frededwarrds

I’ve been quietly following this cone clutch problem for some time. Was this a problem someone had some years ago? Many moons ago my father had a 1923 British Leyland 3 ton truck with a cone clutch. When we did a light resto’ to it, as it was used as a crane on our farm, he insisted that there be little or no end float in the crankshaft. When the wear was excessive the cone would ‘pull’ into the flywheel and grab.... I’ll never forget the cast alloy plate on the dash panel which read ‘ Always oil carden dies through hole in shaft’.. something to do with the universal joints apparently.

In the good old days batteries were very expensive and with the tester on the left you could test each battery cell. Each cell was connected to the next with an exposed lead connector on the outside. If one cell was faulty you could remove it and fit a new one. With my 1920s car, access to the battery and toolbox is from each side splashed valance. Only the battery door has a lock to prevent theft. The tester on the right I think is similar, maybe for a larger traction battery in a forklift or like. Maintaining your electrical system like checking whether your generator under or overcharged, checking the water level and charge of the battery with a hydrometer, as well as adjusting the regulator was almost a full time job.

Popeye and a can of spinach will be here next!! . Rusty is right. The olive compresses into the straight steel tube. I have this on a air compressor which vibrates the tube. Most annoying design which I have to replace occasionally. The tube collapses under the olive and no matter how much you try to over tighten the nut, it won’t seal. A new olive and new section of tube is the cure. Should the problem reoccur sometimes there is a small clamp or bracket to stop the pipe vibrating, or often , there is a coil wound in the tube, particularly near the engine. These maybe missing.

About the different cam profiles. I don’t think valve lift was that critical back in the old days. Down here in Aussie, most or all USA cars had solid lifters fitted. Certainly Packard and Chrysler poly heads, side valve and slant sixes and many other makers all had solids. The reason at a guess was the harsh conditions and scarcity of service; too much trouble.

To old car fan. Down here during a fuel shortage the young low lifes would have a miners pick and kiddies plastic wading pool or clam shell sand pit. Lever the pick against the ground and under the fuel tank to punch the hole and collect the fuel with the wading pool. Can be messy but effective!

Down here in Aussie we call it petrol. I don’t know what is in USA gasoline but from my experience when visiting it is much the same except here ethanol is optional;E10. We have 91 and ‘premium’ 98 octane and variants. A while back I was given the task of supplying heat exchanger/chiller for the local fuel refinery. It’s function was to keep the fuel in the bunker below 24’c (@75’F). This was to prevent pentane from boiling out of the gasoline. This is added to make the gasoline ignite. Hence one reason why modern cars have sealed fuel systems and why your small domestic engines won’t start if you leave the gasoline in there more than a month, particularly in warm weather. The pentane boils off. After about a year you can pour the fuel on the ground and try and light it with a match and the match drowns!.. Vaporising of fuel is now the big problem with older cars and the cooler you can keep the gasoline the better. There is other ‘stuff’ added as well. Do you notice in bottom of the float bowl and on the jets a light brown powder stuck to it.This tends to make the needle and float stick and cause flooding. When stuck on the mid and main jets will cause lean out. Carby cleaners or other solvents won’t remove it. The only way is to clean it is mechanically with a soft wooden tapered stick,gently applied. Definitely have a fire extinguisher handy at all times located at the rear of the car. CarbKings’ idea of a ‘push on’ only button to operate the electric pump I do like.

To hidden hunter. I can’t offer any particular kind of answer. I think the people above are right about earthing. My anecdote was with the actual turn switch. Unbeknownst to me there was a tiny idiot light inside of it which would feed back and all the turn lights would flash; which ever way you turned the lever. I removed the light and all was well which educated me on how little power LED lights consume.... Obviously there is something all of us have overlooked, globally, believe it or not!!! ... In the meantime , my only suggestion is to get a small rechargeable battery pack to operate them independently from the main power supply. It could be removed to recharge or connected to the car. If connected and the problem persists, try and connect it so it is only connected when the ignition is turned off. I.E. when the car is parked. You will need a particular type of ignition switch to do this or a relay, or a diode and someone more clever than I on this forum to tell you how to wire it in. Sorry I can’t help more.

Hi John, Thankyou for the reply. It is the wood in particular I’m seeking. I hadn’t thought of cherry wood. It appears not to be stained, unless it is stained all through. We have specialised wood importers here and I can take a sample to them now that I may know what it is. The importers are not very helpful, for fear of misdirection , or plan old fashion ignorance. It will be a while before I need the wool fabric, moths are a problem here but not large. It must be the climate. Also. The car will not be left around in ‘deep storage’ too much. I seriously plan on using it regularly. Thanks again.

Hi John, thanks for the reply. I found these pictures. Not mine but gives you an idea. The wood is quite hard. I’m sure it is nothing too exotic. I have seen it on other USA built cars.

Hello to all. I am in the process of restoring a BB coupe. It is finished in a mid grey fabric interior with wood trim around the doors. My 3 questions are; what is the type of material the fabric is made from. It looks like velour but not of course. Except for floor, all of the interior is covered with it. In Aussie land the seats were leather but l would prefer to fit fabric on the seats like U.S. home cars have. I have enough cars with leather already. Also, is it available? ..Lastly, no one here can identify the type of timber used for the door trims. America is blessed with such a variety of beautiful timber. Unfortunately the car was left in the outdoors in Oklahoma for about 20 years and is just a little manky on the edge of same pieces. . Not bad for 90 years. I’m also missing a 2 pieces from the top of the door panel. It would be good to match them. Any information regarding this would be much appreciated.

Hi to MochetVelo, my anecdote was with a BSA motorcycle twin with a Lucas magneto. It would faintly spark at the plug when outside but it didn’t have enough to ‘bridge’ under compression. We had the magneto rewound at great expense,and when returned, it would spark at least 12.7 mm to you and I, or 1/2 inch to everybody else. The bike started first kick; .....maybe the second kick! The difference was unmistakable. The magneto rewinder man explained that is typical of old magnetos in that you cannot produce enough voltage at low speed. When someone is testing by spinning it by hand you would be surprised how fast you can spin it. Certainly a lot more than 47 rpm. It may seem o.k. ....... moving on . To overcome the problem of slow cranking speed, later in the 1920s someone invented the ‘impulse’ magneto. This was an attachment to the drive end which , simply explained, was spring loaded. When you cranked the motor over at (47 rpm!) the magneto would stop turning because of the magnetic resistance. As the motor approached TDC ,the spring in the impulse would be stretched to its limit and would ‘trip’ the magneto . This would spin it over at great speed. When working correctly, no matter how slow you turn the motor the ‘impulse magneto’ would spark. A great invention, unfortunately motor cars had moved on to distributor and coil ignition by then. Later they were used a lot on stationary motors. In the old days, my father would often remove the magneto on cars and, with a basic adapter, fit a distributor and coil. For him, rewinding a magneto was very costly. Viva Citroen.

Following on from Keiser31, the Mark6 Bentley And Silver Dawn RR(circa 1950) had only on the drivers door, a lever about a foot long. This moved about a 8” fore and aft from open to close. It was so you could quickly put your arm out the window to signal.

Rust over wherever! Sounds like a very original 1970s build. You could win a lot car shows , particularly if the doors and windows don’t fit right! Ahh yes the1970s......

Yes, my apologies danritz for wandering. We never had a ‘blitz’ as we didn’t need the 4x4. Good , tough and cheap to buy 4x4 for work in hilly country. One strange thing I noticed with all this vehicles is how small the cabins are! When I was young I didn’t notice that. My head rubs on the roof. I’m only 5’9”-177cm. . Sad thing was they were designed for young men and also most were all recruited from half starved depression era. I noticed that at a army disposal store. Way back in the 60s in my youth there were not many clothes of that era that fitted, only some of the airforce gear. Many of them were from wealthier families. Sorry danritz, I’ll drift no more and hope someone nearby can buy your engine. Someone with a military collection should have sense and snap it up.

In my youth we had 2 Ford WW2 army trucks on the farm. We call them jail bar Fords. . I’m sure the engines were not original as the army trucks had tin sleeves in the cylinders which didn’t last long. In the 1950s and 60s you could buy a new ex army engine, without the tin sleeves, for 30 pounds ($60.00 US?). One of these had the standard 21 stud head and the other had a Mercury 24 stud engine which would get along quite well. The point of this is we also had the most of a 6 cylinder army jail bar as well. Unfortunately it was vandalised. Here In Aussieland this 6 cylinder was very rare. We here only thought of Fords having side valve V8s.. Not now because of recent imports of 1950s 2 door Fords with a conventional distributor. The story goes that about 6 of these 6 cylinder Ford trucks were brought for the French to test on New Caledonia and Noumea, hence why it had a metric speedo. The ship was diverted to here because the Japanese arrived a little quicker than people anticipated. Rumour has it that if you go scuba diving ‘up north’ around the pacific islands looking at the war time wrecks you will find many more of these 6 cylinder Ford trucks.

Hi Brooklyn Beer, sorry to see you are still having grief with this. Following on Jack M and PFitz comments and if the master cylinder piston is fully returning I would be looking to see if that tiny hole is blocked. Also, On a car with front discs the pressure can build up. I had this exact problem. You would drive the car for about 10 miles and the discs would lock up even without applying the brakes. The calipers pulse against the discs. There is a valve in the front of the MC piston on drum brake cars which causes this and must be removed when converting to discs. As you have drums all around this shouldn’t be a problem. Maybe Swap the pipes around as you suggested? There is a thread somewhere here recently explaining this....... Sometimes on a job I have to go back to the start of my problem. I take for granted that a new part I fit has nothing wrong with it so I keep presuming the problem is somewhere else. And , after all these years, I still fall for it!!! Maybe look into the MC a little more. I hope you find your answer soon.

Hi Brooklyn Beer, I’m happy that you found success. One thing I do after I bleed the brakes initially , is I bleed them again after about a week or so of driving. No matter how much brake fluid you push through the fluid seems to retain micro bubbles. That air in the system I find is pesky and will work it’s way to the cylinders or back to the MC in time. All the best.

Also made in Aussie as ckd basically, like the Escort. And reasonably popular ,most were 1,6 pushrod and 3.2litre v6. When the v6 got a little tired it was commonly ‘repaired’ with a 302 v8. I think it was actually lighter than the v6. That made it into a nice car! The belt drive 2 litre motor was a bit confusing to the average Joe Blow. You actually needed to change the timing belt sometimes! It was quite reliable. Nowadays with modern engines, changing a timing belt is considered routine. Different times I guess. They last a lot longer than they use to between services now which shows how long it has taken the engineers to perfect them. Better materials as well, but I feel rubber belts are still an unnecessary cost to a routine service.

I’m hoping Brooklyn Beer has solved his problem. On a lighter note . Down under where we live we don’t have salt on the roads, thank goodness, but outback there are a lot of limestone roads which can play havoc. Fortunately not enough things to hit should your brakes fail. I’ll have to look up ‘cunifer’ . I thought it was a pine tree! . So if you don’t want to hit a conifer pine you should fit a cunifer line ? One thing that intrigued me was the fitting of copper brake lines to cars in the USA. Here it is definitely not legal. They believe it won’t hold pressure under stress. The flare nut isn’t designed for soft copper. Also it is prone to work harden with vibration and will crack. If you have salt on the roads it would be cure for corrosion. That aside, I know of cars and trailers with copper lines and never heard of any failure. Interesting.

61polara, Bang On. I discovered this on my car. It had inboard rear disc brakes which nearly set the car on fire. I changed everything discs , calipers and pads and luckily I tried to purge the brake lines with metholated spirits and compressed air and found a blockage. Alas, the brake hoses were as you state. RS. They looked good on the outside. I changed the 2 front ones as well. The left side one was restricted also. From then on I replace everything important on my cars made from rubber that is at least ten years of age. Personally , and only personally, l wouldn’t bother fitting a dual brake system on old cars. I know of no one whose brakes have failed except for ones that have not been serviced and flushed. Should be every year, but just flush them sometime per decade!!

Kevin, you are spot on. I’m not up to speed fully with car marketing but with so few car makers now who make such large volumes of cars on production lines we as customers offered generally very bland greys, beige, browns and whites. At dawn and dusk are barely visible without lights. Many of these colours have complex pearls and other pigments which don’t really do much other than make for very expensive paint repair as you have to paint the whole car to match. Which makes for higher insurance premiums.Clever those car makers!! Am I being too cynical? Which is why I buy plain white cars. Never really in or out of fashion. If the car has good style it can wear most colours. Fred.

Hi mdh 7475, Thank you for that. I notice the the taillight and most dash switches appear nickel. The bumpers are black with what appears to be stainless steel strips for dress up. The headlights ,Brown, do look chrome though. Also the spare wheel clamps. That definite blue look, not yellow of nickel. Though they look original they may have been replated. The paint ,what there was , has been identified as lacquer. That doesn’t worry me too much as I won’t be going there , with the modern paints we now have. E Paul Du pont acquired Indian motorcycles at around this time and began painting them bright colours with lacquer paint. He was sentimental about them as he and his brother had them to ride around their gardens when they were about 15. He also used them as a ‘vehicle’ to promote the new type of fast drying paint. Not that it would’ve been hard to sell. The difficulty and cost of getting enamel base paint to dry and the transition to cellulose lacquer is a story that should be told, maybe in a different thread, by someone who knows more about it than I. . . Thankyou all . Fred.

Sorry to butt in here. I have a 48 Morris 8 roadster. All of 900 cc and 4 speed with the carbon thrust bearing. A very powerful and scary thing to drive, but fun!!! At 50 mph you going fast enough.!! I have had no problems after I replaced the clutch and pressure plate. What I did do was I polished ,on the buff wheel ,the new clutch fingers before I assembled it. I didn’t like the look of the old tips on the end. They were refinished , ground ,but were not smooth. This maybe the problem. It might fix its self. Fred.

Al, I’ll dig up some pictures somewhere of the speedway 4 mechanicals. The body is being rebuilt,slowly. Try and find ‘ Miss Fisher murder mysteries’ You might like that as well. It is set in the 20s -30s. Fred

Hello Al. I haven’t got a speedster, only a Stutz speedway 4 . Also a BB 8 cylinder both are work in progress. The BB I have made some large inroads with this covid 19 situation. There is a silver lining somewhere. I’m from the S E of Melbourne, out in the ‘sticks’ a bit fortunately. Regarding temperatures, more so than ever before, we seem to get more adverse weather. In particular , hotter. 2 days last year reached 123’ f in Melbourne. And we are in the cooler place. When in Yuma at Xmas time I chatted to locals about 118’f. You guys know about it too. .... the upshot is that though we won’t be driving in these temps’ everyday the old cars weren’t really designed for it.. English cars are another topic.. The BB radiator is 90 years old and made from brass. Lovely as it looks it leaks and like all brass radiators of this era are at the end of their life. Chemically, the zinc has separated from the copper. I’ve fitted a modern type core in place with a honeycomb facia, (still working on that!) .. The other problem with old car cooling systems are they are very scaly inside. Getting them spotlessly clean is hard work, but essential. Waste of time seeking the best size radiator with a dirty system. I work on refrigeration systems, one part in particular ,condensers. Hence my comment about draft through radiator. If I needed to size a radiator I would base it on the original size (surface area) and then on your HP output second. Compare some different cars/trucks of that size HP/torque. Regarding draft, over on the Dodge forum is a long discussion about not using old cracked fans.. over there it is mentioned use of modern ‘Flexi fans’ . These pump well at idle and low speeds when you need them. I’ll probably go this way. The Stutz fan has a tendency to self destruct. A friend here had it happen; $8-9000 later for a new honeycomb. Sorry Al, I’ve rambled on a bit again. I’ll blame cabin fever !!! Keep working on that speedster. Stay well. Fred.