more than one of those "years" may apply. And there is in fact, a fifth "year" that may apply? The year the car was first sold. And a sixth year, the year given on its registration? Shall we continue?
Ford in the early days was so busy building a brave new world that they never made really clean changes from one year to the next. Six months after the 1914 "model" year ended, Ford was still build 1914 "style" open cars! For about four months (part of December 1914 till nearly the end of April 1915, Ford was building both 1914 style and 1915 style open cars in the same factories!
Arguably, the 1915 "model" year was replaced by the 1916 "model" year somewhere around October of 1915. Although, running changes of numerous details had been made during the entire year! Changes continued to be made through some of the 1916 model year. The change to the 1917 model year was a bit cleaner. While there was some crossover while both styles were being built, that particular crossover time was fairly short (in the Fall of 1916 where it basically belonged).
The slightly taller painted black shell covered radiator that defined the 1917 model year came and stayed without much trouble. From a practical standpoint, if it was from that timeframe, and it had the earlier style brass radiator? It was a 1916 "model". If it had the new stylish taller black painted radiator shell? It was and is a 1917 "model".
The folding windshield was mentioned. THAT change actually occurred in stages during the 1917 model year! Early 1917s can often be spotted in era photographs because they had the 1915/'16 style windshield with the even folding hinges! If the photo detail is good enough? One can sometimes make out the mounting brackets. The 1915/'16 windshield brackets were riveted onto the frame and bolted onto the cowl. The first few months of 1917 MODEL/STYLE cars, mostly built in late CALENDAR 1916 and into January of 1917 had the same windshield, brackets, and mountings as the 1915s and 1916s. Somewhere early in CALENDAR 1917, the mounting brackets were changed, and they were held to the windshield frame by two round head slotted screws instead of two rivets! However for another month or more, the hinges were still even folding! Then the hinges were changed so that the hinge pin was held higher above the lower glass causing the offset folding windshield frame which continued through "model" year 1922 on USA built open cars. Canadian built model Ts had a major windshield change about 1920 making them different than the USA built Ts, Canadian built Ts had slanted windshields with two folding panes instead of one, as well as one-man tops beginning about 1920. The uneven folding windshield gave somewhat better ventilation in warmer weather as well as affording a bit more protection for the driver and passengers when the windshield was folded back.
A whole book could be written about the string of changes in Model Ts through the "model" years 1914 through 1917!
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Billy K, Great story! And appropriate for this thread.
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Don't confuse the "cable cars" with "electric trolley cars". San Francisco has BOTH!
Electric trolley cars are basically a bus or sometimes even an open delivery truck that may run on the street itself or on a train type track either in the street or separate from the street. They may be powered by batteries carried on the trolley, or from an electrical cable carefully placed and maintained especially for their use. Most of them are powered by special power cables which may be strung overhead or might be underground, or even in part or whole the tracks themselves (rare due to safety issues). Some electrical trollies may still use a main power overhead cable and well grounded rails for partial return path. (I think a lot of them are still that way?)
"Cable cars" use a miles long continuous steel cable underground that is continuously moving in a single direction (very long numerous loops!) which the cable car grabs onto to be pulled along with the underground cable. The basic design dates back to the 19th century in cities built upon mountains (small to sometimes very large mountains?).
The wonderful idea behind the design is that it is actually fairly energy efficient! Although the cable has to pull each and every cable car up every covered hill, at the same time, another car is going down that or another hill on the same miles long line. So while some cars are fighting gravity, other cars are being pulled by gravity to offset the power demands! Once the system is powered up and going at its designed speed, the amount of energy to keep it moving is not as much as one might expect.
The design was originally proposed in the 19th century because trollies were originally pulled by horses. Cities like San Francisco on major hills had a lot of problems with horses collapsing and often dying pulling the trollies uphill, or brakes failing going downhill! Accidents were very common, causing a lot of expensive damages and even deaths of passengers or pedestrians.
As long as the cables were well maintained, once the cable car was locked onto the cable and running along, accidents or brake failures were rare.
San Francisco is credited with being first, however at one time a couple dozen cities around the USA and even the world also ran cable car lines similar to Sn Francisco's.
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Says LaSalle. Minor point.
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"Early" history of the automobile is filled with bad ideas! And this is clearly one of them. Talk about impractical? The only place that car can go is where the poles and wires are preinstalled for the car's use. A mile of poles and wires would cost nearly as much as the car itself, and the wire strands would have to be pulled a lot tighter and straighter than that if there was to be any hope of the electrical contacts carriage to follow the car pulled simply by another electric wire.
I think I will go back to my giant clock spring motorcar. At least that can go anywhere it wants to, and I can just wind it up again wherever it stops. Of course the half a block driving distance is still a bit annoying.
Maybe compressed air?
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5 hours ago, Matt Harwood said:
Another victim of someone with good intentions who bit off a lot more than he could chew.
Also known as "I'm gonna get to it."
Okay, I admit it. I am a rotten person, and a bad son. I loved my dad and had a great deal of respect for him in many ways. Behind his back, among a few of my friends, I often called my dad a "gonna-do".
He always had so many great ideas, and plans for so many things. But he always wanted to do everything in some "perfect" way. In reality, he almost always put things off until he never did them. So many things, he couldn't do it perfectly now, so he never did it ever, but for years and years he was always "gonna do" it. He ended up making such a mess of everything that when he died, I, my mother and my brother had about thirty days to dispose of about three quarters of his massive collection of cars, radios, clocks, none of which were done, along with mess of the family business he left behind.
There were always hundreds of things he was "gonna do" that never got done.
As long as I can remember, he wanted to restore a few antique automobiles. He fixed up a couple older pickups which he used for work. But an antique automobile restoration? Never one. Including my two unfinished model Ts now? I think I have restored about a dozen. None of them were perfect. But I enjoyed every one of them! And most of them were nice enough that I could take them almost anywhere and park next to almost anything and not be ashamed of how my car looked.
I know my limitations, and a show car is not in the cards for me.
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Nice fabrication work! I have often said that a little creativity can go a long way. I have repaired or replaced a number of steel castings over the years by cutting, bending, and shaping steel pieces then welding or brazing them together. A little "pretty-up" work and usually one can make the new piece look like an actual casting.
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Nice tribute.
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Looking GREAT!
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1924 model T Ford coupe, very similar to the one I used to have. I think the sedan is a Cadillac, about a 1924 or '25, a longtime friend has a 1925.
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Now, that one is a nice looking car! Sounds like with some loss and setbacks, you came out okay.
And by the way? I love sedans!
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Aw, what the hey? I feel like sticking my neck out. First glance, early Pontiac or late Oakland. About 1930.
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Another thought. Personally, I would not want the original thread to become lost descending down below as people are weaned off posting on it and using more "discussion" photo posting threads. If it were permanently pinned to the top, some people might feel more at ease in individual photo threads?
Walt, I cannot thank you enough for starting that incredible thread! I know it has helped me just looking forward to the almost daily new photos posted!
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A great photo! Wonderful juxtaposition of the early automobile ushering in the age of heavier than air craft!
We may need Varun C to identify that car?
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15 hours ago, Walt G said:
Is there any computer guru out there ( I am not one at all) that can volunteer under guidance ( from Peter or another moderator) to start to carefully go through the pages - perhaps starting with the first one, to copy and repost as a separate title under a specific make, or all the brass era photos under one title? I don't know how to do that or even it it can be done. The end of March the thread will be 4 years old. Maybe I am suggesting the impossible?
It actually would not be all that difficult to do. However, at this point, it would be a massive undertaking. One really big potential problem may exist? A lot of the photos were originally posted as hosted links which may (probably do) have expiration times connected to them. I know about two years ago, I went back through several earlier pages of postings, and saw a number of photos that had apparently expired.
I wish I could do it, however my family situation currently doesn't allow me much time. The reason my cars aren't getting done.
The only people that I currently know that are technically capable? Aren't personally stable enough for me to recommend them.
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Some really wonderful early dirt track racing photos! Sure brings back memories for me.
Fiftyish years ago, I was very fortunate to participate in some early racing reenactments on a half mile plus dirt track running actual racing speeds with model T Ford racing cars!
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I love happy endings! I hope this does become one.
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Ouch! Did anyone ever get that car back onto the road? Nice looker (twenty footer you say?).
For Sale Early 1928 Ford Model AA derived doodlebug-800.oo
in "Not Mine" Automobiles For Sale
Posted
I notice the AR brake and probably truck transmission. If it still has the AR clutch and other special early AR parts, they may have been worth the price themselves!
The great thing about it is that such doodle bugs have a following these days, Facebook pages, clubs and all! One could remove the AR parts and replace them with common later pieces and still keep the doodle bug as what it is.