RW> Probably a good thing for him, since he never drove faster than 55mph in
RW> his entire life. I considered that a waste of good Oldsmobiles.
 
The fastest I've been in a car was my '57, and that was 137.5 (clocked). 
In those days, I was indestructible.
 
RW> Man, I don't envy you that ride. I considered taking my 63 Corvette from
RW> California to Illinois and back once, then I bought an airplane ticket.
 
Once to Dauphin Island was enough.  (-:
 
RW> I always had some snacks along for the ride too, but never grapes. Maybe
RW> that's why those long distant rides made me constipated.
 
Nothing better than grapes on long trips to keep you awake, alert, alive
and almost as important -- regular.
 
RW> My dad was scratching his head and looking at my 1940 Ford in a wondering
RW> look, when I replaced the column shift for a floor shift tranny. He
RW> thought the column shifter was an improvement over the floor shift of the
RW> earlier cars.
 
Right after I traded my '57 in for a '58 (a mistake!), a friend came up to
me and told me he found a BW 4-speed with the shifter assy that I could
have for a song.  It was brand new and still in the crate.  That's the way
it's been throughout my life.
 
RW> It wasn't a pretty 57, but it was a 57 that became popular among our
RW> friends. A blue 210 two door with a 6cyl and again, 3 on the tree. When
RW> she bought a 63 Ford Fairlane convertible to replace it, everybody was
RW> anxious to get their hands on it. It got passed around among friends for
RW> a few years, then it went to Washington state when her present owner
RW> moved there.
 
My '57 was turquoise and a 2-door.  When I traded it in on the '58, I
removed the Edelbrock manifold with the 3 dueces, the Mallory dual point
distributor and the finned rocker covers.  Someone got a hot engine even
with the original manifold with a 2-BBL stock carb.  That engine must have
starved for gas, though.  My friend with the black, 150 fuel injected '57
and I waxed our cars once a month.  I'm sure people thought we were nuts.
 
RW> That was a nice Merc too. It was copper/brownish in color and had a two
RW> tone vinyl interior to match.
 
That's a nice color-matching, I think.
 
RW> Doubtful. Torpedo backs were being built before Tucker got his into
RW> production. 1942 and then again in 1946 when they resumed building cars.
 
That man had a lot of progressive ideas about making cars and I still wish
he could have been allowed to continue.  Wasn't to be.
 
RW>RN> I learned a lot of things back then, but most of them my conscience
RW>RN> wouldn't allow.  (-:
 
RW> But those things weren't mechanical.
 
A few of them were, but they were so far in the minority as to not be noticed.
 
RW> Mine made me learn it without any help from him. The first time I took my
RW> Bendix brakes apart on my bicycle, I was sitting on the front porch
RW> trying to put them back together when he came home from work. I asked
RW> him how they went back together and he asked me who took them apart.
RW> When I replied that I had, he said that I should know how to put them
RW> back together then. I did get them back together on my own too. I was
RW> about 8 or 9 then...
 
LOL!  That's exactly what my mother would have said and my dad too, had he
lived.  One night at the dinner table I was the last one to finish.  All
that was left on my plate was spinach, which I hated at that time, but love
now, and I was attempting to get her to let me throw it away because I
didn't like it.  And then guess what happened.  She turned the kitchen
light off and told me I'd have to make up my mind to finish what was on my
plate in the dark.  I did.  I used that technique on my kids, too.
 
RW> I'll bet it was nothing like my 55 when it did that. It had blue cylinder
RW> walls because it was so hot. It still ran perfectly after I replaced the
RW> head gaskets on it.
 
We looked for that.  There was nothing out of the ordinary and no damage
occurred because of water in the crankcase.  To be on the safe side, I
flushed the crankcase twice and installed after-market high performance
head gaskets.
 
RW> All of the low pressure areas are being blown northward over the top of
RW> the stationary high over the midwest. It's nice and cool in Canada.
 
It finally rained here yesterday afternoon cooling things off a bit.
 
RW> It started out cool enough, high 70s. About noon it was near 100 and got
RW> to 105 by 3pm. This morning it was already 89 when I left the house at
RW> 9am and it's now 98 at 11am. Supposed to be more 100 degree days thru
RW> the weekend. Funny part is it was only mid-90s at Brownsville with some
RW> showers. I suppose the humidty from that made it miserable down there.
 
It is 75F and 06:36 as I type this and the high expected today is 93.  That
will feel like a cool front compared to yesterday.  The highs predicted the
rest of the week and into next Wednesday are in the low 90s.
 
RW> As I recall, Harry said it was, but you're right, it doesn't matter now.
 
It's but another in the long line of decisions I've made that I wish I
could go back and change.
 
RW> That's a normal senior discount.
 
They don't get too much more senior unless Tom says something.  (-:
 
RW> There was a similar deal around my neck of the woods back in those days.
RW> One guy claimed that his was so fast, he'd let you ride in the front seat
RW> and if you could reach the $20 bill he put on the dash, it was yours. I
RW> never got to try it, but IMO, 283s didn't make that kind of torque.
 
LOL.  No, they didn't.  He was pulling your leg.
 
RW> You probably did and if you had, I would have told you that was the norm
RW> rather than the exception these days.
 
Force appeared to come off the line like he always has, but if in thinking
about him being a microsecond or so slower, that would be unnoticeable.  It
seemed to me that the other car was faster.
 
RW>RN> I never fell asleep on a drag race.
 
RW> He could. He wasn't that excited about speed or performance.
 
Wasn't in his blood, then.
 
RW> I should have taken notes on the excuses every loser came up with. I
RW> could have written a book on them.
 
My only excuse is that I was out-horsepowered.  I never ran the '57 with
the 3 dueces.  We'd put a bored out 2-BBL on it and that wasn't good
enough.  I developed a dislike for changing manifolds.
 
RW> I already knew they would be.
 
So did I, but hope springs eternal.  Sometimes it is cheaper at a dealer
than anywhere else.
 
RW> How about the Marauder?
 
Nope.  Just what I printed.
 
RW> They make an X pipe for Mustangs that makes them dual.
 
And I'll get around to that one day soon, unless I buy my sil's Merc.
 
RW> So I gather. I came out of my breakfast restaurant this morning to find a
RW> Crown Vic with it's bumper up against one of my chrome exhaust
RW> tips...just so they could 'share' the shade my truck was enjoying. I
RW> forgot to take a second look and see if their bumper got any carbon on
RW> it.
 
Mixture too rich?
 
RW> I thought I had found the 'fidonet' history CD I made, but it wasn't the
RW> one I was looking for.
 
Are you going to keep looking?
 
RW> Awww.
 
No love lost there.  He tried to talk to me last night, but I just ignored him.
 
 
Regards,
 
Roger

... Paint it Octarine: the color of magic.
--- D'Bridge 3.31