25 Jun 09 09:38, Roger Nelson wrote to Roy Witt:


 RW>> My dad did too, until he got senile. Then he bought a Dodge Caravan.

 RN> A popular seller in this area during my other lifetime here.

Probably a good thing for him, since he never drove faster than 55mph in
his entire life. I considered that a waste of good Oldsmobiles.

 RW>> Since it had a Mitsubishi engine in it, it didn't last very long and
 RW>> he bought one with a real Chrysler engine in it. He was never one to
 RW>> let on that he screwed up royally and wouldn't admit that it was
 RW>> inferior to any Chevy product he could have had.

 RN> The Mitsubishi A6M didn't last too long either.  I think the compact
 RN> Dodge pickups had a Mitsubishi big bore 4-cylinder engine in them.  I
 RN> drove one of them to Dauphin Island, Alabama and back on a delivery.

Man, I don't envy you that ride. I considered taking my 63 Corvette from
California to Illinois and back once, then I bought an airplane ticket.

 RN> I had to bring a large (as in very) container of grapes with me to
 RN> keep from falling asleep at the wheel.  I tried this trick without
 RN> any food to chew and it doesn't work.

I always had some snacks along for the ride too, but never grapes. Maybe
that's why those long distant rides made me constipated.

 RW>> RN> I liked the '53 Buick Roadmaster.

 RW>> My ex had a 53 Tudor Special when I met her. It was the straight 8
 RW>> veriety with 3 on the tree.

 RN> Now there's a term I haven't heard since puberty.  (-:

My dad was scratching his head and looking at my 1940 Ford in a wondering
look, when I replaced the column shift for a floor shift tranny. He
thought the column shifter was an improvement over the floor shift of the
earlier cars.

 RW>> She sold it when we moved to Seattle and I bought her a 49 Mercury
 RW>> when we moved to San Diego about 10 months later. She later traded
 RW>> that for a 57 Chevy.

 RN> That was the best trade!

It wasn't a pretty 57, but it was a 57 that became popular among our
friends. A blue 210 two door with a 6cyl and again, 3 on the tree. When
she bought a 63 Ford Fairlane convertible to replace it, everybody was
anxious to get their hands on it. It got passed around among friends for a
few years, then it went to Washington state when her present owner moved
there.

 RW>> Someone said they saw it at the bottom of Fairmont Ave in San Diego,
 RW>> in a one car accident that killed it. Fairmont Ave goes down hill
 RW>> from East San Diego to the river bottom where they built the
 RW>> stadium. Someone speculated that the brakes went out.

 RN> Hmn...

That was a nice Merc too. It was copper/brownish in color and had a two
tone vinyl interior to match.

 RW>> I was riding in the center of the back seat of my uncles 1947
 RW>> 'torpedo' Buick when he told me that half of my ass was in Wisconsin
 RW>> and the other half was in Illinois, so I was a half-assed Witt. I
 RW>> never let him live that one down.

 RN> ROTFL!  Did they "steal" that name from Preston Tucker?

Doubtful. Torpedo backs were being built before Tucker got his into
production. 1942 and then again in 1946 when they resumed building cars.

 RW>> I remember those days. :o)

 RN> I miss them, too, but that was for a younger me.

 RW>> Yes...I learned a bit from those guys in the shop.

 RN> I learned a lot of things back then, but most of them my conscience
 RN> wouldn't allow.  (-:

But those things weren't mechanical.

 RW>> I had the advantage of a mechanical background in the family.

 RN> My dad was good at anything he did, but he didn't live long enough to
 RN> teach me anything.  Mostly he would hit me on the butt because I was
 RN> always (from the age of 4-6) looking at what he was doing and getting
 RN> in the way.

Mine made me learn it without any help from him. The first time I took my
Bendix brakes apart on my bicycle, I was sitting on the front porch trying
to put them back together when he came home from work. I asked him how
they went back together and he asked me who took them apart. When I
replied that I had, he said that I should know how to put them back
together then. I did get them back together on my own too. I was about 8
or 9 then...

 RW>> I didn't own that one, but I had one like it later. If you swapped
 RW>> the 2bl carb for a 4brl, you could beat my little Ford. I own a 56
 RW>> now and I believe that flathead could beat it if I had it today...

 RN> Now I remember.  It is the '56.

Yeup...

 RW>> RN> I wonder what Motor Trend had to say about that?

 RW>> I have no idea. I never had any problems with the 95 after I had the
 RW>> radiator replaced. That one got totaled in a Kansas rain storm. I
 RW>> bought the 98 that I have now to replace it, but didn't want to
 RW>> waste it on driving back and forth to work, so I bought a 94 for
 RW>> that. It got hot and blew a head gasket in a I-15 traffic jam and
 RW>> so, I had to have the head gaskets replaced. It was never the same
 RW>> after that, so I sold it.

 RN> I don't blame you.  After finishing with the '57, on a test run I
 RN> blew both head gaskets.  I believe I already told you about that, but
 RN> if I didn't, I still remember what I did afterward.

I'll bet it was nothing like my 55 when it did that. It had blue cylinder
walls because it was so hot. It still ran perfectly after I replaced the
head gaskets on it.

 RW>> Those use a light sensor built into the dash somewhere.

 RN> The top-right.  There is also a heat sensor somewhere on the dash for
 RN> the outside temp, if I want to know what it is.  On the way to the
 RN> veterinary clinic at 14:45 yesterday, I pushed the button on the dash
 RN> to see what the temp was and the readout was 97 and that was in the
 RN> shade.

All of the low pressure areas are being blown northward over the top of
the stationary high over the midwest. It's nice and cool in Canada.

 RN> On the way to the vet, I pressed it again and it read 100.
 RN> Coming back it read 102 and I suspect it got a little hotter than
 RN> that.  How was it over your way?

It started out cool enough, high 70s. About noon it was near 100 and got
to 105 by 3pm. This morning it was already 89 when I left the house at 9am
and it's now 98 at 11am. Supposed to be more 100 degree days thru the
weekend. Funny part is it was only mid-90s at Brownsville with some
showers. I suppose the humidty from that made it miserable down there.

 RW>> You could probably do without that trunk computer that controls the
 RW>> ride.

 RN> I'm not sure that's in the trunk.  Doesn't matter now that I did
 RN> something stupid and converted it to coil spring struts.

As I recall, Harry said it was, but you're right, it doesn't matter now.

 RW>> Take 15% or so off of the flywheel rating and you've got a good
 RW>> guesstimate.

 RN> 15% off.  I get that at an Italian restaurant here.  Thanks for the
 RN> info.

That's a normal senior discount.

 RW>> That wasn't much better than a carburator. It was mechanical fuel
 RW>> injection and other than ported fuel injection, it wasn't all that
 RW>> great.

 RN> I think I told you about the friend I had in N.O. who ordered his '57
 RN> 150 with the rear seat deleted.  He was the only guy I know who knew
 RN> how to fine tune that thing and did it ever run!  I don't know for
 RN> sure, but I think I could have beat him top-end, but not from a
 RN> standing start.

There was a similar deal around my neck of the woods back in those days.
One guy claimed that his was so fast, he'd let you ride in the front seat
and if you could reach the $20 bill he put on the dash, it was yours. I
never got to try it, but IMO, 283s didn't make that kind of torque.

 RW>> That's ok, I'm familiar with it. :o)

 RN> That's good.

 RW>> Wishing he was young again, is what he's up to. I'll bet watching
 RW>> his daughter do better than he's doing must give him some amount of
 RW>> pride, but then he's also thinking about the end of his career.

 RN> Not much different than us, then.

Yeup...

 RN> Didn't I tell you I saw him lose a race about a month ago?

You probably did and if you had, I would have told you that was the norm
rather than the exception these days.

 RW>> You're like my dad. If he wanted to take a nap (he needed background
 RW>> noise like I do), he'd turn on a baseball game or any kind of auto
 RW>> race.

 RN> I never fell asleep on a drag race.

He could. He wasn't that excited about speed or performance.

 RN>  I was in too many of them.  I didn't win any, but everbody gave me
 RN> an "E" for effort.

I should have taken notes on the excuses every loser came up with. I could
have written a book on them.

 RW>> Heh! I have a friend who owns a late model SOHC 4.6l Mustang. I gave
 RW>> him a ride in my Z28 sometime last year and he was impressed with
 RW>> the difference in performance. And I wasn't even trying!

 RN> I'd have to bend myself in half to get into a Mustang.  Almost have
 RN> to do that now with the Mark VIII.  When I win the lottery, I'm going
 RN> to have it restored back to air suspension, but not by a Lincoln
 RN> dealer.  Those people are nuts with their pricing.

I already knew they would be.

 RW>> No Merc?

 RN> Evidently not, which surprised me, too.

How about the Marauder?

 RW>> That's the flywheel rating, sans any accessories, except the water
 RW>> pump. Subtracting 15% for drive train losses and accessories, you
 RW>> probably have 238hp and approsimately 240 rwt...

 RN> It's still impressive.  If I had dual exhaust, it would be the LSC
 RN> rating. Mine only looks like dual exhaust.

They make an X pipe for Mustangs that makes them dual.

 RN>   In my younger days I would have made it dual just like I did with
 RN> the '57 Bel Air.  I had muy tiempo buenos in the '57.

So I gather. I came out of my breakfast restaurant this morning to find a
Crown Vic with it's bumper up against one of my chrome exhaust tips...just
so they could 'share' the shade my truck was enjoying. I forgot to take a
second look and see if their bumper got any carbon on it.

 RW>> Ford claimed a high HP rating (300-320hp) on their Mustang Cobra
 RW>> with the DOHC 32valve engine. But they had to recall them, because
 RW>> they didn't make anywhere near that number. I remember publishing
 RW>> that article in the Camaro Coral, a club newsletter was the editor
 RW>> of at the time...I probably still have it on one of these hardrives.

 RN> Some of my HDs got left behind during the move here and I thought I'd
 RN> be able to collect the salvageables at my leisure, once I found an
 RN> available storage facility, but that was not to be.

I thought I had found the 'fidonet' history CD I made, but it wasn't the
one I was looking for.

 RW>> That was nice of him.

 RN> And the last time I spoke to him.  (-:

Awww.

                R\%/itt

Joy lives in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in
the victory itself.

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