Eneto-55

Is the determining difference that the new pumps have sealed bearings?

So would you say that these old engines would do fine running at higher temps? (You sort of "anticipated" my first question - about if one could not just use a modern heater core, and run a pressurized system.) But I also wonder about the water pump - can it stand higher pressure? (I'm not challenging what you said - it just sounds interesting to me.)

I have wondered about this as well, because when I was doing the body work on my 46 Plymouth, I removed the seam sealer in the rain gutter. (The car had been repainted twice before I got it, once by brush (and not a good job, which some brush coats actually were), then sprayed heavily on top of that. So I will need a seam sealer that can be used on the outside of the vehicle, can be painted, and will still look nice. The original stuff that was over the seams in the floor boards was very thick, and not for appearance sake. It was a long time ago when I did the body work, so I do not remember what the stuff in the rain gutter seam looked like. I just know I took it all out, and didn't think about needing to redo that at the time I was prepping for paint.

I know that it was probably a waste of time, but off and on over the last several days I sorted all of the 1987 edition DonRuss baseball cards. (The last performance records are for the 1986 season.) There were a total of 660 cards in that year's issue, and I'm missing 39 to make a complete set. (First I sorted them by hundreds, making 7 piles; then by tens, and finally put them into order, and separated out the duplicates.) The first 27 cards are 26 of what they call the Diamond Kings and the checklist is # 27. Five of the 39 missing cards are in this set. I haven't kept track of any baseball teams since the 60's, so only a couple of the missing names are familiar to me: Pete Rose (#186) & Reggie Jackson (#210). (I must have hear their names some place or the other, because I don't reckon they were playing back in the 60's....) Some people say (on-line) that the valuable cards are from the upper numbers (like those in the 600's in this set) but others say to look for players who were new to the game in that period. I didn't check all of them, but saw a couple that only had data for 1986, so I checked on-line for those cards. People on epay were asking 30 for one of them, and 20 for the other. This whole deal has reminded me how it was back when I was a kid, saving up money to buy a 5 cent package of baseball cards, hoping that I didn't just get cards I already had. Whoever invested in these cards had probably over 2,000 total, of just this one year and brand. There are up to 7 or 8 duplicates for some players. There are also cards from other year sets from DonRuss, and for a few other brands of cards. That's just the baseball cards. I never had more than a small stack of cards, but now I kinda' wish I had all of those nickels back I spent as a kid. But it was fun at the time. Sucker. My 2nd oldest brother was the one who was really into baseball. Tulsa had a team back then, the Tulsa Oilers, a farm team for the St Louis Cardinals. So that's who we rooted for. But my brother listened to every game he could, recording each play, so that he had accurate up-to-date records of each player's performance. Then he devised a game based on the odds of each player's chance of hitting the ball, what kind of run they would make, etc. He recorded each play for these make-believe games - He had piles of papers from that. (Then he & our oldest brother would get into arguments about which sport was the most dangerous, auto racing or baseball. I was the third kid, so I stayed out of all of that.)

I thought the same thing when I saw it, but copied the photo because he showed how to construct the entire piece in separate parts, which might be more doable for those without a full range of shaping tools. (I don't have any except for body hammers and a few dollies, some home-made. No English wheel, although that would really help, especially with forming the piece he showed in black.) I think that the doubled areas could perhaps be eliminated by just doing a continuous weld at the seams. But there ARE in fact areas in car bodies which are joined in a very similar way, although in the long run, body seam sealer gives out, and you end up with the rust problem you mention. I know that there have been discussions here about where the deck lid weather strip SHOULD go, in the trough, or on the bottom edge of the deck lid, but even though it would seem that on the lid is the better approach, both of my P15's had it in the trough. I think that gluing it the the lid would allow the owner to more carefully monitor and correct any failures in the seam sealer application. (I haven't gotten that far yet, so would appreciate all input, whether just ideas, or from experience.)

Here's how a guy on Rat Rods Rule did it.

My brothers & I also collected both stamps (used) and coins back when we were kids. We picked up pop bottles along the highway, and once we had a dollar we would stop in at the bank when Mom was grocery shopping, and buy a roll of pennies. Then we looked through them, and kept the wheat pennies. Then we would save up again until we could make a whole dollar again, and do it over and over like that. (This was in the early 60's. I never did find a 1955 S, which I wanted because I was born that year, and also in California. It was kinda' valuable already then. We never bought any pennies at more than face value. Never found any Indian Head pennies, either. Did you ever get back there to get the rest of your tools and stuff? (We still have stuff in two states in Brazil, if someone hasn't carried it off by now. I also still have a car in Oklahoma, but it's at my brother's place. Oh well, it's just stuff. We'll leave it all behind eventually anyway.) Oh, by a rough estimate, I'd say there are around 1,000 cards for each of the three sports.

My wife's family owns a few rental apartments, and a renter left boo-koos of sports cards - baseball, basketball, & football. Are those cards worth anything, or do you have to look up every player to see if it's just recycle paper, or of some value? There appear to be some from the late 80's, but mostly from 90 and up to 92. I collected baseball cards when I was a kid - the ones that had a sheet of that hard bubblegum with it. That was in the early through around the mid 60's, and I suppose I had had some that might be of value now, except we played with them, and I gave all I had to my older brother. (They were all stolen years later when someone broke into his apartment while he was in college.) Some cereal boxes also had baseball cards on them, and we cut those out and kept them, too. Seems to me that this is an example of a child's collector/'toy' item that was ruined when adults got involved. There must be thousands of these cards from this guy's apartment after he moved out. I just wonder if I should just throw them out, or what. (I have already spent quite a bit of time straightening them out, as they were all thrown together in huge garbage bags. Some are still in the 'collector boxes' they were sold in. But all are pretty much in new condition.)

You have done a tremendous boat load of repair work on that frame. I'm curious if, in hind sight, you might wish you had just built an entirely new frame. (I have never worked on a VW, or even been under one, so I don't know how complicated that might be.)

Consider some general conditions: All paved roads or lots of dirt roads (The latter was pretty much assumed during that era, for sure where I came from, rural Oklahoma. It is also the case here in Holmes County Ohio, especially due to the type of places I go in my work - mostly gravel or dirt-gravel back roads, with some chip & seal, very little actual paved road ways) Time intervals (as others have already mentioned) I look at the oil, and evaluate the viscosity of the oil. When it starts to get really black, I change it. Or if it doesn't hold a sort of web between my fingers. (But our current family car takes 0 - 20 weight oil, and it feels almost as thin as ATF.) Of course I also track the mileage, and consider the time span since the last change. (Just my thoughts - no warranty involved. )

I was the 'responsible party' for an engine swap for a friend back in 78 - a 64 Ford Fairlane. It was pretty bad rusted (Rust-Belt car), but it became their only vehicle. His wife was a really good sport - This was in Minnesota, cold winters, etc. She kinda' liked it that she could eat an apple on the way to the college, and didn't need to open a window to get rid of the apple core. She just lifted the floor mat, and dropped it through. One Sunday night (back in 86) I was out on the main drag in the Aldeota section of Forteleza (Avenida Desembargador Moreira) to flag down a taxi to get to church that evening. A VW bug (called the Fusca in Brazl) pulled up. I got in, as he explained that I needed to hold the seat over toward the middle of the car before I could latch the door. The floor was so rotted out along the outside area. (Forteleza is on the Atlantic coast of North East Brazil - so lots of salt in the air.)

Maybe Ford didn't bother putting numbers on their engines....

It's a rare government employee who understands that it's the "spirit of the law" that is important.

As the owner of a small-town auto repair shop, my brother was also a state safety inspector. Someone came in for the inspection, then promptly put on old tires. They were stopped, and the police blamed my brother, as though those tires were on the car when he did the inspection. So they pulled his license to do the inspections. But I don't think he cared that much, because there's very little in it for the shop owner, at least in that state, at that time (more than 30 years ago).

Wasn't it Don Coatney who modified the original type headlight bulbs to accept modern style bulbs? (I tried to search for that, but I get zero results. I cannot recall what wording he might have used.) How would you all that are going with the modification as described here compare that to Don's way? (I'm assuming that some here will recall how he did it, cutting out the back of the stock light bulb, and fixing a modern style socket into that area. I think he epoxied it in, but I don't remember the details.)