Another car questions + opinions

[Telecolor 3007]

Well, in order not to start so many subjects, I've decided to concentrate more in just one. It may cause some mess, but a lot of subject can cause a mess too.
So
I. Was there any car front seats that had the seafty belt (modern type, that comes over you chest too) atached only to the seat. I'm curios if you can retrofit some old cars with seats that have seatbealts and that thing that you lay you head againts (I don't know how they are called in English, the Romanian term is of French origins);

II. How relaible/unrelaible where the '30-'40's cars? Since oil wasn't of so excelent qualty back then (oil = gas (fuel), but also grease oil) the grase oil change had to be done at shorter intrervals then today. Also I don't know when central greasing was adopted, so at some cars some points needed manual greasing. But leting the grease alone, if proper or at least decent meintainance, how long you could use a car from that period without needing repairs (like reboring the engine)?;

III. What options do you think are missing from modern cars? One intresting option was the light dimmer switched postioned on the floor of the car. And the ammeter.

[Electronic M]

Here in Wisconsin the way I understand it, even if a car never offered seat belts you have to add lap belts at a minimum. Even if a seat wasn't designed for a headrest (American term for them...some car words are different in UK English*) or seatbelts (either kind) they can be added with a bit of enginuity.

I seem to recall reading that Nash cars of the 40s could last better than 150k. When you say grease do you mean wheel bearings or ball joints....cars here in the US don't self grease either of those... though the higher line 58 Lincoln's had a button to push that would automatically grease all the ball joints...there is a neat feature I'm surprised didn't last.

One thing that I miss (aside from floor mount high beam switches you meantioned (and my 78 Lincoln has) is hood ornaments....there were a lot of cool ones down through the years but pedestrian crash safety standards have pretty much killed them in current production cars.

*The Britt's can keep their sissy bonnets, I want an American car with a real hood... though I do gotta give them props for calling their sedans saloons....If they got their UK name the way I think they did there must be a lot of 4 doors there with whiskey dents....

[fixmeplease]

The model A Fords were quite reliable for the time made but not by todays standards, or even 1950's standard.

The Ford V8, started in 1932? was a good design and they modified it thru the years. With regular oil changes they could go 100,000 miles "sometimes". The oil bath filters were not so great if you lived on a dirt road and Im sure shortened most of the engines lives with dirt (my opinion). You had to be religious about changing engine oil to make them last.

Most of the straight 8 engines were good as far as lasting and Hudson made that 6 cylinder (I think 6) with a factory 2 carburetors that could blow most cars away in a race. They were durable.

I think a lot of the cars and motors were only as good as the owners were with mainanence of the car.

I dont think seat belts attached to seats would be very good in an accident but possibly better than nothing. the G force of your body would pull the belt's attaching point off of many seats. Or a side collision could strangle your waist if things got bent. the ones Ive added attached to the floor behind the seat.

In the 1980s there was an elderly racer who came out of retirement at my local stock car races. he used one of those Hudsons i already mentioned and routinely won the races against modern cars and engines. Beefed up 350 Chevy's mostly. it was fun to watch. There was a Buick straight 8 in those races too who i dont remember winning but if he bumped another car they flew off the track pretty quick, lol That car was heavy.

What would I like to see in modern cars? Vent windows. Ford quit it in 1996 on their trucks, unsure with cars. its nice to open a window without that loud sucking sound without one. If I ever get a modern truck it will be something I will have to modify and Ive heard it can be done. Fins on pickups are something else that was never really done except on Rancheros but Ive been waiting for someone to try it. Add some class to the ugly box trucks now. I agree about hood ornaments too.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by fixmeplease

In the 1980s there was an elderly racer who came out of retirement at my local stock car races. he used one of those Hudsons i already mentioned and routinely won the races against modern cars and engines. Beefed up 350 Chevy's mostly. it was fun to watch. There was a Buick straight 8 in those races too who i dont remember winning but if he bumped another car they flew off the track pretty quick, lol That car was heavy.

What would I like to see in modern cars? Vent windows. Ford quit it in 1996 on their trucks, unsure with cars. its nice to open a window without that loud sucking sound without one. If I ever get a modern truck it will be something I will have to modify and Ive heard it can be done. Fins on pickups are something else that was never really done except on Rancheros but Ive been waiting for someone to try it. Add some class to the ugly box trucks now. I agree about hood ornaments too.

That stock car story is hilarious.

I know my Lincoln Mark V offered power vent windows in 78.

IIRC Dodge had a 1 year only finned pickup based on their forward look cars (also the 59 Chevy el Camino)... I'd imagine the camper shell crowd probably would have some choice words if anyone made a finned pickup today... I sort of wish they would make finned cars again. There are a few nice cars today but styling has been fairly bland since the 70s.

One thing I forget about and miss is full size sedans with big trunks (and for that matter any car with a good size trunk that doesn't have a mail slot for a door making the space inside almost useless) also the station wagons based on the full size sedans....I would have liked one more than my suburban but they are all pushing into rust bucket territory or held on to by their owners.

[Telecolor 3007]

You can atach seatbealts to old cars without damaging them?
Greasing... like this: http://users.aber.ac.uk/caj55/htm%20..._500_miles.htm
When in U.S.A. you got read of greasing diagrams like that?

And after 80,000-100,000 miles what did you had to do at an "Ford" V8?

Ventilation windows where cool. At some cars you could rest your arm on them.

[fixmeplease]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

That stock car story is hilarious.

I know my Lincoln Mark V offered power vent windows in 78.

IIRC Dodge had a 1 year only finned pickup based on their forward look cars (also the 59 Chevy el Camino)... I'd imagine the camper shell crowd probably would have some choice words if anyone made a finned pickup today... I sort of wish they would make finned cars again. There are a few nice cars today but styling has been fairly bland since the 70s.

One thing I forget about and miss is full size sedans with big trunks (and for that matter any car with a good size trunk that doesn't have a mail slot for a door making the space inside almost useless) also the station wagons based on the full size sedans....I would have liked one more than my suburban but they are all pushing into rust bucket territory or held on to by their owners.

I am going to dig online for a pic of that Hudson car. He was a famous local racer and one of his cars still exists and races in vintage races as far as I know. The racer died long ago. But if i dont quote you again it means I had no luck.

Seatbelts, you find a strong part of the car behind the seat and either drill holes to attach them or if your lucky there is a hole there or something strong to attach too. They have to be bolted very secure or they wont do any good in an accident, just break off.

Greasing, every car came with a manual that usually told how often to oil and grease things. Oil and grease were poor quality compared to modern oil now.

The ford V8's or any other engine, once they ran bad or started using a lot of oil they were overhauled or rebuilt. If they were cracked badly or too worn out to rebuild they were scrapped. I drove more than one car that used a quart of oil every 100 miles (200 KM?) but they never ran real well. Modern cars with all the pollution control and other gadgets will not run at all, usually, when it starts using a lot of oil.

[MadMan]

Many late 90s and mid 2000s GM cars had the seatbelts entirely mounted to the seat. Cadillacs, Buicks, etc. Those would be exactly what you are looking for. However, A. Good luck finding those in your country, and B. those were those god-awful power seats that you couldn't really adjust up or down.

Let me explain. See, a NORMAL 6+ way power seat operates by having forward/back, front up/down, and rear up/down, and the rear part of the seat is connected to the back of the seat. So when you control the rear up/down, it moves the back of the seat with it. Now what GM (and a few others) decided to do, was to make the seat bottom separate from the seat back. So only the rear of the seat bottom would move up/down, and the seat back stays in one place. Sounds good on paper, but in practice, you'll find that it somehow manages only to move your ass up and down, instead of moving your whole body up or down.

In other words, those seats are terrible for tall people like me, and for short people. Because you get no real height adjustment.

---

Now, the thing you need to understand about old cars is that everyone understood that they required regular maintenance. They had to be greased and oiled, and valves lapped, and cylinders honed, and brakes adjusted - a lot of big heavy maintenance. However, it was also a lot easier back then. Cars were simpler, so were repairs and maintenance. In those days, pulling a cylinder head and grinding valves was maybe a 1 hour job. Ordinary cars today, doing that, easy 10 to 12 hours. So they were considered very reliable. Even today, our measure of reliability includes how easy it is to fix.

[Telecolor 3007]

I'm short. Circa 5'6" and 1/2 (169 c.m.s.).
But you could run a "Ford" V8 for 100,000 miles (circa 160,901 kilometers) without having oil loss?
Cylinder honing and grinding valves because of Carbon deposit on them?
Anyway, a car from the '30' or '40's (if I will get one) I will use it for no more then 1,000-2,000 miles per year. Longer trips, probably no more then 200-300 miles in one way - to be onest, between cities I preffer the train.

[dishdude]

Seats out of most convertibles will have the entire seat belt mechanism attached to the seat.

[MadMan]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

But you could run a "Ford" V8 for 100,000 miles (circa 160,901 kilometers) without having oil loss?

If you mean a Ford V8 from the '30s (hell, even up to the '70s), then no. Seal technology was not very good back then, neither was piston ring tech. Cars were expected to burn oil, and leak oil. Think about all the old timey movies, where a car pulls into a filling station, and the attendant comes out. They would open the hood and check the oil, and sell you some if you were low. It was such a normal fact of life that life worked around it. Imagine in the future when all the cars are electric (or something else?), people will look back on the past, and think - wow people had to stop at a place... for gas?

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Cylinder honing and grinding valves because of Carbon deposit on them?

Well, maybe I was exaggerating a bit with cylinder honing. Maybe. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. Piston rings were pretty basic back then. But valve jobs were very common. Carbon deposits, I think, were not a big problem. Valves would actually burn up, or more likely the valve seat. A large part of the reason for leaded gas was that it lowered the temperature of combustion (and reduced detonation which caused knock), and that reduced the damage it caused to valves and valve seats. Still, the metallurgy back then was not great, and valves required maintenance. Nowadays, without leaded gas, the metals had to be improved to handle higher temperatures - and they do it very well.

Actually, just about the only thing to do to convert a leaded gas car to unleaded is to replace the valve seats. For a flathead engine, it would likely mean taking the engine out of the car and to a machine shop. Not sure.

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Anyway, a car from the '30' or '40's (if I will get one) I will use it for no more then 1,000-2,000 miles per year. Longer trips, probably no more then 200-300 miles in one way - to be onest, between cities I preffer the train.

Well, a car that old is usually not driven much. But then... there are still people who drive a Ford Model A every day. There's an engine machine shop near me that ONLY does Model A's. Just imagine for a minute. There's a shop that makes a profitable business by working on one type of engine that's from 80-90 years ago.

[mr_rye89]

My grandad said cars back then (30s-60s) were overhauled every 30k miles and you were lucky if you got past 100k. Nowadays if it doesn't do 200k on routine maintenance then it's considered junk. I'm going to try to get the Miata to 300k and I'm halfway there......

As far as seatbelts, the ones in my Dodge truck are attached to the body, in the miata one side is attached to the body and the other to the seat, the Peugeot? i don't remember......

And for old timey car features, I've never owned one with a high beam switch on the floor, even my '79 Hilux was on the column. My truck has the vent windows though, I wish it didn't because they leak and the correct fitting seals are NLA. And my Peugeot (1985 model) has an oil bath air filter and it works quite well, I just hate cleaning/refilling it.

[Telecolor 3007]

So after 100,000 miles the engine was junk?
At "Dacia" 1300 ("Reanult" 12 licence) no matter what the engine (French or Romanian) you needed to do some working around 50,000 kiloemters (31,000 miles).

Probably I will have to spent 300-400 Dollars per year for maintaing the car (carbon cleaning, 2-3 oil changes).

[fixmeplease]

There was no set amount of miles that an engine was junk (the 100,000 mentioned). It was a lot how it was maintained, short vs long trips, car or truck, how hard it was driven, etc. Many could make it 100,000. Many years ago I bought a 1950 3/4 ton Ford V8 (same engine as a 1948 model) with over 100,000 from the original owner and all it needed was a basic overhaul, rings, valves, bearings, etc. And that was a farm truck which would not have been used easy. There is nothing set in stone about how many miles you could get out of them.

Madmen is right, they all used oil to some extent, with maybe just a few exceptions. It wasnt all bad as it kept some fresh oil going into it.

Oil improvements has helped engines a lot.

Burning carbon out of an engine hasnt been needed for decades. But its fun to do! A good reason to drive fast.

[Telecolor 3007]

My dream is an vintage car, British, '30's-'40's. So I wonder what I may expect... can I run 20,000 miles without serios problems? But also I have a general curiosity.
That good thing about old cars is they are generally easy to fix and some problems can be fixed on the edge of the road.
And automobiles built on underneath frame you can lift the body and work on the inside, just like removing the chassies from the case at a tube (valve) radio to get better acces at the compoments. Bad thing about cars built on frame: they aren't so safe in the case of impact as a unibody one.
Burning oil is bad when you get too much oil burnded or leaked.
People will stop for electric charge. But gas station have at least 20 years ahead from now.

[bgadow]

I have a '51 Ford; it doesn't have the famous V8 but a flathead straight 6; actually a better engine than the flathead 8 in some respects. I don't know the full history of this engine, only that the car has around 86k. (I have to wonder if it was rebuilt at some point). I change the oil every 2,000 miles and it uses about a quart in that time which I find outstanding for something that age. Most of the older vehicles I've owned either burned or leaked oil, or both. The first couple vehicles I owned, as a teenager, were a 67 Impala with a 283 V8 & a 78 Ford F100 with a 302 V8. Both needed at least a quart of oil per week.

Most oil until at least the 60s was non-detergent. A large percentage of cars didn't have oil filters. The dirt in the oil (and there was plenty, thanks to the air filters in use back then) would gradually sink to the bottom of the oil pan. If you changed the oil regularly you might keep it fairly clean. My '51 had some deep black oil in it when I got it, which I promptly changed. At first it used about a quart every 150 miles or so but quickly improved. After a couple oil changes the dipstick looks so clean you can barely see the oil, even after a couple thousand miles. I still use non-detergent oil out of concern that there could still be some sludge inside that modern oil could stir up. There are stories of this causing the engine to suffer a "stroke" as the oil pump screen stops up.

My old car gets used quite a bit; I use it for errands, going to church, day-trips. I've taken it on some weekend trips, maybe 3 hours one-way. Stuff does wear out faster than on modern cars but they're so simple that, really, only so much bad can happen. The only time this Ford was Found On Road Dead with me as the owner? Vapor lock, the first summer I had it. I added an electric fuel pump as a backup and when it acts up I just flip the switch.

Old British cars have a reputation for poor reliability (especially electrical parts) but some of them are very easy to get parts for and should be simple to work on. That's what I'd look for, something basic, not loaded up with tons of options. It's nice to have power this and power that but on a car that age, all of that stuff is very failure prone.