Chris Bamford
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Posts posted by Chris Bamford
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Rusty… four lower terminals to the four spark plugs, four uppers to the end-of-cam commutator, and the ninth is power in to the four coils (common terminal strip in bottom of the coil box).
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The Vintage Touring Association of Alberta is geared to strictly pre-1932 original cars (and the occasional speedster). We hold hub tours two or three times per year throughout the province, and the Fall "Adventure/Gravel" tour is definitely my favourite.
The 2023 Adventure Tour was held Sept 19-22 out of Sundre, Alberta in the eastern Rocky Mountain foothills. Sunny weather, few breakdowns, lots of gravel, some good hills, delicious meals, wonderful scenery and a great bunch of folks made for a near-perfect event for the 13 cars and 25 tour-ists.
Many thanks to our able and enthusiastic Tourmasters Paddy and Irene Munro. Here are a few video highlights from the weekend:
Road closed, bridge out, no problem: https://youtu.be/hMuJEf0EUmg
Ryan crosses the Clearwater (or does he?): https://youtu.be/PzmlOhNoIVk
Thursday Jet Boat fun: https://youtu.be/H4FMf6v7uuE
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For the subject taillight repair, my inclination would be:
Step 1. A skim of JB Weld on the joining surfaces and clamp securely in desired position until the JB has cured.
Step 2. An interior reinforcement of some kind… probably heavy sheet metal roughly contoured to bridge the inside surface. This is liberally JB Welded in place and allowed to cure.
Step3. Trim off external squeeze-out and refinish to taste.
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6 minutes ago, 1912Staver said:
…I am still not quite convinced that this isn't a very early electric light.
On the better model Solar's the chimney is often nickeled.
Well, the chimney appears to be nickeled under the black paint, the lamp has a chimney, and the electrical connection is at the bottom, where the acetylene connection would be, and is, on my pretty much identical 1912 Solar acetylene lamps.
Funny way to make an electric head lamp…
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22 minutes ago, Rick Blue said:
They
Sometimes I find the modern use of pronouns quite confusing… -
Thanks to all for your interest and comments. I agree this event was more of a vigorous parade than a race, and it’s prompting me to do some digging at the local archives re the earliest Edmonton cars. One of these days.
I checked with fellow board member and Russell aficionado Peter Findley about the cars… there are similarities to the Russell, but also differences.
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Here is the description below the photo:
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I spotted this photo in a 'Memory Lane' exhibit at our annual fair on Friday.
We have a history of Model T racing in the 1940s and Auto Polo earlier than that, but this 1905 business is new to me. Edmonton's first car was a 1903 Model A Ford (first series A).
Based on the clothing in the lead car, this may have been some sort of 'Powderpuff" event. And, judging from the passenger count in the various vehicles, it was clearly more important to be seen than to be fast.
Anyway, what vehicles might these be?
I plan to submit this photo to our local club newsletter this evening, and the more solid info/educated guesses/humourous commentary the better!
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11 hours ago, prewarnut said:
...will they kick in the Brooklyn Bridge with lot #225? The front fenders look a bit like '33 Chevrolet (although the leading stamped ridge is not as thick) but with mid '20s artillery wheels. Can't they just bend down and read a wheel cap? Anyone else have a guess?
The place is about 60 miles west of me. I stopped in once for a wander years ago.
A couple friends were out there recently helping the auctioneer identify various lots for the listings. These two are known pranksters... wouldn't have put it past them to spot "DB" on the hubcaps of Lot 225 and pronounce it to be Duesenberg, just for the the fun of it.
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Thank you Ply, great to have a voice with actual EV experience — and knowledge of the industry and market — weigh in on the discussion.
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5 hours ago, MCHinson said:
...what the the rules are for AACA Judging. If those options were offered by Oldsmobile on any Oldsmobile of that particular year, for AACA judging purposes, those options are acceptable for judging on ANY Oldsmobile of that year...
I'm not looking for an argument or to be difficult, nor am I addressing this to MCHH in particular, but it can be interesting to carry blanket statements out to their (potentially) illogical conclusions...
If I'm showing a 1965 Chevrolet Malibu at an AACA meet and I have equipped this car with the Chevrolet Corvette optional 427 ci 425 hp engine with side pipes and positraction rear axle, would this be accepted at the meet?
How about my 1966 Plymouth Superbird into which I have swapped the available-in-1966 225 ci Slant Six from my old Plymouth Valiant?
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1912 KisselKar 4-50: purchased Feb 1993, drug home June 1993, driving chassis 1997, officially "finished" July 2001. Eight years and change.
Was originally going to build a speedster, then learned our city of Edmonton had a 1912 KisselKar 4-50 Chief's car back in the day (not my particular car, however).
Voila! A "four-passenger family speedster"!
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15 hours ago, 1937hd45 said:
Can you get any movement out of those spoke nipples? The rim is wood isn't it? Bob
Bob, yes on both counts. Remarkably, I got movement from every one of those 40 spoke nipples. I expected a struggle at minimum, and most likely failure. Not so.
The rims are wood. When I bought the car in 1994 the felloes were getting weak and sloppy. We rehabilitated them with some new peripheral material, epoxy and what-not (it's been many years and my good friend did most of the work).
Since then the rims have been faultless. Every spoke was a bit loose however, and the rim would move laterally almost 1/2" relative to the hub.
Thanks to the other posters for the further info on Non-Skids.
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My 1906 Orient Buckboard is running what are likely early reproduction, Firestone-branded, 28"x3" Non-Skid tires. The sidewall information is "MADE IN U.S.A." and "1 BD-13154-1". I expect these tires and the clincher rims date back to the car's circa 1955 restoration.
Can anyone confirm this time period and/or interpret the sidewall data?
It would be interesting to learn more about the early-repro Non-Skids: when manufactured, where, pricing and so on.
The standard spec tires on the 1907 Buckboard were 26x2-1/2 single tube. Double tube tires were a $30 option, Swinehart solid tires $35.
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10 hours ago, 8E45E said:
You're welcome!
See you in Lethbridge in two weeks??
Team Dodge will be there!
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Thank you Craig, and that was an interesting read. Much appreciated.
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I won this treasure in a local club meeting trivia contest this week. It has a rather sophisticated mechanical AM-PM, day and date mechanism and after 30 hours hasn't gained or lost any more than a second or two.
Can anybody help with the year and model of Lincoln this would have come in? I'm thinking it would make a fun workshop clock.
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My 1906 Orient Buckboard (predecessor to the Metz) had a 1/4" reversible aluminum drive plate and the driven wheel was faced with a brake lining material bonded and riveted to a mystery wood ring 1" wide and about 1" thick, which in turn was bolted to a cast hub and felloe.
I've run the car every year since 1994, to the point that the lining had worn down to the rivets and the drive plate had circular grooves in the common drive positions (most prominently the 'over-centre' reverse position as that provides the most effective braking). With the drive plate worn on both sides and the lining shot, it was time to replace both, which I did in the original (to me, at least) fashion.
Rough-cutting the replacement drive plate:
New drive plate in place on the flywheel:
Woven brake lining glued and clamped around the wooden substrate. The completed assembly is fitted around the driven wheel casting, right, and thru-bolted/clamped between the casting and the brass clamp ring.
Belt & suspenders: The lining is also riveted through the wood lining, with the inner end of each rivet peened over a small countersunk flat washer.
Completed driven wheel assembly mounted on the jackshaft. My assistant was in the middle of a fruitless search for salmon treats.
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The presents are free boxes from the liquor store, wrapped with dollar-store festive plastic tablecloths and weighted down with scrap metal, rubble and the like. Very few get pilfered in service and it's no big loss when they do.
The Dodge is waiting on a valve job so the T will do the honours this year. The presents were kept in my garage attic off-season; they got pretty ratty after several seasons and I chucked 'em all last year. My project tomorrow is to build a batch of new ones and pile them into the Ford ahead of our local club's monthly meeting Wednesday.
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I'll offer a perspective on what our Edmonton Antique Car Club has been up to the last few years, and it seems to be helping... our membership inched steadily upward during the pandemic and is now at a record high of 197 persons (metro area 1,000,000+). We're an older-demographic club obviously, with new members typically in their 50s and 60s.
DIGITAL
• Shiny new website in 2020 at eacc.ca, regularly updated (see Events Photos and Calendar page). Regular updates are key, as they are for almost all online outreach.
• On-line or paper membership applications, with online or cheque/cash payments cheerfully accepted.
• The Running Board monthly newsletter. 16-20 pages most months; this has evolved the past few years more into a pleasant, informative read rather than the prime source for upcoming events and club news. Our editor, by the way, is a <30 year old Model A owner who is also building a T speedster.
• Club Facebook site: great for photo galleries and attracting prospective members but IMO borderline useless for disseminating info or any kind of permanent record.
• Mid-Month and Meeting Day (1st Wed of the month for us) member emails — short & snappy, club news, upcoming events, reminders, etc.
• We have a few members who do not do e-mail (or refuse to understand it 🙂) and they receive printed newsletters and notices by mail.
EXECUTIVE
• Term Limits! Our By-laws limit Executive members to a maximum of two years consecutive service. This ensures regular shuffles and while many Execs come back on after their year off, new ones rotate in as well. As one might expect, the newsletter editor is given a pass on the two-year rule.
MONTHLY MEETINGS
• Business portion is kept as brief as practical, followed by coffee and doughnuts then some kind of entertainment. There is no more "reading of the minutes of the previous meeting" as they are emailed out to all members on the morning of the meeting day.
• Some after-business examples: slide show of the year's activities, a piano concert, speaker from the city about how traffic lights and flows are managed and what to expect in the future, a de-cluttering expert, suitcase swap meet, member slide shows from travels, museum visits, etc., show-and-tell evenings where members bring in something unique to show (not necessarily old-car-related), local history presentations, etc. etc. Meeting entertainment does not have to be old-car related. We do have a significant number of spouses attend, and many of them welcome the variety. As do we car kooks.
ACTIVITIES
• We do some 30+ Seniors' Visits every season, regular feasts (St Patrick's Day, Corn Roast, Klondike Breakfast, etc), one large summer car show jointly with two other clubs, garage & shop tours, Fall colours tour, bowling, occasional multi-day tours, etc. Anything involving driving, visiting and eating seems to hit the mark (not news to readers here, I'm sure).
• Mystery Tours: for three or four summer months there is no General Meeting and we gather those nights for a "Mystery Tour" which involves a drive and a surprise destination. The destination might be a park for ice-cream and coffee, a private collection, a ride on our local historic streetcar, visit to community gardens, a distillery, etc etc.
OTHER
• Our annual show is non-judged, as are all our club activities.
• While we officially recognize pre-1949 vehicles, all are welcome. And we actually mean it!
• During the pandemic, we ramped up our on-line activity and communications, and were as active as possible whilst obeying local restrictions (outdoor and driving activities, indoors and masked when permitted, etc). Several other clubs I belong to basically put everything on hold those two years, suffered as a result, and continue to struggle.
All this is not to say that we're doing everything right, but it seems to work for us. Embracing the digital age, staying in touch and being active year 'round are probably the biggest things in our favour.
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21 hours ago, CatBird said:
...Car shows, gas stations, anywhere, people so often ask if they can take a picture of my car? I warmly suggest that they sit in my car and let me take an picture of them with their cell phones...
I couldn't agree more. Those kids in the last two photos just couldn't wait to see what that car was all about!
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2 hours ago, Paul Dobbin said:
...Looks good with the vintage town shown behind it.
Here's a view of Skagway's main street in March 2012. The bar owner was the only person in sight prior to cruise ship season. I recall the town had about 900 permanent citizens and 30 jewelry stores. We were in in '47 Dodge on our way back from Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. Tuk is the furthest north one can drive in mainland Canada and Alaska was our 35th state visit.
The bar owner invited us into the Red Onion for a look. He had a Red Light District museum under development upstairs (the building housed this sort of business for a brief time) but I found the main floor front and rear most interesting. Apparently, the building was moved several blocks to this site nearer to the harbour sometime early on. It was later determined either the building was plunked down backwards or they just wanted the ends switched around — the floor and saw cuts inside the front wall match shape and materials with those just inside the back wall. Remarkable.
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24 minutes ago, CarlLaFong said:
You're going to have to address the welded in spark plugs
And, apparently, the welded-on body framework…
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2 hours ago, Peter Gariepy said:
I also rename posts. Clickbait and ambiguous titles are rampant, and I do what I can to squash them.
I believe this renaming for clarity is more common lately than in the past, and Bravo, Peter — I'm all for it!
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Drive-Five Day: Half a Millennium of Old Car Fun
in General Discussion
Posted · Edited by Chris Bamford (see edit history)
So, there are five cars in my collection, four acquired in the early '90s and one in 2006. The other day, I added up all the ages and divided by five... turns out they average 100 years old, a tidy century each for a total of half a millennium. Whodathunkit?
Yesterday was one of those perfect storm days: clear streets, sunny, temps barely above freezing, and all my heaps roadworthy and eager to go (not that there isn't a robust to-do list for every one of 'em 🙂). Not sure if I've every driven them all in a single day, but what better time to carpe the diem?
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1924 Ford T Speedster (click) 26.8 miles: picked up my friend-for-60-years Gordon for a fun trip down memory lane in the neighbourhood and nearby arterials (and high speed of the day at 56.5 mph).
1947 Dodge sedan (click) 4.4 miles: Off to Home Depot with Lady Michelle for some 3/4" plywood then SuperStore for groceries. I have no truck; the mighty Dodge has carried almost everything up top including a 16' garage door.
1906 Orient Buckboard (click*) 1.8 miles: With a comfortable cruising speed of 14 mph, the wee Orient is mostly a neighbourhood car. Michelle again and our destination was the Westmount Community League "Vintage Christmas Market" down at the hall for some early shopping. *Note this link needs an update; the car has since enjoyed a comprehensive fettling and new drive chains.
1926 Ford T Touring (click) 8.5 miles: dozens have had their first taste of Model T riding and/or driving in this car. Gordon #2 had the honours yesterday, and proved that being a brilliant electrical engineer is NO guarantee of success with planetary transmissions and hand throttles. Good thing we never left the side streets!
1912 KisselKar 4-50 (click) 5.5 miles: My pride and joy and hands down favourite... Michelle and I went for a late spin up and down nearby Groat Road with its four lanes of delightful curves, hills and bridges and only one little old stop sign. Yee-Haawww!
All in all, a real fun day, and as always I am ever so grateful to my beloved Michelle for putting up with all this nuttiness for all these years (38 this Wednesday!)