Does antique air have value as a indicator of pollution?

[Jack Bennett]

It occurred to me that the air in the tires of my 1923 Dodge roadster (possibly) celebrated its 100th birthday last year.

That brought to mind a need to do some sort of scientific survey to compute the cumulative age of the air in all my antique car tires.

Of course there is a potential + or - factor of 0 to 90+ years on the accuracy of aging each of the four cars, but that still beats the aim off the US government uses to guesstimate budgetary assessments.

Anyway, this important task was brought to the forefront when I became aware that there was a lot of stuff happening in, e.g., 1923, which affected air quality, and the level of pollutants it contained.

Equally important is the capture, and preservation in their viral state, pandemic causing viruses and bacteria which may be held in suspension within the air insidiously aging in our old tires.

For example, in 2123, a fellow driving a classic 2023 car has a blowout. We know the affects of breathing in the air expelled by a person, aka…”a spreader”, who is both unvaccinated as well as unmasked, but have you considered the possibility of that same, potentially, COVID infected person having that breath captured and preserved as he added air to his car tires?

It may be of little interest to some. But to me, the much shouted plea of “Don”t spare the air” has became a rally cry, and I intend on championing this cause into the next century.

I am so adamant regarding the value of this research I have requested a government grant of 100 million dollars, and have been told I am immediately in line behind a study to ascertain the sleep habits of the rare African tree toad.

Do I have any takers who will volunteer to furnish me with a quantity of old air, bled directly from the tubes of their antique tires, that I may use to document the need for this research?

To substantiate the importance of this research, I have posted a photo of a 100 year old sample of air bled directly from the tire of my 1923 DB roadster.

Edited January 14 by Jack Bennett (see edit history)

[JFranklin]

You need to concentrate back on the antique auto hobby. Or find an organization to volunteer service to.

[Jack Bennett]

4 minutes ago, JFranklin said:

You need to concentrate back on the antique auto hobby. Or find an organization to volunteer service to.

Sorry sir……..I beg your pardon, the topics in this thread are “automobile humor and interest” and the air in my antique car tires certainly qualify somewhere in this mish mash.

Reading this thread, as is maintaining a paid membership to the forum, are voluntary, and a swipe of the finger on the delete toggle will immediately relieve the pressure on your brain caused by a belly laugh.

I suppose the next finger move you make will be to investigate whether or not I viewed your profile to see who can’t stomach my posts.

I will inform you in advance because I really don’t care…….unless you are a mediator, and you are both capable and qualified to delete anything which doesn’t toot your personal horn.

 

 

 

[JFranklin]

Didn't you see the humor in my post? I did give you a laughing emoji after all!

[Jack Bennett]

I do a whole lot of typing on the forum. And as the saying “he who does nothing, can do no wrong”, so must the saying go that “he who cannot speak, cannot offend. So, there is a greater probability of me offending someone/anyone by saying anything about anything. 
So, maybe I will get back to work on my old cars, or attend the Masonic Lodge, VVA, VFW, DAV, YMCA or one of the other activities us old farts join to convince ourselves we are not worthless.

Well, gee……..it is 21 degrees outside at the minute, a dusting of snow on the already frozen ground, it does not get light until after 8:00 in the morning and by 4:00 in the evening the sun has set and the wind starts getting serious.

I have spent many nights on the Korean DMZ, and used to consider this god forsaken place the coldest place on earth. That was exacerbated by the fact we had no buildings, furnaces, cook stoves, or fancy shops in which to replace our terrain damaged tanks.

And now, I do have a workshop, do, actually and honestly, pay for parts I use on my old cars, but, unlike Korea, I don’t see a urgency to stay outside and work on a 1929 model truck.

True, I do have a stove in my shop, but the neighbor finds the smoke unbearable, my hammering annoying, and has called the crisis response team which reacted because I was a “danger” to myself by working alone in the dark.

So, I do type on the forum, and, another saying goes……

You can please some of the people all the time……

All the people some of the time…………

But you will never please all the people all the time.

(words added)………so why even try?

Edited January 14 by Jack Bennett (see edit history)

[28 Chrysler]

Are you saying your car has "FACTORY AIR"?

[Jack Bennett]

2 hours ago, 28 Chrysler said:

Are you saying your car has "FACTORY AIR"?

I really doubt it.

The post was the rendering of a recollection of a event a few years ago involving a few young Hispanic men who opened a tire repair shop down the street from me.

I was in the middle of getting my 1927 Willlys Knight back on four pins, and I was ready to have the new tires installed.

This car had not been worked on for half a century and the wheels and rims were exceedingly grody and rusted.

So, I elected to pay the new tire shop proprietors to change out the tires, but asked the fellow to notify me when the old tires had been dismounted, but before the new had been mounted.

This was intended to give me a window of time to clean, inspect, repair, and paint the old rims.

I told the young fellow these rims were both over 90 years old and were very brittle and nearly impossible to replace. And I told him that if he had any doubts about how they worked, I would rather he didn’t work on them.

He emphatically reassured me that he was familiar with the expansion rims, and knew exactly what he was doing.

So I left the rims in his capable hands and told him I’d be back in a couple of days to pick up the rims.

In a couple of days I did show back up at the business, and as promised, my now clean and painted wheels were neatly lined up along the shop walls.

After congratulating the young fellow on his good work of mounting the tires, I leaned over and slightly pressed the valve stem of a tire, and pretended to sniff the exhaled air.

A mock look of horror crossed my face as I jumped back and asked, with sheer panic in my voice……….”Oh my God……what have you done”?

The reaction of shock the young man displayed was far beyond anything I could have expected.

In fact, had he been much larger, I would have been unable to stop him from completely hitting the floor as he fell.

Recovering a bit, the young man asked me what he had done wrong, and why I was so shocked.

With the totally false demeanor of a scholastic nerd, with a better sense of academic gibberish than a just a slightly insane mechanic could possibly possess, I began to explain my dilemma to the young guy, and give him a possible escape door.

”See”, I explained, “there are those among us old car elitists which are perfectionists in our restorations in every way possible”. I went on to explain that “Sometime the levels of originality, and the extreme measures we used to attain them, may seem totally absurd, and often unattainable, by the uninitiated, but were steps necessary to retain the value, and ambiance, of our extremely rare machines”.

I informed him that “I had supposed, since he told me he was familiar with the process used to replace antique car tires, he must also know that re-use of the original air was a essential, and was expected to be a part of the replacement”.

His face paled and his jaw dropped to the extent I actually wanted to grab it to keep it from falling off all together.

So, I offered up the respite by saying “Well, at least you saved the original air, and if you have a compressor which will handle 90 year old air, maybe we can get it out of that tank, and back into the tires”.

I had noticed the chrome, and obviously very expensive, iPhone tucked safely into his breast pocket, but he caught me totally by surprise when he yanked it out, hit speed dial, and, in a panic filled voice, asked someone if “they had in stock, or could get, any 90 year old air”.

Who they were, or what they said, I have no idea what the response came from the other end of the phone conversation, but I do know it immediately brought tears to the eyes of the young man.

He did manage to mutter, spaced by gasps and wheezes, “I guess you’re right, even if we had some on hand, I doubt our new compressor would handle it anyway”.

Things got immeasurably quiet, and remained as such until a few minutes had elapsed, and the rather huge, and maybe even a bit vicious looking, gent, I supposed to be the owner, burst through a door, I presume was a office adjoining the shop, and stormed up to having his face inches from the face of the young man.

I do speak a bit of Mexican, and I did understand the admirably filth filled string of names the new arrival to the scene screamed into the young guy’s quivering ear.

Exactly when I thought it could get no worse, the big guy, now clearly identified as the young guy’s boss, reached up, and in a single blow dislodged the beautiful iPhone from the young man’s hand, and sent it to a mess of broken glass on the shop floor.

At that point I began hoping that the two men shared a blood relationship. The reasoning here was that the only salvation the young man could expect, if the huge guy were to be stopped short of killing him, was if the huge guy was his dad, uncle brother, or as doubtful as to how that would work, a cousin. Of course there was static in this reasoning also because I also had a inkling that the younger guy may be a in-law, and his doom was irrevocably sealed.

Anyway, I made, what I felt to be, a heroic gesture which gave the allusion that I was about to become physically involved in the confrontation by stepping between the huge guy, and the younger guy, to end the confrontation.

Of course my mother only gave birth to two boys, one a younger idiot, and one a older, and much wiser man, and my younger brother now lives in Kansas.

Regardless, the huge guy stepped back from his assault on the younger guy, turned to me and explained that “he was sorry……the young guy was a new employee, and he should have known that I would be asking about the age of the air he used in my antique car tires”.

He went on to say that he was embarrassed that I had managed to trick his new employee with a dumb question, but he would be willing to give me a $25.00 discount on the charge to reimburse me for any inconvenience his employees ineptitude had caused.

I apologized for the trick and told him that it was all in good faith, and his employee was a great guy, and he was lucky to have him. 
The tires loaded, payment made and hand shakes completed, I mounted my car and prepared to leave the business.

It was then that the huge guy motioned to me to roll down my window.

He approached near enough to whisper in my ear that they were a new business, and depended on folks like me to learn the needs of every customer.

And, he concluded this meeting with the statement that “What I had said about using 90 year old air, in a 90 year old wheel, to retain absolute originality, made a lot of sense”. He added that “he could not recall a single one of his suppliers who stocked, sold or shipped antique air, and he would appreciate a link to someone selling it”.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14 by Jack Bennett (see edit history)

[28 Chrysler]

I was hinting Factory Air like in the adds that say "Has Factory Air"

The air in the tires would be contaminated with the rubber gassing off.

[Jack Bennett]

1 hour ago, 28 Chrysler said:

I was hinting Factory Air like in the adds that say "Has Factory Air"

The air in the tires would be contaminated with the rubber gassing off.

And I was just passing some gas too.🤪

[wayne sheldon]

One may wish to laugh at the intended humor, certainly a wonderful thing!

However, I recall I think a bit over forty years ago reading an article in some science oriented magazine, about a University back East was examining the air that had been trapped inside several century old items they knew (believed?) had not been opened or otherwise contaminated for most of that century. I remember that there were a couple of telescopes carefully opened up so that the air inside could be tested.

 

I never did see a follow-up with results of the testing. 

[avgwarhawk]

Not so far fetched. Cores of ice in the Artic are taken and studied because the layers within hold information about the climate at a particular time in history. 

[Jack Bennett]

6 hours ago, avgwarhawk said:

Not so far fetched. Cores of ice in the Artic are taken and studied because the layers within hold information about the climate at a particular time in history. 

Our old machines are a collection of successes and failures in the human quest to go faster, go further, with less effort, and do it in comfort and style. 
While are not a religion, it cannot be denied that they are ideologies which reflects the collective abilities, skills, aspirations, appetites and dreams of those whose cumulative lives contributed to their existence.

They are also time machines that, as you suggest, are not only capable of conveying emotions, elation, apprehension, and even a sensation (It appears to be moving,  even when it’s standing still)!, they convey the essence of the times in which they were built.

My post is morbid humor, and it is no surprise that its route has led to comments more related to the allusion to COVID, and the vaccination vacuum, than the mechanical aspects of air retention in a 90 year old tire. 
And, it does add flesh to my allegation that having a hobby which inculcates any number of ideas, theories, opinions, materials which can be cut, pasted, dissected, and walked away from with no feeling of personal loss is essential to the thing we call “a successful life”.

I referred to it as “the air in a 90 year old tire”, you referred to it as the “Core of ice in the Artic”, wayne Sheldon referred to them as “as centuries old things”, and collectively they may be called centuries old trees in a Amazonian jungle, undiscovered life in the oceans depths, or transpermia, or panspermia involving alien life forms from other worlds.

It is called “slosh”, and in the instance of a forum versed to discuss antique and classic machines, it may be the ability to move freely between the time worn, and possibly boring, discussion of the vacuum fuel delivery system, found in a 1923 Hupmobile, to the computerized EFI fuel system found in a 2024 Porsche 911.

And folks, it is another Monday, here we are suckling the screen of our mass media mother, and the world has not screeched to a stop because we aren’t at a Trump rally or protesting something well beyond our control.

Thanks to avgwarhawk, we have been involved in a digital communication, without a single shot being fired, nor a cross word being spoken, for the past few minutes……..and, folks, IMO that is what any laudable forum is about, and that is one of the most basic freedoms we, as Americans enjoy…..it is called “communications”.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/edisons-last-breath-henry-ford-museum

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15 by Jack Bennett (see edit history)