Locomobile
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Posts posted by Locomobile
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Those forked bits are for spoke nuts, truing spoked wheels. I've had to alter a screwdriver or two for that.
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17 hours ago, Bloo said:
brass screws are still available
Solid Brass screws is another thing I avoid, they are very soft and can twist off easily, okay for light duty. If I need brass fasteners, I use bronze. And instead of nickel plated, oftentimes 18-8 stainless buffed will suffice and they are very strong.
Ron
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16 hours ago, Bloo said:
what I dislike is not being able to find slotted head screws anymore.
McMaster Carr has and can get virtually any fastener and head style we need. Less special OEM parts. I don't even waste the gas or time going to the box stores for anything car related. They only carry what sells in high volume, which is mostly home repair related. It's depressing going there.
Ron
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As a machinist that routinely works in thousandths and ten thousandths at the grinder, there is no such thing as a wrench that fits both, they're clearly two. There is not one metric or fractional nominal size that are equal to the other. It's going to be tight on one and loose on the other.
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7 hours ago, rocketraider said:
I went in an Ollie's Bargain Outlet last week and they had a couple stacks of Craftsman tool sets in plastic cases. Two sizes. Next time I go in there Ima see if the case label says made in USA. They were probably clearanced out with all the store closings. Not in the market for another tool set right now and don't even have a gearhead high school kid graduating this year. A Craftsman set was a go-to gift for a kid who had been in HS automotive classes and done well.
I'm pretty sure those Craftsman tools were made by Vermont American. For 20 years now I've had one of their foldout sets in my vehicle. Saved the day more than once. Along with jumper cables, Slime air compressor and tow strap.
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22 hours ago, Terry Bond said:
Maybe nothing lasts forever, but I expected more.
That is why I buy S-K if I can. My opinion, but I think they make the best ratchet. Snap on wrenches are more ergonomic, but for what they charge for tools, they aren't worth it.
That plastic handle was probably a polyester resin with catalyst like epoxy etc., which never stops curing and becomes very brittle over time especially in high temperatures.
Ron
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18 hours ago, keiser31 said:
This is one of two the guy has and they are both rust free.
Sorry, this is the first thing that came to mind. 😀 I'm sure my tastes and interests are puzzling to people as well.
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31 minutes ago, GregLaR said:
Very creative thinking George but this area of floor is up hill from the driver's seat so one would need to keep a large roll of paper towel handy. 😄He said previous owner could not explain it either.
Nahh, just a very strong bladder 😁
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Vauxhall? Sorta similar.
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Too big for a water drain. A half inch hole would suffice for that, this is a duct three inches in diameter. It's most likely to run hoses and wires through.
This was likely a test vehicle, back around that time I seem to recall car companies selling ''factory demo'' cars. Nowadays they don't due to liability. Out behind Dearborn engine at the Rouge which I designed and built tooling for, out back there are 30 foot rollaway dumpsters full of brand new engines, that were simply taken off the line for one reason or another and considered contaminated. Everything gets scrapped now. That place is like a hospital inside.
Ron
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A very James Bond method of dumping the hooch. Maybe it was a test car and engineers used that to run wires and hoses through to outside instruments?
Although, never confuse good workmanship with good ideas. People do some pretty bizarre things and often do them very well . 😀
Ron
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Wow, that is fortunate to find a Brooks so complete and in such good order. It is my understanding they didn't make very many. Just looked, 180. Glad you were hooked up with some good used parts.
Ron
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37 minutes ago, 60FlatTop said:
It's when the obscure history references are an arm's length that makes people wonder.
I don't think any definitive link was established between the Stanley's and this ''Lobel'' person mentioned in that book as referenced virtually non legibly by Whitney. Could simply be coincidence. It's like the confusion between the McKay steam carriage built by the Stanley Manufacturing company and the Stanley steamer.
Ron
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Looks industrial, possibly early Wisconsin or Continental.
Ron
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They're never too far gone, just a question of how much time one is willing to put in.
Had this not been done, this particular vehicle would have been lost with no surviving examples. This will be on public display eventually.
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Here are a few pics of the Conrad from a few days ago. The seat is complete and upholstered. There are a new set of patent leather fenders/mud guards for it also. New Iron framed framed patent leather dash too. Dropping some parts off at the plater this week, so she should be hissing by summer.
There is a Victoria top for it as well.
Thanks for the compliments.
Sorry, crummy cell phone pics.
Ron
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37 minutes ago, JV Puleo said:
Lobel was the name of a workman at Columbia in Hartford that worked closely with Hiram Percy Maxim on his early gas and electric cars. He's mentioned several times in Maxim's Horseless Carriage Days, one of the best memoirs of the pre-1900 experiments
Ahh, thanks for that, maybe thats who Whitney was talking about.
Terry, I'm sure you're pretty much spot on with your assertions. that's one of the nice things in dealing with very obscure history, who is going to contest it?
(i had to remove that video, I forgot it was private and didn't belong to me. )
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That clipping sounds very conclusive regarding a link between Lombard and Stanleys as possibly claimed by Whitney. Not sure about his uphill downhill water control system. Nor the three cylinder engine, unless the cylinders were single acting. With two dual acting cylinders and the crank throws set at 90 degrees there are no deadspots. That may be the reporter misunderstanding also.
With his snowmobile, it's really hard to say anything definitive about it. Nothing about it looks familiar that I can associate with anything else. I'd say that's completely homebuilt, more so to prove out which is common, like Henry's quadracycle.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but I run into a lot old pictures of mystery cars that are virtually identical to Conrad Model 60's. After having retubed, brazed and hand filed out the chassis of one, I don't soon forget every radius and flat. The Locomobile steamer is the same way, I can spot parts and absence thereof very quickly. I think the "early 1900's" car is parts thereof Conrad. Not all of it.
Yes 1900-1903 for Conrad.
My Locomobile steering knuckle.
With the lady on the porch picture, I'm pretty sure that's a Locomobile Style 2. The Conrad that I am aware of never used a spindle seat, and the quadrant for the forward reverse lever is different. Conrad did this weird thing where they moved the throttle and shifter controls back which made everything backward to most other builders and unless they swapped the valve links on the engine (like I had to), moving the handle forward was reverse and moving it back was forward.
Thank you for your compliment on the Conrad restoration, it's been a very difficult one. I do have the body on it now and this afternoon I've been covering the body with upholstery batting covering that with cardboard and plastic strapping to secure it all, to protect it while I finish the rest of the restoration. The sides of this look like black glass, very planar flat and high gloss, and I'd really hate to scratch it with a piece of pipe etc. It's the only model 65 known to exist.
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It was inferred that Lombard was a major concern in the steam carriage industry, that's simply not true. The first picture dated ''early 1900's'', I'm about 99% sure that's a Conrad body. Conrad sold complete cars or parts for DIY builders. I've seen in several instances where failed start ups in the small town historical societies were assuredly comprised of Conrad chassis and body parts.
In that first picture, if you look closely at the arm on the steering knuckle left side, it is clearly shown, two protrusions, one is the tie rod which can be seen and tie rod end, the other is a ball for the draglink joint. The draglink on the 1901 conrad went from one side of the car, the tiller side over to that steering knuckle, it's very unusual and the only car that did it that I'm aware of, they changed it in 1902. If you'll notice there is nothing on that ball, because he opted to use center tiller steering which omitted the draglink.
Ron
The arrow on the right is pointing at that ball joint. Compare the bodies.
This an 02 Conrad, they moved the draglink to the right side with an arm connected to the kingpin.
Extra points if you can figure out how that ball joint is made. 😁
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Then Lombard is maybe who Whitney was talking about in his handwritten letters. I thought it looked like ''Riker?'' or similar but the best I can make out it looks like ''Lobel'' or ''Trobel'' or ''Gobel'', he underscored the name like he possibly couldn't remember or didn't know how to spell it.
On another note, he goes on to say that the Roper carriage had a top speed of 15mph and a water range of about ten miles
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Terry, In 2015 we made a trip up the Champlain canal with the steam powered tug. One of the locks has an antique hydro-electric power station in preservation. They let us in to look around and one of the devices was a hydraulic water turbine control patented by Lombard. I remember being surprised as it seemed so out of place and far removed from his log haulers.
Ron
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That's interesting. There were a lot of people trying to build steam carriages. When Ransom Olds showed up he sorta killed the whole thing.
They built one, they never built carriages. LOL
Ron
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The Whitney motorette.
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30 minutes ago, tom_in_nh said:
Whitney probably stole the inventions from Sylvester Roper
Not really, the Roper and Whitney carriages are nothing alike. Although, Roper may have worked with Whitney on the motorette, but I have never found anything to indicate that. Roper died the same year the motorette was completed, and comparing aspects of it to the Roper velocipede there are no similarities really between the two, so it's doubtful. The design of the velocipede is no where near as refined as the motorette. Not to take anything away from Roper, he was a genius in his own right. Whitney was a Boston tech (MIT) grad and designed steam plants for steam pleasure craft, he also designed the Mason engines, he was definitely capable of the motorette design and build work. He was also a direct descendant of Eli Whitney (cotton gin) and nephew of Amos Whitney of Pratt and Whitney. One day testing one of his boats he ran into Sylvester Roper and the two became friends. Whitney went to work for Roper after that. His recounting of that was comical, he said that Roper wouldn't pay him for weeks at a time and he had so much respect for him, he didn't dare bring it up, but he said he always paid me what he owed me eventually. He described Roper as a small man about 120 pounds, and much lighter than his own average weight of 160.
Ron
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Combined Phillips/slotted head screws - another bad idea!
in General Discussion
Posted
Then I have a few repurposed screwdrivers for wheel assembly that would be great for tamper proof fasteners. To be honest, I don't see one of those bits that would work for that screw.