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Matt Harwood

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Matt Harwood last won the day on February 16

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About Matt Harwood

  • Birthday 02/04/1970

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    Cleveland, Ohio
  • AACA #
    987226
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    BCA, CCCA, LOC, PAS, VMCCA, LCOC, MCA, WPCC

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  1. What kind of fittings are they? Single flare is pretty common in pre-war cars. If they're not sealing, you can get little copper washers that will provide the crush surface and should conform to the shape of the fitting, even it it's a bit deformed and damaged. If they're standard compression fittings with ferrules, you can get new ferrules that should fit and as long as you're using new tubing, they should seal. Stainless can often be difficult to seal properly but if you work with it a bit and get it seated properly, it should be OK. Do NOT use any kind of goop in compression fittings, it should not be necessary and probably won't be effective anyway. The threads have nothing to do with the sealing process, it's all on the seat or the tubing.
  2. I'd be thrilled just to have a part I wouldn't ordinarily have been able to acquire. $35? Meh. I'd spike the football and call it a win.
  3. Compound Carburetor on Buicks was 1941 and '42 only. It was standard equipment on all Series except Specials, where it was an option. After the war, Buick went back to a single 2-barrel on all engines, and then briefly a 4-barrel in 1952 before the Nailhead V8 showed up in '53.
  4. A pox on the guy who rewired that whole car using red wires. AND a 12-volt conversion? Yeah, no thanks.
  5. BaT is technically just advertising, not a real auction. Nothing is truly binding. Yes, when you list a car there you acknowledge that you'll honor the high bid and if you're a buyer, you pinkie swear that you'll pay if you're the high bidder, but I doubt any of it has any teeth beyond BaT being able to take their 5% from your credit card. Deals that fall through, depending on the party responsible, either result in being banned from BaT (seller) or being banned and your 5% buyer's premium is not refunded (if you're the buyer). It's not really a major punishment, but as far as I know, that's all BaT can do. The seller in the case of this Dodge looks like a first-timer with no history, so being banned isn't going to hurt him. BaT will refund the 5% buyer's premium to the buyer who got stiffed and that'll be the end of it. I'll wager that Dodge will show up on the market with a price tag somewhat greater than the final $6800 bid. I occasionally get E-mails that a car I was watching has been re-listed because the buyer refused to complete the transaction. BaT will re-list the car at no charge and does a decent job of pointing out that the prior buyer backed out, they kept his money and banned him, and it wasn't any fault of the car or the seller. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. My experience says that once a car is marked sold and then quickly comes back on the market, potential bidders assume that the first buyer saw it and ran away, so bidding may be depressed. In this case, there's no real penalty for ignoring the result of a BaT auction and there may be some upside if he can find someone else willing to pay more for the Dodge. The buyer, well, he simply doesn't get a car he might have wanted, which happens all the time in the real world. Another case of a seller expecting his audience to be stupid and being reminded that they aren't.
  6. Ostensibly sold for $6800. But wait! There's more! Apparently the seller is refusing to cut it loose at that price. He obviously expected more. I doubt we'll ever hear how it is resolved, but as predicted, the seller's lack of participation in the discussion combined with the crappy photos and the car's lackluster condition seem to have given us a predictably low sale figure. This one left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.
  7. Well, as much as I've enjoyed this one, it is on its way to a new owner. It sold for a market-correct price and I'm sure it will be seen at a lot of new shows since it's moving to a new region of the country. I'm sure going to miss it. I was making some operating instructions for the new owner and recommended some new tires. I made a mock-up showing it with blackwalls to show the new owner what it might look like, should he want to start shopping for tires. I should have done this years ago:
  8. Apparently Elvis fandom is alive and well in 2024. The Eldo sold for $253,000. I can't even process that.
  9. It's unfortunate that this photo can't convey the amount of work that was required to reach this point: Water pump and generator are back in place. To get to this point, I had to reunite the generator and water pump on the bench, which was pretty easy. The fiber disc between them was a bit of a fight, but it eventually relented and it was a solid assembly once again. Then I had to get it back into the car, which is easier said than done. You might recall that last time I did this, I didn't have a hood or fenders or sidemounts or fuel pump or fuel lines to contend with. Well, this time it was a bit of a challenge. I first tried bench pressing the assembly up into place from below, but could not both hold it in place and rotate the generator so that it would align with the drive spur. So I called Melanie to come to the shop for an assist and we used the cherry picker to pull it up into place. She raised it up and I guided it into position. That took about two hours and still required a lot of muscle, so once it was secured we went home. I'll finish it up tomorrow by reinstalling the manifolds and oil cooler lines. While the generator was on the workbench, I noticed this little knob on the regulator for the first time. I have no idea what it does. It's clearly meant to be turned by hand since it's knurled. Could it adjust the generator's output? The manual makes no mention of it. Thoughts? What do you think this knob does?
  10. My father and I essentially joined the hobby at the same time. In 1973, we were driving to the hardware store to get something or other when we spotted a big tent in the town square. We went in and it was a car auction. A 1934 Ford sedan rolled onto the block and for reasons he still can't really explain, my father put his hand in the air and bought it. We joined the hobby together at that moment. Literally moments after the purchase of the '34 Ford. My father posing proudly with it shortly thereafter. I'm in the front seat (red hat). Did my father influence what I own? Well, kinda. We did a lot of club events and many of them were with the VMCCA, which allowed all sorts of cars. The ones that spoke to me loudest were the big Full Classics. I yearned to own something with a big engine and wide whitewalls and sidemounts, but alas, my father seemed to like quantity over quality. We owned something like 12 cars at one time, but they were all mediocre. 1925 Buick, 1930 Model A, the 1934 Ford, two 1941 Buick Supers, a 1966 Cadillac convertible. But never a Full Classic like I really wanted. So when it was time to buy something for myself, I bought a 1941 Buick Century, which, of course, is still in pieces because life keeps getting in the way. I knew the '41 Buicks were reliable, well-made cars because my father drove his '41 Super coupe to work daily in the 1980s. Winter, summer, whatever, he drove that car as a regular car for YEARS. When I wanted an old car, that's where I started. Eventually, though, I wanted something to use and that's where I started to move away from my father. By the time I bought my 1929 Cadillac, he had liquidated his entire collection and looked back at his time with old cars with a mixture of weariness and contempt. Being stranded was SOP with our old cars, and I think it made him bitter. He understood the way things worked, but his practical abilities were often lacking and the cars were never reliable (except that '41 Buick, which he had serviced like a modern car by a professional shop in downtown Cleveland--is there a lesson to be learned there?). I think all those times we were stranded and I watched my father lose his mind made me realize that I had to do better. I have a reputation for owning cars that just work, and I'm very proud of that. I don't want to get stranded ever again. I only wish I had the talents back then that I have now so I could have improved my father's cars to the point where he could enjoy them without worries. Anyway, I finally got the 12-cylinder Full Classic that I always wanted and it looks very much like that first '34 Ford sedan that he bought 50 years ago. I'm glad to be able to share it with him, even though he's not able to drive any longer. He still thinks I'm a fool for driving it long distances without a back-up or a trailer, but I also think he's proud of the results. I hope we can enjoy my cars together for some time (he's 86) and I make the effort to see him often. Melanie just lost her dad, and I can't imagine what I'll do when that day comes for me. And if anyone has a 1934 Ford Deluxe sedan, preferably in maroon, I'd kind of like to have one...
  11. There's certainly a premium to be paid for a manual transmission, but I find that it isn't as significant as it used to be and probably not 40%. A lot of these guys are getting old and prefer an automatic. There's a reason the Corvette only comes with an automatic--they know their clientele, which probably overlaps quite a bit with the buyers for this Dodge. And we frequently hear comments like, "If it only had [transmission opposite of what is in it], I'd buy it!" A/C is a nice bonus but since it's so rare for an old car's A/C system to be operational (I'd say less than 10% of them actually work) that its appeal becomes more in terms of scarcity than value. It makes the car more attractive but I'm not sure there's much of a premium for it unless it's 100% operational. I wish I had a dollar for every time I asked a seller if the A/C worked and he said, "You know, I never tried it." Yeah, sure. That means it's broken. They're ALL broken. I try to price the cars as if they don't have A/C and let the next guy figure it out (which he won't). I think this auction will struggle. It's an abused, neglected, smog-era car. The photos are horrible and the undercarriage shots don't show you much so you can't see just how rusty this car is (probably very). It's only a 400, not a 440, and those fuselage styling cars still live in the shadow of their older siblings. If the seller is REALLY engaging and part of the discussion then he might do OK, but if he's absent it's going to wither on the vine. But hey, it does have a nice dash pad, so you won't have to replace that and I like that the description specifically calls out the alligator air freshener like that's some kind of bonus. Nice work there, BaT! On the other hand, maybe someone does something crazy and pays a fortune for it. I've seen more than one auction go way over a sensible number because the peanut gallery made the car seem like a smarter buy than it was. It happens all the time. Auctions are fun because they're so unpredictable. The recent sale of my Marmon engine shocked the hell out of me. But a manual transmission and a console do not add as much as they used to. Maybe 20% these days. Remember there's still only one buyer for any car.
  12. And my 2021 Buick will do everything better than your 1950 Buick. What's your point? As much as I like Buicks, I know a Buick ain't a Duesenberg.
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