Rusty_OToole

In fairness I should try to help not just give you the razzberry. There is no secret. What you went through is what every bodyman and mechanic goes through every day. In fact the job you are doing is one of the easier ones, the kind we give to an apprentice when he graduates from sweeping the floor and filling up the soap dispenser in the washroom. So keep at it. You get used to it eventually. And to answer your next question. No, your hands never completely heal. There is always a scrape, cut or burn and before it heals you get some more. The way you feel today is more or less the way you would feel every day if you worked in a garage. You get tougher after a while but never tough enough.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and you thought we were having fun all this time? Welcome to the world of auto repair. I hope you remember this day the next time you think your mechanic is an overpaid ox.

Ha ha ha wait till the starter goes and you find it costs $3000 to replace. They buried the starter way down in the guts of the engine and it takes an expert mechanic all day just to get at it.

Garages often remove the sender and temporarily substitute a mechanical gauge. This tells you right off if it is the engine or the gauge. If it is the sender then it is a matter of replacing it.

Well come to Canada and you will see even less. I know when I peruse the old car ads there seem to be lots in Florida. Maybe they are not driving around but they are for sale. If not in Florida then Alabama, Missouri, and other places that are closer than Canada. If you lived in Minnesota it might make sense but it seems like a long way to go when there must be cars just as good that are closer to you and easier and cheaper to bring home. Not trying to rain on your parade just suggesting there might be an easier way.

It's all according to traffic conditions and whether you are in a hurry. Usually I start in Hi range and upshift as soon as possible, 14 MPH or a little higher. For faster acceleration you can keep on the gas and it will stay in the lower gear up to 50, although I wouldn't recommend it. I don't think I ever took mine over 35 or 40 before shifting and that was a 1951 V8. Your straight eight has so much torque it should pull pretty strong in high.

I don't think the viscosity makes very much difference. If it did performance would change when the fluid drive was hot and the oil thinned out. My 1951 Chrysler/DeSoto owner's manual recommends Chryco fluid drive oil but does not state the viscosity.

They are probably an accessory that can be used on any car. Is there any trade mark or numbers on the back ?

It is possible to buy a car from Canada but I'm sure you will find one just as good or better, for a lower price, in the US. Good old cars are awfully scarce in the frozen north even more than in the rust belt states. When I see ads for good rust free cars at a good price they always seem to be in the southern or western US. Florida seems to be an excellent place to find pristine low mileage Rolls Royce and Bentley cars from the 80s at low prices. Florida and Texas. But there are lots of Buicks there too. I think every old retiree moved to Florida and bought a Buick or Chrysler in the sixties. Now they are dying at the age of 100 and leaving these cars with low mileage, most of it on sidewalks and astride 2 lanes.

It was a photo finish. Both cars debuted the same year, 1961 or 62 ( too lazy to look it up). I think Corvair may have beat Olds to market by a couple of weeks.

Porta walls did not have the embossed metal part. They only had a moulded in rubber lip that fit between the tire and rim. Those whitewalls with the built in beauty ring jarred loose a faint memory. I may have seen them on a picture of a 52 Buick. The picture was a Buick publicity shot taken when the car was new. I am not at all positive about this, as it is a faint memory of a picture seen 30 or 40 years ago. But that is my best guess. If I am right they are a beauty ring/whitewall combination, to be used on cars with the small hubcaps. They press into the wheel and the ribs grip on the wheel.

Could be the starter was not rebuilt right. A local mechanic had a 55 Dodge Royal V8 that always started slow even after installing a rebuilt starter. Several years later, after trying everything including a new battery every year, he took apart the "rebuilt" starter and found it had 12 volt field coils. New 6 volt field coils and it started like a new car.

There may be a drain plug on them someplace.

Before you go nuts with the loctite and frozen Nitrogen, can you get behind it with compressed air? Usually a few puffs from the air hose will dislodge anything. A continuous blast is not recommended because it gives too much pressure and could break something. Look for the passage where the gas comes out of the pump and see if you can get some pressure in there.

Usually a shot of oil fixes them. They are supposed to be checked and topped up regularly. If you can't find knee action fluid, which was last available from Western Tire during the Johnson administration, hydraulic jack oil makes a good substitute. Motorcycle shock oil should work too, and comes in different grades for fine tuning. If you fill up your shocks and the oil all leaks out in a week it is time for rebuilt shocks. You might need to fill them up, drive around for a week or 2, then top them up again to get all the air bubbles out. Many owners of old cars with lever action shocks, report that filling them up transforms the ride and removes all desire to replace them.

It weighs 320 pounds. Olds F-85 used the same engine with different heads. The Olds was the first turbocharged car on the market, sharing this honor with Corvair.

I had a funny one on a 1967 Chev pickup. It would give a low oil pressure warning when idling hot but only when turning left. In other words when making a sharp left turn with the engine running slowly the oil light came on, but at no other time. Turned out to be a worn wire to the pressure sender. It grounded out but only when the engine rolled into a particular position.

American cars of that age have no vase of expansion. The expansion is in the top of the radiator. When filling a cold radiator you must leave 50cm to 75cm empty at the top. Over filling will cause water to come out of the overflow pipe when the engine is hot. Sometimes the engine gets hotter right after being stopped. If the engine will idle but stalls as soon as you start to drive, it could be a vacuum leak or carburetor problem. Check the nuts that hold the carburetor to the manifold, and the manifold to the engine, they may be loose. If I had the car in my garage, I would start from the beginning. Find the original factory repair manual, or factory specifications, and check the valve clearance, the ignition ( points condition, points gap, condenser replace, spark timing, spark plug condition, clean and regap or replace spark plugs), carburetor ( inspect and adjust) if carburetor is faulty it may be necessary to rebuild it. Check the compression to verify the condition of valves and piston rings. With all this done, the engine should run as well as it can. If it is running satisfactorily with good oil pressure, drive the car for a few hundred kilometers and it should be as good as new.

It sounds like the engine stops as soon as it gets hot, is that the problem? Could be a bad condenser in the distributor, or a bad coil. They can work correctly when cold but fail when hot.

To work on the distributor of a Ford, Mercury or Lincoln from that era you are supposed to take the whole distributor off and fix it on the bench. Take the caps off first and leave them hanging by the plug wires.

There was a Topper sequel called Topper Returns with Roland Young and Billie Burke as Mr and Mrs Topper but no Cary Grant. In it, Topper's car is a 1936 Mercedes 540K roadster chauffeured by Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, best known for his work in Jack Benny's movies, radio and TV shows.

How about a Smart car? Or to stick with a vintage theme, Renault Dauphine or Fiat 500? Or a King Midget for the American car fans.

I'm sure they were available as an accessory in the 20s.

Normally the steering box and column are all one. You have to remove the steering wheel and whatever clamps and wiring hold it in place inside, take the steering arm off the bottom, remove the bolts that hold the box to the frame, and withdraw the whole assembly out the bottom of the car. Don't forget to disconnect the horn wire, there is usually a connector at the bottom of the steering box buried in ancient grease.

Those switches are known for failing. Disconnect the switch, if the lights go off the switch is faulty.