harmony

Hi Guys I may be on the verge of buying a 1941 Fargo. I went to look at it today and the guy didn't really know to much about it but he said the guy he bought it from several years ago said it needed a complete brake job and that everything was missing. I didn't pull one of the wheels to have a look and I didn't think to look on the back side of the wheels. So in hindsight I'm now wondering if it also needed backing plates. I see that there is a complete brake parts for sale on ebay for 750 US. Is that a fair price for everything? It's providing everything except the brake lines and the backing plates. I tried searching on line for backing plates and didn't have any success. I'm not even sure what size brakes they are. 10"? 11"? They wouldn't be 12" like my 48 Windsor would they? Would any backing plate from 41-47 dodge or fargo work?

I'm scratching my head on this one. Ok,,,, so you go to pick up your car and pay the bill. Then the mechanic hands you the keys and says " Have a nice day" ?? Didn't he happen to mention that you now have to turn the key counterclockwise for the car to start, because,,,, bla bla bla. ???. Lets say, for discussion sake, he just said "Have a nice day" You get in the car and go to start it up by turning the key clockwise and pushing the start button and nothing happens. Then what??? Don't you walk back inside the shop and explain that the car won't start? Perhaps the mechanic says " which way did you turn the key" with a look on his face like you've done something stupidly wrong. ??? Or does he say. "Ohhhhhh yeah sorry, I forgot to tell you that you have to turn the key counterclockwise to start the car now because,,,, bla bla bla". Back to scratching my head. ???

It's sad the way retail is going. I sure miss those days with a huge row of dirt and grease stained parts catalogs lines up on the counter. Plus those parts guys who were already headed for the precise page in a catalog before you'd even finish describing what you were looking for. But on the flip side of poor or no service. There is a guy at a parts store in the near by city about 45 minutes from me who is old school. I went to a local hot rod shop looking for a driveshaft. I needed to custom make one up. So I was looking for a shaft, to be cut to length, a particular splined yoke and a particular U-Joint. They didn't happen to have any, but they directed me to a guy named Rick at Bumper to Bumper. It's important to mention that I had never been in this particular parts store and I didn't know Rick at all. I mentioned to Rick that the guy at the Hot Rod shop had sent me and that I was looking for a used driveshaft. Rick then pulled out a piece of paper and drew a map. It was directions to his shop about 15 minutes away. He told me to look down the left side of his shop and there would be 3 driveshafts on the ground. He told me to take all three. If out of the 3, I could make up what I needed, and there was anything left over, then to bring them back to his shop the next time I was in town. I said that was awesome and asked how much? He simply said don't worry about it. Then directed his attention to the next person in line. There were 2 other parts guys behind the counter. There was a line up of 3 guys waiting to talk to Rick. When those 3 guys had entered the store the other two parts guys offered to help, but they all said that they would wait for Rick.

As far as my experience goes, you hit the nail on the head jgreg53. The parts store in my town are staffed with people who were probably flipping burgers at their previously job. They don't know the difference between an oil filter and an air filter. Seriously, I'm sure when you ask for something and they go to the computer, they are going to google images to try and see what you're talking about. If you ask for a hose clamp they will ask for "make model and year" of the car. I'm serious. Unless they have that information, they are stumped. I'm so tempted to ask for "flasher fluid". I'm confident they would ask for "year make and model" immediately without batting an eye.

I've watched Johnathan for a few years now. He's had some really interesting stuff on his channel and for a back yard mechanic he knows a fair bit about cars and old machinery. It's a meat and potatoes channel. No BS. Kind of like old school you tube if there is such a thing. He explains what he's doing really well, and usually gives a lot of background and history about what he's working on.

I don't think my wallet is that thick. ?

Thanks for that link. Even though they doesn't show a listing for the wagon, it's worth contacting them. They look like a good resource to have as well for future considerations. Thanks

I'm "sort of" considering buying a 1953 Chrysler Town & Country. It's not in too bad a shape. Covered in natural patina. No paint left on the hood at all, minimal paint left on the fenders. It has a hemi engine and a fluid drive. So according to one of Keith's videos it is probably the Fluid Torque Drive. Anyways it has one major issue. The windshield is broken. I did a little research and according to a post on HAMB, back in 2010. There were 4 windshields made for the 53 Chrysler. The one for the Town & Country is a DW282. According to the fella who posted that information, they are pretty much nonexistent. He says he's got several '53 windshields ( back in 2010), but he would need the height of the one needed to verify. That tells me that the glass isn't stamped with DW282 on it anywhere. All this sounds like a deal breaker to me. Besides that, the car appears to be complete. However the bumpers and grill are as rusted as the body ( both surface rust). So with the cost of re-chroming and painting, it wouldn't be wise to try and restore it. Just a fun rare car to drive as is. Does anyone have any thoughts about this windshield?

Yeah no kiddin. "dream on little dreamer" ?

This all might work out in the wash. I took my car to the Hot Rod shop that got me the tires and told them the story and showed them the tires. Since they are a fairly new Coker distributor they haven't had any warranty issues yet, so they're not sure on the procedure. They're going to contact Coker and see what can be done regarding shipping. But they said if they are charged for shipping that they will give me a credit for that amount. Which sounds fair to me. Since Coker doesn't need my tires back to inspect them and that they don't want them at all, it's just a matter of waiting for the new tires to arrive and then getting them swapped out. So the down time of the car would be the time it takes the shop to do that while I drool over the Rod Rods in the shop getting worked on and the ones parked on their lot waiting their turn. Not a bad way to spend an hour or two of my day. If that all comes about, I think I'll ask Coker to throw in a bottle of that 303 Tire & Wheel cleaner into each tire as a good will gesture to cover my inconvenience.

I was thinking the same thing Rick.

When I talked to the customer service guy at Coker they recommended 303 Tire and wheel cleaner, which they also sell. Right on the label it says it removes whitewall browning. I've used 303 products before for cleaning my thick poly windows on my boat and that particular product works good on that.

All kidding aside about the patina. I remember seeing a car at a car show lately and I think it was a Pierce Arrow. But don't quote me on that. Huge wooden spoke wheels (36" dia. or thereabouts) Wide whitewalls and the whitewalls had turned a light tan colour uniformly, and it actually looked cool. Almost period correct. What you'd expect to see and they blended in on the unrestored car. Had they been new bright whitewalls, they would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

I agree about the rubber trees in Brazil I've always thought that Brazil was one of the prime sources of rubber for tires. As for your comment about the rubber changing colour from the inside out. That's what the Customer Service guy was saying when I called Coker today asking what was going on with the "ring around the collar".

Haha! I'm guessing you were not in line when they were handing out "sense of humours" . So I guess I'll spell it out to you. Not only was I joking about selling the tires, but I can't see any logical explanation as to why someone would think that I was serious about that. ???? Or perhaps you're perplexed as to why I would charge twice the retail price for them. ?

Yes but think of the profit margin. I can see a lucrative business opportunity here. Buy a selection of Coker tires, sit on them until the whitewalls go brown, were talking days probably lol, then sell them as Patina tires at twice the retail price. I'm thinking I'll need a warehouse and perhaps a dozen employees just to keep up. ? Cleaning might work. Although it might not work too. The 3" wide whitewalls that I retired to replace with the new ones had brown-walls. Since I had already decided to replace them due to sidewall cracks, I tried a number of methods already mentioned here. I even tried more aggressive procedures. Such as 100 grit sandpaper and spray 9 ( which in my opinion is way more effective than Simple Green as a cleaner). Still didn't remove the brown. So Simple Green is not necessarily a slam dunk. But I'm thinking you are overlooking the real issue here. Let me put it to you in another light Sam. Suppose you just had your car repainted at a cost of $20 Grand or so ( average price in these parts) When you received the car, there were a number of paint runs in the finish. Would you go to the store and buy a number of really fine grit wet/dry paper and a polishing wheel, a number of various buffing pads and a number of polishing compounds to try and get the paint runs out? Not to mention many hours of your time, and the possibility of making it worse.

Maybe it's all about marketing. Maybe I should resell these tires ( asking twice what I paid for them of course ) to guys building Rat Rods. As the new "patina" look tires. Guaranteed to get more and more "patina" as the years go by. ?

When you purchased your tires, were you dealing with the head office in Tennessee USA or did they have a depot or branch office there in Oz?

That's probably going to be my reluctant choice. However, here in Canada, by the time you're cruising down the road, the investment is about 2 grand for a set of new tires. For that price you shouldn't have to get on your knees scrubbing them to try and make them look like the ones in the pictures. I can't imagine what the people in Europe or Australia do for nice looking tires.

I definitely see the point of view that you are presenting. I mean look at the country of China and the products that they produce. I suspect their overall attitude in how the rest of the world views their quality control as "so what". I'm just a retired old fart on a pension and in the last year I bought 9 new tires from them. To Coker, that's peanuts. To me that's a lot of change. But I also realize it's not the 60's anymore. I remember when doctors would make house calls and then personally phone back the next day to see if Mom's little boy was feeling better. Those were the days when there was a certain amount of pride in making sure that the customer was happy no matter what. One set of tires I recently purchased from them, which required tubes, a Coker employee picked the wrong tubes. I needed straight stems and they send offset stems. One letter difference in the part number. They were eager to replace them at no cost. But I explained that the car was up in the air, the wheels were already off and the old tires and tubes removed. I knew it would take about 10 days to get them across the continent and into Canada. I asked them to ship them express air. Which they did and I got them in 2 days, but,,,,, I had to pay the shipping.

I'll be calling them tomorrow to clarify the international shipping costs. If they are not covered than replacing them simply won't be an option for me. But from a business point of view I would think it would be in Coker's best interest to get the tires out of the view of others at whatever the cost. Especially when I would be repeatedly telling everyone that they are Coker tires and that they are brand new and that they would not cover the shipping fees.

No I haven't tried anything. I didn't want to do anything that might void any warranty. But judging by their willingness to warranty the tires by simply seeing that picture, sort of tells me it's not the first time this has happened. I would think that from their standpoint, warranting them would be a better option to them, than telling me what will remove the "browning".

Has anyone had any dealings with Coker as far as warranty goes? I recently bought a set of the Coker Classics ( bias Ply) tires for my '48 Windsor. I've put on about 150 miles and I'm noticing that there is a band of brown developing between the whitewall and the black rubber. I emailed Coker, and sent along this picture, asking if they had a method of removing that browning. They said they would warranty them. Which sort of told me that there really isn't a fool proof way of getting rid of the brown colour. So of course that's good news,,,,,, sort of. It's in the middle of the summer. I'll have to put it up on blocks. Also they said I have to go through the company I bought them through, since I was in Canada. Coker is probably 3000 miles away or so. I'm wondering if any Canadian have had hands on experience with this. Will they pay for the shipping both ways? It's probably going to be my cost to have them removed from the rims as well as remounted and rebalanced when I get the 4 replacement tires, which sucks.

I have a 1948 Windsor. I have the wide version of beauty rings on the wheels. The set of beauty rings that came with the car needed replating. The cost was ridiculously expensive. I found another set on line so I bought them. Where the inside diameter of the beauty ring met the rim on my original set, it was a tight fit ( no gap). On the newly purchased set there was about a 1/4" gap. I had also bought a used set of rims because I was getting new tires. The existing tires were old and had minor sidewall cracks. But they had great tread. So I wanted to keep them as spares mounted on rims. So to my surprise the second set of beauty rings fit tight on the newly purchased used rims, but now the hub caps wouldn't push on. So even though the rims look identical, the profile is slightly different. So with all those variables I just mentioned, I think there were at least 3 different rims available, during that time period, for the various Chrysler, Dodge, Desoto, Plymouth cars that took the 11 inch hubcap. My discovery also indicated that various wide beauty rings were produced to fit the various shaped rims. Beats me why different rims were made, because there is nothing on the car that even comes close to that part of the back side of the rim, so why bother making various shapes??? So as you mentioned, I think perhaps it's your rims that don't match your hub caps.

A few years ago, I happened to come across a couple videos on Youtube of French Lake Auto Parts. I was pretty impressed with the layout and how organized it was, not to mention the huge amount of cars. As I was watching one of the videos low and behold I saw what I needed. My 48 Chrysler Windsor was missing the two rear fender trim pieces ( horizontal pieces above the rear fender well). I immediately sent them an email and included the video and the time slot of when the car was in the video. I asked them if they still had the car and those trim pieces. The video was over a year old at the time. The answer was yes, so I called them right away. I was concerned that the fastening studs going through the fender would be pretty fragile. I think they are 3/16" fine thread, and I asked them to be careful removing them. No problem they said. About 2 weeks later they arrived, clear across the continent. What they did was simply cut out around the trim pieces and shipped that section of the fender for both of them. After a few days of PB Blaster on the nuts they all came off with care. I can't remember what the shipping was, but it was peanuts. Plus the two trim pieces were a good deal as well. Great people to deal with, very professional. They didn't blink an eye that they were shipping them to BC Canada. Yes they had a few dings in them, but I've developed a method of getting dings out so you'd never know that they were there. I was a happy camper.