ply33

I have to say that @Dave Gelinas (XP-300) has been posting a lot of incredibly good photos! Thanks!

Hmmm. My 3.6 kW solar array was put in service a little over a month ago. My peak day so far has been 26 kWh and the days are shorter now than they will be in the middle of summer. Granted I am at the mid-30s in latitude in a generally sunny area and will do better with solar energy than someone further north, but I think your estimate of output from roof top solar is a bit low. An efficient spark ignition internal combustion engine peaks out at 40% efficiency in converting chemical energy to mechanical and that is at a vary narrow band of RPM and throttle positions. Overall efficiency for a typical car on the road is probably closer to 20%. So about 80% of oil used for transportation is wasted in current vehicles. Since a typical EV is around 90% efficient you don't need to replace all the BTUs in that oil, just a bit more than 20% of it. All the big utilities in the state have "time of use" billing that makes if very advantageous to charge an EV when air conditioners are off. In my case with San Diego Gas & Electric summer peak costs $0.60/kWh while "super off peak" which starts at midnight costs $0.09/kWh. Guess when I am likely to charge an EV? And there are a number of programs (which might become mandatory) where you can have your EV charger (or AC for that matter) automatically turned down or off based on demand side management by the utility.

There are lots of conflicting news reports on this. At least one I saw quoted the fire chief as saying that it only took a few minutes to put the fire out. Others are given the multiple hours figure. Which is it? I don’t know. Local police are saying they are very sure there was no one in the driver's seat when the accident happened. Yet Musk is claiming that the "auto pilot" was off implying there must have been a driver. It is unclear, at least to me, if Musk/Tesla knows that from telemetry from the car before the crash or based on the road design being one the auto pilot was not able deal with. When I read the reports on this I try to keep in mind that journalists get paid to write stories that people will read. Doing that, they will often report on things they don’t understand, garbling things up. They will often rush to publish with unchecked “facts” in order to beat their competition. So no single news report on this should be believed. And in cases like this, word for word repeats in multiple publications count as a single report. This accident is interesting enough that there is a federal investigation that has been started. It will be interesting to see what they come up with. But that will take some time.

On peak sun days there is a bit over 1 kW/sq meter of solar energy hitting the ground. Less in winter, less when hazy, etc. Typical good solar hours where you actually get that 1 kWh/sq. meter number about 5 in a day where I am (sunny SoCal) in summer. Likely half that in winter. And a lot less if you live in a northern state. Current high end production solar photovoltaic panels are between 20% and 25% efficient. I am guessing the top surface of the car usable or solar cells is about 3 square meters. (A quick measurement of my daily driver gives me 2.7 sq. meters of roof and hood area.) So the top surfaces of your car could collect 5 hrs * 3 sq.mtr. * 0.25 efficiency * 1 kW/sq.mtr. is under 4 kWh a day. If you live in a southern, sun favored location. Less if you live in a rainy or northern area. Typical EVs currently get between 3 and 4 miles/kWh. So under very good conditions you will get maybe 12 to 16 miles per day from built in solar panels. In the US the typical car is driven 31 miles per day. So at best, you will only be able to get half your daily miles by solar panels on the top of the car. In “real life” it will be a lot less. The reason you don’t see it being offered as a general solution is the numbers don’t pencil out. There are exceptions: If you make an extremely aerodynamic shape optimized to have lots of horizontal areas and load it up with solar cells you might get there. Or at least claim you got there. But getting people to buy it when they want something more like an energy inefficient SUV is another hurdle.

Since the “crossover SUV” segment is the hottest car segment world wide that isn’t too surprising.

The grill is held onto the radiator shell via some tabs on the shell that are bent over to hold the grill. Those tabs were not designed to be flexed more than once and are easily broken. The shell with grill is held onto the radiator via some screws that hide under the anti-squeak canvas band (the canvas band is held on loosely enough with split rivets that you can push it aside to get to the screws). I don't recall much if any adjustment between the shell and the radiator. But the radiator top position can be adjusted by the fasteners on the stabilization rods that go back to the firewall. So basically, you place the radiator in the car then adjust the rods to the fit of the hood is correct. All the above for the PD. I think the PCXX is probably the same. Not as sure about the early PC.

14 MPG to maybe 20 MPG was so typical of US built cars from about 1930 to 1980 that I am pretty sure that was the design target. For any given level of technology there is a trade off between power and economy. I strongly suspect that Detroit decided that 15 or so MPG was “good enough” and that any improvements in engine technology would be used for higher acceleration, greater speed or hauling around a bigger, heavier vehicle, etc. rather than to improve fuel economy. No proof of this, it just seems a plausible explanation for the seeming stagnation of American car fuel economy for so many decades.

I think it was in the 90s. . . I recall the Forest Service having to either modify or replace the three wheel ATVs they used for accessing the off-highway vehicle recreation trails in the district. But other countries probably have different rules and it would not surprise me if there are places where three wheel ATVs are still being sold.

I thought so but wasn't sure as that road was only reopened a few months ago and I haven't been on the section between Rancho Capistrano and the Tenaja Falls trailhead. It was closed for years to allow some burned areas to heal. The upper section is called South Main Divide road and the lower part is Cleveland Forest road. Not sure where the name changes from one to the other but think it is at the gate by the Tenaja Falls trailhead. For what it is worth, I've helped with trail maintenance on the Tenaja Falls trail. Hand tools only as it is a designated wilderness area.

I can’t say for other Chrysler makes, but Plymouth started having automatic spark advance with the 1931 PA models. I believe the 1931 & 32 used a vacuum advance only. 1933 and, I think, 1934 were centrifugal advance only. And 1935 with “perfected ignition” used both vacuum and centrifugal. Not sure why you care if the car has both vacuum and centrifugal. I know the 1933 and 34 (and strongly suspect the 1931 & 32) don’t have a spark advance lever you have to worry about. If you are looking for other modern features, the big change was the 1933 model year. It was a total redesign of the engine and running gear from the old Maxwell/Chrysler 4 design that evolved into the 1928-32 Plymouths. For 1933 and up you are looking at basically the same general mechanical design as your 1938 including thin shell insert bearings, hardened exhaust valve seats, down draft carburetor, etc. 1934 was the first year that Plymouth had an automatic choke (only on the PE (Deluxe) models). The 1934 PE was also the first to have a voltage regulator instead of a pure 3rd brush self-regulating generator. First year for synchromesh on Plymouth was 1935, though the 1933 and 34 had sliding dog clutches so while they do better than sliding gears they do benefit from double clutching. First year for overdrive for any Chrysler product was, I think, 1934.

What road(s) were you on in the Cleveland National Forest?

On a previous purchase of tires for my '33 Plymouth I looked for the date codes to get an idea of how long they might have been sitting on the shelf at the vendor. I didn't find any. So I called the vendor and they said they didn't need to be date stamped. I did not believe them. But I went searching through the US government websites looking for tire marking regulations and eventually found it. Date codes are not required on tires sold to and intended for use on antique vehicles. The rational was that there hadn't been a safety problem noticed with them in the past. Digging a bit deeper, it turns out that it was Coker who managed to get that exemption from tire date codes in to the regulations. Sorry, no links to back up this statement as it was several years ago and I didn't bookmark them.

Yeah. I've read there are wireless repeaters specifically designed to extend the range of the RF on the "keyless ignition" FOBs. The idea being that if you've left the FOB reasonably close to the garage it can make the car think your are next to the car so the thief can open it and maybe even start it. I keep my spare "keyless entry" fob in a small tin can, like that which some candies come in. I haven't tested it to see how good a Faraday cage it makes but I believe it should greatly attenuate any RF signals. I never bothered at the old house as the master bedroom was quite a distance from the garage but my current house has the master bedroom closet with the drawer I keep the spare keys in against the garage wall so it seemed like a good idea.

I had not thought about other 17" sizes when responding. The 1933 Plymouth PD usually shipped with 17x5.25 wheels with the 16 inch "Air Wheels" as an option. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find Bedford Famous Coach in 550/525-17 sizes since the Goodyear "All Weather" reproductions came out. And I have never seen the Goodyear "All Weather" reproductions in that size either. Tubes have been a problem for me for some time. The 1933 Plymouth has a radial valve stem and I haven't found tubes for 550/525-17 tires with radial stems. I guess the more popular Chevy and/or Fords used an offset stem so that is what is available. I guess I should check if a truck tube is available in that size but it seems unlikely. And even less likely that one with a radially located stem would be available. Seems like the only modern motor vehicle that uses a radial stem are motorcycles and while there are some motorcycle tires close enough in size the load rating is quite different and the stem diameter at the base is not the same as for an automotive tire.

Goodyear "All Weather" (diamond tread) tires were original from the factory. I think in the later 1930s they used a different tread on the front than the rear. Nice that you have the optional 16 inch tires so you can purchase the modern equivalents if you want. They don't make those for 17 inch. Way back in the 1970s and maybe into the 1980s you could get "Bedford Famous Coach" that was similar but they stopped making those when Goodyear allowed reproduction of the diamond tread "All Weather" pattern. I had the Bedford Famous Coach on my '33 when I first got it back on the road until they wore out. I don't know how close they were to the Goodyear in terms of handling, wear, etc. But they seemed to be about the same as my current Lucas Olympic which is a totally different tread pattern.

My previous comment was to the effect that could get alerts for going 36 MPH in a 35 MPH zone in an older car by using your phone. There are a number of "off line" navigation apps I know of that provide this feature. But as long as you bring it up. . . Yes, smartphones are basically tracking devices reporting back to the manufacturers and many/most of the app developers. I am amused by the fear that some have that a vaccine could have micro chips for tracking in it. First that would add to the cost (and there is a shortage of chip manufacturing at the moment). Second, the microscopic size of such a device would severely limit its power and RF capabilities, so they'd have to be tracking you from inches to maybe a few feet away which seems pointless. Third, why would "they" bother with the effort and expense when nearly every one is spending their own money to buy and carry around a tracking device (cellphone) anyway. GPS is a receive only technology. Having GPS in a phone doesn't directly make the phone a good tracker. What makes GPS a good tracker is that the location data it provides can be sent back to the app developers (or more likely the developers of the libraries the app developers use) via the data or WiFi connection. Even without a GPS, a phone is a pretty good tracker: If a phone is powered up and not in "airplane mode" then it is either connected to a cell site or trying to connect to a cell site. Your mobile phone carrier can see that at their end and they know a number of things: Which antennas of which cell sites can see your phone and a pretty good distance measure (based on timing) from the tower(s) to your phone. With that they can trilaterate (like triangulation but with distances rather than angles) your location. In a suburban/urban environment with lots of cell towers that can be very accurate. In fact, it is supposed to be accurate so if you dial 911 they can give a good location to the police/fire/ambulance people. In rural areas, especially mountainous areas, the position can be way off which is a problem search and rescue people run into a lot. On a smaller geographical scale, it you have Bluetooth turned on then there are trackers that retailers are putting into stores that can detect that and track you around the store (sharing the data with data brokers of course). So they know you slow down and spend more time in the tool section of the store and even stop by the air compressors but walk right past the children's clothing area. And if you have WiFi enabled, your phone may be broadcasting information about networks it knows about. So a piece of sniffing software on an appropriate device can know that you have connected to the WiFi at MacDonalds or StarBucks and what your home WiFi network name is (tying your phone back to a small set of real people to correlate with). On the other end, apps on your phone can learn about the WiFi networks your phone sees and from that determine where your are located even without GPS. Newer phones have some protections against some of this but I wouldn't bet that all phones are secure from these attacks yet. Wrapping the phone in tinfoil could help to the extent that it interferes with your phone connecting to cell towers and/or other RF devices. But it would be easier to simply turn the phone off. And if you are really paranoid and the phone design supports it, remove the battery. Or better yet, simply don't own a cellphone. Re-reading the above, I guess I am sounding a bit like a tin foil hat person. I do have a smart phone. I do leave it on with WiFi and Bluetooth enabled. But I also have it set so that all data to and from it goes through a VPN I control that does ad and tracker blocking so any information gathered about me can't be easily monetized. And monetization is what it is all about.

Actually, with the appropriate app your smart phone can tell you when you hit 36 in a 35 zone so you are not missing out on that either.

I wish those existed back in the 1990s when I did mine. Or perhaps I should say, I wish I'd known about a source for them when I did mine back in the 1990s. Anyway, I was lucky and able to reuse the originals.

If what I read was correct and I remember it properly, I think it was stopping the speeding rotors when the detection logic got a hit. A hit in this case meaning a set of indicators that did not end up with a contradiction when processing the encrypted Enigma message. But they also has problems with the very high speed they were running the paper tape through the reader at the same time. I think the legendary Tommy Flowers was key to solving some of those issues though he is better known for working on the equipment for breaking some other cyphers. The first IBM machine I worked with used a 6 bit coding called Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) which was later extended to 8 bits and then called EBCDIC. If I recall correctly not all punch card hole patterns for BCD were carried forward into EBCDIC so if you were working with an 026 card punch but feeding the cards into a 029 reader you had to play some games. When my grandfather passed away in the early 1980s it dawned on me that he had lived through an incredible period of time: When he was born in the 1800s there weren't any cars to speak of. Wilber and Orville hadn't created a powered aircraft. While the telephone and electric lights had been invented they were only in use in a few larger cities. By the time he passed away, the radio age, air age, atomic age, TV age, jet age and space age had all occurred with people walking on the moon. We have lots of things that have been created and adopted into wide spread use in our lifetimes. But I think the transition from oil lamps, horse drawn wagons to electric lights, automobiles (with a huge paved highway network to support automobiles) and air transport was probably a bigger change than we have gone through with our computers and other electronics.

And some of us have never heard of. Just looked it up on IMDB and watched the trailer there. Looks like a movie I'd like to see but it does not seem to be on any of the streaming services I currently subscribe to nor at my local library. I guess I'll have to buy a copy.

They look about right. The price has gone up quite a bit since I bought mine decades ago. For what it is worth, I could not figure out how to install the springs without disassembling the "remote control" which entails bending the tabs that hold the side plates together. And that material was designed to have the tabs bent only once when it was assembled in the factory. I was careful/lucky and didn't break any of the tabs off. I could have just been blind and there is a way to install those spring without disassembly so check first. But if you do resort to bending the tabs and disassembling, take your time and be careful.

I can't really add to this with respect to seatbelts and associated harnesses for dogs in older cars. But I just had to post a couple of photos from 15 years ago on a trip that was several hundred miles from home in the old car. I never did figure out how she found that arm rest comfortable enough to use as a pillow. The biggest issue we had was getting all that Akita fur off the mohair, sure did want to stick on there.

Expectations do change with the era. When I was a child being raised in the desert we went all over the place on dirt roads including poorly maintained ranch tracks to get to picnicking and hiking spots. And we went in our family sedan. Nowadays people seem to need a jacked up all wheel drive to go to the local grocery store.

I would like to agree with you. That is certainly very similar to the "tool kit" that I carry in the car. But way back in the 1970s when I just got my '33 I took the car to a local tire place to put on the five brand new Sears Allstate tires I purchased. They gladly took money in exchange for swapping the old tires for the new. But they also badly damaged the area on each wheel where the hubcaps mount. Took me a long time to get the wheels back into half decent shape. I wish I could trust a tire shop to mount new tires. I would gladly pay a reasonable amount for the service, and I do exactly that on my daily driver. But I really don’t want the wheels badly damaged again. So since that time I have done my own tire mounting for the '33 using a couple of tire irons and a lot of choice vocabulary.

I have used cunifer too. For whatever reason my first thought when looking at your photos was copper. Thus my comment. Cunifer is far better for that application than copper.