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oldcarfudd

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Posts posted by oldcarfudd

    Riding with the windows down.

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I heard that, in WWII, bomber copilots were deaf in the left ear.  They took the somewhat protective headphone from the left ear so they could hear what the pilot was yelling at them.  When they got promoted to pilot, they took off the right earphone so they could hear the copilot.  Asa a result, pilots were deaf in BOTH ears.

     

    As for rolling down the windows when driving an antique car, here's my preferred solution:

     

     

    thumbnail-1.jpeg

    • Like 6
    • Haha 1

    What to get in Brass Era, Ford or ???

    in HCCA General Discussion

    Posted

    I think the car you propose to tow with is inadequate.  A '14 or '15 T touring weighs about 1400 pounds in stock form.  Some prior owners will have added things like a starter with battery (and maybe generator), spare tire and rim, or auxiliary brakes.  You'll often have gas in the tank (a full tank is 60 pounds), and I hope you'll always have water in the radiator and oil in the engine.  You'll probably want to carry a spare tube, a jack, a tire pump and some basic tools.  It adds up really fast.  And don't skimp on the sturdiness of the trailer; you're going to have a pretty big tail on a pretty small dog.  The first time the trailer starts to sway and you don't have adequate trailer brakes is the time you'll get religion or dirty underwear, maybe both.  The point of a trailer is to be able to get to a tour on major roads at highway speed; be safe!  Rather than a flimsy towing rig, you might consider driving the T to and from tours, using back roads.  MUCH slower, but possibly safer and surely more fun, if you have the time and can afford more motels and meals on the road.

     

    By the way, where are you?  Some places are more conducive to this kind of fun than others.  If you live in mid-Manhattan, you might consider a different hobby!

    • Like 1

    What to get in Brass Era, Ford or ???

    in HCCA General Discussion

    Posted

    Here's another thing to consider, if you're serious about touring and not just going for pizza.  Brass cars are fun to drive ON a tour, but if you want to drive one TO AND FROM a tour, you have to leave last month and won't get home 'til next month.  For practical touring, you need a trailer to get you to and from the tour.  Then you need a tow vehicle, in case your daily driver isn't up to the task.  Then you need a place to put all that.  Your budget will get you a very nice late ('14 or '15) brass T, a decent used trailer, and a bit of dough left over.  If you spend more on a bigger brass car with more oomph, you won't have much left for the other stuff.

    • Like 2

    Anyone Ever Have A Brass Car Literally Fall Apart In Their Trailer ?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I bought an AACA National First Prize winner (!) sight-unseen from a well-known restorer.  The car was very pretty, but turned out to be a lousy runner and totally undependable.  I put a couple of hundred miles on it, and then turned it over to my own restorer to have it made mechanically sound as well as cute.  He hauled it off to his shop.  He called me, totally embarrassed, to say that the transverse front leaf spring had shattered in his trailer.  The car had settled with the fenders on the front wheels, so the pretty fenders were now well-dented.  I called the guy I'd bought the car from.  He told me all the leaves in that spring had been broken, so he'd had them all welded. Sheesh!  At least it hadn't collapsed while I was driving it!

     

    P.S. That was about 20 years ago.  My restorer did a great job, and I have put many thousands of miles on that car in the intervening years.

    • Thanks 1

    Quality of car for an AACA show, or "Is my car good enough?"

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    That's a neat T!  I have a '14 that's not that nice, but I drive it everywhere.

     

    If you go for DPC, you'll be in with a large number of much more modern cars.  What I have done at Hershey is to enter my car in the appropriate judging class, but elect not to have it judged.  You'll be parked with other Ts (if any show up) and early cars.  Most of the others will be polished to a degree never seen when new, but so what?  Their owners are friendly, and you'll have the best seat in the house.

    • Like 10
    • Thanks 2

    Reunited with an Old Friend

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Agree, a great story.  As an aside, Peter Findlay trailered that sleeve-valve 1910 Russell out to an HCCA tour last year.  It was in southwestern Québec province, between Montréal and the New York line, and many of us got to enjoy seeing it run.  I understand he then took the car to the home of the original owner in Ontario.  The home still exists.  The owner, well, - - - .

    "I Guess They All Had Automatics." Wait - - - WHAAAT?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Time and Place:  A St. Paddy's party in my residential community's clubhouse.

     

    Cast of Characters:  Me, a fellow resident, and a 40-something woman guest. 

     

    Opening scene:  The other member has introduced the woman to me as a guy with a lot of old cars.

     

    Guest:  I love old cars!

     

    Me:  What era?

     

    Guest:  Forties and fifties.

     

    Me:  Yes there were some nice cars then.  But I have 5 cars made before World War One.

     

    Guest:  Oh, WOW!  I guess they all had automatics back then, didn't they?

     

    Me:  HUH???

     

    It almost makes sense.  She grew up when most American cars, other than the bottom of the line that she never saw, had automatics.  Sticks were just coming back in a few muscle cars and hot exotics - that is, they were something new and exciting.  They couldn't possibly have had them back as far as World War One, could they?  I bought her a drink, but only because by then I needed one.

     

    SHEESH!

    • Like 4
    • Haha 8

    Luray, VA Pre-War swap meet - May 10~11 - whose going and what are you bringing?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'm coming on Saturday afternoon, bringing a Model T for the tour following the swap meet.  But I'll have spent the prior two days on the Jersey Shore tour with my Curved Dash Oldsmobile, and it will be in the trailer with the T.  If anyone there is interested in a CDO, PM me and we can go for a ride.  The car is date certified by the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as a genuine '04, and did the Brighton run with its previous owner.

    • Like 2

    Long distance driving/traveling with vintage cars

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Human-Potato Hybrid -

     

    I contacted the Rising sons (the father has died) and the Swanns.  The Rising blog was taken down after interest in it faded.  I got this response from Betty Swann.  The blogs make for great reading!

     

    We made 2 long trips, both in the E-M-F.  We never made any in a Model T.

     

    We made a trip from San Diego to Colorado Springs, CO in 2012 with three other couples for an HCCA meet.  When we finished the week of touring, we headed across the middle of the country solo back to PA, even camping in the car a couple of nights. The travel  blog for that trip is on the E-M-F website which is emfauto.org. When the website comes up, look along the left side of the page and click on Swann 2012 EMF Adventure.  This blog starts with day one of the trip and ends with the last day.

     

    In 2015, we had our own travel blog for the solo trip circumnavigating the US with a side trip by car ferry up the Inland Passage to Juneau.  I printed it out, Gil, and it filled a big 3 - ring binder!
    The blog website is: bswann1912.blogspot.com. Since I didn’t know all the tricks of the website, I posted each day’s adventures one after another.  Made sense to me. However, the website postings are backwards, ie. the first post you see when you bring up the blog is actually the last day of the trip, followed by the previous day, all the way back to day one.  In other words, to read the blog in actual order, you have to refer to the date listing on the right hand side of the first page.  It shows the number of posting for each month.  Open up the earliest month and day and come forward by day.  That will get you through the trip in order of date traveled.  It is a pain, but I don’t know how to fix it.  If someone had been following the blog each day as we traveled, having the most recent day show up first made perfect sense.  This trip was a four month solo trip of 10,750 miles.

     

    These trips were the highlights of our life.  The second trip was so long it became a lifestyle. There were only two firm days on the whole trip we were trying to meet, with the balance of the trip just free and easy, no stress, just free-wheeling through life.

    We don’t believe it would be safe to make the big trip any more with weather and general violence to worry about.  At the time we made the trip, we didn’t encounter any issues , except two weeks solid of freezing rain, blowing sideways.  Luckily it happened at the very beginning of the trip and we were running on excitement and adrenaline and just laughed off the discomfort.  The next three and a half months we had perfect weather.
     

    • Like 5
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