John Byrd
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Posts posted by John Byrd
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My wife's new Ranger has that stop the engine feature and thankfully she hates it as bad as I do. Also thankfully, Ford provides a button to disable it. It has WAY too many electronic things, voices, lights, etc. for me, I wanted a "new" 61 Ranchero, ha ! Oh well, we still have the old Mini and the Studebaker, as well as two really simple little motor scooters to drive if we don't need to use the truck.
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My list has been about the same since my teen years. We have been able to own some of my dream cars, but they have come and gone already, so we've been lucky or fortunate. I changed my priorities of keeping my dream cars by selling them to be able to get this place in Hawaii, and don't regret anything about it !
My big luxury dream car is a huge 30s era Packard 12 cylinder, and my WOW ! dream car is still from the 1st pic and the 1st time I saw of one, a REAL GT-40 Ford small block or big block, (but small block actually preferred) from the 64 to 69 era. My "show my immaturity" car would be a tube framed, Jon Kasse 830 cubic inch (or so) Pro Stock engine'd 61 Falcon Ranchero with a regular old 4 speed top loader, a "steep" gear like a 3:91 to 4:57 ratio, and full independent suspension. Fortunately, I am safe, as I am too old and certainly not wealthy enough to afford any of them, and besides, the Packard is too big for our location, and I'd get killed in either one of the other two, since at only 73 years old, I haven't got thru' my goofy, out of control, still think I'm a 19 year old car nut years yet, ha !
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It's getting there ! Looks almost like a driveway all the way 'round the house now ! Anxious to finish up and bring a car or two around and in the "to be finished" under house garage.
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When I was a kid, on a family trip from Knoxville, TN. down to Chattanooga, TN., we went up a street in Red Bank, TN. and I saw a big 30s era Packard that was parked in the street. It was long, so I imagine a 4 door, had twin side-mount tires, and was painted gold. We only seen it a couple more times, then the folks we visited moved. After I got my drivers license, of course I went straight down there as soon as I got a chance, and have to this day, never seen it again. I still want one just like it, and I am 73 now. I finally did get a Packard, not exactly the same thing, but it was as good a driving and riding car as any we had at the time,and with the 100 hp six ( I think 100 hp is right ), it had no problem on the two lane or 4 lane highways where my wife and I lived in Alabama at the time. ....Packards..... ask the little boy or the old man who wanted one and had one ! Here is a pic of my old 38. Not the prettiest girl at the prom, but I loved her anyway. Great bunch of posts here guys and gals, thanks!
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This might not seem car related, but rest assured, it certainly is ! Access to the side and back of the house, hooray ! Here's our guy "haulin' grass, and "pullin' stumps".
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House of the Rising Sun..... Hey, I'm a Tennessee boy, had to out Dolly's version out here too, ha !
AND 1st...
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For the folks that don't remember POCO, the smaller long haired guy in the Eagles, Timothy B. Schmidt was POCO's lead singer. They had some good songs. I'm 73 and still a huge Pink Floyd, 10 CC, Beatles, Santa Esmeralda, Moody Blues, Electric Light Orchestra and many others fan. Shoot, I even like the Ink Spots and It's A Beautiful Day groups, ha ! Jackie Wilson, Ray Charles, The Shirells, The Toys, Everly Brothers, Righteous Brothers, and all the groups and singles like that were my favorites during my earlier "got my own radio and record player days, ha ! We do love our music, here's most of the 33 1/3rd albums I have left. We sold a lot before our move to Hawaii and got rid of all except one 78 (Grandpa Jones 1st plastic 78, with "Uncle Ep's Got The Coon and Gone On"...about a raccoon hunter) and recently gave a radio DJ all my 45s.
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I am moving my battery from the left hand front (over the power steering unit) to the right rear in the trunk in our 55 Studebaker coupe. Hey look, there are two more spark plugs under where all that mess has been, and the car was yellow from the factory, ha !
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Yep, drove mine to the car club breakfast this morning.... time for a "nature-wash", ha ! On the way home I came back down by the ocean and it was raining so hard the road was puddling badly in places, so it got an underneath nature-wash too !.
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Last time I washed the Studebaker, it started raining pretty hard, so I backed it out of the garage, grab'd the microfiber towel, and had at it ! Our city water is horrible about spotting, rain is better. Then, pull it back in the garage and dry it off. This is the way I did it when I spray'd on the Mequiars Ceramic too, EXCEPT.... let the rain dampen it again after cleaning/drying it, then spray on the ceramic stuff, let it rinse again (or just spray it off), and then microfiber it dry. Good results.
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I just listen to whatever comes on this old thing, normally on the station I leave it on, it's late 50s and up rock.
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On 3/9/2021 at 8:14 AM, Matt Harwood said:
Where were all you guys when people were calling me an idiot for not being able to master all the electronic crapola? Seems I'm not the only one frustrated with the extreme level of over-electronification that they're building into cars today.
I suspect this nonsense is not making anything safer, it's just allowing people with a lower skill level to not die immediately upon entering the public roadways. I guess that's good, but when dying was a very real danger of driving, I think people took it more seriously and worked to be skillful.
Matt, I've been saying it since I bought a new 74 Ranchero GT and the seat belt, seat empty, seat loaded, door ajar, and other crap I don't remember started going off. Back then fortunately, none of it was hooked to the engine, transmission, dealers place, manufacturer's watch line, or "the cloud", so I cut all the blasted bells and alarms off with wire cutters as I found them. HATE being controlled by someone else's idea in a machine with bells, whistles, voices from a computer, screen, or flashing lights in my own space I'm supposed to be controlling. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Still have my wire cutters, but afraid to use them on Karen's new vehicles. My old Mini or Studebaker just does pretty much what I want without commenting or "going off" about it, ha !
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edinmass, the Mazda dealer wanted 400 and something for a new key for my wife's Miata. I told her to forget it, I didn't need one anyway, but she decided to lookit up on U-Tube to see if there was a fix or some other thing to replace it. Super simple, almost stupidly simple procedure, and took no $ and about 2 minutes ! Try that..
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Pfeil, I know about the lifting over stuff, ha ! We had a normal Ranger...05 I think, before this one, and it was fairly easy. My best "easy to use" trucks were an F-350, ( my fav "real" truck of the bunch, shown below) two F-150s, a 66 F-100, and an 84 long bed Chevy, all with a "Tommy Lift" !!! Love those things. All my Rancheros and a 56 F-100 were really easy to load/ unload too, and the Studebaker trucks were reasonable height too, but just never used either one of them for big load or hauling duties. We worked for an old man on a farm when I was a kid, my dad did the heavy lifting and driving, but the "ramp-side" he had was the Corvair version. I even had a fold down ramp on the passenger side you could have went up in a wheelchair ! Now, not trying to start anything here, but like all the rest of the early Corvairs in our town, it didn't last very long, so a V-6 GMC pickup replaced it.ha !
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My wife bought a new Ranger. I absolutely hate every single thing about "controlling" it, but will admit it is nice riding, handles OK, and runs like a muscle car (turbocharged)...... except for the gas not being "let off" the instant you get off the pedal. BUT, if I want to do anything with the radio, adjust the mirrors, try to get a fan / heat, or air adjusted, re-set the mileage for gas fill-ups, find the clock, or almost anything else, it is much safer for me to just stop, figure it out if I can, or forget about it and just go on. Oh, I am able to roll the windows up and down now, but the drivers side is of course smarter than us and flies all the way up or down if the button is touched. That blasted screen in the middle of the dash is by far the most annoying thing I have ever encountered in a vehicle. The lights flashing in the rear view mirrors are next, and the sounds coming from somewhere when I back up, pull up, or get close to something are, well, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Even the "key", which is a huge switch-blade like devise does things (or doesn't) that I don't appreciate.... and it's WAY too big to be comfortable in my pocket. Excuse me, I'm going out, get in my little, used to be considered full-sized Studebaker, pump the gas twice, turn the nice, small, cheap and easy to replace key, pull a nice sturdy lever to where I want it to be, and drive off smiling. Oh yeah, this "mid-sized or possibly compact" Ranger is so tall, I can walk up behind it and lay my chin on the tailgate (which is locked because it does that automatically !!!) without leaning over . Gee, I felt pretty good until started writing this, ha, ha ! Thanks for all the posts folks, it's nice that I'm not alone.
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That is a great find and score ! I thought those days were over, ha ! In 68 thru' 70 there were old cars and pieces of old cars all over Texas around the Ft. Worth region. Fun days !
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Since I finished the disc brakes on the 55 Studebaker, the new window motor on the 07 Mini, Karen came up with a new idea..."hey, I need a new fancy pants stereo that does everything except use the bathroom for me put in my Mini"...sheesh. Oh well, got that done and the darn thing worked 1st time ! We do, however need a small, pre-teen child to tell us ...well, her, I ain't fooling with it.... how to operate all the functions. Then, after having such good luck with that, I decided to put the little plastic louvre looking "design feature" back in it's hole it fell out of beneath where there used to be proper bumpers on real cars. That only involved a small amount of blood, an hour, removing the left front wheel and the inner fender well, breaking those mysterious un-available plastic tabs, and then two aspirin. She says next "SHE" is going to fix a couple of ripped seams in the convertible top... "SHE", get it ?.... Wonder when I'll have to start ordering my new sewing equipment ? For my next act, I'm putting the Studebakers battery in the trunk, ( hopefully can get another Optima like I've had in a couple other cars ) and getting another new battery and cables for our REAL Mini, ( the 63 ) ...with good ole' reliable positive ground. Hey, if ya' can't afford to go fast or look good, piddle with little stuff, right ?
Sure am enjoying all the stories folks, please keep it up, and I promise not to talk about all the leaves, rocks, weeds, limbs, and 4 piles of mulch from trees we cut down that we have to move before the rock wall builders get here, ha !
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My answer is just simply that I enjoy everything about this group. Learning from shared experiences is so good !
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Padgett, glad you told that Harley story, it reminded me of one of my worse embarrassed moments. I had bought a 750 Honda chopper that really needed a lot of cosmetic work, and it took me several weeks to get it all apart, painted, (my 1st custom paint job) and re-assembled. I was working at Browns Ferry Nuclear plant in Athens Alabama at the time, and there were a lot of us making decent money back then spending it on cars and bikes. I was the only one that fixed up a Honda chopper at the time, and several of my pals had stopped by the house to see my progress. I was on 2nd shift at the time, so I told them I would be bringing it in on it's "maiden voyage" one nice sunny afternoon, to be sure and come out and check it out before I went on down to the assigned parking lot. Well, sure enough, there were several of them ready for me when I got there.... nervous as a cat, I'll admit, since I'm a little guy and it was a really heavy awkward ride... Anyway, I came rumbling up to a good flat place, shut it off, and got off as gracefully as a little short guy can, turned around and made two steps before they all were hollering and it hit the ground. Stupid motorcycles, who knew they would fall over with the kick-stand still folded neatly up ! And yes, I even had a new, longer, chrome one since the front forks were 6 inches longer and it was REAL wobbly on the stock stand and its required piece of wood... Oh well, it made several other folks happy for a few minutes, and they even helped me lift it back up, ha !
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We have a 1963 Mini with sort of a wild paint job...neat and clean always, but we understand it's not everyone's "cup of tea". My license plate in TN was "NOT 2 BIG" since after all, it's a Mini. Setting at the red light on the way home from work one day, a huge Oldsmobile that was in really terrible shape with a bunch of rather drunk guys in it pulled up beside me, one leaned out and hollered "Not too purty neither", and they all were really laughing hard ! They took off, and I had a really good laugh over it too.
At a gas station one day in our 63 Avanti, a fellow pulled in beside me and said he had seen me around several times driving "that Jenson Healey" and had always hoped to catch me to say how much he liked it...
A funny one when we 1st got our Sunbeam Tiger happened one night... funny now, scare'y then.... when Karen was driving it for the 1st time. We were on a small crooked side road coming back from the mall, WAY after dark, and she was really rowing thru' the gears and enjoying herself when the headlights suddenly went out. She sort of screamed out "what do I do now?" and never quit accelerating. I said, "well, for one thing you could let off the gas and slow down so it won't be as bad of a wreck as it's gona' be going this fast"... Then suggested she mash the dimmer switch, which got them back on, and on we went !
Another Tiger "funny". A pal in his Vette and I took off rather rapidly from a red light in Nashville on Murfressboro Road on our way home from work one day, and the Tiger was spinning and fish-tailing quite badly, with Bill and his Vette slowly fading. About the time I hit 2nd, looked over at a gas station to make sure no one was pulling out, I seen two police officers standing by their car, and they immediately jumped in and headed my way. It was two red lights before they caught me, ( without their blue lights or sirens on ) and when they pulled up beside me, I was waiting for "pull it over sir" as the one rolled down his window. Instead, he said, "what kind of car is that?". I told him a Sunbeam Tiger made in England, and he said, " does it have a 327 or 350 Chevy engine in it?".... I looked at him a minute, and said, "are you guys gona' ticket me /" He told me no, that they just wanted to see what on earth that little rocket ship was, ha ! I thanked them, but said, "you have scared me to death, and now you insult me by calling it Chevy powered, it's got a 306 horse Cobra engine in it now".... they laughed, holler'd out for me to be careful, and sped off. OH, they didn't stop or pay attention to Bill in his Vette, and he was miffed, ha ha !!!
A couple of cute bike stories involve the guys at work always sneaking HUGE drip pans from the machine shop under my Cushman or Harley when I drove either of them to work.. those turkeys !
We always have something a little different to drive, and have some really great memories from folks with events like these that have always happened quite frequently to us.
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Put a disc brakes kit on our 55 this week... love it so far, thanks to Turner Brakes !
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Wow, that is a curious thing. The Mustangs from that era couldn't have a simpler path for the gas to flow, and as the tank is flat on top, it should just keep filling until it runs back up the curved filler. Now if it was a Falcon wagon or Ranchero, they are real slow to fill. Let us know what you find out huptoy. Only thing I could imagine might be possible is if the gas is going in WAY too fast.
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I turned 73 in Dec., and my mind hasn't realized my body is that old yet, so simple things take much longer and the "lay down a minute" areas get more work-outs, ha ! BUT, I'll keep thrashing, I love fooling with them, just try to prep myself that it is going to take a LOT longer than it used to,and keep the pain creme and non-aspirins with a bit of black coffee handy. Doing a power window install and a "better radio" as she says install on the brides fake Mini ( BMW version ) and have a brand new disc brake kit for the 55 Studebaker to install next !
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edinmass and grimy.... thanks for a completely enjoyable read ! I'm always a bit nervous wondering when the comments may turn negative. I am in Hawaii, so can pretty much go out in the cars or even on my motor scooter 24 hours a day, so I know how wonderful that feeling is. I'm from East Tennessee originally, so also know that "other" feeling, ha ! Stopped here a couple weeks ago early one Saturday on the way to our little car club breakfast....Heaven on earth to Karen and I. Thanks again guys !
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How Do I Keep Mice Out of My Glove Box?!?
in Technical
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Addition to my post above, check this out, and notice the yellow highlighted section: https://fixautousa.com/blog/stop-rodents-from-chewing-car-wires/#:~:text=Why Do Rodents Chew Car,appetizing for rodents to chew.