Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Motor Musings
Life Experience | 14 June 2019 | Army Air Corps

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.?


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: cras; dirtyfingernails
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-103 next last
To: HartleyMBaldwin

The manual we used has long since departed. I don’t remember who the author or publisher were. I don’t think it was VW.

The older VWs are a blast to work on because they are so simple. The simplicity is a great way to into a newbie to auto mechanics.


81 posted on 06/15/2019 6:51:23 AM PDT by upchuck (No muzzy is fit to hold public office - their cult (religion) is incompatible with the Constitution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 75 | View Replies]

To: Army Air Corps
70 VW Karmann Ghia. I followed a how-to book and rebuilt the engine. Needed special tool to do the endlash so I took it to a garage for that.

It is a very easy engine to work on. It had a rough idle and so I took it apart again. This is where I learned the rule — one piece at a time. I replaced the distributor, carb, and rebuilt the engine. Turns out I had a bad carb.

82 posted on 06/15/2019 6:56:53 AM PDT by dhs12345
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Trumpnado2016
Lol. Me too — laying on my back on the garage floor and under the car while it is bitter cold. Whack your hand? No problem — you won't feel it.
83 posted on 06/15/2019 6:59:59 AM PDT by dhs12345
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Army Air Corps

4th Grade. Blown head gasket and valve job (burned exhaust valves) in an AMC Matador with minimal automotive tools. Dad was a Woodworker so most tools were those type. Dad was concerned about not knowing much about Engines plus He was concerned about the Emissions JUNK on the car. I told Him that We should strip it All off and trash it. He didn’t want to. We had several of the Air Pump Injector Tubes that the nuts on the tubing had seized to the Exhaust Ports on the Heads. One H€££ of a battle with those...

We got it done in about 2 weeks including Machine Shop time.

And yes it did start and run.


84 posted on 06/15/2019 7:06:06 AM PDT by mabarker1 (Congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Deaf Smith

A CORTINA !!! Way cool. I had a 68 2 door. I bought it for $100.00 running and driving condition. A buddy of mines brother had a bunch of them: MKI, MKII and even an Estate also 1 MKII that was a Right-hand Drive.

I wish I still had it.


85 posted on 06/15/2019 7:12:51 AM PDT by mabarker1 (Congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Army Air Corps

Got a little messy with my 57 Chevy 270 close ratio trans with a 4:11 IN 1957.


86 posted on 06/15/2019 7:22:50 AM PDT by Rappini (Compromise has its place. It's called second.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Impala64ssa; Army Air Corps; Chode; Squantos; snooter55; SkyDancer; Lockbox; carriage_hill; ...
IMG-20180914-143233
87 posted on 06/15/2019 7:28:27 AM PDT by mabarker1 (Congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: upchuck
Reminds me of my first VW, a 1967 camper van. Drove from Detroit to Eureka Springs to Denver then Phoenix to San Fran to Portland to Yellowstone through the Bad Lands and the Upper Peninsula back home. Summer of 1978.

Although I did eventually rebuild the motor on the van, my first big wrenching project was rebuilding engine & trans on my 1957 Chevy pickup (235 straight 6).

88 posted on 06/15/2019 7:45:38 AM PDT by WhoisAlanGreenspan? (# of takeoffs = # of landings)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies]

To: Army Air Corps

1st was a Triumph Spitfire...….but the 2nd was a complete restoration of a 1966 Shelby GT350! Wish I still had, sold for $12,500 in 1974 to get married. Every time one crosses the auction block my wife knows it’s going to be quite time...… I think about the $125,000 the car would be worth!


89 posted on 06/15/2019 7:56:20 AM PDT by Lockbox
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Equine1952

Along the way, I got a few of those 30,000 volt zaps. It sure does get your attention. I’m afraid these days it would stop my ticker on the spot.


90 posted on 06/15/2019 8:05:55 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 71 | View Replies]

To: vigilence

I think the Camaro and others of the era may have hit peak price. Our generation is starting to pass away and today’s kids just don’t have the nostalgia for those cars we did (as evidenced on this post).

With electronic gadgets, the Internet, and federal regs that make it almost impossible to work on your own car as well as emission regs that make it almost impossible to modify your engine, the motorhead is passing into oblivion. The new generations are just not enamored with cars. Perhaps the Baby Boomers post WW II were the last generation to know the thrill and mystique of the open road.

Cheap air travel is another likely reason for the demise of the car enthusiast. You don’t have to drive across the country any more — you just buy a cheap ticket and get where you want to be in a few hours. Who needs a car?


91 posted on 06/15/2019 8:13:20 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: ProtectOurFreedom

I knew someone from the Catskills, had a 1957 Ford Prefect, bought new from King Ford in Brooklyn. A few Pontiac dealers sold some Vauxhall Victor’s GM was considering putting Chevy emblems on the ones imported to the US and Canada and calling them Corvairs.I remember near Yankee Stadium was a garage that sold Brit cars, Land Rovers, Jags, Bentleys. Where I grew up in Rockland there was Foreign Cars of Rockland that sold MGs and Triimphs, also Renaults and occasionally Peugeots. Ted Shultz Ford sold a few Anglias and Cortinas and Moorehead up in Kingston, still in business was one of the first Volvo dealers in NY. But yeah, other than VWs before the Japanese cars, not many imports around.


92 posted on 06/15/2019 8:22:00 AM PDT by Impala64ssa (Virtue signalling is no virtue)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: Impala64ssa
I could see that around NYC and up into the Catskills. But upstate was far removed from the NYC cosmopolitan world. It was all American cars except for that poor Renault Dauphin.

My uncle (who was a B-17 pilot in the war) raced motorcycles at tracks around Stamford, CT after the war. He ran a motorcycle dealership in Stamford and sold Harleys. Around 1960, he added this odd motorcycle brand called "Honda." Wiki...

In 1960, the first full year of operations, American Honda sold fewer than 2,000 motorcycles through three product lines: the Dream, Benly and Honda 50 (Super Cub). The following year, Honda established 500 motorcycle dealers and spent $150,000 on advertising in regions where it operated. Honda's expansion into new U.S. markets was undertaken one region at a time over a five-year period, starting on the West Coast and moving east, creating new demand for motorcycles.

Sales in the U.S. did not increase notably until 1963, when the company launched its "You meet the nicest people on a Honda" advertising campaign, the first of its scale to position motorcycles to mainstream Americans. By the end of the year, Honda had sold more than 100,000 units in the U.S., more than all other motorcycle manufacturers combined.

He was really prescient to buy that franchise so early and it became a huge money-maker for him.
93 posted on 06/15/2019 8:37:04 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 92 | View Replies]

To: ProtectOurFreedom

Your uncle got involved with Honda at the right time! And G-D bless him for his service.


94 posted on 06/15/2019 8:48:37 AM PDT by Impala64ssa (Virtue signalling is no virtue)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 93 | View Replies]

To: mabarker1

100%


95 posted on 06/15/2019 9:50:29 AM PDT by Chode ( WeÂ’re America, Bitch!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies]

To: dhs12345

What year Model A? Not sure, I think it was a ‘30, but it might have been a ‘29.

What body style? Sedan. Dad had a roadster when he got married, but they needed more passenger room when the family size increased.

It had no heater, but the 5 miles to town was doable. I do not remember any 20 below days, so we must have had a siege of global warming in the mid 50s. Didn’t do any engine work, but Dad had ridge reamed it and installed oversized pistons sometime before I drove it. The odometer quit somewhere a little over 98,000. Dad broke an axle about a half mile from home on the mud roads shortly after the war. The replacement came in the mail.

I did not do any engine work, but replaced the roof.


96 posted on 06/15/2019 12:15:50 PM PDT by Western Phil
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 80 | View Replies]

To: Deaf Smith
E2-D7-CE68-6-D88-42-D3-AC84-4-B4-A085-B8561
97 posted on 06/15/2019 1:07:37 PM PDT by mabarker1 (Congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: 21twelve
Like this ?
98 posted on 06/15/2019 1:25:42 PM PDT by mabarker1 (Congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Army Air Corps

I was in about 7th grade and my grandpa had me cleaning up parts in his diesel repair shop. He paid me a little bit.
He gave me an old Chevy six to take apart and he helped me rebuild it.
We figured how to put it in an old Cleotrac crawler and I would pull things around the property with it.
I became a mechanic later on probably because I was breathing it all my life.
I still remember the solvent it was diesel kerosene with stove oil and turbine oil mixed.
We burned slash piles with it and added some gas make it start off. poof!
I would man the the fire with the crawler.
We mounted a cherry picker stick on the blade and and winched engines and the sort out with it too.
I learned how to communicate with a lot of yelling grunting and hand motion with my gramps.
I sure miss him.


99 posted on 06/15/2019 1:25:48 PM PDT by right way right (May we remain sober over mere men, for God really is our only true hope.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Western Phil
I have a 29 sedan. Unfortunately it doesn't run well on the ethanol spiked gasoline. Vapor lock.

A dream to drive and a symphony to the senses. The muffler sounds like a flute, the hiss of the carb, the complex sound as the gears mesh, the smell of gasoline and oil, and road ahead over the hood and nickel plated headlights.

My dad bought it before I was born and I inherited it in 2007. An engine rebuild might help the ethanol issue.

100 posted on 06/15/2019 2:06:57 PM PDT by dhs12345
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-103 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson