Lucas, the Prince of Darkness. 3 positions on a Lucas headlight switch, flicker, dim and off. I know someone who has a beautiful TR6, as a finishing touch to the restoration he proudly displays one of these at the car shows
Posted on 06/14/2019 8:08:35 PM PDT by Army Air Corps
Much time has passed since I last called FReeper motorheads together for a good garage chinwag.
Tonight's discussion: Your first motor vehicle project. When was the fist time that you got your hands dirty working on a car, truck, motorcycle, etc.?
A buddy of mine had a Vega - “the millionth one made” - engraved in the door handles. Maybe they put those on all the Vega’s they made that week or something?
He wrecked it and the insurance company totaled it.
So my buddy buys his Vega back (bad front end) and with the rest of the insurance money bought another Vega (totaled rear end), welding equipment and a 350 short block engine.
He put both of the good halves together, and dropped in the 350. Painted the thing a shiny black.
Stick shift. I only rode in it once it scared me so much! Every time he would shift the rear end would squirrel about.
Yeah - he wrecked that one too.
Dang! Entertainment Entrepreneurs!
That never gets old. I chuckle every I see that.
When I was 12. Helping my dad build a 1955 Chevy truck from at least two doner trucks. 327 with a four speed. Grabby clutch. Armstrong steering.
Every time I see it, that is...
I started off holding the light for Dad on his ‘54 Ford. First got my hands dirty on my ‘65 Mustang fastback changing the sloppy 4 speed shifter to a Hurst Competition Plus. Eventually got the Mustang to run low 14’s with a cam change, Edelbrock intake and Holley carb, Hooker headers and a rear end swap from a ‘63 Ford station wagon with overdrive that had a beefier 9” differential and 4:30 gears. The 289 was willing but ran out of breath above 6500 rpm. So switched to a ‘69 SS 396 Camaro and built a LS6 454 that ran low 12’s with 4:56 gears and slicks but couldn’t cram enough tire in the stock wheel wells to go faster without cutting the car up. Wish I’d kept the Camaro since they are increasing in value every day.
Another thing with the mid 60’s Skylarks the Super Turbine 300 transmissions, similar to the Powerglide, they were very reliable, but they had that “switch the pitch” stator in the torque converter. The angle of the stator blades were controlled by a solenoid next to the carb and would change according to throttle position and engine vacuum. Sounded like a good idea, on paper but in actuality reduced horsepower and torque as well as MPG’s.
Donor. Not doner. Damned old fat fingers.
Oh, yeah my dad made the mistake of buying a Vega. Even though my Charger used twice as much gas, it was cheaper to drive because that sh!box hardly ran right. It was so bad when I worked for my dad I would drive to the South Bronx, Bushwick, Newark and “exotic” places like that and leave it unlocked, sometimes with it running, I’d come back and IT WOULD STILL BE THERE! Even the car thieves wouldn’t steal it. The only Vegas I see at the shows are either modified with small block Chevys or Buick V-6’s. The ONLY original Vegas I’ve seen in the last 30 years are the Lotus Cosworth’s from 1976-77, with the DOHC and fuel injection, super high tech back then. They also improved the cooling system, something Chevy should’ve done in the first place.
Change the oil and flush the cooling system out on a regular basis and those 4.0 Liter Cherokees can last a lifetime. I know a rural carrier who still has a 92 Cherokee, with right hand drive. He has a later model Subaru but uses the Cherokee from time to time. It’s gotta have almost a million miles on it, doesn’t look like much but still runs good as new.
1972 Mustang mach 1....351 cleveland...4-speed car
Found out the hard way Cleveland’s eat cams! When they ran they were the best Performance Motors Ford ever made.
Ever notice the really cherried out muscle cars are driven by old guys in there 60s and 70s? Here in southern Idaho the weathers getting nice and out they come.
In 1972 or 1973 I was doing about a 1.5 day carpentry job for a guy and I spotted a ‘53 Chevy 3/4 ton truck forlorn and obviously unused in an adjacent lot he owned. So I asked if he’d rather pay me with the truck than with cash and he agreed. It was pretty beat, all the windows were smashed out of it. Anyway, my investment was low. Towed it “home” and I was fortunate that a friend had a Porsche repair shop in the next town over. I completely abused the request and agreement to use his shop to rebuild the thing, but eventually did so. Meanwhile I gathered up the glass from various junkyards and whatever else I needed and eventually got it running and drove it for a year or two. I sold it to a guy who was moving to LA and it promptly blew up halfway to LA from No CA. That was one of my better timing plays.
Rebuilding a Honda 175 twin. It had suffered several years of abuse and neglect. Restored it to good running order, and rode it for a few months before trading up... Since I didn’t yet have a driver’s license, let alone a motorcycle endorsement, my on road adventures were somewhat limited.
Those are pretty nifty bikes.
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