Dan Hiebert

I haven't researched this very much, others may have. As long as the seals are air/moisture tight, modern multi-purpose bearing grease will last a really long time. Probably longer than most of us will need to worry about. I've pulled 50 year old stuff apart that still had serviceable grease, and 10 year old stuff with bad grease. Semi-surprisingly, there were still some parts with probably 80+ year old grease in them on our Terraplane...none of that was any good. 1937 seals were seals in name only. The difference seemed to be contamination. In a nutshell, if it smells bad ("rotten" grease is rank, certainly doesn't smell like grease any more), it is. But the only way to tell is by taking whatever you're working on apart. Modern grease is simply engineered better by virtue of continual improvement of the product. Peace-of-mind after having refurbished appropriate parts with fresh grease will go a long way.

Short answer is no. You wrote that your u-joints are tight. Ensure they operate smoothly. If so, you may want to reconsider messing with them at all just yet. You certainly don't need to replace them. I don't believe these u-joints were originally intended to be serviced, just replaced if the car lasted long enough. Our cars also weren't intended to be on the road more than 10 years or so either. That being said, grease breaks down. You've already had/got the car apart, if you do decide to disassemble the u-joints, then the caps and needle bearings should be thoroughly cleaned, which can be accomplished without taking the needle bearings out, but you have to be careful, and don't use compressed air or you'll be hunting for those bearings all over your garage. When you re-grease something like that, you should always thoroughly clean out all the old grease to ensure longest life from the new grease. If you don't think you cleaned them enough, you can remove the needle bearings easily enough to clean them, just be careful about it. They aren't that hard to re-install, just a bit tedious.

Yep, small towns are awesome! Every small town we've lived in has a kids' day parade, with good turn outs. Big cities didn't have anything of the sort that wasn't commercialized. We've lived in both, and I can appreciate big cities and don't mind going to one on occasion, but as RobertKB notes, to each their own. I just don't like the rat race in big cities. Kinda neat that here in Maine the State's biggest city (Portland, 60K, 4 hours away) is still smaller than the "big cities" where we lived in other States. The population of the nearest "big city" up here in The County is only 8K. Everything we need, just maybe not so many options. Also kinda neat that "let's go into town" requires planning.

I've also pondered the age of our cars vs. the age of me. Pretty sure I can make the century mark with our Terraplane, only 16 years to go. The D24 is doable as well. But, then again, I'm biff and happy that we have operating, presentable, and reliable 84 and 73 year old cars. Sometimes I gotta remind admirers of the cars' ages when they point out a flaw.

Nice. I've had good luck with NAPA's Carlyle tools.

Very nice! Thanks for posting!

I think most U.S. gas is "up to 10%" now. There are places where we can get "all gas", but depends on where you are. Where I live, I can only get it at the airport, although I've heard that it is sometimes available elsewhere. Even new vehicles here (U.S.) strongly recommend not using more than 15% ethanol (E85), and even then, the E85 ones are specially engineered for it. Engineering components to withstand more than that has apparently proven problematic. That said, we lived in El Paso, TX when they were mandated by the EPA to use ethanol in their gas back in the '90's, shortly after California did. Initially, it was only during the "winter" months. Because of the geography, and proximity to Cd. Juarez, El Paso has/had a real problem with pollution, separate from the rest of the State/Nation. I had issues with the D24's fuel pump, which was already old by then, so I installed a rebuilt one. Unknown if it is E anything compliant, but I haven't had any problems with it since. Nor with any other component of the fuel system, other than the fuel evaporating out of the carb bowl quicker. But, I've always added stabilizer to the gas when using ethanol laced fuel. In other words, you will most likely not experience any issues with 10% ethanol. Would be a good idea to add stabilizer.

When I was working, we moved every 5 or 6 years. Never fail, every time I unpacked I'd find stuff I'd lost 3 or 4 years ago and completely forgot I had. Technically, I didn't find it, the movers did when they packed. Of course, they didn't know I'd lost it. Heck, this last move to Maine I found stuff my wife "lost" in New Mexico...3 houses ago!

Dash knob color is not an accurate measure. Our D24 is a Custom, it has tan knobs. Depends on when and where the car was actually made. I can't quite tell, but it looks like the car in the photo has the stainless steel fender spears on the rear fenders. That makes it a Custom. Customs also have stainless molding around the windows. There's a spotter's guide in the P15-D24 site somewhere.

Most NAPA stores will make 0 gauge cables to your specs. No more $ than cables off the shelf. That's where I had the ones made for our Terraplane last year. FWIW, I bought off the shelf 0 gauge cables for our D24 at an Auto Zone , but that was about 20 years ago.

Yep, when I retired a mere 3 years ago, I came home with at least 60 various pens. Couldn't find one to save my life yesterday. Not trying to best PA here, just a show of solidarity; for three days I couldn't find the hatchet I was using to limb a tree I had cut down last week. Found it yesterday in the stump of the tree I had cut down...right where I had been looking for three days, and where I left it so I was sure to find it when I put the tools away.

How time flies! One of those "thought I had added to the thread", when I actually only thought about it but never did. Still haven't run the car, getting other issues fixed. Almost every time I find something that "just needs adjustment", it turns out to be broken. I now get surprised when an adjustment does indeed fix something. I have the new floors, toe-boards, and rockers. Looking forward to getting those done (I've discovered I enjoy welding). I also have our own cars to fiddle with, which my BIL already knows take precedence. He's not worried about time, since he currently has no place to keep the car. Any way, the transmission is back together, but I won't guarantee it. It is quite worn, through and through, but it's not in the budget I was given to replace it or actually replace all the worn guts. Cluster (idler) gear thrust washers were paper thin, one almost non-existent, same component's needle bearings are questionable. One of the synchronizer assembly's tabs was chipped, output shaft bearing worn out, speedometer driving gear shot, etc. I replaced and repaired what I could. I studied up on how these Ford three-speed manuals work and think I figured out that the problem is/was most likely the synchronizer gear (clutch, as Ford calls it). It's the primary mechanism to shift the tranny from "low" to "intermediate" and back. Intermediate to "high" and back doesn't use the synchronizer gear, haven't figured out how it gets away with that outside of having helical gears, but that seems to be it. You'uns read what I found with the synchro gear. But it's back together, pretty, and in the car. I should be able to get it on the road before I bottle the garage up for winter. I do have a line on a C4 tranny that I should be able to get in the car without much fuss, since my BIL can't drive manual anyway, I may be able to talk him into it if the manual one turns out to be too far gone.

Welcome! Looks like you have a nice, solid car to start with. You've come to the right place, lots of knowledgeable folks herein. I, for one, would like to see your progress on that '40.

You aren't wrong, the Allstate was Sears' rebranded Vespa. My Dad had a Cushman when he was in high school, we have many photos of him bombing around the southern Illinois countryside. He thinks water freezes at 70 degrees, so I don't think he rode it much in the winter. I like your aunt's ingenuity, my dad does stuff like that, too.

We sneak a John Deere into the middle of the Farmalls and Internationals on purpose. Put an Oliver in there a couple years ago. Really gets the old-timers bickering... There are a lot of old cars and trucks in the woods up here, they pop up rather unexpectedly since things grow so fast. But they also "return to the Earth" rather quickly, and loggers like to run over them with their skidders and fell trees onto them, which is kind of annoying.

Last but not least, "motorcycles", (Yeah, yeah, a scooter, but an Allstate scooter that the young lady who owns it rode to the venue. There were Harleys there, but all of them were black, and I get bored of nothing but black Harleys.) and the venue, the Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum. Originally a school. A well run and informative museum that should be on your check list if you ever come to northern Maine. The barns are full of antique and collectible farm equipment, and a few more trucks and cars.

This Packard was a newcomer. Owner drove it up from downstate (@200 miles one way). We have a class for vehicles newer than 2000. It is, after all a "car show", not an "antique car show". And trucks. I've been keeping my eye on that '48 F-1, owned by one of the local farms. Waiting for them to get tired of storing it every winter...

Something I like to do at shows is find the biggest tug-boat there. This Lincoln was the winner this year, and it's "just" a two-door! The only other pre-50's MoPar. Only thing '38 Dodge on it is the body.

I happen to like Hudson-Essex-Terraplane vehicles, too. Almost bought this '29 Essex a couple years ago from another retired agent in Ft. Kent. Only reason I didn't was that it wasn't running. I know the couple that did buy it, and they have it purring like a kitten. This car was a hoot. Ford Model "AR" speedster. Owner enjoyed giving people rides in (on?) it all day.

On to cars... First one is the Plymouth Scamp that our club's VP bought only a month before he was killed in a truck crash in April. He's the fellow memorialized on the t-shirt. The T-Bird is a beautifully restored example.

Next two are also from the Museum's collection. They're a bit unusual, I'd never heard of a Hayes truck, and only vaguely recalled Brockway made them, too. Aroostook County, is of course, a farming community, so restoring tractors is a thing up here. Houlton was traditionally a "red tractor" area. Fun listening to the farmers argue which tractor is better, just like MoPar vs. Chevy vs. Ford, etc.

Ok, photo time. It was a really nice day for a car show. Didn't get over 75 degrees, partly cloudy, and when the sun went behind the clouds before 9am it was cool enough to wish I'd brought a sweatshirt or something. 92 cars registered, plus the 12 or so the members brought made for a much better turnout than we had expected. Silent Auction made a little over $1,100 for us for our benevolent endeavors for the next year (that's a really good amount for these parts). As anticipated, no Canadians (a bummer, they always bring really nice cars and trucks), but there were some new participants from downstate and further north. Enough babbling... Event t-shirt, that's our good ol' D24. The bridge is the Watson covered bridge in Littleton, one of two in Maine, and on the National Register of Historic Places. Alas, it burned down in July a couple weeks after the photo was taken. Gratuitous shot of our D24 in the pre-50's line up before folks started showing up. The Graham is a regular. Bob Drown would have appreciated this, from the Museum's collection. Not an Oshkosh, but the same plow equipment that he was "wing-man" on.

Nice. Speaking of RR tracks, my parents had a '62 Falcon when we were little that we kept well into its declining years. It was me and by brother's job to keep an eye out the rear window when we went over RR tracks to see if any parts fell off.

In South Amboy, NJ, MIL's basement flooded. Not a surprise, but she's 95 and feeble, so we're up here in ME trying to get relatives rallied to help. Others in the wife's family living in NJ and NYC had/have flooding issues. The ones in NJ get flooded every two or three years, so it wasn't unexpected. They're actually kind of cavalier about it.

Personally, I think $300 is a good price nowadays for a NOS clock...that works. The older this stuff gets, the less we'll find. Only so many were made. If you don't get it now, it'll become $400, then $500, etc. There may be less expensive ones out there, but there is no telling when and if you'll find one. I'd say whether you get it or not depends on how bad you want one in your car. As far as power drain, our D24 has its original dash clock, which works well, and uses no power because I keep it unplugged, and give it some PMCS every once in a while - at the same time I do all the dash stuff. (Preventive Maintenance Checks & Services, you Army guys may remember that one.) If we go to a show or something where I think having a working clock is beneficial, I'll just hook it up and set it.