Rusty_OToole

There are still a few RHD cars on US roads, such as privately imported English cars and postal vans. So it must be legal to have RHD.

Some cars like Stutz and Pierce Arrow kept the steering wheel on the right for a surprising long time. I believe the last RHD US car was 1921 or 22. Of course they were available for export to RHD countries after that. ------------------------------------- Update. Did a quick Google search and it seems Pierce went to LHD in 1921 and Stutz in 1922. So I was not far wrong.

In Song of the Thin Man Nick and Nora depart in a 1947 DeSoto taxicab and arrive in a 1935 DeSoto taxicab.

You can make rub on letter transfers on a computer, apply them then coat with clear lacquer. This will make your handles look like new and should be at least as durable. Here is a "how to" article on doing this to a Rolls Royce steering wheel boss. http://www.rrbew.co.uk/Pdfs/SPRUCE%20UP%20YOUR%20BOSS.pdf

Your friend is probably doing more harm to the car by not driving it. If he drove it from time to time in good weather, and maintained it by the book, it would deteriorate slower.

I heard the same kind of stories about Mercedes Benz before I bought my first one. It was a 1962 220SE sedan. It turned out to be a very easy and cheap car to keep in repair. It did not require a lot of work, and parts were cheap because it was built to be repaired. For example, the water pump failed but did not need to be replaced. It had 2 ball bearings in it and 4 seals, 2 grease seals and 2 water seals. All the bearings and seals cost $26 from the Mercedes dealer. At the time, an aftermarket water pump for a Chev 350 cost $22. The parts man told me it was very rare for a Mercedes water pump to fail. In my case, a water seal failed and a drain hole got plugged up which forced coolant into the bearings. The point is, what is the real lowdown on RR and Bentley? I can accept that repairs are expensive if they are seldom necessary. Would also like to know if repairs are beyond a good mechanic not trained on RR and equipped with the usual tools but no RR special tools.

So, what is the typical life span of said pumps and accumulators? If RR engineering is all it's cracked up to be they should last the life of the car, or 50 years or 500,000 miles whichever comes first. This is the kind of info I am looking for. I would assume that such a system would not fail after 50,000 to 75,000 miles provided the car is properly maintained. Or have I been sucked in by a lot of PR over the years?

There you go. For $32500 you can have a top of the line, 2010 Chevrolet Malibu, Hyundai Sonata, Toyota Camry, or a 1996 Rolls Royce. Am I the only one drawn to the Rolls Royce?

MGBs are pretty common. One like that might go for $500, you never know your luck.

Why was there no 1951 - 1956 station wagon? Wagons were very much in vogue at that time and were the fastest growing segment of the market. They were also the most expensive body style in most car lines, except for those that offered a stretch limousine. Packard could have done good business with a station wagon as they did with the station sedan in the 48 -50 period. Here is one built by Peter Portugal, the Packard El Paso. Packard El Paso - Wikicars

54 and older are different from 55 up. 55 was the first year for a V8 Plymouth, and they were designed to take either the V8 or 6. The V8 they used, was continued with modifications until the nineties.

Lately I have been looking at ads for Rolls Royce and Bentley cars for laughs. I am intrigued that you can buy a real nice, Rolls or Bentley from the eighties for around $20,000 to $25,000. This strikes me as quite a bargain. So, am I nuts for thinking of buying one? What would I be letting myself in for? Are they reliable or a money pit or what? If I had one I would want to use it regularly in good weather but not necessarily every day. Have been working on and enjoying old cars of all kinds for over 40 years and have owned most American makes plus Mercedes, BMW, and various English cars from the sixties. But prefer something that does not need to be worked on all the time. Any comments or advice would be appreciated.

Looks like you delivered a little too much salt.

Silver with black accessories. Maybe someone else can go into more detail. Here is a page on the engine with some photos including factory publicity shots. Unfortunately no 51 Chrysler but maybe one will turn up with a web search. http://www.allpar.com/mopar/flat.html

The first Holmes wrecker ever built, was built on a 3 year old Cadillac car chassis. "Holmes (USA) Cadillac wrecker (built 1916), McC, p.53 [may be at International Towing and Recovery, Hall of Fame, Chattanooga, TN]. Yes, the very first tow truck WAS a Cadillac. In 1916, John Wiley, a business school operator, dumped his Model T upside down in a ditch. It took a day and six men to get it out. One of the men, Ernest Holmes, a student of Wiley's school, thought there had to be a better way. He mounted three poles to the frame of a 1913 Cadillac, added a pulley and ran a chain through it. He patented his invention and during WW2 his company provided more than 7,000 tow trucks to the Allies. His shop was in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and recently a group called "Friends of Towing" opened the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum a few blocks from his shop. In the 1930s and 1940s, an old car was exactly that, something to be sold cheap as winter transportation, or crushed. A lot of big, heavy cars ended up as tow trucks. Cadillacs were very popular as tow trucks."

Here is a 1913 Locomobile converted to a tow car. 1913 Locomobile Tow Truck - Pictures Hope those 3 are enough to prove that luxury cars were converted to tow cars.

Thank you Barry. Here is another one. Can anyone identify this 1920s tow car on a postcard from Zazzle? It is some kind of luxury car chassis not a truck. In a contemporary 1920s photo. Antique Tow Truck, 1920s Post Cards at Zazzle.ca Special thanks to anyone who can copy the photo onto this thread.

I know Pierce, Packard and others made trucks. But in the twenties and thirties it was common to make a tow truck out of a used luxury make. Old limousines had the heavy duty chassis and powerful engine, and once they got to be over 5 to 7 years old, were very cheap. I have seen pictures of several such tow trucks.

Yes and no. They may work but not for long. Your car has a lot of electric parts for a car of its age such as, electric wiper, transmission, radio, etc. It is better, cheaper and easier to keep it 6v and just fix whatever is wrong.

A lot of early wreckers or "tow cars" were built on used luxury car chassis. Good luck finding a cheap 1918 Rolls Royce, Pierce Arrow or Packard 12 to put it on .

In the old days some cars were converted to 4 wheel brakes by installing a newer front axle. It did make a difference. Cars from the late 20s had a safety triangle on the rear fender with "4 wheel brakes" on it to warn drivers of older cars to keep their distance.

Wonder if they could make a gear from bronze? Pierce Arrow and others used a bronze driven gear and a steel drive gear to assure silence. Rolls Royce quieted theirs with rawhide.

Muffler cement might do the trick. It will seal and hold if you let it dry good before you fire up the motor.

It does sound like a failing head gasket. Here is a simple test. Take out the spark plugs and examine them. If any plug is perfectly clean it indicates a coolant leak into that cylinder. What does your heat gauge say ? It is possible to pressure test your cooling system with a pump that goes in place of the rad cap. Any garage should be able to do this. Your car does not have a coolant overflow container. So, you need to leave room for expansion at the top of the rad and not fill it completely full. As long as the top of the rad core is covered when cold you are OK. These are the first things that come to mind. I would check the spark plugs before I did anything else.

The 2 year change interval for antifreeze dates back to the sixties. Today's antifreeze lasts much longer. I first noticed in the nineties, working on 10 and 15 year old cars, that the water pumps and coolant passages looked pristine inside even though the cars were worn, had high miles, and obviously had not had their antifreeze changed. How long the antifreeze will last I don't know, but in everyday service it seems to last 10 or 20 years or longer. By the way they don't use the same ethylene glycol formula anymore. I forget what they changed to but it won't poison small animals.