DonaldSmith

Knuckleharley, if I must brag about my 1947 DeSoto Custom Suburban, I must also brag about the interior - chrome and woodgrain dash, woodgrain window moldings. and the Bakelite woodgrain door and inner fender panels. At the car shows, I prop the doors open and the interior draws them like flies to sh... honey!

Guys, I know the feelling(s) - car breakdowns far from home, old, achy body that does not want to contort to the necessary repair configurations, etc. Some day, I'll sell the car and all the stuff that goes with it, or my heirs will. In the meantime, I can fuss with things, and make the occasional car show. Some days I 'm ready to get rid of the car, but at a car show, people tell me how unique and beautiful it is, and thank me for showing it . Here's my car at the recent Rolling Sculpture Car Show in Ann Arbor. Friday traffic on the highways, Friday upper class lunch-hour traffic in town, hour-long staging area lineup, and final spot in the sun - hot, 90-degree sun. My wife and I couldn't walk much, so we were kinda stuck. Left early. Not again. September brings the Orphan Car Show in Ypsilanti - sparse Sunday traffic, verdant meadow beside a river, the beginnings of Autumn weather, lots of DeSoto companionship, club area with canopies, hang-out seating, potluck lunch , club meeting, etc. Good. (Sun umbrella - the struts from the luggage rack secure the top of the umbrella post. Suitable for hard ground situations. Umbrella can be placed in various locations to suit the site. The struts were clunky wood posts in fat conduit, which had to travel on the roof rack. I am re-making the struts from thinner conduit, which can be carried in the car, something to work on, part of my To-Do list that keeps up an interest in the car.

I had 'splained alternator wiring somewhere, in the depths of the posts and threads, but it sounds like you have it covered. One thing to add: My DeSoto had a wire running from the starter solenoid to the generator, to ground the solenoid. With the motor running and the generator spinning, there would no longer be a ground through the generator, therefore, no grinding of starter gear and flywheel teeth. You could ground the wire anywhere convenient. I grounded the it at the starter. (Be careful not to push the starter button when the engine is running.) Someday, I might try to run this grounding wire to the oil pressure switch I installed to cut off the electric fuel pump if the engine quits but the ignition is on. There is a normally closed contact that would open up when the oil pressure builds. I don't know if cranking without starting would generate enough pressure to shut off the switch. Someday I'll find out. Someday.

Per Google, two spellings for "tinker's dam", or "-damn". "Tinker's-dam: a wall of dough raised around a place which a plumber desires to flood with a coat of solder. The material can be but once used; being consequently thrown away as worthless". -or no damn good.

The back roads are a lot quieter these days. Back then, they were the major routes between cities, and clogged with trucks, Sunday drivers, and tractors. No minimum speed limit. Pass, do not pass, deadly game. US 16 between Detroit and Lansing had a third, passing lane, but it had to be "shared"judiciously. Now the old road is two wide lanes and lightly traveled. The two--lane roads, 65 mph, widened near the cities, but the speed limits dropped precipitously, generating much ticket revenue. So, enjoy the back roads, but temper the nostalgia with a few contrary memories.

I had my speedometer rebuilt several year ago. The shop spun the speedometer at a set RPM, and adjusted the mechanism accordingly. (Fascinating place. The father had accumulated a vast collection of model trucks, cars, petroliana, etc., that lined the walls of the shop. The son was chafing under the father's tutelage; couldn't do anything right, per the old man. Obscenities traded. ) The other half of speedometer correction is the speedo gear in the transmission, which has to be correct for rear axle ratio, tire diameter, etc. My rebuilt speedometer was about 10 percent off. I happened to score a ratio adapter on line that was just right. Now, the speedometer is off at higher speeds (according to the Garmin) so the speedometer must be getting tired. (I wonder if the speedo shop is still in business. But I don't feel like taking the speedometer out again.) Police departments would have their speedometers calibrated periodically, and the ratio adapters came with complete kits of gears, to make any required correction. Now I guess everything is electronic.

That's not series, that's parallel. Still 6 volts, but double the amps.

I'm confused. Who sold the bad stone guards? Was it Neil Riddle or some unnamed former denizen of this forum, and we're supposed to know who without saying his name? Maybe we should not say his name, if we're dissiing him. I'm guessing that the perveyor of the unacceptable stone guards remained unnamed, while someone else chimed in that Neill Riddle only deals in the good stuff. And the rest of the thread has been speaking well of Neill.

Aw, why did you have to go telling him about the shock from the plug wire? You ruined a perfect initiation to the club. Seriously, thanks for passing on an occult bit of knowledge which some of us had found out the hard way.

Typically, the long-wheelbase sedans had a full rear seat, and in the extra 18 inches between the front and back seat, a pair of jump seats. (In some cases, there may be a full second seat?) So. I guess they would count two in front, two on the jump seats, and three on the back seat. The DeSoto Suburban had a full size second seat, and a folding rear seat that was an extension of a cargo floor in the trunk. (They claimed seating for up to nine, a real squeeze.)

(Clue to the rest of the world - "Hydro" in Canadian refers to the electric utility.) "Hydro" comes from the earliest days of electrification, where hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls have been generating electricity for the Niagara peninsula and western New York, and beyond, from the late 1800s. The Niagara River provides water at some 150,000 gallons per second from Lakes Michigan, Superior, Huron and Erie, and the 170-foot drop at Niagara Falls provides tremendous energy to the water hitting the turbines. Hydroelectric power is developed elsdewhere in the world, wherever river elevations drop substantially, or where rivers can be dammed. Same say that the rivers are damned, but that's another discussion that may be beyond the bounds of this forum.

Update- I checked my step-up piston today. It moves freely. It moves a needle valve next to it. The odd screw at the other end is a sort of guide. Here's my thumb pushing the piston down. (In the background is the top of the carburetor, flipped back. I disconnected the rod from the Sisson choke but not the rod to the throttle linkage.)

Happy thoughts. Happy day after the Fourth.

My 47 semi-automatic (TIp-Toe) transmission has a tag that says to use 10 wt oil. The gearbox has a hydraulic pump and piston to make the upshifts. Someone has said that the ISO 32, which is appropriate for the fluid coupling, is OK for the gearbox (but not for a 3-speed manual.) How to tell what you have: 3-speed manual: Typical "H" shifting pattern. No wires running to the transmission (Except to an overdrive unit, if present). 4-speed semi-automatic: "1st gear" position missing from the "H" pattern. Wires going to the gearbox.

I've used disconnect cable clamps on my battery. I usually undo the ground (+) connection when I won't be driving the car for a while. Back off the knob, and pull the cable awy from the post clamp. For a while, I had a second battery to provide 12 volts (another story). The second battery has the same clamps. I can switch batteries in a hurry, if I ever have to.

Thinking about my post No. 8, I wondered if I got the switch terminology right. It's late, almost bedtime, but I my mind was unsettled. Did I say NC or NO? So I checked. I had said NC. NC = Normally Closed. (Guess what NO stands for.) NC, the condition when this switch came out of the box, with nothing pushing or pulling on it. Not the same as "usually closed". It's "Normally Closed" but hopefully pushed open before the car is set into motion. So the parking brake has an NC switch that's pushed open when the brake is released, but allowed to close when the brake is engaged. Switch closes, reminder light comes on. Cool. I can go to bed now.

One last lash to a dying horse. The major purpose of a ground in automotive wiring is to save wire. A wooden boat has a separate "neutral" wire running daisy-chain from item to item, in lieu of "grounding" each item to a metal body. The invertor shown in the previous diagram grounds both circuits to the case, saving wire. My inverter is not grounded, but has two separatde wires for each circuit.

It's hysterical... I mean historical.

One could cobble and fabricate a mounting for a switch from someone like McMaster-Carr, but it would be a b*tch to install.

I crawled uder my instrument panel and tracked down the elusive parking brake switch. It's near the top of the parking brake assembly, above the handle, hiding behind a tangle of wires. But here's a shot: It's a momentary contact NC switch, on an adjustable bracket, secured to a fixed sector with notches. Pulling the handle to set the brake moves the arm away from the switch, allowing the contacts to close. Releasing the handle pushes in the plunger, opening the contacts.

I've got a 6-12-volt converter in my car, to power outlets for cell phones, GPS, etc. The converter magically produces 12-volt direct currrent, with (+) and (-) posts. I figured I had better have the (+) go to the center of each outlet, and the (-) to the shell, in case anything I plug in is polarity sensitive. But the power outlets are not grounded to the car. Everything is happy. Is a 12-volt wiper motor polarity-sensitive? I don't know. But to be safe, ground the shell to the (-12 V) post and run the "hot" wire(s), through switches, fuses, etc., to the (+12 V) post. ("Hot" wires are any that, if touched to ground when powered, will spark.)

My understanding is that the 6 to 12 volt converter doesn't care whether the 12-volt circuit is positive or negative ground, or grounded at all. The only oddity is that, if you happen to connect the 6-volt and 12-volt "Hot"wires, you will get either 6 or 18 volts, depending which way the grounding happens to be. But you will be keeping the "hot" wires apart anyway.

Try lifting the door while trying to open it.

Some people just switch the plug wires 180 degrees. The PO did my car that way. No. 1 is at 1:00 instead of 7:00, etc. I re-did it right. You can remove the distributor, turn the shaft 180 degrees, and reinstall it. (If the oil pump is in right, No. 1 will be at either 7:00 or 1:00.)

No. 6 pistom comes up twice for every firing. You could be getting spark when the valves are 180 degrees out of phase. One way to make sure that a piston is at the top of the compression stroke is to have a thumb over the sparkplug hole. If cylinder No . 1, the puff against the thumb should be when the rotor is pointing to the No. 1 plug wire, or close.