W_Higgins

Over they years they have offered many different tool box stickers. This one is my favorite.

If you've ever done an alignment on a knee action GM product that uses the single pin to set both the caster and camber, it is absolute luxury to watch both numbers change on the screen as you rotate the pin.

That's a TCD photo I've not seen before. Is that an early '30 running board splash apron with the separate nose? It looks like there's a vertical line up front but the resolution is a little lacking on this end.

This works really well on the era of car for which it is intended, though I must admit the new optical machines require a lot less of a workout to accomplish the same job.

A more extensively modified '59 Continental Hess and Eisenhardt -- this was built for the Queen's Royal Canadian Tour in 1959. There were two others, an Imperial and a Cadillac, and they were rotated throughout the tour. The Imperial survives and is restored. I think the Cadillac also still exists. However, this one has been elusive. I have many photos of it from the tour but have never seen any taken thereafter. I also don't think I have any showing it with the top up. The rear seat is split so the Queen's can be elevated and that feature shows in some of the other photos. If it is out there it is quietly squirreled away somewhere. I have never even heard a rumor of its existence.

Oooh, Lincoln thread? Where might one find this Lincoln thread?

My new Newspapers.com account has been good for solving such mysteries. That name seems to have been common for bars. They're all over in various papers -- Lebanon, Pa., Glen Falls, N.Y., Detroit, Salinas, Ca., Brooklyn, and others, but my guess based no the surroundings would be the one in Santa Fe. Maybe someone with a little more time on their hands and a better knowledge of the area can take it from there.

Nope, but I know of the car. It has been for sale for quite awhile and I think finally moved on not too long ago. It is a '60 Town Car same as the one in the first era photo I posted. Of both years and both models, of the 297 they made I can account for 56 of them by VIN and (as you say) in a wide range of condition. Every once in awhile one that I didn't know about will crop up, but at this point, statistically, I think that's about all of them. They have a pretty high survival rate at 19%. Interestingly enough, there were far fewer Limos made, but they account for 29% of survivors both years. I know submissions for this thread are supposed to be "period" but in this case the photos themselves are almost AACA eligible.... I've got to get working on this thing. These were taken at a stopover at a friends house on the way home from where it was retrieved. It is the third 1959 Lincoln produced at Wixom and likely the third H&E conversion. I suspect #1 and #2 were also shipped off to H&E but they have not surfaced. #5 and #6 were and given how the VIN's have revealed other sequential clumps, I suspect most of these were pulled off the line in batches throughout the production year. My own car has some trivial features that indicate they were rushing it though H&E to get some early examples out the door, and these practices were confirmed by a former H&E shop foreman that I talked to shortly after I bought the car.

It is.

That's an interesting thought but in this case this particular model is a Town Car (in '59 they called it a Formal Sedan). Same general conversion and very similar to the Limo but without the divider window and intended to be driven by the owner. I did make reference to it being the same as mine, which are both Limos, and should have been more clear. My guess was it's the owner behind the wheel with his mother and wife, but again, all a guess since I can't trace the origin. Radio interference suppressor is one I've not heard, but Lincolns of that era wouldn't have had need for such an add-on. As to wheel locks, those wheels pretty much only fit those cars, but I guess it's possible. It's too grainy to see well. Another reason I wanted to find who scanned it in to see if I could get a better copy.

This is a photo I love for a number of different reasons. It appeared online only a couple of years ago and since it can't be found all over the place it made me think it was scanned in rather recently. I tried to backtrack to find the origin but by the time I got to the third person back he had no further information and the trail went cold. I have been unable to determine what that is bolted to the front wheel. Everything has been guessed, but if someone truly knows I'd love to hear it. These cars had some limo-specific hardware but that thing doesn't show up in the parts books nor do either of mine have it. Given the clothing fashions and the condition of the car, the photo seems to have been taken when it was fairly new. Not a cheap car and it's interesting to think it was being worked on at home if that's the first owner.

Your varnish is mocking you because our government has screwed us again: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-bans-consumer-sales-methylene-chloride-paint-removers-protecting-public Yet another hurdle put up and I've yet to hear of an available equivalent that will do the job.

If it weren't for those who have "taken a hit" doing their projects because they love them and felt they were worth being saved, than the backbenchers wouldn't have anything to drive.

Ugh, rats are the absolute worst. Steam clean the engine bay and whatever else you can access that steam won't damage and then (with the car in your carport) put an O3 machine inside, close the door, drape plastic over the whole car with 2x4's on the ground around the perimeter, and let it run for a few days. Once their scent gets in there they think they own the thing and they will keep coming back, not to mention that it will continue to come back to haunt you on every warm summer day no matter how well you think you have cleaned it by hand. Be diligent about seeking out all the wiring they have damaged. Most old car fires seem to have their root cause in an electrical short. Be sure and keep the battery disconnected whenever it is unattended until you're certain that you've got everything debugged. Good luck!

To all-too common definition of "hoarding" is when somebody else owns something that you want and they won't sell it to you.... A lot of people get the Scarlet H hung on them by people that don't know how they came upon the stuff in the first place. I could probably even be accused of it with some of the things I have that don't fit my collecting interests. What people don't know is some of it I literally picked out of a trash pile at the conclusion of a swap meet. Now, is that hoarding just because I put it away and haven't yet done anything with it or was that stuff given another 20 years that it probably wouldn't have had otherwise once the trash truck showed up? A lot of so-called "hoarders" collected their stuff in an era when nobody had any interest in it and then later on times changed. That's why context is so important. I think what people often mistakenly regard as "hoarding" is in reality being a pirate. We still see people that dangle things out there for sale and it starts at $100, then next week it's $75, then it's $50, and last call is "If I don't get my $50 I'm going to scrap it". Right, because the best financial option is to destroy a part that they're not making anymore to get 0.08 cents from a scrapper instead of taking $25 for it because they don't want to play by the rules of supply and demand. Like so many things it's not about how you start the deal -- it's about how you finish it.

I'm sorry for your bum purchase. This sort of thing happens all too much. Hopefully you'll discover something positive and documentable in the process. There are two ways you can move forward with it -- either represent it accurately for what it is after you've learned all you can about it, or tell the next guy it was used to haul Abraham Lincoln's body to the railroad station!

I see. Since nobody was debating the existence of Henry's brother I thought things were going off in a different direction.

StanleyRegister nailed it. B. John Ford (the name on the tag) owned Bob Ford in Dearborn. That is the address of the dealership on the tag. Everything fits.

The Michigan Ave. address on the tag is the site of a current-day Ford dealer and Hoopes themselves went under in 1972 which explains the tag, but it looks like their core business was more to do with making wheels than anything else. It doesn't really make sense that in the era someone would have ordered a wagon from hundreds of miles away when there were so many more options closer to home. I'd bet that perhaps Hoopes rebuilt or made new wheels for a restoration project in the final years before they went under.

I must be missing something, but how can the "original" shipping tag for a wagon built in 1895 sport a zip code?

How many magazines is the club printing these days?

Unfortunately, where it concerns people on our side of the pond, they won't ship to us.

Incorrect. The car on HCCA is a Type X. The car shown above is a Type XV.

The reason for this is sprayed finishes have calculated into the final equation the necessary solvents for "dispersion". In order to get the paint or primer to leave the gun and land properly on the panel the formulation is different from brushed-on finishes knowing that certain elements will be lost as it travels through the air. This is why people can seldom obtain satisfactory results when trying to apply by brush automotive finishes that are designed to be sprayed.

PPG used to (and may still) have a line of roll-on primers. They were really only intended for spot repairs so you could use them in an open shop without creating overspray or having to tie up a booth for something minor. You really ought to find out because with automotive primers, urethanes are not supposed to be applied direct to bare metal without first using an etching primer or otherwise prepping the surface. Epoxy can be applied over properly prepared bare metal. I've tried to buy that stuff from the UK before and won't ship to the US. I'm curious about what it actually is. The words "enamel" and "varnish' and such are used so generically that whatever they're selling may be things that are still commonly available here. Try buying "Spar Varnish" in just about any store you can walk into today and virtually all of it is urethane.