26 Jun 09 07:06, Roger Nelson wrote to Roy Witt:


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

 RN> The fastest I've been in a car was my '57, and that was 137.5
 RN> (clocked). In those days, I was indestructible.

I was about 18 when a friend of mine gave me a ride in his XKE Jag (he
also had a 1940 Ford coupe with a 292 Chevy (.03 over 283)). He went out
on a deserted road and gave it all she had. 150mph, per the speedometer.
On returning to his gas station, he parked it in the light of the service
bay and looked at the new tires he had just put on earlier that day. The
sidewalls were cracked from the high speed.

Remind me to tell you about the night we screwed with the Illinois highway
patrolman in the 40 Ford.

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

 RN> Once to Dauphin Island was enough.  (-:

The ride to the airport was in my girlfriends 67 Camaro... :o)

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

 RN> Nothing better than grapes on long trips to keep you awake, alert,
 RN> alive and almost as important -- regular.

I'll remember that.

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

 RN> Right after I traded my '57 in for a '58 (a mistake!), a friend came
 RN> up to me and told me he found a BW 4-speed with the shifter assy that
 RN> I could have for a song.  It was brand new and still in the crate.
 RN> That's the way it's been throughout my life.

I've come across deals like that which were stolen property. Crated 327
Chevy engines all lined up like ducks, stolen off of a freight car.

 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.
 RW>> When she bought a 63 Ford Fairlane convertible to replace it,
 RW>> everybody was anxious to get their hands on it. It got passed around
 RW>> among friends for a few years, then it went to Washington state when
 RW>> her present owner moved there.

 RN> My '57 was turquoise and a 2-door.  When I traded it in on the '58, I
 RN> removed the Edelbrock manifold with the 3 dueces, the Mallory dual
 RN> point distributor and the finned rocker covers.  Someone got a hot
 RN> engine even with the original manifold with a 2-BBL stock carb.  That
 RN> engine must have starved for gas, though.

Only when it began to make some rpm. That 2bbl probably made it more
torquey than even a 4bbl would be.

 RN> My friend with the black, 150 fuel injected '57 and I waxed our cars
 RN> once a month.  I'm sure people thought we were nuts.

Or car crazy...that black FIed 150 wasn't a Black Widow, was it?

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

 RN> That's a nice color-matching, I think.

Plus that year Merc had some nice lines, so it looked great too.

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

 RN> That man had a lot of progressive ideas about making cars and I still
 RN> wish he could have been allowed to continue.  Wasn't to be.

My dad took me down to look at that car at the local showroom. I was 7 or
8 then and it didn't impress me much at the time.

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

 RW>> But those things weren't mechanical.

 RN> A few of them were, but they were so far in the minority as to not be
 RN> noticed.

I meant to type 'were', which is what all GM fuel injection was during the
50s and 60s. Today they get more for a used version of that injection than
they do for a TBI/port injected aftermarket system that has a small
computer to run it. About $2500 for the late stuff and over $3g for the
older stuff.

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

 RN> LOL!  That's exactly what my mother would have said and my dad too,
 RN> had he lived.  One night at the dinner table I was the last one to
 RN> finish.  All that was left on my plate was spinach, which I hated at
 RN> that time, but love now, and I was attempting to get her to let me
 RN> throw it away because I didn't like it.  And then guess what
 RN> happened.  She turned the kitchen light off and told me I'd have to
 RN> make up my mind to finish what was on my plate in the dark.  I did.
 RN> I used that technique on my kids, too.

Heh...I would have followed her out of the kitchen and thanked her for
giving me the incentive to decide against eating the spinach.

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

 RN> We looked for that.  There was nothing out of the ordinary and no
 RN> damage occurred because of water in the crankcase.  To be on the safe
 RN> side, I flushed the crankcase twice and installed after-market high
 RN> performance head gaskets.

That works for me too.

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

 RN> It finally rained here yesterday afternoon cooling things off a bit.

I heard thunder and the clap of lightning, then looked outside. It was
clear. Then I went in the house and swapped TV channels to the local
weather map...there was a storm on the west side of the freeway, opposite
our place. Still, the paper reported 0 precip this morning.

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

 RN> It is 75F and 06:36 as I type this and the high expected today is 93.

It was 92 when I left the house at 9 this morning. It's 100 now at
13:15...

 RN> That will feel like a cool front compared to yesterday.  The highs
 RN> predicted the rest of the week and into next Wednesday are in the low
 RN> 90s.

We'll still be experiencing 100+ at least until Tuesday.

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

 RN> It's but another in the long line of decisions I've made that I wish
 RN> I could go back and change.

Rack that up to live and learn.

 RW>> That's a normal senior discount.

 RN> They don't get too much more senior unless Tom says something.  (-:

Denny's was giving a 10% discount to 55yo seniors before I turned 50.

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

 RN> LOL.  No, they didn't.  He was pulling your leg.

I didn't believe him...

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

 RN> Force appeared to come off the line like he always has, but if in
 RN> thinking about him being a microsecond or so slower, that would be
 RN> unnoticeable.  It seemed to me that the other car was faster.

His biggest problem seems to be that the car looses traction and then
wheel hop, which makes him back off and then hit the throttle again.
Meanwhile, his competition has good luck with launching the car.

 RW>> RN> I never fell asleep on a drag race.

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

 RN> Wasn't in his blood, then.

Not like it is in mine. When I was in my teens and twenties, he'd go to
the local 1/2 mile dirt track for stock cars and not much else. By then I
was at the drags.

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

 RN> My only excuse is that I was out-horsepowered.

So were they. But they made up things like, I missed a shift or didn't get
enough traction...2nd time around, same old thing.

 RN> I never ran the '57 with the 3 dueces.  We'd put a bored out 2-BBL on
 RN> it and that wasn't good enough.  I developed a dislike for changing
 RN> manifolds.

That's one of the things that gets me too. On a Pontiac engine, you can
seperate the coolant part of the manifold from the rest of it. When you
don't have to drain the radiator to swap a manifold, it's a whole lot
easier.

 RW>> I already knew they would be.

 RN> So did I, but hope springs eternal.  Sometimes it is cheaper at a
 RN> dealer than anywhere else.

Too much overhead for that.

 RW>> How about the Marauder?

 RN> Nope.  Just what I printed.

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

 RN> And I'll get around to that one day soon, unless I buy my sil's Merc.

It might fit that too.

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

 RN> Mixture too rich?

No...it does sweat a lot and I know there was water in that tip. A bit of
carbon mixed with water makes a nice black paste on bumpers.

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

 RN> Are you going to keep looking?

I've given up for now. Too many other priorities.

 RW>> Awww.

 RN> No love lost there.  He tried to talk to me last night, but I just
 RN> ignored him.

I hate it when that happens. :o)

                R\%/itt

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

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