wayne sheldon
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Posts posted by wayne sheldon
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I don't know how it would be any different than four typical people pulling up that way? I don't know about where you all live? But around here there aren't more than a very few people that understand the progression of right of way! The other day I was the last of four vehicles to pull up and stop. I certainly did NOT have the first right of way. So I made a quick right turn (clear and safe) followed by a left turn into a parking lot and as I continued around the other three were still trying to figure out what to do!
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"Medically fragile" can mean so many things. Ranging from potentially serious all the way to immediately life threatening, whatever it is becomes a centerpiece of the whole family's life.
My younger brother was a severe asthmatic his entire life. Allergic to basically the entire world, he suffered from skin rashes constantly, and eventually developed some mental issues due to harsh medications he had to take. He died about ten years ago now, from complications of breaking his leg in a bicycle accident. I miss him every day.
In addition to that, I had two cousins born with Cystic Fibrosis. Sixty years ago, medical science was just beginning to develop treatments for the disease. Life expectancy then was seven years. When I was ten, as the oldest local available cousin, I was trained to administer percussion treatments necessary to maintain breathing passageways in case of some emergency or disaster made their mother, my mother, or specially trained medical personnel temporarily unavailable. (California was Earthquake country!)
Sometimes we develop special bonds with those with fragile health issues. In spite of a lifetime of KNOWING how fragile it is, KNOWING that our time together will be a bit short, the loss felt is harder than we might expect it should be?
Cherish your memories. Think often of the special moments shared together.
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2 hours ago, alsancle said:
AJ going Loco?
Just wondering.
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2 hours ago, JamesR said:
but I'm seeing nothing that resembles steering linkage for the front wheel. How are these things steered?
Very slowly versus distance I would imagine?
Was it Breedlove that went through a barn with a jet powered car one time when the braking chute failed? I remember seeing the film and photos on the evening news when I was in high school? As I recall, the driver was not hurt, and the car suffered only minor damage blowing through a wall of the barn at about a hundred miles per hour!
As always, my condolences also to his personal friends and family. He was truly a special human being.
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Thanks Robert S! A great advertising piece. I love the Neva-lost gasoline caps. I have had them on several of my antiques over the years, and have a rare two-pin twist one that fits my 1927 Paige 6-45 sedan if I should ever get it roadworthy again. They came in a wide variety of sizes and threads to fit so very many different makes and models of cars! My Paige has an unusual attachment, into the gasoline tank, and I was shocked years ago when I found a Neva-lost cap that fit it!
The only problem with the Neva-lost caps is that a lot of them came with pot metal "dog-bone" twist handles and a lot of them have disintegrated over the decades. Sometimes one can get lucky and find one with a cast brass handle on it.
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Over my years and quite a few cars, both modern and antique, I have had two yellow cars. Not the best of antiques, although one of them took me to numerous antique automobile and related events. Both were model T speedsters.
Car number 20 I had for many years, and drove probably twenty thousand miles or more! With era correct overdrive, and mostly stock engine it would cruise comfortably at nearly 70 mph all day long! It took me on a model T club National tour, many Endurance Runs, and more local club outings and friendly runs than I can count! It took me to club campouts, up to the snow a few times, and at least a dozen silent movie nights!
In the picture, about forty years ago, my wife and I are getting ready for her first Endurance Run!
The other car, number 3, was one I had for a short time many years later. Of the six model T speedsters I have had, it was my least favorite. For a variety of reasons. It did take me on one Endurance Run, and some other outings. It ran great, was fairly quick for a totally stock driveline, and seemed to be quite reliable. If I hadn't needed the money at the time, I could have enjoyed it for years.
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I was reading about his record runs when I was in middle school. Already being interested in automotive history, I understood that history was being made then.
An incredible life! I think well lived.
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The eBay listing I found for about $8000 is actually a Roosevelt from looking closer at the photos. Just clarifying for anyone that may care.
There was also a way restored(?) convertible coupe, reserve not met and I saw no indication of what they may be wanting? Frankly, I didn't like the restoration myself.
Those were the only two Marmon automobiles that came up on my search there.
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I wonder if it might have suspension hydraulics to set it down when parked?
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I had to go look. The 1929 Marmon sedan for sale on eBay for a bit over $8000 has been for sale for a couple years at least. A bit newer than I want, I did look into it a bit a couple years ago when I was hoping to be able to replace one of my cars I had had to sell several years earlier. If I recall correctly, the price may have come down some, as it seems to be reasonable. However, although it is much nicer than the OP car, it is still fairly original and does need some attention. It might however, be a car someone could enjoy driving while slowly upgrading some of its issues. Unlike the OP car which will require pretty much a full restoration before it can be driven much.
Just passing my opinion along.
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Thank you Rusty!
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This one hurts. A lot of them hurt. It just seems so wrong, so unexpected.
I too never met him in person. Some people are so open that one gets to feel they know them very easily. I enjoyed every post of his I read, and got to recognize him on the forum right away. I enjoyed his adventures with his Studebaker before his accident as well as after. I too admired his tenacity in keeping and saving his Studebaker from a fate it did not deserve. His willingness to enter unfamiliar territories and repair the damage himself was truly inspiring!
His kind heart, his appreciation for good things around him, showed through in ways difficult to understand, but easy to enjoy.
His sudden passing makes the world a slightly darker place. He will be missed, by many.
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I would like to reiterate viv w's comment about outside brakes in the rain!
Many years ago, I had a 1925 Studebaker (standard) coach. A very nice car that I had completed a good cosmetic restoration of a solid good original car. I drove that car a lot! And rain wasn't going to stop me. I had some earlier experiences with antique automobiles in the rain, so was well prepared. One night, heading home from a busy weekend, I got caught in a heavy rainstorm! The car was a good runner, and I maintained 50 mph on the freeway for about twenty miles without any need to touch the brakes!
As I went to exit the freeway, heading toward a red traffic light, I reached for the hand brake (which operated on a drum behind the transmission). Planning well ahead, and being curious to how the service brake would do under such conditions, I pressed the brake pedal. And nothing changed! The brake pedal went its usual halfway down, but the car did not slow down at all! So I went back to my plan A, and used the hand brake. It had stayed dry enough to work like normal, and stopped the car just fine, with a bit of caution for wet road surfaces.
Over the years, I have instructed quite a few people in operating antique automobiles. Usually, I will mention that anyone driving antique automobiles SHOULD practice stopping the car using the hand or emergency brake! One should know how it reacts, how it acts, and get used to the idea that it IS there for a reason! Mechanical or hydraulic brakes does not matter! Any braking system CAN fail, especially if it is more than a couple decades old! A good driver should know and be ready to use the emergency brake if needed!
The service brake in the rain will wipe itself dry enough to work in a short distance. But it also will be squirrely when it begins to work, and may grab suddenly on only one side! Plan ahead, and be prepared to use either or both!
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If you were nearby? I would probably drive by, stop and visit for a bit, and gladly take it off your hands. I already have about a half dozen similar battery chargers, and have repaired half of them at least once.
Sometimes it is just the gauge has failed, and using my old volt/ohm meter to check on it, it still charges batteries just fine. Often other failures are just failed connections, easy fixes. The transformers in these things rarely fail, but if one does? You may not be able to find a replacement as they tend to be wound "use specific".
The other big thing in these things is the rectifier. What type it is might make a big difference. That one looks like it might be old enough to still use a selenium rectifier. A few years ago, I tried to source a replacement selenium rectifier for something else and hit the proverbial brick walls, being repeatedly told they were not available anymore due to EPA controls. About two years later I was told there were still a few sources, but have since lost the information.
Very likely that one is modern enough to use some sort of diode rectifier. A few years back, a couple of my chargers got abused a bit by me using them to charge a magneto (a bit outside their design?). The diode rectifiers shall we say failed? At that time Radio Shack was still around, and even they had standard replacement diodes that fit okay and are still working just fine! Any decent electronics component supply house should be able to provide appropriate diodes for such a simple device (although the diodes do need to be adequately high current rating).
Personally, I like these type battery chargers. Old enough, reasonably well made. Rugged and practical. They do not do automatic power cycling, but how often does one really need that?
Good luck!
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What are the patent dates stamped in the back of the lamp? I have two of those, nearly identical, that came with my early gasoline carriage. One of them has only patent dates in the 1890s, the other has an additional patent date a couple years after 1900.
Just being curious.
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The only vacuum tanks (fuel pumps) I have worked with were the much more common Stewart Warner ones. However, a very good friend has one of these on his (1925 I think?) Chevrolet truck. I have heard him say it works very nicely. He drives the truck quite a lot!
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Sadly, I would say the pictures tell the story. It appears the doors are seriously sagging and all ready to fall off! The front pillar is not lining up with the roof on either side. Just from the pictures I would speculate that no more than half the original wood might be salvageable. And let me clarify that by saying I have managed to salvage some pretty marginal wood in years past!
If it was a car I wanted? (It isn't!) If I was ten years younger and had a lot more time to work on my projects? (I am not and don't!) I would consider something like this.
And I already have too many projects I don't have time for.
I hope it finds a good home with someone that has the skills and desire to see it through. Sadly, the odds are very against that happening these days.
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I love happy endings!
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Glad to see that you are going to heed the free advice! Free or not, almost everything said has been good advice!
As an additional. It is almost always better to fix something that is not working properly rather than giving a quick patch and hope!
As a bit of understanding the "how and why" of the six or twelve volt issue? Bad connections due to paint or rust or other corrosions, looseness, undersize wiring etc etc etc, drop voltage in a non-intuitive way. A given bad connection (or undersize wire?) will drop voltage very close to the same voltage amount regardless of six or twelve volts. In other words, a given rusty connection will drop the voltage say one volt, regardless (with a bunch of complicated exceptions!) whether there is a six or twelve volt battery installed. So with a six volt battery, that connection dropping the voltage to five will be a nearly twenty percent drop! With that same one volt drop, a twelve volt battery will lose only about ten percent of its voltage. An eight volt battery will also drop about one volt, leaving it still above the six volt threshold. Hence why an eight volt battery might work okay as a patch.
However, not correcting the actual problem (the bad connection!) can still result in other problems or future failure. Hence, better to find it and fix it.
Wire size AND LENGTH are another complicated calculation. Suffice to say that more voltage works better using smaller wires. One of the main reasons automobile manufacturers switched to twelve volts was that the smaller wire in millions of cars saved the manufacturers millions of dollars! Also one of the reasons switching a six volt car with problems over to twelve volts SEEMS to work. However, again NOT fixing the actual problem (bad connections!) will often lead to other issues or future failure.
I highly recommend you read Hemi Joel's great thread on road testing his Woodlites! Link;
https://forums.aaca.org/topic/394480-road-testing-woodlites/#comment-2509483
As others have said quite well, A properly sorted six volt electrical system should work wonderfully!
One last thing. A sometimes great way to find bad connections? If you promise to be a bit careful?
After the car has sat for an hour or more, start it, maybe three or four times. Then quickly, before temperatures can migrate away, run your fingers over every inch of wire you can reach, and touch every connection! SOMETIMES, often a bad connection will get hot enough for you to feel it. That alone isn't adequate to properly sort the entire system, as only some of the worst spots might be hot enough to feel.
Why do I say be careful? Because I still have a scar on my left index finger from finding a bad connection on one of my modern cars almost fifteen years ago! That silly bad connection had driven me nuts for over a month! It would only act up when I was in a hurry, and couldn't take a few minutes to find it. All I had to do was slam the hood and it would fire right up. And when it was making connection, it didn't get hot enough to feel it. Finally, one day, it acted up when I wasn't in a hurry. And I quickly found it. Oh BOY did I find it!
Over the decades, I found a lot of bad connections that way! Usually without getting burned.
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Yes, the cabriolet in 1929 was the one non-sedan that originally came with the cowl lamps! I knew someone over fifty years ago that had one of them. The body is very interesting, wood framed if I recall correctly? Although it looks very similar to the regular coupe models (especially the sport coupe!), the construction and moldings are quite different!
Love that car Jeff P. Correct color also as I recall.
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17 hours ago, AzBob said:
Cowl lights were only standard on the '28 Town Car, '29 Cabriolet, Town Sedan and Town Car otherwise an add on.
I am no expert on model A Fords, and it has been a long time since I was around them very much. But the cowl lamps on 1928 and 1929 model As other than the 1929 cabriolet and a few specific models of four-door sedans even as an add on was heavily debated decades ago. The general consensus at that time was that they were not available from the factory except as standard equipment on the few specific models and as an option on a couple of four-door sedan models. There were a few (very few!) known cases of dealers adding the cowl lamps to other cars to make a sale. Otherwise, not likely.
About thirty years ago, some friends really into model As told me that some minor mention of some special circumstance had been found that resulted in the factory installing cowl lamps on a very small number of other cars.
And the floodgates opened!
Hundreds of people suddenly installed cowl lamps on coupes, roadsters, and two-door sedans!
As a person that has studied literally THOUSANDS of era photographs under a magnifying glass, I can with some authority say that I have never seen a 1928 or 1929 model A Ford OTHER THAN the models supposed to have them that had cowl lamps in an era photo!!
There are almost certainly more model A Fords (1928/'29) that never should have had those cowl lamps originally on the roads today than were ever on the road with them in the early 1930s!
To me? It is like painting an antique car in "clown colors". Anybody with a few extra dollars COULD have had ANY car painted ANY color they wanted? It doesn't make it the way they were 99.99999 percent of the time.
Your car? You can do whatever you like with it. You do not need my permission. My car? I like my car to look like it was ripped right out of an era photograph! Except in color? And at that an appropriate color. It is an antique automobile, I want it to look like it did way back when! I am not a true purist. I like a few appropriate era accessories on my car, like it may have actually had back when it was someone's pride and joy. I am not into judging, I don't care about lost points for some minor detail. And I like to drive my cars more than I like to clean them. And I don't mind if they have a few scratches from being enjoyed!
However, every time I see these cowl lamps on a 1928/'29 model A that shouldn't have them? It ruins the whole car for me. I am sure part of my problem with them is that one of my longest time best friends had a 1929 model A town sedan. And he was very proud of those cowl lamps his car was supposed to have! To me, they should still be something special.
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Finally had a few minutes to watch the video without interruption! Wonderful! Love the lamps, beautiful car! Loved the sounds. The whole thing!
Thank you.
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I think it is too neat to be called a "turd". Although a longtime best friend is well known for giving cars similar names. One of his cars was forever known as "the sh!t box". A car I had many years ago was named the "black bomb" by him because it was old faded black and had a disintegrating interior.
Hmm. The Black bomb?
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How much room there was for the landau irons varied from one car make/model/body to the next. Some like Buick's oval window brougham used different window sizes and shapes to make more room for the landau bars, which is what gives it the look that makes it one of my all-time favorites! Some like one of Studebaker's series altered the shape with an arched back to top of the window to allow more room for the landau irons. Some manufacturers just squeezed them in behind the window making a crowded appearance which often didn't look so great. A few eliminated the third window completely.
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In memory of my sister Jan....
in General Discussion
Posted
James R, Spina bifida is something I have run into through work relationships, and a few friends of friends throughout my life. The funny thing is, that a very good friend in a couple of the old car clubs apparently had a less severe form of that birth defect. Charlie could walk, somewhat sideways, and always dragging one foot a bit. He was short, slight of build, and had a wonderful understated manner about himself. Everyone that knew Charlie knew he suffered a bit from numerous health issues, yet he walked miles of swap meets, and was as active in the local antique car clubs as anybody. Nobody seemed to know just what his health issues were. It was rarely ever mentioned. And everybody in the clubs liked Charlie, and he seemed to like everybody. He never married, if he had any family nobody else seemed to know about it.
Charlie lived a rich full life. He raced real long rail dragsters in his youth. We were chatting about that one day, as he told me about losing the tie rod at 160 mph! We got into the subject because a model T racing car had broken the tie rod at an antique racing event! He found people's reaction to breaking a tie rod at 50 mph rather amusing!
He had a good number of antique automobiles. There were a couple model T Fords, a couple late 1920s Packards, A Star, an early Crestmobile, and the nicest 1931/2 American Austin roadster I have ever seen! That Austin was the perfect size for him and he really liked that car!
It was only after Charlie died that word got around that it was spina bifida that he had suffered from his entire life.
Charlie was very fortunate, and I know he knew it. One way or another, I have personally met numerous people through the years with spina bifida. Most of them were bound to wheelchairs their entire lives.
My heart goes out to you and your family for your loss.