Kenneth Carr

Morgan ... I loved the video. You have a great sense of humor! Your sometimes casual attitude towards working with an old car is refreshing. A while back I featured a link to your YouTube video on our club website. Members liked it. Keep the good stuff coming!

Our location is: We will be at Site No. RCC-89-92, Red Field, south end of the Hershey Stadium. (registered under name of Bob Burdick)

My chrome is actually one of the better features of the car. A few spots here and there on the rear bumper of the Roadmaster, but otherwise very good. This year I will be bringing mostly '41 parts and some manuals for other cars. I am also putting together a DVD of some of my own items that do not appear in digital form very often. Mostly I will be having a good time with the guys. I am too new to this hobby to ever make any money on my scarce horde of odd parts.

Thanks, Chip. I got you confused with "Skip" Boyer. My mistake.

I will be there with our crew from the Westerly-Pawcatuck Region AACA club. It will be my third year. It is a lot of fun. During the day we sell from our site and go around buying stuff. A trip to the museum is a definite thing to put on your list. There will be free bus service to and back. Our guys will have some Plymouth, Packard, and Buick stuff. I will have several items that go to a 1941 Buick. We have a page on ourwebsite that lists a few items. Feel free to stop by and introduce yourself.

Chip … Ken Carr here … I called you about 6 months ago regarding your line of plastic parts for the 1941 Buick. Will you be bringing any of those with you? I would like to send you an order by mail and pick the parts up at Hershey. The most recent catalog I have is about 2 years old. Also, I have a friend looking for a Tenite dash for a 1939 Packard. That’s how I found your posting here.

Regarding editing photographs: I use Faststone Image Processor ... I have used it for at least 10 years. Very good. It has multiple features for modifying photos and it is easy to Resize them as you like. The program is shareware .... free. They do encourage you to make a small donation if you like. I have also use Microsoft Office products for manipulating photos and drawing on them. But, not everyone has Office. Most MS Windows users do have Paint on their computers. It comes with Windows. This program is easy to use and you can make arrows and comments on your photographs and save in multiple formats.

I agree with billorn. There are at least two things that indicate Roadmaster: It has 4 side ports rather than the 5 found on the Roadmaster. The distance between the rear end of the front fender and the door is just a couple inches. It would be about 6 inches on the Roadmaster to accommodate the longer engine. A photo of my Roadmaster (I sometimes call it 'The Beast') is attached.

A quick update on my replacing of the water temperature sensor ... I threaded the new sensor in tightly and made sure that the cable exited with just enough curve to pass through the undercut in the spark plug cover. Before securing the cover I started the engine to test everything. The temperature rose slowly on the meter and was well stabilized at about 179 degrees after about 7 minutes. I shut down after 10 minutes. The only problem was the heater shutoff valve that leaked. I removed that, wrapped it with pipe tape again, and tightened the valve nut. Now that is good. I also installed a new thermostat housing that I had previously painted. Of course when I was removing the old housing I broke one of the bolts off. My friends Tom and Bob (our AACA club Gaslighters patrol) drilled out the old bolt and retapped the hole. All is secure now with a new radiator hose thrown in for good measure. I developed other problems but I will leave those for a blog post when I finally get beyond this instrument panel job. It never ends!

The seminar is a great idea. I make it to the Eastern Fall Meet but not to the Philly awards meeting. If you decide to make a presentation, possibly in PowerPoint, it would be great if you could make it available here.

Thanks, Wayne. I have tried Publisher for creating nice looking emails to send out to the members. I made some progress. I need to work on it more. I was able to do 2-column stuff and mix text, photos, and graphic art. I have not tried it for magazine covers. Is there a storehouse of templates somewhere? Maybe they come with Publisher?

Our car club, the Westerly-Pawcatuck Region of the AACA, just had our annual picnic. I featured this photo on our webpage. Online software helps me make magazine covers from original photos. It was a great picnic and our women members enjoyed it just as well as the men!

Neil .... Yes it was easy to disassemble the gauge exactly as described. These are things that I have to be told are possible before I attempt them. I'll do almost anything if someone says "it worked for me". I did not want to remove the rocker cover and go that route except as a last resort. I have a habit of getting myself in trouble. Those holes I drilled in the sensor never really penetrated the inside of it. They essentially scraped the inside and cut through the rim of the sensor (just like the rim of a rifle cartridge). I think that allowed the PB blaster to get underneath everything and help out. I may have chipped the shelf it was pressed against but a little sealer of some kind should take care of that.

I finally extracted that pesky water temperature sensor from my 1941 Buick. It took days. I squirted it many times with PB Blaster and wiggled the center pin that protrudes from the piece. It would not budge. I was using long nose pliers. Next I bought needle nose locking pliers (like vise grip). These allowed me to yank the center pin in all directions. I had to be careful with all this because I did not want to ruin the threads of the cavity. Then I drilled two small holes in it and blasted more. No movement. Then I stuck a nail (about 6 d) in one of the holes and moved it from side to side. No movement of the sensor, so I thought. I also heated the base of the sensor with a 30 watt soldering iron (the biggest one that could fit in the 1/2" diameter space). I followed this by packing it with ice and tugging some more. No dice. What I neglected to notice was that for some reason it was now easier to see that center pin. More PB Blaster was applied (drenched). Finally today went to tug on that pin again and noticed that it was actually sticking out of the well. Movement? I tugged again with the pliers and it began to move. Then out it popped with about 2 cups of antifreeze. I would celebrate with several beers except that I would get sick ... on some nasty antibiotics now. I am so relieved! PS: while trying to explain the problem to some friends I made a drawing to illustrate the bind I was in. That is attached below too.

I took up all the insulating material in the area Dave mentioned. I have no access hatch on my floor, either side. Then I remembered : one of the first things I did upon buying my car (some 16 years ago) was to have new front floors welded in. the driver's side was like a Flintstone pedal car ... you could watch the street go by. The passenger side was not as bad. The doglegs that made the junction between the floor and the firewall area were all shot too. All this was repaired. So, I figured the repair shop just cut it all out and did not replicate the access port (too late to complain now). But reading Neil's response makes me wonder if the '41 did have this port. Someone here must know! Today I jacked up the left (driver's) side. I have one horse under the spring perch and another under the frame. I also have cement blocks and boards under the front left tire and chocks at the rear wheels. I believe I was able to see the cable. I quit for today ... 100% humidity left me soaked to the skin. See attached photo. The floor panel patch is the smooth black area near the top. It looks like they put it together with rivets?

Dave ... Thanks so much! You are a life saver. I have no carpet so this will be an easy one. You just kept me a little bit safer!

I need to replace my speedometer cable. I have not been able to trace it to the connection on the transmission by just crawling under the car while it is not jacked up. >Is there any way to get to the connection on the transmission without jacking up the car? >Where on the transmission is the connection (top left, top right, etc.)? Thanks. (if you have a file photo I'd love to see it)

Neil ....I read the speedometer thread quite a while ago. Just now I went out in the garage and disconnected the speedometer cable from the dash end. My plan was to next go back and study Dave's thread. We are thinking alike! I have bought some really nice stuff from Skip Boyer before. I contacted him a few months ago and he said that production was suspended for a couple of months due to recent deaths in the family. He asked me to contact him again in 3 months or so when he hopes to resume production (one at a time). I will do that. I need a bunch of stuff. I may have the current price list ... don't know... will PM you if I can figure out how. Love this board ... just not sure on PM. Thanks again.

My Pleasure, Neil. Today I removed the ammeter/water temp. gauge from the car. I needed to remove the wiper vacuum hose to get the end of the temp. sensor through the firewall. I also had to remove the grommet in the firewall. That just fell apart. I took the gauge cluster apart by uncramping the bezel that goes around the glass front. Then I replaced both meters with NOS units. I still have the old water temp. sensor stuck in the block. I will be draining the radiator soon and begin work on that. Next is the speedometer. I need to put in a new cable. When all that stuff is done I need to either close it up or buy an entire new front end wire harness and go for broke. At present I am inclined to put in a new harness. If I don't do it now I will be taking this stuff apart all over again in the future. I attached a couple of photos. 1 Gauge cluster with bezel removed and water temp. gauge removed - note plastic turn signal bulb mask which is repeated matches front of gauge. I had to re-glue this in place on its cardboard perch 2 Close up of ammeter showing needle stuck due to warped plastic 3 Gauge reassembled

Don, Thanks so much. Before I read your post that is what I started doing. I'll be removing the vacuum hose to make room for the sensor to easily fit through the hole in the firewall. I need to replace that hose anyway. I'd be done by now except I was called away and am just back now. Too tired. 90 degrees and 100% humidity here. No problem pulling the sensor since it is already broken off. But I will need to get it out eventually. I was not aware of the method you mentioned so you just solved another problem I had! I assume that the gauge opens by prying off the bezel at the crimped areas? I don't see another good way to get at it.. Thanks again!