Adventures of getting your classic find home

[coachJC]

When I was a kid one of my favourite things to do was to ride my bike to my dad's body shop on a summer evening after dinner when some of his buddies would show up and they would stand around and tell stories about different cars that they brought home and some of the wacky stories of things that happened on those trips. I used to sit there and take it all in and love every second of it. As I got older I thought that some of those stories were like fish stories where they got a little bit exaggerated. One of those stories was about when they bought a little Morris Minor? car and then on the way home they ran across a Model A but the trailer already had a car on it so they pushed the Morris as far forward on the front of the trailer then just put the front wheels of the  Model A on the back of the trailer and using rope tied the front axle of the model A to the the back rail of the trailer and away they came home. Then one day going thru an old box of pics you never guess what I found.......

Edited February 2, 2023 by coachJC (see edit history)

[coachJC]

This is one of my favourite pics after getting the Case out of the garage after resting there for over 40yrs, and just before we sold it.

[arcticbuicks]

i was fresh out of school in 1980 and never had a job .....and still dont ......i was into cars like crazy already and took off to California ,a lot even at age 17 which was rare for a northern Canadian....surfing and beach life .......and soon discovered the black plate original classics so cheap in California ....everywhere ,no rust and minty .........so i started buying one at a time and drive the car back 2500 miles ,to a collector auction in Canada etc.......was great money and funded more trips ......then the best adventures i think were getting my buddies to come down with me,i paid the way,back then you had to physically be in california and buy a auto trader to find the cars,we would be running down to motel office and put cash down on the room phone account,use it up in a hour,run back down,the lady at front desk said "i cant keep up writing your calls down " ,Lucky 7 motel on Katella in Aneheim by disney land  i remember $110 a week..........and off to the beach in Huntington to surf [I still have one surfboard i brought home on the wall-its super rare HA......as its gotta be the only surfboard in the middle of the Canadian praires }  in a few days we had 3-4 classics lined up for drive home......also it took so long to drive and look at a car in LA so i would call on a car in Orange county area that i was serious about and say to the seller "come to the motel and i will buy it if its what you say and i will give you $10 for gas and coming " then the motel thought we were drug dealers ...........going to look at a car we stopped to use a payphone with calling card  and my buddy left his wallet on payphone ledge .......after driving away a block,we raced back and the wallet was on the ground with $600 USA cash gone......but the $1000 Canadian cash still in walllet lol ........and in between things would go  to Tijuana for friday night and the beach.........then drive back breaking down all the way home and lost one guy or two on the way as no cell phones .......calling home with calling card trying to find out where lost guy was .......stopping in Vegas for a night ......then to Salt Lake ,and up to Billings ....then over to north Dakota,to cross the border........and head home north from there.......we ended up driving to Minot to get $99 flights on Northwest airlines to fly down so much cheaper........and one trip i had a 66 $100 Oldsmobile delmont 88 with no reverse........stopped at the border and  "4 guys with cash and one way plane tickets ! " the border guy said .........then he said park over there and come in guys.......i said i cant back up no reverse........and he said "your going where with no reverse ?" .......i left the car at Minot airport [ saw it a year later in the free field parking still sitting on another trip lol} but early 20s in age ......what a adventure for a group of guys .......ended up doing nearly 100 cars over several years ......i lost a lot of old pics....but heres a few of the cars ....around early 80s

Edited February 2, 2023 by arcticbuicks (see edit history)

[Grimy]

6 hours ago, wayne sheldon said:

It wasn't mine. And I wish I had some pictures.

Oh so many years ago, two of my (then and now!) best friends went together and bought a 1925 Pierce Arrow (model 33 I think?), big huge seven passenger sedan!

We all lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, the car was at a collector car dealership South of Los Angeles, about four hundred miles each way. Someone had gone to check the car out, and it was a basically solid original car that had spent some time in Mexico. It was running and driving okay, had a bad 1950s paint job, and not so great upholstery that didn't look too bad, provided you didn't look closely.

Car was purchased, arrangements made, they and I going along to help, headed down to get the car. Now, nobody we knew in those days (early 1970s) had a trailer big enough to carry this thing. So we went down hoping to drive the car home, but with ropes and chains and even a rented tow bar just in case! The three of us headed out near midnight in one of their's 1955 Chevrolet Cameo (fiberglass box) half ton pickup.

We arrived at the dealership at about eight in the morning, finding the dealer with the car outside "ready" and waiting for us. He says hello, and then proceeds to say "we wanted to help you out a bit, so we worked on the car some yesterday hoping to make it run better for you!" 

So now, the car which two weeks before could run out and get onto the freeway, could barely make it to the end of the block on a closed street!

 

Okay. Tow-bar time! Still on the closed street behind the dealership, we turn the Pierce Arrow and the Cameo pickup around so that we are facing the correct direction for driving out, and hook them up. Having spent over an hour there now, we are in the midst of L.A.'s heavy traffic. We pull out of that street, begin turning onto a busy street and quickly find that the Cameo doesn't have a lot of say in where we are going! We only get a couple blocks, and decide that SOMEONE is going to have to ride in the Piece and steer it! I can't remember now who went first. But we all tried each position, with dubious results. Clearly, the issue wasn't us, the Pierce and the Cameo just didn't like being barred together. We finally settled in to who was most willing to handle what (neither one was mine, so I got the passenger seat in the Cameo (giving signals between the drivers)! We drove several miles across town on slower surface streets trying to get used to this big heavy thing, and finally feeling a bit more comfortable, and a stop and discussion, pulled up onto a freeway.

Well. THAT was "interesting"! Seriously? I don't scare easily. To this day I think that was the most frightening few minutes in all my life! We of course tried to stay in the right lane. However interchanges would add lanes to our right and then take lanes away. We had to change lanes over and then back fighting our way to get back into the new "right" lane. Even with me signaling, the two vehicles tied together was extremely sluggish! Cars were constantly shoving their way around us on both sides! We hadn't gone five miles and then it happened. How, (Thank you God!) it happened, I don't know. But the Pierce Arrow decided to change lanes on its own! Somehow, not only was there a newly added lane on our right? IT WAS EMPTY! Wherever it was going on the upcoming interchange, we went that way, and took the next exit.

 

Discussion time again. The senior partner in our youthful trio had been in the hobby a few more years than the other two of us. And he knew a few people living in the L.A. area. So a few phone calls were made, and a good friend of his who happened to be home that day volunteered his driveway.

As it turned out, in spite of the harrowing experiences so far that morning, it was a good thing that the dealer had messed up the car. We divided up the work, including properly changing the oil. Although we had been assured it was ready to be driven, that oil had obviously NOT been changed in DECADES! So, while I as the one with the most background in electrical tackled the ignition, the other two took care of the pan and oil.

The big model 1925 Pierce Arrow had dual ignition, with two distributors and fully independent systems. Both in TERRIBLE condition. So I sorted through it, bad as it was, and chose the best of all pieces to swap into one system. Both distributor caps were good. But only one rotor was any good at all. Only eight of the twelve wires looked decent. One coil was bad. The dealer had mixed up parts I don't know why? So that both systems were bad enough that one would BARELY run, and the other would not run it at all! 

Once the oil pan and oil was taken care of, and my sorting of the ignition was waiting, we fired her up! What a sweet sound! As a longtime close friend used to say (he passed way too young about ten year ago and wasn't on this adventure), puckity puckity puckity VROOM puckity puckity puckity!

 

After a bit of discussion, we thanked our good friend for the use of his driveway, and drove on out and to a lube shop. After spending a few hours on the thing's mechanics, we KNEW it needed more lube! Up on the hoist, and the high pressure pumps do their thing! (This is important!!!)

 

Now, it is nearing late afternoon! And once again, we are on the road and heading North! Remember, none of us had had more than an hour or two sleep in 36 hours! Who drives what is as much a matter of who feels like they CAN drive what for awhile! Mostly, I allow the other two to drive the Pierce Arrow, as it IS their car, while I would take turns driving the Cameo pickup. So one is driving the Pierce, the other two of us are in the Cameo following, and all is going well for quite some distance. I am not thinking of the miles at that point, just enjoying making some distance and talking with my friend. Then the Pierce pulls off the freeway and off to the side of the surface street. We say "He must be getting tired or wanting to check something?" We all get out, and he says "Lost the brakes!" We say "What?" "The Pierce Arrow lost its brakes!"

Shoot.

Always one to dive right into anything, I climb down under the car. Look around a bit and shake a few things. Everything looks to be in order. Then something catches my eye. A clevis arm, on a cross shaft, is in the right place, or IS it? Something doesn't look right. Looking closer, the cross shaft has shifted, and the clevis arm is jambed against something on the chassis. Using a tire iron, I try to pry the cross shaft back into place. It won't budge! Then a light goes off in my head. The high pressure lube machine! Getting a small wrench out of the tool box, I remove the grease fitting on the errant cross shaft, and grease squirts out! Then, again using the tire iron, I pry the shaft back into its proper place with grease squirting out of the fitting hole! Keyways and keys hold the clevis arm in axial direction on the shaft. A rivet was supposed to keep the clevis arm from sliding off the end of the shaft. The high pressure from the grease machine had sheared the rivet and pushed the shaft sideways until the clevis arm came off the key! The fully equalizing brakes with one wheel disconnected effectively caused total service brake failure! With everything back where it belonged, the brakes were now functional again, but how to keep the clevis arm from vibrating off? I'm laying under the car, staring at the shaft and arm wondering how to keep it together? Maybe hose clamps? Bailing wire? (Always a model T'er at heart!) Maybe even tape would be safe enough for  few hundred miles? One of my friends asks "Can you get the rivet out?" I am thinking NOT @@@@ likely!  As he hands me a hammer and a big nail. "Give it a shot!" Lo and behold, It worked. All three sheared pieces of the rivet popped right out with ease!  One large cotter pin through the rivet's holes and we were good to go!

It is beginning to get dark. And I am told it is my turn to drive. We are now only a short few miles from the famous Grapevine! In our discussion, should we try the freeway over the top? Or take the really slower low road? Everybody says to try the freeway, I add in I will make a stop at the bottom for a quick safety check before the climb.

 

We reach the bottom of the climb, I pull off into a safe spot to do a quick visual check. It is now fully dark! After everything looked good by flashlight, I walk over to the hood, turn the flashlight off, and lifted the hood. The sight to behold was BEAUTIFUL, and frightening! Like a fourth of July light show with lights running all around the ignition wires! I watched for a few seconds, slowly closed the hood. Then got in the car and began driving all the way to the top of the Grapevine! On the freeway! The car was running great!

 

The rest of the drive up to the San Francisco Bay Area went smoothly. However, the adventure wasn't quite over, yet. All that was Friday night, all day and night Saturday, and the wee hours of Sunday morning. And it just so happened that there was a scheduled Swap Meet that Sunday morning in San Francisco! We were pulling into Hayward, just before sunup! The car was running fine. None of us had had more than a few hours snoozing while riding in 48 hours now! So what are we to do? Drive the Pierce Arrow the forty miles to the Swap Meet of course! We arrived shortly after the gates opened, and the car, and our story, was the hit of the show! 

 

Frankly, I don't remember much of that day after that. I remember us standing around, retelling the tale over and over again. I know I wandered around the swap and bought a few things for my model T. And, somehow, we got back home again.

Wayne, what a superb story!  Thanks for taking the time to recount it so well!  To pick a nit, Pierce is *supposed* to have dropped the Dual Delco (two 6-cyl dist bodies and caps in the same housing) for 1924 in favor of a single-body dual ignition distributor and cap which looks like a 12-cyl with dual coils, but I know of several 1924s with Dual Delcos.  Of course, the only way anyone can establish a year model for Series 33 (1922 through mid-1926) is by comparing serial numbers to factory production data--which uis difficult because all the official records went into the furnace when Pierce was liquidated in May 1938.  Pierce commenced installing 4-wheel brakes about May 1924 but made a retrofit kit available for earlier Series 33s.

 

Our younger readers may be aghast at the safety implications of your trip, but I'll reinforce your story with the statement that that's how it was done in those days!  I knew of only one or two collectors who even owned trailers, much less had a suitable tow vehicle other than a flathead Cadillac.  So we dragged or drove them home, no matter how far.

[TAKerry]

On 2/1/2023 at 12:37 PM, automaschinewerks said:

having a trucker father comes in handy.  i already posted these pics 5 years ago when i bought the car, but it sure is neat going through pictures.

- terry

Many years ago I wrecked my firebird in central PA. It was undrivable, my GF at the time had an uncle that had a rig. He loaded up my poor old car on his drop deck trailer hooked up to a KW aerodyne and delivered to my house in MD. Big truck and not much of a load. First pic reminded me of that trip.

[jpage]

Here's another story, not about getting a car but looking at a couple. Shortly after I took my "A" down to the garage where I was going to work on it, the fella who owned the garage told me about a guy he knew close by that had a coupe of Model A's he might want to sell. Interested, I ask my friend Louie if he would accompany me. I made arrangements to meet with the owner one Sunday afternoon. This was in the winter and he had just had a heavy snowfall so I and Louie were all bundled up and probably looked like a couple of hoodlums! We arrived at the location, climbed the stairs up to the second floor porch an I knocked on the door. Several minutes went by with no response, so I knocked again. Several more minutes passed and I was about to knock again when all of a sudden the door flew open and the guy  stepped onto the porch and Louie and I found ourselves nose to muzzle with a shotgun! This man was stripped to the waste, standing in the 6 in. deep snow in his bare feet, soaking wet, hair amiss, with a wild and crazy look on his face. He kept pointing the gun in each of our faces while screaming "What do you want, who are you!" all the while. Stunned, we slowly raised our hands up and  explained that we were the guys that he agreed to show his cars to. A few minutes passed, which seemed like hours when you have a gun pointed at you, when the guy calmed a bit and ordered us inside. Well, neither of us wanted to go in,  but the man with the gun does the talking  and I didn't want to provoke him. We slowly walked into the adjacent living room where he ordered us to sit down. He kept up his wild interrogation inside all the while pointing the gun in our faces. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he lowered the gun and started to pump out the shells onto the floor and my legs just started to  shake, almost uncontrollably. It was then that I realized that this guy was deadly serious and that he truly thought we were a danger. Strangely, his demeanor changed almost instantly and he wanted to show us the cars, so as long as we were still there and alive, we might as well have a look. He took us to his garage where he kept 2 fairly nice unrestored Model A's. He had a '29 closed cab pickup that looked complete and he had a nice , early '28 Blindback fordor sedan with the left hand cowl vent. A fairly rare car. At that point though, we were in no mood to look at cars so we complimented his cars, thanked him for his time and made tracks out of there. The afterrmath of an experience like that is astounding; you almost feel like you are removed from the world and it can play one out.  We did later learn, that just days earlier, there was a biker gang involved stabbing near his location, and apparently he was the one who called the authorities and when we showed up, he thought we were gang members coming for revenge. He really did intend to kill us tp protect himself and his family; we almost found ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time! Any situation that you can walk away from is a good one!

 

[1912Staver]

One of these days I have to get a longer trailer. This GMC just made it on the deck by a couple of inches. A slightly higher GVW truck and trailer might have come in handy as well , Ford F150 was doing the towing. But the trip was only a couple of miles on back roads.

 1945 GMC 3 ton.  Kitsilano Transfer in Vancouver B.C. was high enough priority to get a new truck as WW2 drew to a close. This one has been parked since 1973. I intend to mount a crane boom on it for jobs around my backyard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by 1912Staver (see edit history)

[Paul Dobbin]

It was 1972 and I was an insurance investigator with a territory of south Florida.   One day on my way back to Tampa I spotted an old unrestored car on a mobile home sales lot.   I didn't even know what it was, but after a ton of harassment by the salesmen, i bought a 1934 Ford Tudor.   When I got home I asked my brother to go with me the next day to pick it up.  He had a late model Pontiac Firebird Formula 400 with a hitch.   We rented a tow bar and went to get it.    We put the bumper bracket on the front bumper of the 34 and we were off for the 35 mile ride home.  

Little did I know about 1934 Fords, including that they had a locking steering column.   The 34 fought us at every turn because the front wheels could not follow the Firebird and skidded around every turn.   We were lucky the "May Pop Tires" held up.  The next day got it running and drove it around the block after breaking off the ignition level on the steering wheel lock.   Joined AACA when it was finished in 1973 and I've learned a lot about 1934 Fords in the last 50 years.  Kept that one for 26 years and have had 3 more since then.  Now I take my trailer when something need picking up.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Paul Dobbin
Added Photo (see edit history)

[peezduk]

Here is a 26 Marmon I saved from the crusher.  It was so weak and long I had to cut it in half to get it on the trailer. I used an engine cherry picker to load it. It was used for parts. 

Edited February 3, 2023 by peezduk (see edit history)

[arcticbuicks]

huge !

[Dandy Dave]

19 hours ago, peezduk said:

Here is a 26 Marmon I saved from the crusher.  It was so weak and long I had to cut it in half to get it on the trailer. I used an engine cherry picker to load it. It was used for parts. 

Did you bring the Radio Flyer hood home with you?

[avgwarhawk]

I purchased my Buick in Winchester VA. The seller said his BIL has a tow company and for $350 bucks he'll deliver to my home just outside of Baltimore. Anyway, the owner of the Buick had passed away. It went up for sale. I purchased the car.  I didn't know his daughter had taken pictures of the Buick being loaded on the flatbed.  She mailed them to me 10 years later after finding me on Facebook. Here is the Buick being loaded. A sad day for her but she is thrilled to keep in touch via Facebook to the car her father drove around Winchester VA.  Hopefully this year she and her mother can meet me in Charles Town WV at their yearly car show. 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2023 by avgwarhawk (see edit history)

[Larry Schramm]

Maybe easier to look at.

 

 

 

[Trulyvintage]

 

Wally Bryan built 100 of these for BNSF.

They were put on open railroad cars

and used for bunkhouses.

Three were known to remain when

I found this one in Winnemucca, Nevada

around 2008.

In order to buy it - I had to pay cash

and furnish another travel trailer and

transfer all of the contents out of this one

into the one I provided - that took about

three days.

 

 

Jim

[arcticbuicks]

Wow that trailer is up the wind ha