Gas, tires, oil.

I couldn’t help but post this also, it’s an ad from the magazine the Bonneville article (below) came from (October 1937 Automobile Trade Journal). Check out the windshield, the roof doesn’t even need to be chopped.

Click image for larger view.
Do any of these exist today? Googling didn’t turn any up right away, but I did find this 1938 4 door ex-forestry fire truck (what a great tow vehicle). A company apparently makes a model of the streamlined moving van pictured above. I wonder how hard it would be to make one from scratch…I mean, lots people make little teardrop campers. The sides on this are flat, you could use aluminum or fiberglass over foam. Maybe use a 1-ton 4x4 truck chassis and a straight 4 or 6 turbo diesel, an nv4500 5 spd and ranger splitter. You’d have a great camper/tow vehicle. I love the semi-coe look, not a true cab-over where you lose the streamlining and style, but a shorter hood than a regular truck.

Coop recently posted some scans of some early post-war salt flat racing, so I thought I’d show a little pre-war stuff. Below is a two page article from the October 1937 Automobile Trade Journal about David “Ab” Jenkins and his car Duesenberg designed car, the Mormon Meteor II. Do yourself a favor and google up some more info this guy. You can click on the images below to get a large enough version to read the text.

I had an interesting day at the yardsales today, even though I didn’t buy much. At the first sale, I talked to a guy about his truck for a while. I’d seen it from a distance every day when I’m on my way to work, but I wasn’t sure about its actual make up. It’s Ford 1 ton 4x4 flatbed but it seemed to have much larger running gear under it. Turns the guy put in a 500 hp Caterpillar (3408?) v8 turbo diesel and 10 speed ranger gearbox. Then supplimented the suspension with airbags and 19.5″ rims. Said he gets 16 mpg unloaded. We talked diesels a bit, I mentioned how much I liked my 6.2 L suburban and how I’d like to get a Cummins 4bt from a chevy step van.

Then, at another yardsale I found this aftermarket oil filter (from back when cars didn’t come with oil filters):

The guy said he bought it for his truck, which he had bought new 50 years ago and still drives today. And then I looked up and saw a very nice ‘57 Chevy Cameo pickup. He said the stepside was $1800, but he sprung for the Cameo at $2200. He had used this add on filter until 1972, when he put in a 350 and automatic.

He recommended Scott toilet paper (seriously, it’s made so a full roll of toilet paper fits inside).

A few minutes of wirebrushing, then 320 grit on the DA and finally some tripoli on the buffing wheel and it cleaned up very nice. I have to wonder if it would actually work better than modern oil filters, the oil has to pass through a whole roll of toilet paper lengthwise, whereas in a new filter it just goes through a single piece of corrogated paper.
All of my cars currently have oil filters, but actually I want it to remove oil and water from compressed air for painting. I’ve been wanting a toilet paper air filter from TP tools, but I don’t paint enough to pay $79 for one.
I think this one will work fine, maybe I’ll use it with this nice airbush set I got at a yardsale last weekend:

Not bad for $5, its got a lot of tips and a bunch of baby food jars with the fittings already installed.

Just about everyone who works on cars and bikes hates electrical stuff, but you have to do it. I have grown to hate the common insulated crimp-on connectors. Firstly, they let water in and become corroded. Next, they are really just flattened or squished by the crimping tool, this allows the wire to wiggle side to side and eventually come loose. And lastly, they just look terrible. So, here’s what I do (I be glad to hear of other suggestions). I use non-insulated connectors (below, bottom) or if I can’t find them, I will cut the insulation off of the insulated type (top).

Not all of the common crimping pliers are made to do the non-insulated ends, mine have it on the handle side of the joint. Make sure you put the split side of the connector toward the half-round mandrel of the crimp tool.

Now, that wire is not going to pull out.

Next I use heat-shrink tubing to insulate and provide strain-relief. If you can find it, they make heat shrink tubing that is coated internally with hot-melt glue, this will help keep moisture out. I then give it a coating of liquid electrical tape (may be called brush-on electrial tape). I beleive it’s just plastisol (the stuff they use to dip-coat plier handles).

If your connection will show (and you care), the liquid electrical tape is available in different colors (nice for battery terminals if your cable is black, you can use it to mark the positive red).

The old style harley manifolds are a pain to install, an extra pair of hands can be a big help. Here’s one way to do it alone. There is half a groove on the manifold and the other half on the head, so the o-rings won’t stay on either part. So, first roll the o-rings up on manifold past where they should be.

Now you can roll one side down in place without the other falling off.

Install the clamp on that side to hold everything in place.

Now you roll the other side into the groove.

Of course the better way is to not use the stock o-rings at all. You can buy spacers that can be glued to the head and the manifold in the o-ring groove. This allows you to use the more modern band type seals and band clamps.

I needed some rubber washers to mount the gas tank on the trike, but the hardware store didn’t have the right size. I decided to make some myself. First I found an old inner tube that I had stashed behind the workbench, just for this sort of thing. Then I got an arch punch that I had found at a yardsale. I quickly punched out the ODs.

The ID needs to fit a 5/26″ bolt, but I don’t have that size punch. However, when at a recycling center I noticed some empty cartridges in their scrap brass bin. I bought a selection at scap price (and got the bucket for free).

5/16″ is .3125″, so 8 mm at .315″ is a nice fit. This is the cartridge head of an 8mm mauser (or 8x57mm) that I found. If you want you can sharpen the end, this also allows you to vary the size slightly, you can sharpen the inside (with a small round file or chamfer tool) for more clearance or the outside for less. So what cartridges should you look for? Well, obviously 6mm, 7mm, 8mm, 9mm and 10 mm will work for the corresponding metric sizes. An inside sharpened 17 caliber should work for a #8 screw and outside sharpened it should work for #10. The new 204 ruger might work for 5mm or #12. 25 caliber (25-06, 257 roberts, etc) or 6.5 mm for 1/4″ bolt. 8mm for 5/16″. 375 caliber or 9.3 mm for 3/8″, 44 or 45 caliber for 7/16″. And of course, 50 caliber for 1/2″. Good luck finding a 600 Nitro Express for 5/8″. Also, some cheap military ammo uses steel cases, obviously these will be sturdier.

I didn’t bother to sharpen the end and it worked fine.

Here are the rubber washers in place on the top tank mount, trapped between stainless washers. I have previously shown the bottom mount.

And here are the fat bobs finally mounted. The dash and filler are just sitting on top, they’re next.