austinsailor

For a little more, get a whole car: http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/cto/4700240706.html

That is even more radical than my Boss Hoss!

Left is edmunds, right is Offenhauser. Offenhauser is made to bolt to the exhaust, or bolt on the water powered heat exchanger instead. Mine has the heat exchanger on it. I have a motor for my truck that already has Fenton headers, so it all works out.

Several things showed up. Fun time! Question. The distributor is an HEI type for the 23" motor. Coil is 12 volts. Must I be on 12 volts, or can I stay 6 volts and just use another coil?

I had a new one in 65, ordered from the factory. It was a pretty poorly built car, but I loved it! It's biggest problem is the differential is the little bitty one, not nearly strong enough for the motor. I had trouble keeping the front end aligned, about every 10,000 miles it would be out enough to need an alignment. The 273 Commando was a pretty powerful motor. I could hold my own with most 383 cars. We travelled the west several times, just fold down the back and spread our sleeping bags. Plenty of room for 6' plus guys. Gene

This is just like the one I saw today, the tractor is even the same. All on a flatbed heading east at 75 MPH.

Sure like that tractor! A lot like the one one I hauled home.

Their full name, I learned some years later, was Pacific Intermountain Express, so it's likely they never went far east of Missouri. We also had Campbells 66 Express, "Humpin to Please", with a camel on the side. Ran up and down Route 66. Another defunct trucking company. I see an old trailer of theirs once in a while, but never a restored one like the pie truck today

I was setting my welder up to make a mount for a billboard light a few minutes ago and looked over at I-70. What goes by but an old P-I-E truck! Haven't seen one of those in years. It was a western style long dual rear axle tanker with a full trailer like you see in the western mountains. Course, the whole rig was on a flatbed being hauled by a modern tractor. If you're under about 35 you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but that is ok. Old highway 40 went right through our town. At the Dairy Queen there was a stop sign where everything had to stop. No interstate then. My Grandma would take us there once in a while and buy us an ice cream cone. While we'd eat it there would almost always be a P-I-E truck stop at the intersection, then take off gearing back up. I'd ask her why all those pie trucks were going down the road. She'd tell me people ate lots of pies and it took a lot if trucks to haul them all. I never quite believed her.

They had quit making new shows maybe a year ago. Retired, I guess. It likely could have been he was sick then, although I never heard that. All the current shows have been repeats.

Tim, I'm surprised. They were a hoot. As someone said, they were even right sometimes. Never serious. My wife is even saddened.

You don't need a key made, you don't need an impression made, you just need a locksmith (or burgler or anyone with experience) to put their little spring tool in there and rake the tumblers to open it. Making a key/replacing the tumbler etc is a whole different operation.

Find a new locksmith.

We had a shredder in Austin a few blocks from where I lived. I used to go scrounge scrap metal there, not what went through the shredder, though. Pretty interesting. I even sent a few through it. Strange things was, about the only thing they wouldn't take was electric motors. For some reason it would only ball up the copper leaving a mess they couldn't use. I never did understand that, seems like they could just sell a pile of balls of copper, but that was how it worked. I guess it's still there, haven't been over to that area in some time. About a block from Ben White and I-35.

When I got mine, which is a brand name (I'd have to go look to be sure what that was) I debated whether to get a small one capable of 110 volt operation and doing clean 1/8" cuts to 1/4" max rough cutting, or a bigger one capable of clean 1/4" cuts and limited to 220 volts. Of course, there was a big difference in cost, too. I went cheap and regret it. The one I got will do sheet metal, body metal and aluminum sheet, but it would be nice to do the occasional thicker piece. I have had 220 volts available every time I used it, and here 3 years later I wouldn't notice the $500 - $600 difference. So, my recommendation is get one that will do 1/4" cleanly.

Thanks Rich. They show they have that part as well, in their listing it shows it as 35 and 36 Desoto Airflow. Pricy, but hopefully, the correct one. I've sent pictures and measurements and they are going to compare before we have another fire drill. Pretty sad, as my old one is almost good enough. I can get nearly all the play out, still has 1" to 1 1/2". Just enough to be a problem. But then, I just finished a bunch of work on my Dad's Model A, including tightening his steering. Got it to about 1" of play in the wheel, was sort of irritated I couldn't get it better. Looked up the specs. Factory specs was 1'" to 2" of play at the wheel. Guess on mud roads it didn't matter? Gene Gruender

My new sector gear showed up today, and, darn the luck, it's completely wrong. The number I was given was 653182. On the box they've written "653182, C7, C16, 36 Chrysler Airstream 6, 37 Chrysler Royal 6, 36 Desoto airstream, custom del and airflow"' However, there are basically 2 sizes of gear sets in Mopar steering boxes. Small version with a 2 1/4" long worm, 1 1/2" roller on the sector and 1 1/8" sector shaft, and big version of 2 3/4" long worm, 1 3/4" dia roller and 1 1/4" dia sector shaft. Dodges, Plymouths, 1/2 ton through 1 ton pickups and many smaller cars have the small version, 7 passenger and many big cars have the big version. The one I got today is small, my Airflow has the big version. It's further complicated by right and left thread and shaft length, but I'm not even in the ball park now. Mine is left hand thread, this little one is right hand. I have to wonder how to sort this out. Would anyone have an old steering box laying around so I could verify I at least have the correct box? It's hard to imagine someone has jury rigged something else in it, it looks original and unmodified. Anyone have ideas how to sort this out? I haven't located a parts book yet, so I have to rely on others for numbers right now.

Now, that's a land yacht!

What I have is pilothouse.

I might have one - what is it off of?

Too bad they are not made like the 331 ci six. They are of heavy brass and don't corrode away.

Valve covers are simple, and there is usually a lot of gunk right inside there. With them off, wipe out all you can get, flush with the pan off, using a small brush and kerosene or something similar. Probably take you under an hour start to finish. Rotella is a high quality detergent oil by Shell, any good qualitydetergent oil should do the same. It happens to be what I use. I'm not sure if it helps, but at this point I always wipe some grease on the cam lobes to keep them lubricated until the motor is pumping and slinging plenty of oil.

If you're taking off the pan, you are already at 80% of the gunk. If you pull the valve covers off and flush/scrub that area you'll get most anything, and far more than running it with cheap oil/kerosene/ATF or whatever you planned. What I've done on several that sat for years (like 30) is pull the pan and valve covers, clean as good as I can, then add rotella, run it for awhile. In each case after a half an hour or so smoke went away and they did fine. I think the modern detergent oil removes a lot of the crud in the rings and frees things up.

You can get a bumper that looks like the one above - or even quite a bit worse - rechromed for about $300 at a number of places that do good work. They straighten them, fill the pits and they come out looking pretty darned good. Bumper guards are around $40 each, again, they straighten and fill bad spots. I haven't had any done with holes rusted all the way through, so I can't comment on cost, but they can fix those as well. That probably wouldn't be worth it unless it's a pretty hard to replace bumper. Dealing with a place like Bumper Boyz who have such a bad reputation just doesn't make sense.

You can mail the bumpers cheap. I mailed a B1B rear bumper from the Texas coast to somewhere in AZ for $24. Just wrapped it in cardboard and tape. Gene Gruender