wayne sheldon
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Posts posted by wayne sheldon
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30DodgePanel, A great idea this thread. Hopefully some much needed information can be accumulated into one place where it can be referenced for years to come.
I was never a good record keeper, but may be able to add a little now and again?
A couple interesting questions already.
14 hours ago, dodge28 said:I was told by old timers who are long gone ,when a customer bought a Model T, back seat and bumpers were optional. Extra charges. Gas tank was under the drivers seat. If driving up hill while the gas was low drive uphill in reverse. Is it true ?
Some of this varied by the years. "Back seats" generally were included in some body types and not on others. Generally speaking, they were not "optional". Touring cars had back seats, runabouts and roadsters did not. However, some early roadsters, including what is often called the "mother-in-law" roadster, that little back seat for the wife's mom was technically "optional". Back seats on touring cars were often later removed to convert the car to a more needed pickup. But that would be stretching the "optional" nomenclature.
As for backing up hills? The positioning of the gasoline tank and use of gravity to feed gasoline to the carburetor, made backing up steep hills sometimes necessary. The gravitational effects also tended to starve the front bearings of the engine for oil going up steep hills! Backing up the hills also prevented throwing out rod bearings.
More to the topic at hand.
Ford did not offer bumpers on their model T until the 1926 model year! For 1926 and 1927 only, bumpers were optional on the model T Ford. After-market manufacturers had been selling bumpers made especially for the model T since about 1913, more than ten years already!
7 hours ago, Barney Eaton said:Just for grins, I used the internet to discover that $3 Dunlop Tube would be $51.57 in todays dollars.
Was the 1925 price high or have we actually improved the process and manufacturing so that tube is not $57 today?
For at least three decades, tires and innertubes were basically the most expensive main parts of almost any common automobile! The technologies of the tires themselves as well as the manufacturing techniques lagged well behind the automobiles themselves. Materials technology, and tires before 1910 were largely hand made (using very soft natural rubber!). It tool a push from the "Great War" (WW1) to get both materials and manufacturing technologies a jump forward.
When a new Ford touring car first sold for about $500, about 1915, the four tires and innertubes were nearly half that cost! By 1920, not only had the cost of tires dropped a lot, but tires lasted about three times longer.
Even in the 1920s, when Ford offered demountable rim wheels and tires (as an option for open cars, standard equipment on enclosed cars), they included a spare rim and carrier on the back of the car. However, the spare tire was an additional option!
Pierce Arrow was one of the first major automobile manufacturers to have a front bumper as standard equipment. If I recall correctly, front bumpers were offered at least as early as 1912, and I believe they were standard equipment on their fine automobiles by 1915.
MOST American automobile manufacturers did not make bumpers (even on the front only?) standard equipment until about 1927 or 1928. I know my 1927 Paige 6-45 sedan has the factory optional Weed bumpers front and rear. And I know they were still optional because I have the 1927 salesman's guide that says so!
Over the years I have known several people involved with mid to late 1920s Buicks. A few of those people have over the years shown me original era advertising and sales brochures for Buicks. As I recall, Buick also had bumpers as optional equipment at least through 1926. I don't know when they first offered them as a factory option.
And, speaking of Buicks? One of my favorite mid to late 1920s bumpers, which was offered as a factory option on Buicks as well as sold to other manufacturers and after-market? I do not see in the listing of manufacturers above. Maybe it is there, just not in the style I like so much? I may need to see if I can find a reference for them?
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Some years ago, I had a 1910 Jackson Michigan built Fuller automobile very similar to this one. But there are a few differences. For one thing, this car does not have the typical (Jackson) Fuller steering wheel. The (Jackson ) Fuller steering wheel had a four spoke deep dish style to it, not the more common four sloping spokes. The body and fenders look very much like mine, and mine was not chain driven. It used a torque tube rear end very similar to what several models of Buick used around that time, however, it had an odd reduction chain/gear between the transmission and the torque tube to compensate for the larger wheels.
The radiator was slightly different, but essentially the same.
The Jackson built Fullers had a few models in the few years they were built, both two and four cylinder cars. I believe all the four cylinder cars had pneumatic tires and wheels, while most of the two cylinder cars were semi-high wheel like in your photo.
The rear seat on this model was removeable for use as a runabout or light duty pickup.
I suspect the minor differences were due to this car being a year earlier than mine was.
I have seen a few pictures of the Nebraska built Fuller automobiles (they are not related). One of them was also a sort of high wheel type automobile. I don't recall if any of them may have been chain driven or not.
I consider the Kimes and Clark catalog a valuable resource for prewar automobiles. However, from time to time, errors in it can be found. The details and photos between the two different Fuller automobiles are a bit mixed up.
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I, too, enjoy your long philosophical ramblings. They are thought provoking, and evocative. While studying and learning everything I can about as many things as I can has been a way of life for me? Restoring antique automobiles truly is my hobby. I "think" I would have liked to make it my career, but it was not to be for me. Although one of my longest and best friends was like Ed Minnie here, and became a professional collection manager and consultant to several major collectors. He is now retired, but I got to see how making a living at one's hobby can often put a strain on actually enjoying the hobby.
Me? Life never treated me very well. Family needs always cost way too much (and much of that family frankly did not deserve my sacrifices for them!). Money was always tight, and way too many cars I restored or acquired and really wanted to keep and enjoy for the rest of my life had to be sold for those family needs. I cannot afford to do the quality of restoration that I would like, and usually cut a lot more corners than I care to admit to. Every collector car that has gone through my hands has left in better shape than it was in when I got it. I can be proud of that.
If I ever can get back to work on my "current" projects, the 1915 model T runabout will not be as nice as I would like for it to be. But I will be proud of it and enjoy the car anyplace I ever take it!
The working career I wound up in was a natural for me. My dad was a cable television pioneer, building some of the earliest systems in the 1950s! He fancied himself a businessman, and became a communications systems contractor when I was young. I had a bizarre natural understanding of RF (radio frequency) propagation and electromagnetic interference phenomenon.
The juxtaposition of my hobby, and my career was interesting. Both of them had me meeting and getting to know truly wealthy people. (Not that that gave me any advantages financially?) The antique automobile hobbyist wealthy were very different from the others. I was fortunate to meet several major collectors that I seldom ever mention their names out of respect for their privacy. Most of them were very decent and down to Earth people! That regardless of how they earned their wealth, and most of them DID earn it! Other wealthy people I met through work? They tended to be arrogant, with feelings of entitlement, and greedy.
We did quite a bit of information technologies early development work. I met several people that became wealthy through the internet one way or another. I spent much of two weeks in the home of one of the best known computer company founders. We were "fixing" the television distribution system in his multimillion dollar mansion. The arrogant SOB had his "expert" install the system, they did everything wrong from the start. And after spending most of two forty hour weeks replacing defective wiring his "experts" had installed, inside his beautiful walls without leaving a mark anywhere? He refused to pay the bill in full, saying he shouldn't have to pay US so much to replace what cost him a fraction to install before the walls were finished. The simple fact is it costs a lot more to fix idiot's mistakes than to do it right the first time.
A "big oil" corporation international attorney pulled the same stunt on us. Paid an electrician thousands of dollars to install television wiring in his $14,000,000 mansion (that was the actual cost of construction on land he had owned for years), in spite of the fact we had done distribution systems for him for many years in his real estate holdings. Television distribution is not the simple thing most people think it is. When they moved into the new home, and couldn't watch tv almost anywhere? Then he called us. The electrician had done everything wrong. Wrong design, wrong equipment, wrong materials, basically nothing worked. We had to figure out how to run correct materials in proper routings to reach every room, and it was a lot of rooms, on four floors! The construction managers kept assuring us that we would be paid in full for all our hard work and special care to not leave any marks where they did not belong. They kept telling us what various projects were costing, and that our little mess we were asked to fix would be nothing by comparison.
We had three people working on the project for over three weeks! And when we were done, the system worked everywhere just like it was supposed to! It was not a simple fix! When it became time for our bill to be paid? Same argument. Why should I pay you thirty thousand dollars to fix a system that I only paid seven thousand dollars to have installed in the first place? It is amazing how they couldn't understand that the cheap improperly done system didn't work? And it costs several times more money to install wiring in a wall after the walls are all finished than it does to install it before the siding is put on!
In the hobby, I have met many wealthy people, that I considered them to be intelligent and thoughtful. In my years as a communications systems contractor, I met quite a few wealthy people that I considered to be selfish wealthy idiots! I could tell a dozens other stories of greedy and stupid developers.
Jack B, Yes, I totally understand your feelings about keeping "work" and "hobby" separate.
Do what is best for you. In the grand scheme of things? Whether you finish restoring the Fargo truck or not won't make much difference. I get the feeling that you are a lot like I am. I find great pleasure in taking hundred year old automobile parts that other people have refused to use, and turning them into good usable pieces again. I have restored several model Ts over the years. More than half of them were from badly rusted remains that other people had rejected. Most of those cars I have really enjoyed the many miles I later put onto them before I had to sell them.
But that is me.
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Nothing like rolling the dice! (Says the crazy guy that basically NEVER gambles or spends much time in any casino?)
I have seen flathead engines get stuck after sitting for as little as two years. Sometimes, maybe even often, as long as they haven't been left out in the rain with sparkplugs removed, they will free up easy and be just fine with no serious problems.
Then again. I have seen a few that turned out to be completely blown before they were parked and nothing of significance in the engine was even usable! I saw one once where the rods were bent, bearings gone, crankshaft ruined, and even the camshaft was broken in two places. By the way, the block was cracked.
I may not gamble in casinos, but I have taken the chance on a few stuck engines over the years. Mostly my luck with them has been good. The only ones where the engine was mostly junk I had paid an appropriate price for the car with a junk engine.
I hope someone can get it at a fair price, and that the engine frees up and runs fine with very little cost.
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10 minutes ago, CChinn said:
Wayne, maybe Boeing should have hired you to tighten the bolts on the 737-max 9 plug doors😂
That is sure a bad situation. From the initial reports I have heard, this "issue" could destroy Boeing. However, I never believe in placing too much value on initial reports. Any sort of investigation MUST be allowed time to make accurate or honest evaluations!
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Cranking the model T?
Kidding aside, just get back to your wonderful self soon!
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A truth of life is that one cannot truly appreciate much of anything, especially modern conveniences, if one does not truly understand how life was like before the development of said modern convenience.
Fools are not interested in history!
I have always been fascinated by history, all the things that brought mankind to the place we were forty years ago. I was helping my dad by the time I was five, holding the acetylene torch while he pounded on whatever he was trying to make or fix. I was changing flat tires on his work truck by the time I was eight (he would double check that I got the lugs tight enough). In the sixth grade I moved up to a larger bicycle, which I bought second hand using my allowance, and then rebuilt and repainted it mostly myself!
Over the years, I have repaired or restored very old radios, wind-up phonographs, cameras, shop tools and equipment, the list goes on and on. I like working with my mind and my hands.
For quite a few years, when I was much younger, I collected coins and other types of money. I always enjoyed the connection to history they gave me. Foreign money, coins or paper, rarely has much value, except for that connection to history again. I always liked that, and still have most of what I had collected. American coins were worth more, most of those I wound up selling forty years ago to pay the kid's hospital bills. But I kept a few things.
When I say I was after the connections to history? I mean it. Some of the old coins I still have include "state" coins, a few minted by states before 1776. I also have a Fugio cent, the first coin officially minted by the new United States of America! My Fugio cent is in poor condition, as even sixty years ago, nice ones were expensive! I could not afford a nice one, but wanted the connection to history. I also have a genuine three dollar bill Banknote! It predates the United States printing paper money. I like the connection to history.
To this day, often, some little occurrence getting change in a local store and I will regale the clerk with a two minute tale of monetary history. Just a week ago I told a clerk about my three dollar bill.
Pardon me if I sound like I am tooting my own horn here? But this statement applies to MOST of the people on this forum! Intelligent people like their connections to history.
Human beings are flawed. They cannot see into the future. The only way to get a glimpse of the future is to look closely at the past, and see the reflections. One cannot care about the future if one does not care about the past. That is a fact.
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Usually those old 1930s iron monster pickups by the time the World War was over, and a few more years around the farm, were so beat to the begebies that even thinking about fixing them up was a nightmare! I can't believe how nice this thing is. It makes me wish I could afford it.
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About two years ago, I turned down an opportunity to buy a nearly identical Studebaker with an older nice enough restoration for $7000. We discussed it extensively on this forum.
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Not bad, not bad at all!
That might even be the correct Gardener radiator ornament!
I looked at one for sale about thirty years ago. A bit nicer somewhat restored condition, but this one I actually like better. I almost talked a friend into buying that one years ago.
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I see a few things wrong with it, however, overall I really like it! I wish I had the bucks to bid even half what I figure it is worth. Never know? But, I cannot afford to try that. This one looks like a good candidate to tinker and enjoy.
My dad had a Franklin that he wanted to restore when I was really little. The first in a long line of cars he never got to. His was I think about a 1931/'32, but I never knew for sure (he sold it when I was seven). However, I have wanted a Franklin ever since.
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You just bought this car what? Maybe three years ago? Or am I thinking of your son? Knowing you, it must be as well sorted as any Cadillac of that era can be.
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It is a great ad! I love it! I couldn't buy it even if I really wanted to (which I don't). But yes, I would like to meet the poor fellow.
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That is an above average quality after-market body on that model T!
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My lips are sealed! I recognize the car, and have met them (very nice people!).
I followed them for awhile on an HCCA tour some years back. Great Hudson!
My best wishes to you and your upcoming wedding!
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The Paige 8-85 was introduced late for 1927, and as a Paige only manufactured for a few months. I do know someone that has (had?) one, but haven't seen it in a decade or more. For awhile late in calendar 1927, and early model year 1928, the Graham Brothers transitioned with the "Paige Graham Built" carryover models into 1928 (I have the radiator badge for one of those, in poor condition sadly). I also have an owners manual for the 1927 8-85 Paige, also, sadly, in poor condition (but it is the only one I have ever seen).
Just a couple extras I picked up along the way to go along with my 6-45 Paige.
There was a time I would have liked to try to restore that car!
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I would love to have one of those, properly restored of course. All those silly artist pieces ruin them in my view.
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8 hours ago, Rusty_OToole said:
As Alsancle said, would be legal today as they were legal when new. Make sure you get the original title documents. I would hate to have to convince the DMV I didn't make it in my home garage lol. You could have a lot of fun on suburban streets, running errands, or going for drives on quiet country roads. But you would have to be nutz to take one on the interstate or in heavy traffic. But, when they were new, a few people took them on cross country trips .
Most states have a horsepower lower limit that these with their original engine may not meet for use on interstates or other designated freeways. Even some smaller motorcycles are not allowed on freeways in many states. Honda along about 1970 altered their small motorcycle lineup because a certain model had a rated horsepower that barely qualified for California freeways. The problem was that actual dynamometer tests showed a significant percentage of that model were slightly short of the legal requirement, and California contended that the requirement was for actual horsepower and not stated ratings.
I remember this because one of my cousins got caught in that model trap. His was tested (independently), and found barely shy of the requirement. A year later he had a 1966 Mustang.
I don't recall what the legally required horsepower was at that time. But I find myself wondering if the King Midget might have met the requirement for the horsepower of not?
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8 hours ago, Jerriffic said:
Little Giant-1946. The actress is Elena Verdugo.
Jerry
I was almost sure that was the movie this scene was from, but it has been fifty years since I have seen it, and I couldn't recall the title.
The movie has a great bit in it when Lou pushes his way into a home to try to sell a vacuum cleaner, throwing dirt all over the floor and promising to eat it up with a spoon if his vacuum doesn't clean it up completely. The lady of the house keeps trying to stop him from throwing the dirt around, however, being a pushy salesman, Lou doesn't let her stop him. Then he holds the electric cord up and asks where to plug it in. She hands him a spoon as she says the house had never had electricity. Lou, now down on his knees, utters a plaintive sounding "Abbo-ott" as he scoops up the first spoon-full of dirt.
One of the details I thought odd at the time I watched the movie, was here was this house way out in the country, that hadn't yet been wired for electricity. Yet there was the lady of the house, perfectly attired, and with flawless hair. A true "June Cleaver" moment on film ten years before "Leave it to Beaver"!
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I had to laugh! A "truth in advertising" moment perhaps? In the description he calls it a "running, driving, breaking" car.
Spelling Nazis unite!
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I have seen several Essex automobiles that I did not care for up close. (Blockish and cheap looking.) I have also seen several Essex automobiles that up close I liked a lot! i am pretty sure I would really like this one. But criminy the price is beyond ridiculous! In the recent few years I have seen at least four running and drivable 1926/'30 Packard sedans (mostly earlier sixes) sell for around $10,000. No Essex is worth four times Packard money! And this car looks like an older cosmetic restoration after a couple decades of bad storage.
Tom LaFerriere had a Packard (1928 if I recall correctly?) I drooled over photos of for about a year before he sold it.
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Bryan, The lenses on that Reo look like "Flintex" lenses. They were used as factory original lenses of a few cars of the early 1920s, and also sold as after-market replacements. I had a 1924 Model T Ford that had them on it. The Reo the fifth's headlamps would have originally been plain round glass.
Several states began requiring some sort of light spreading or diffusing technology around 1918, and automobile manufacturers began including it as standard lighting equipment in the couple years following. Prior to 1918, even most expensive automobiles had plain simple glass "lenses".
As for who made those headlamps? I don't know.
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The 1941 Chevrolet four-door sedan is one of my favorite barely prewar cars! It is what my parents had up until I was seven. Somehow I always loved that car (I still remember the 1956 California license plate number on it!).
The seller doesn't show the interior much at all. And what little I can see? Wasn't properly done (the front seat bottom cushion cover doesn't fit properly). Price seems optimistic for a car that might need a significant rework of the interior?
Otherwise I really like it! It even has the same fold out factory option trunk guard. I remember one time, my dad in a pinch folded that down and chained a trailer tongue to it in order to move the trailer about a mile. He drove slowly and carefully, no harm done.
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I grew up in and for over thirty years worked field service work all over the greater San Francisco Bay Area and beyond!
Having vacationed a few times in Southern California, I am convinced that the Bay Area freeways are far worse than anything in Southern California! I once "clocked" my travel through a highway interchange that I went through several times every week. Two tenths of a mile in TWENTY MINUTES! It was like that every day! My thirty mile commute had gone from its original thirty minutes to two hours each way over twenty years.
We ended up in Grass Valley, where the local clueless think fifteen cars lined up at a stop sign is a major gridlock!
Enter (a few years ago now?), roundabouts.
I have a simple question.
Who the blankety-blank ever thought that people incapable of figuring out a simple single lane all directions four-way stop-sign intersection would be able to understand and use a roundabout?!
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Just purchased - Tail lamp from...
in What is it?
Posted
Other than the so-called "tuna can" with simple round red glass and clear license plate side or bottom lens taillamps common through much of the 1910s and 1920s? This basic style was one of the most common general looks for taillamps for mid 1920s into the early 1930s! With dozens of minor adjustments to the arched upper "stop" lens, slight size and angle variations, parallel arcs, very slightly humped arcs, differences in the corners, "STOP" or the automobile marque might be cast into the lens, or a metal cutout behind a plain red lens? Seriously, the list goes on and on and keeps going! Then there is the size difference between the bezel and the bucket, and the little red taillamp might be pointed or more rounded, along with slight size variations. Whew!
The 1929 Reo coupe I had over fifty years ago, and the 1925 Studebaker I got just a few years later both had their original taillamps. The taillamps were nearly identical unless you looked at them almost side by side. Over the years, I have looked at other Studebakers and Reos, as well as Hudsons and Heaven only knows how many other marques with nearly identical taillamps.
30DodgePanel just started a thread in "General Discussion" about after-market bumpers of the 1920s. Think we can start one on this style of taillamp?