bob_amos

Thanks Pat. And thanks guys for the good wishes. We are a very lucky family.

Thanks guys for the congrats and all.. Pat, I will take you up on the offer to post a photo. Already sent to you. Dennis, yes we caught up with ya and with 5 kids of our own I don't think that we are done yet. Gee, we now have a basketball team with a couple bench players. Maybe we will try for a baseball team? LOL... What? Spoil my grandkids?!!! You can count on it. We have loads of practice doing just that and we will now see if we have perfected it...

Today our daughter added a new baby girl to the family. A whopping 10 pounder!!! 7th grandchild for us. Wish I knew how to post photos so that I could post one for all to see. Unfortunately, if your cars computer system breaks I can do that but I just never figured out how to post photos here.. Go figure.

Sooty plugs are a result of excess fuel. If you run it with the choke on and then shut it down before the heated engine, with the choke released, has time to burn that soot off you will find the plugs sooty. If you have released the choke and run it for some time and you still have the soot look for the reason for the excess fuel. High float level, internal leakge and high fuel pressure are just a few items that will give you this trouble. But in the end, soot is a result of the fuel ratio being lower than the desired 14.7 : 1 ratio. (14.7 being air and the 1 being fuel.)

Steve, There is nothing else on the net quite like here... LOL.. Sorry, haven't run across any Caddy sites.

Great car. I have a 53 Cranbrook myself. I see from yuor plate that you are in california. Are you a member of teh Golden State Region by chance? If not, you should think of joining. You would have a blast with the membership and the trip we take. Many of us here are members including our web host GT.

Darin, Try this guy for the modern replacement drive line. Ed Moore Drivelines. (800) 200-9895. He's in San Bernardino, Ca. A customer of mine used him and his driveline is perfect. An easy install too. Price was in the $350 range for the entire set up. His car is a 53 Chrysler. Tony C. also had the same thing done to his car. Not sure who did it for him. He gave me the name and number but things being as they are, some one here at the shop lost it.. (Read that, I misplaced it.) Tony might still have the number. His price was about the same if I remember correctly.

Nothing like a nice straight car to start with... Looks great.

Congrats... it is good to see another '53 on the road. We can't get too many of them on the road as far as I am conserned. Jelly Bean? We call todays cars jelly beans never though of a jelly bean when I look at my 3 box designed '53 Cranbrook.

James, You might be right. I recall, many years ago, cars with something like these that allowed the vent wing to open and limit the air flow at the bottom. Air would rush in without them or would be controlable with them. Haven't thought of them in decades. Many decades. But, I still wonder what they are if that is not what they are for? Someone should buy them, that has the right car, just to solve the mystery.

Yes, polarity is very important in anything that uses a diode. Diodes, by design, only permit current flow in one direction so if you had one installed that was reversed there would be no flow resulting in no light being emited. (Not all diodes emit light though.) LED stands for Light Emitting Diode so you can see the importance of polarity.

Dave, you are right on that. I had forgotten all about that part of the problem with these lights. Glad you remembered though... But thet sure are clear & bright when they work...

I've always had a desire to build a replica of those stations that were all windows and framing. The ones that were just an office, and island and the old frame lift was out on the side of the place. But this would be even better... oh well, the distance is way too much.

Isn't it funny how in the last century our outlying homes were powered by batteries. Everyone worked so hard to put an entire nation on the electric grid and now we are reverting to batteries again. It is a vicious circle....

Watch out for some of these bulbs. While they are designed and built to replace an original 1157, 2057 and 1034 bulb, we have had a number of vehicles come in to the shop with systems that would now blow fuses after the customer installed these bulbs. If you install one in a circuit that was working with the original bulb and it now blows fuses try reinstalling the original to assure that there are no other problems present. These are real intense lights and look great. But since we have had a number of them show up on our door step with bulb related failures, I just wanted to share this with anyone thinking of installing them.

Bob, I have to agree with you. I have been fortunate to meet a few of the members here that live close by. They dropped by my shop and it was great getting to know them. Of coarse, I already know a large number of the guys here from the GSL. But it is well worth the time peoviding this info.

The question was asked about why 185 degrees or whatever temp? Well each system has its own running temp. Generally they should all run about the same if all things could be equal. But, with various conditions being different, such as ambient temp, humidity, just how clean and clear the radiator is, the amount of air flow going through that radiator, the condition of the internal parts of the system.... does anyone see a pattern here? Every little thing and any little thing that might have the smallest bearing on the flow and dissipation of heat from the coolant will change the base temp of a particular vehicle. While most vehicles run close to one anothers base temp any one vehicle would have its own particular base temp. Now, when the system ages that base temp might change. This would be due to changes within the system from deposits and clearance changes from wear and more.The base temp is the free running temp of the system if you did not have a thermostat to control the temp. So why any particular temp? The manufacturers try to design a system that will run in a given designed range and then use the thermostat to tighten those controles on the temp.

I've got one of David's patches. It is such a great reproduction item. He did a real good job making them. One would look right at home on the back side of a shop coat with those coloured sleeves and collars.

Cool and valuable site. Last year we did the California Route 66 thing. Tony C. set it all up and we had a great time traveling what was left of the old road. There really is quite a bit left to see. Rough as can though.

Years ago we use to do just that every fall and spring. The old winter/sumer t-stat chenge. It's no longer done due to the fact that todays computerized cars need to reach a predetermined temp. in order to operate properly. In my earlier post did I loose some of you? I was trying to keep it simple but at times I tend to loose touch with what people can digest. When a person is facing me and I explain something I can tell if they are getting lost. Not so in this medium. It's just a teaching trick that I learned from observing my past students. Anyway, sorry if I did go over your head with that answer.

Interesting. In another e-mail sent to David I suggested The Blob and Margie, my better half suggested Tucker.. Good to see that others think like we do.

The difference is because the base engine temp for your engine, and its cooling system, is the 185 degrees that the engine is running at. Because the old 195 degree thermostat was set to a higher temp it would not open and MAKE the temp. rise to reach the 195 mark. To explain just how this works let me put it this way. Without any thermostat your engine would run somewhere near that 185 mark. Putting a thermostat of a lower than 185 degree mark would make the engine reach the thermostats rated temp. In this case that temp is 171 degrees. Now when the engine quickly reaches that mark it opens. Because your engines base temp. is 185 it now continues to reach that base mark. Now, take a thermostat of a higher temp and put that in your engine. Say the 195 degree unit that you were using. Now, that thermostat will remain closed until it reaches 195 degrees. With the thermostat remaining closed there is no circulation and the engines temp. is forced to reach the temp at which the thermostat opens. In this case the 195 degrees. The engine will now continue to operate at that temp. Should the temp go down the thermostat would start to close making the temp come back up to the rated temp of 195 degrees. So, you have an engine with a cooloing system that has its base temp at 185 degrees and you minipulated it up to the 195 mark but with the 171 thermostat you are only assisting it up to the 171 degree mark and the rest of the way up to 185 is the engine and cooling system doing the rest. Got it?

Tony. we can hide your headlights for you. Just bring that baby by the shop. I'll have Vincent hide them for, or is that from, you? Either way, they will be hidden. Just do me one favour. Bring it is AFTER you install a new set of Bulls Eye lights.

If you want to drain the entire amount of fluid Donald was dead on. We just completed this very task in the shop last month on a '53 Chrysler with the M6 tranny. Refilling took quite some time as the air trapped within will need to migrate out as the new fluid is installed. Just take your time and be sure it is completely full. Don't find yourself saying the "this is enough, it'll work." Because it won't. It will need to be full.

If the hard starting is after sitting for sometime you probably are experiencing a loss of fuel in the float bowl. This generally due to evaporation. If it is hard to start after sitting, perhaps a number of hours or over night the same lack of fuel MAY be the trouble due to an internal leak or even an external leakage of fuel from the float bowl. Have a look down the carb throat before starting. Actuate the accelerator pedal and look for fuel being discharged from the accelerator nozzle. If none is present you now want to get the old girl started and then stop the engine perform the same nozzle check. Now, if you do see fuel being discharged you now know that it is a lack of fuel. If there still is no fuel your accelerator system is malfunctioning. SO, one of 3 things may be your trouble. Lack of fuel due to evaporation, this being normal. Lack of fuel due to internal or external leakge, this is not normal or lack of fuel due to a malfunctioning accelerator pump and this is also not normal.