Rusty_OToole

When you drive around, notice how much the revs drop when you shift up. This is how much you have to rev up the engine when you shift down, if you are double clutching. There is a knack to it. With enough practice you can synchronize the engine and trans speed by ear so accurately you do not need to use the clutch at all. I used to do this all the time on a Renault with a bum clutch. Best not try this without years of practice.

I don't know anyone who has rebuilt a sleeve valve engine, they are very long lived and also complicated and expensive to work on. I have heard that the sleeves are delicate when taken out of the motor, you must be careful not to drop the sleeve or even lay it on its side. If it goes out of round it is ruined. I don't believe the sleeves wear out. I think a new set of rings and new bearings would be all that would be required. But there may be others with more experience who know better.

The Knight sleeve valve engine was designed specifically to eliminate the normal poppet valves. In those days, burned valves, warped valves, broken valve springs and other valve troubles were a common cause of engine failure. The Knight engine had 2 close fitting sleeves one inside the other. Usually they were fine grain cast iron but some engines used steel sleeves. Voisin used thin, light weight steel sleeves and got higher RPMs and more performance out of his cars, than other sleeve valve cars. It seems that it takes a long time for the sleeves, pistons, and rings to warm up and work smoothly together. The reason for the oil burning is that there must be clearance between the parts when they are cold, to prevent the engine seizing up when hot. Once the engine is fully warmed up the parts expand enough to fit together tightly and run smoothly. Sleeve valve engines were tested extensively and proved that not only would they outlast a typical poppet valve engine by a large margin, the sleeve valve engine actually ran better and produced MORE horsepower the longer it ran. When a typical poppet valve engine was reduce to a clattering wreck in less than 100 hours of full throttle, full power operation the sleeve valve engine would run for several hundred hours and produce more power at the end of the test, than it did at the beginning. An article on the Stearns sleeve valve engines, one of the finest engines ever made. THE STEARNS AND STEARNS-KNIGHT MOTOR CARS A quote re: official tests done in 1909 on Daimler sleeve valve engines. Other manufacturers, becoming somewhat worried, demanded an official test by the British Royal Automobile Club to disprove the claims made for the Knight-type motor. To silence the skeptics, Daimler submitted its engines to the Royal Automobile Club for exhaustive tests, but in turn demanded conditions many times more severe than those imposed by the Club. The tests were run between March 15th and 28th, 1909, at Coventry and on the Brooklands track. The tests consisted of over five days of bench running and over two- thousand miles of track tests for each of the two production engines. Not only were the test results favorable, they were astounding! Engine disassembly showed no perceptive wear to moving parts but, more important, final tests showed an increase in horsepower - 54.3 to 57.25 for the larger engine and 38.83 to 38.96 for the smaller. The results of these tests, and Daimler's increase in sales, earned the Daimler Company the coveted Dewar Trophy in 1909. In short order licenses from the Knight and Kilbourne Patents Company were also awarded to the greatest manufacturers the automobile industry has ever known, such as Rover Company in England, DMG (Mercedes) in Germany, the Minerva Company in Belgium and Panhard et Levassor in France. Knights engines had really been accepted.

A while back I saw an Australian web site that explained how to clean your radiator with car exhaust. You just connect the rad hose to a car exhaust pipe and it blasts the dirt and scale out. There was even a picture of a flathead Ford V8 set up behind a garage specifically for this job.

Come on guys it's supposed to be funny. Doesn't anyone have any comments?

I always put the gas cap on the pump not on the car. Never forgot one either. That was the danger of not putting the cap on the car. Somehow I get the feeling your old man would have kept an eagle eye on this.

Old cars are not like new cars. You don't have to shift gears all the time. Once you get into 3d you can leave it there unless you slow right down or climb a steep hill. It should go from 3d to 2nd easily but not too fast. Not as fast as going from 2nd to 3d. It helps to synchronise the speed of the engine in other words rev up a bit. Go slow on the shift and it should be OK. Going into low from second is hard because old cars don't have synchromesh on first gear. There you really have to synchronise the speed exactly.

This may be normal. Knight sleeve valve engines were notorious smokers even when new. The royal family of England used sleeve valve Daimlers for years. If you see old movies of their limo you will see a plume of blue smoke out the tailpipe. The only cure is to drive the car. They take a long time to warm up. I knew an old time car collector around here, who used a 4 cylinder Willys Knight from about 1926 as a tour car in the sixties and seventies. He told me when he started off it would burn 1 quart of oil in the first 60 miles. After that it would burn no more oil for the rest of the day. The next day, starting from cold, it would burn 1 quart of oil then burn no more oil for the rest of the day. This was an original car that had not been rebuilt. Normal touring at that time would mean 200 to 300 miles per day at a speed of 35 to 45 MPH. By the way Knight sleeve valve engines were very long lived. Over 100,000 miles without overhaul was normal. Some bus engines were said to have gone 300,000 miles without overhaul. If the engine runs well and has good oil pressure I would not monkey with it. Keep it full of good oil and drive it.

2 ways to deal with this problem. Make a polite offer of what the car is worth to you. Be prepared to discuss in a reasonable manner. If the seller does not want to talk, that is fine. Thank him for his time and move on to the next deal. Second way, if you really want the car. Tell him you think it is too high and you are not willing to pay that price but wish him luck. Keep in contact once a month by phone or post card or visit so he knows you are interested and see what happens. Third way, if you really really want it pay the price.

Wire brush chucked in a drill and plain wire brush. Clean off rust, wash off with engine cleaner and paint with a brush and rustproof paint. 2 thin coats, no primer.

What serial number?

No matter how paranoid you get, you can never keep up with what is really going on. Or as I like to say, these days your only choice is koolaid or tinfoil.

They have an unusual way of finding the timing. There is a pipe plug in the head above the last cylinder. If you take out the plug you can put a wire or small screwdriver down the hole and feel the piston move up and down . The screwdriver is safer, the handle will not allow it to fall in the cylinder. If you time it so the spark fires when the piston is at top dead center it will be close enough to get started. To be sure #1 piston is on the firing stroke put your thumb over the first spark plug hole as you turn the engine, you will feel the compression woosh out on the compression stroke. The spark should fire at the end of the compression stroke. Check the position of the rotor to see which plug is firing. #1 and #6 piston go up and down together so they reach TDC at the same time. Except one is on the compression stroke and the other is on the exhaust stroke. If you have plenty of spark and plenty of gas all you need is compression and it is sure to fire, it has no choice. If the cylinders are dry or washed down by gas, it may help to squirt a little oil into the cylinders, thru the spark plug holes, with an oil can. Then turn the engine a few turns on the starter before replacing the plugs. If the plugs get gummed up with gas and oil you have to clean them by sandblasting to get them to fire. I use a small "spot" sandblaster used for bodywork. It is a syphon blaster with different rubber tips for the end, one of the tips is the same dia hole as a spark plug. If you sandblast plugs give it a brief blast, and be sure to clean well with compressed air and examine the end of the plug closely. You may have to pick out stuck sand with a needle. Do not allow any sand to get in your engine.

The coil will get hot if you are using a 12 volt battery. The 236 is the long DeSoto/Chrysler block. This is a good engine, it does not need to be replaced. I bet if I was there I could have your motor eating out of my hand in a couple of hours. Unfortunately I am not the Amazing Kreskin. Do you have spark? Is the timing close? Have you tried pouring a little gas down the carb? Do you know any old car nuts with experience of the flathead Chrysler products? Does the engine turn over? Does it fire? What all have you done to it so far, in detail?

Good unrestored original cars are considered desirable by most old car fans, quite a change from 20 years ago. There have been threads on this board on the subject and most voted to keep a car original if possible, rather than restore it. To look at it another way. If you have a good original car that shows some wear but is presentable, it will have a certain value. If you have a first class shop do a restoration it may be worth more, but the added value will be just a fraction of what the job cost. In other words a good original may not be worth as much as a restored car but the difference is no where near what it would cost. And in some cases, the unrestored car may be worth more.

Any old Ford or Chrysler or Studebaker or Toyota pickup wheel will do. Just drill a 5/16 hole for the pin. Some temporary spares have the holes because they are drilled for 2 bolt patterns. Temporary spares are handy for moving cars around because they are low rolling resistance and you can often get them free.

There is nothing wrong with the flathead six, they are an excellent engine and work fine on today's hiways and today's gas. There has been some discussion on this by owners who drive them and have gone thousands of reliable miles.

GM employees were entitled to an employee discount on vehicles and parts. They would order a car through their local dealer and the order would be marked to be sure they got the discount. The workers in the plant watched for these marked orders. An old GM employee told me he ordered a new full size Chev hardtop in 1964. His union steward told him to order it with V8 engine and no other options. The engine was the only thing they could not fake. The car came down the line optioned to the hilt, with double floor pan, 2 paint jobs, double upholstery, double carpet and double sill plates. Extra sound deadening etc. The weekend after the car was delivered the union steward came around with a couple of his buddies. They pried off the door panels and removed radios and other parts, and a set of tires from the trunk. He said it was the best car he ever owned. Drove it 140,000 miles and it drove like a Cadillac. When he sold it he peeled off the top layer of upholster, carpet, and sill plates. The buyer said he couldn't believe how nice it was for having 40,000 miles on it lol. I understand you can't get away with that kind of thing today. If you could get a copy of the original build sheet it should have the info on it. Might still be in the car someplace.

I would paint them separately but only 2 thin coats. Too much paint will crack. Do you have shock absorbers? You can make the springs work easier and smoother by putting strips of nylon between the leaves. Hot rod shops sell the material. Some cars with no shocks depended on interleaf friction to damp out the springs. They even put one leaf in upside down to increase friction.

Have seen this happen when the trans jammed against the motor. Why it would do this remains to be seen. You will probably have to remove the engine and trans from the car, separate them, look for something jammed or measure the clearances and distances between engine and trans.

While we are on the subject the longest gap between engine and car build date I ever heard of was the English Bristol sports car. Starting in the late 50s they bought Plymouth 313 and 318 engines from Chrysler of Canada. They would buy batches of 50 or 100. By the time the engines were shipped from Canada, put in store, and installed in a car it could be 1 1/2 to 2 years. The cars were all hand made built to order and it took a while to use up a batch of engines. So you could have a brand new car with a 2 year old engine in it, by the time the car was finished and registered.

"The problem arises when you can't get a new sensor that's throwing a code and you can't pass the test with a check engine light on." Easy peasy, just cut the wire and connect it to the oil light. : )

Just clean away the dirt and remove with a spark plug wrench. Penetrating oil will not penetrate or do any good. If the car will start it may help to warm up the motor, heat helps free up stuck threads. But usually they come right out. If a plug breaks off it is not the end of the world. You need to get an "easy out". I don't like the brand that resembles a screw thread. I like the square kind. Heat the remaining part of the plug red with a torch, tap in the easy out, and it will come right out. Do not drive the easy out in too hard and expand the metal. One or 2 light taps is fine. Occasionally I break off a plug but none has ever resisted the heat and easy out treatment.

Tires deteriorate fast. 5 year old tires have lost half their strength even if they have never been on a car. On the other hand, I have a set of VW of Canada Golden Miler tires that I intend to use on my 1966 beetle even though they are 30 years old. I mean to mount them on a set of wheels and put them on the car for show, and have a different set of wheels with modern tires for everyday use. So, it is possible that your tires will have value for a display even though they are unsafe to use on the road.

I have been hearing this old wive's tale about not using detergent oil or multigrade oil in old cars for years. What these pundits forget, or don't know, is that detergent oils date back to the late 40s if not earlier, and multigrade oils to 1951. So if your car was made since the end of WW2 chances are it has used multigrade, detergent oil all its life. Likewise if it is a prewar car that has been rebuilt since the 1940s. I know when I worked in a gas station in the sixties, the default choice for all oil changes was 10W30. I don't remember using anything else except for VW beetles which specified single grade detergent oil because the multigrades of that day would not stand up to the elevated temps of the air cooled motors. We did sell straight 30wt bulk oil from a drum but the only cars that used it were worn out oil burning clunkers.