Another car questions + opinions - Page 3 - Videokarma.org TV - Video

Sandy G · #31 10-21-2019, 02:18 PM

Lancasters were British cars, in the same class as Rolls & Bentleys, but the guy who designed & was the head dude of the company was "Different..." they had tiller steering, you sat in them about the same height as if you were standing, he felt you could judge distances better that way, the motors were made rather narrow, & ran longitudinally thru the passenger compartment, consequentially, they were quite roomy, there were several other quirks about their overall design. Few remain, I dunno if many, if any have survived out of England. Especially the really early ones, they were as ODD as latter day Saabs were-Maybe even more so.

Telecolor 3007 · #32 10-21-2019, 04:16 PM

The models that I'm looking that are made after they where taken by "Daimler". The 14 (Fourteen) and 18 (Eighteen) where still top models, but they wheren't the very luxury vehicles that where before the '30's.
It's intresting that you can still find LD10's in a pretty large number for such an old car, trough all that there where only around 3,000 of them made. Probably if the people would have had more money (the model was released after the war and it was expensive for it's class) more could be made (maybe 10,000) and the more airstreamed model could also might have had been put into production (airstreamed: a liitle bit faster at the same engine power). LD10 should have had been released in 1940, but the war camed and... Anyway, unlike the older models you could install heating systsem as a option. You can adapt heating to cars that wheren't designed fot it, but you have to drill holes.

I still wonder: it was so hard to put automatic greasing on old cars, even if it was needed for 2 separate greasing systems (front and back).
And I also wonder: how mechanicals brakes (that had rods in stad of pipes with liquid) behave compare to brakes with liduid on them.

P.S. I appologize I my grammar is bad (I don't know if it corect to put so many would have had)

MadMan · #33 10-22-2019, 10:27 PM

I've never driven a car with mechanical brakes. I think if they are adjusted properly, they should work the same as comparable hydraulic brakes. The thing that really made a difference was the power brake booster. There are a couple cars with boosted mechanical brakes. Packards, I think. But it's funny how some cars even up into the 60s didn't have power brakes standard.

fixmeplease · #34 10-23-2019, 04:09 PM

Mechanical brakes that use rods are decent. if they use cables, not so much as they stretch out which changes braking.

Once you have a car with power brakes, you will never want one without them, trucks even more so. Ive had my share of both.

Electronic M · #35 10-23-2019, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fixmeplease

Mechanical brakes that use rods are decent. if they use cables, not so much as they stretch out which changes braking.

Once you have a car with power brakes, you will never want one without them, trucks even more so. Ive had my share of both.

I've only heard of cable brakes before.

Your power brake comment is especially true of hydraulic (instead of pneumatic) powered brake boosters...my 78 Lincoln has one that operates off the power steering pump....It will lock up the the wheels with much less effort than the vacuum based systems in modern cars...one could argue you loose road feel, but when a deer or turkey hoops in front of your car when you're doing 45mph and you don't feel like you need to brace yourself to push the pedal hard enough to stop in time you come to appreciate it.

old_tv_nut · #36 10-23-2019, 05:21 PM

I think my dad's 59 Mercury power brakes were pneumatic, but they had much stronger assist than any car I've driven since. Maybe they had drum brakes on all 4 wheels and that made a difference as well? Power steering was also full-assist, only finger-tip pressure required, with practically no feel of the road at all.

Sandy G · #37 10-23-2019, 08:42 PM

Yeah, a '59 ANYTHING would have drum brakes. Lincolns got front discs in '65, I think Caddys only got 'em in '68 or '69... I remember reading in a car mag of the time that the guy who wrote the article really ripped into a PR flack from Caddy telling him that the brakes the car came (an Eldorado) with were incapable of stopping it. This was in '67, the Eldos got 'em in '68.

bgadow · #38 10-23-2019, 09:38 PM

I've never driven anything with mechanical brakes; I came close to driving a Model A once but we found the gas tank was filled about 50% with water. I've owned several vehicles with manual hydraulic brakes and never found them to a be problem, aside from getting used to them a bit if you've been driving a modern car. When I was a teenager I alternated between an old Ford pickup with manual brakes (odd because it wasn't a total stripper) and an Impala with typical over-boosted power brakes. Drive the Ford for a week then jump in the Chevy and at the first stop sign you nearly threw yourself through the windshield!

(I once had a later model International pickup, plain Jane. Power brakes were standard, and worked well, but it had manual steering. On a light car, no problem. Heck, with skinny bias plies you hardly notice it. But, with 235/75R15's that truck was downright brutal! I nearly threw my shoulder out more than once in a parking lot, and sometimes the steering wheel would snap backwards and hit my fingers HARD.)

I drove a customer's c.1975 Newport once. Both the brakes and steering were so over-boosted that it was almost dangerous. I felt like I could twirl the steering wheel with my pinky and it would just spin like a top.

MadMan · #39 10-24-2019, 03:49 AM

There's always a different amount of power boost for steering or vacuum assist. Depends on what the manufacturer wanted. Changing steering assist is usually as easy as changing the regulator spring in the power steering pump.

Only car I recall driving with manual brake - single cylinder master - all drum, was a Ford... Fairlane? 500? From the 60s. Between the no power nothing, loose steering, and IIRC bias ply's - basically no brakes, no steering, and no seat belts - that thing was a death trap. Test driving it up and down the block was a lot of fun, but 'fun' as in 'I'm probably gonna die' kind of fun. I grant, if it had good tires and tight steering it would be better. But if it was my car, it would get, at minimum, vacuum boost power brakes with a double cylinder master. And good tires and tight steering. Maybe seat belts, maybe. No power steering wasn't that bad in that car, it just made parallel parking a pain in the arms.

Telecolor 3007 · #40 10-24-2019, 05:46 AM

I wonder how it will be for me to drive a car with no power steering. Smaller cars ain't so bad, but a bigger one may be nasty for a non-powerfoul person like me.
I know about mecahical brakes with power assist. On the old British cars they where vacuum asisted. In 1960 it was required that all British cars to have hydraulic brakes... and this sent some of my dreams into the scraping yard

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http://www.hifi-archiv.info/Auto-Wer...ler/index.html
http://www.hifi-archiv.info/Auto-Wer...ter/index.html
It's manily a Hi.-Fi. and audio site, but you can find another thing there too!

Well, I forgot to mention this: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/post-...ry-saloon.html

Telecolor 3007 · #41 10-29-2019, 01:14 PM

Man, you folks there in states must have had been really proud in the past by the cars that you built.

Electronic M · #42 10-29-2019, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Man, you folks there in states must have had been really proud in the past by the cars that you built.

Oh we were/are.... I'd have to really strain to come up with a foreign car I'd want to own (save for Canadian made American cars).

Sandy G · #43 10-29-2019, 04:11 PM

Oh, Lord, woncha buy me a Mercedes-Benz ?!? Mah friends all drive Porches, I must make Amends ...Well, we ARE proud of the cars we have made in America, but there are also quite a few we kinda wish everybody would "Forget" about..

Telecolor 3007 · #44 10-29-2019, 04:12 PM

What models?

I've heared a thing about early automatics: the selecting order wasn't the same on all cars and this caused accidents.

Electronic M · #45 10-29-2019, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Oh, Lord, woncha buy me a Mercedes-Benz ?!? Mah friends all drive Porches, I must make Amends ...Well, we ARE proud of the cars we have made in America, but there are also quite a few we kinda wish everybody would "Forget" about..

Like the Ford Fairmont that looks like the body work department ran outta ideas on how to design a car and grabbed their 3 year old kids sketch of a car, straightened the lines, and tweaked it a bit then handed it to production....or the pinto where a rear end collision jams the doors and the gas tank catches fire...