Rusty_OToole

120 MPH on 3 inch wide tires made of cotton cloth dipped in tree rubber on a surface of wooden boards dripping with motor oil, in a car with no seat belt no roll bar no windshield and 2 wheel brakes. Safety equipment consists of goggles made of window glass cotton coveralls and a leather helmet. Yes I guess you could say that.

Sometimes it's just low pressure due to a clogged filter and thinned out fluid. A fluid and filter change will fix it. Usually this works.

Here's a wild one. A quick search turned up what purports to be the only surviving film of board track racing in the world. It was made in 1919 by the Czech distributor of Indian motorcycles, and the only copy in existence was found under the bed of an old lady in Prague in 1995. BOARD TRACK RACING

Someone made a replica of an XK120 with a fibreglass body on a Japanese pickup truck frame. Sounds like a good starting point for what you want.

There was a real posh one in Beverly Hills California, it was torn down to make way for new houses around 1916. They built another one near LA but it was not as nice, not as successful either. I think the biggest one was Sheepshead Bay near New York City. It was unusual in that it had a steel frame and wooden surface. MI auto tester Tom McCahill used to go out there to give hi speed demonstration drives to potential customers, when he sold Marmons in the twenties. Apparently it was open to the public to test their own cars during the week. Speeds well over 100 MPH were common.

You probably don't need power steering. When those cars were new old ladies and grannies drove them with no trouble. Have the front end checked by a good mechanic. Repair or replace worn parts. Fill the shocks with knee action fluid, hydraulic jack oil or motorcycle fork oil. Now have an alignment done. I have suggested this to other owners of early fifties cars with gratifying results. The car drove so easily and handled so well it took away all desire for power steering. For extra easy steering you could install a steering damper and have the alignment man set the caster to 0 or as close to it as he can get. Steering dampers are available from the leading shock absorber companies. Without caster you need a damper to prevent shimmy. German cars such as BMW, Mercedes and VW were set up this way for years, it is the secret of their precise steering. Chev tried the same trick on their Monte Carlo in the early 70s. Finally pump up your tires to 32 PSI. For power brakes you could install a Hydrovac unit. This was an add on unit fitted to Cadillac Buick and other heavy cars and trucks in the fifties. It is a remote power brake unit and does not require replacing the original master cylinder. Such boosters are still being made and are popular on hot rods.

It's best to stick to a paint color that was available that year. A lot of lazy painters pick something that looks close, out of a modern color chart but it never looks quite right. Changing color does not reduce the value of a car and might improve it. As long as you pick something appropriate. The exception would be a car with good original paint. It would be more valuable if carefully cleaned and waxed. Less valuable if repainted, no matter what color. Or possibly an unusual, one of a kind car such as an original Indy 500 Pace Car or the like. Original paint formulas are available from all leading paint companies. Your local paint store or body shop supply, can get the formula from the home office and mix up all you need. You will have to find the number or name of the color you want but there are web sites for that.

Any printers shop has the liquid to rejuvinate rubber rollers. I have a friend who restores old radios 1930s to 1950s. He uses it to restore rubber rollers used in some old machines,also rubber parts in juke boxes and pinball games. I saw a small suction cup from a Zenith Transoceanic, used to fasten the antenna to a window. It looked like a hard black truffle or gob of used chewing gum. After soaking in the printer's juice it looked brand new.

I thought the outside exhaust pipes were only used on supercharged models originally? Was the supercharged engine even available in 1929?

52 Chrysler New Yorker has one.

One detail that can trip you up. The stick shift crankshafts are drilled to take a bushing for the transmission shaft, some auto trans crankshafts omit this detail. But some auto trans engines have the bushing. It's not too hard to machine the crank while it is out of the engine if you remember to check it.

You need to find an Olds expert for this. But the Olds motors were among the most rugged ever built. In the old days hot rodders used to bore the blocks 1/4" oversize that is .25". You don't need to worry about hitting water in any normal rebuild. The 1949 to 56 was one family, the 57-58 another, and the 59-64 another. In 65 they came out with a brand new engine that had nothing in common with the old one except a few dimensions. It was common to bore a 303 to take 324 pistons, use 324 heads, manifolds etc for a mild hop up. It was also possible to bolt a newer more powerful engine into the light weight 1950 88 body. I have a vague recollection that the early models like yours had the bellhousing cast into the back of the block and this was changed at some point but don't recall the details. The Olds Rocket was one of the most popular in the early days of hot rodding, before the Chev V8 came along. Speed equipment for this engine is still easy to find. I'm sure if you do a web search you will find plenty of info. Suffice to say a 1950 Olds 88 with stick shift and a mild hop up would be one of the coolest cars around, and not very difficult to pull off.

If you can clean the rust off the threads of the stud it will help. Try a wire brush in a drill or a sand blaster.

Most any nut will come loose if you heat it red. If you do not have an oxyacetylene torch a cheap arc welder with a carbon rod will do. A machine shop I know keeps a $40 "welder" about the size of a battery charger for just this purpose, plus installing and removing bearings and press fit shafts etc.

This question has come up before. Somewhere on the net I have seen an article about a Cadillac ca.1930 with a custom air conditioning system. The pump was driven by a small gas engine and sat on the luggage rack. It was built for a wealthy Texan.

I have a set of license plates, Ontario 1947 number 6X2.

If the engine is not stuck you should be able to turn it over with your hands especially with the plugs out and some oil down the plug holes. But then, the plugs should have come out too. You may have one of those engines that is too far gone to revive without taking off the head.

Plastic was not widely used in 1940 for things like that. So I would guess the chrome one would be correct for your car. Bright colored plastics became much more widely used in the fifties.

Something big. The length suggests a wheelbase of around 12 feet or 144 inches.

In the fifties there was an article in a hot rod magazine about forged racing pistons. The author stated that he had a set of solid skirt, forged aluminum racing pistons in the Corvette he used for every day transportation. They required .012 clearance when cold. He said he had driven it this way for 30000 miles with no problems from oil burning or piston slap. The secret was to fit the pistons with the required clearance then knurl the skirts. If your Corvette was built for racing it may have something like that. It may also have Grants plain cast iron rings which were a favorite of hot rodders. The worked well and broke in quickly but they only had a life of 30000 to 50000 which did not bother racers in the least.

The sleeves I have seen were for worn front crankshaft seals. They slid over the end of the crankshaft and made a fresh surface for the seal to ride on. I don't think they would work for bearings.The metal was very thin. The sleeve worked with a stock crankshaft seal.

The sleeve I refer to is very thin and is installed without machine work.

Didn't the 32 Ford have thermostats, one for each upper rad hose? Was the Winterfront even made for them?

That type of shock is supposed to last the life of the car. Try filling with jack oil. For firmer shocks you could also try motorcycle fork oil, it comes in different grades for this purpose. Leaky seals are the most common problem. You have to top them up if the fluid leaks out. Leaks can be slowed down by wrapping string tight around the shaft but if the seal is shot the only complete cure is to replace the seal or rebuild the shcoks.

Bearing shops sell thin metal sleeves for restoring worn shafts.