Jim Bollman

I had the problem with the truck end every couple of years but moving to an area with less salt seems to have fixed that problem.

I have about 10 saved/bookmarked searches that I check most evenings. I have honed them over the years with excluded words and must have words. In addition you can exclude sellers so if I see multiple items coming from one seller that are spoofing the system I exclude them in the search and resave the search. If you know an item is never going to show up for less than a set amount or you're not willing to pay more than a certain dollar, set a range that knocks a lot of crap out. I occasionally miss something this way but I can go through my groups of searches quickly and move on. Most of my tricks don't work if you just stop in for a quick one item search but work well to cut down on junk for general searches.

Had a friend that had the same wife problem and would paint the mice tails orange, the ones that he caught twice were never seen again.

I remember as a kid going to one of the vintage car gatherings in Dearborn MI, I'm guessing late 50s early 60s. They did drag races as part of the days fun. I believe one race was a steamer against a Model T and the T got sideways trying to stop at the end and hit a hay bail and broke the wooden spoke wheel right off and the hay bail held up that corner of the car when stoped. That is about all I remember of the trip. If it was like most of those outings, my Dad and a good friend of his would roll me out of bed at some on godly hour to go to an old car event so we could get their to see people arrive and I would quickly go back to sleep in the back seat for the trip.

No opinion on how, but a long time friend now gone that delivered farm machinery and tractors back in the 50s-60s told me he always tied his load down so if he rolled over in a ditch the load would still be secured. He didn't want to loose a load or cause a big accident if it came off in traffic. He claims to have rolled a load and it did stay together.

Few years ago My favorite Craftsman ratchet gave up the ghost and after seeing the prices of the rebuild kits bought a used one at Hershey for $10. Later on the suggestion of a friend I took into one of the still open Sears stores to see if they had kits and they said they would take care of it and about n hour later they handed me my rebuilt ratchet back so now I have an extra.

Crosley Xervac

I have lots of E-Track in my trailer, all on the floor. Two strips the full length outside my normal tread area, two more in the front half that sit under my normal tread and one front center going back about 4'. Gives me a lot of options on how and where I tie things down. Unlike Bill above I do have some D rings on the walls but purposely kept them light weight so no temptation to tie something heavy to them. I have a few at about the 3' level and more up close to the roof. I use them to hang assorted straps, extension cords etc on the high ones and I strap camp chairs and such to the wall on the low ones. Nothing is hung on them that could swing out and hit the car. If you go with E-Track use appropriate bolts and washers to bolt it down and use enough for the load you're strapping down. When I first bought the trailer I ask the dealer to install E-Track and where I wanted it. When I picked it up he had screwed it down with wood screws every 12-18". I never tied anything down to it till I replaced the screws with about twice as many grade 8 bolts with large surface washers & elastic stop nuts underneath.

An add on or in place of the cardboard, I use incontinent pads in my trailer with a little duct tape on the corners and on pieces of cardboard under my cars in the shop. My Crosleys like to mark their spot.

Here is the Ford truck I sold after I bought the 50 F1. I had fun with it but it just didn't do it for me and I decided to let someone else enjoy it. It started life as a 6cyl 3 on the tree but the previous owner converted to a 289 automatic. May have kept it longer if he had made it a 289 4 or 5 speed.

I have had a love for the 1948-52 Ford trucks for as long as I can remember. When looking through some of my Dad's slides I found this photo from when I was around 3 or 4 years old. It may be what seeded my obsession. It was my Dad's service truck, he was a TV repairman back then. I had an F5 flat bed for a short time. Bought it from pictures and didn't realize how big an F5 was till I backed it into my shop the first time and it filled the bay front to back. When I discovered it needed 6 new tires and it had split rims and may not find anyone that would mount them I decided to sell quick. I lost $500 on the deal but wrote it off as an education expense and started looking for an F1-F3. Here is my 50 F1. I fit fine in mine and love it. After wanting one for so long I found this one about 14 years ago.

1913 “motor bob” snowmobile based on an H-D engine.

This looks optimistic

Went to an audio demonstration back in the late 60s and they did a blind comparison test of two systems and asked which the audience liked best. Almost 100% chose the same system. When they revealed what they were demonstrating the winner was a Wurlitzer juke box the loser was then a high end stereo system. Probably if you analyzed the sound the stereo system had better audio performance but the Wurlitzer had the sound everyone liked.

I'm on my 3rd shop that last 2 are kind of boring, a used oil furnace and now in a better climate I have a basement drive in shop heated from lost heat from heat ducts and an an occasional infrared heater over my bench. Stays in the 60-75 degree range year around. My first shop I started with 10KW 220v wall heater didn't do much when it was really cold in the North and you could almost hear the meter spinning. I added a used LP space heater with two 100 pound tanks outside, like I remember my grandparents used in the dinning room that they used to heat most of their house. That worked well but again cost of operation was high for back when we were pinching pennies. I then added a steel box wood stove. The fire box was just the right size that a paper shopping bag stuffed with burnable trash to fit. I put a stainless insulate chimney from the ceiling through the roof but the part exposed in the shop I built my own double wall stove pipe with a holes punched in the side pointing towards my work bench and a small fan mount in the side up hight pushing air down the pipe and across my bench. We separated out trash into burnable and garbage. Most weeks we generated 2 bags of burnables which would nicely heat that corner of my shop for a couple of hours on Saturday. I would throw in scrap wood and fire wood to extend the work time. Really worked well especially after I hung paint drop clothes from the ceiling closing off the area around my project car, bench and 3 heat sources. It really didn't keep the heat in much but it would stay notably warmer and got warmer faster. I still used the LP and electric heaters when I didn't want to fire up the wood stove or if I just wanted to maintain some heat in over night for things to dry. I admit my current shop is my favorite but getting rid of burnable trash was nice. I would stock up over the Summer in a barrel till it was full to burn in the Winter.

The Father of a friend back in the day had an Amphicar. One of his frequently driven routes was along a good size river. On nice days when he wasn't in a hurry he would run down a boat ramp and a reasonable speed and run the river for a few miles then back out another ramp. On more than one occasion the police were called for a car that had run into the river.

Not a lot to the stories.... A friend a few years back was showing his freshly restored prewar at Hershey and there was a finish part the restorer couldn't find the right style of in time and the owner, his wife and the restorer walked Hershey looking for the part and found it in time to win a 1st Jr. Back when the Hershey car show was around the old stadium I was judging an MG, if I remember a TC, and it was so fresh you could smell the fresh paint. The owner was very talkative about working on it to the last minute and started pointing out things they didn't have time to finish. I told him to stop, it was my job to judge and if I didn't know something was missing he would loose points, but if he pointed it out I would have to make deductions. He stopped talking.

I try not to drive my 50 Ford F1 if rain is forecast because my legs and feet get wet from the leaky window seals, last gully washer I got caught in I had to change my socks and pants when I got home since my legs were soaked to the knees. The 51 FarmOroad has no roof or doors, I have to bail water when it gets caught in the rain. Part of driving this old stuff.