TBT…

From the WAY back machine…

My step-grandfather was an auto mechanic for about 50 years, starting in the early-20s… 1920s…

Chevy dealer cover Nov 1928 1

He worked for a dealer out of Chicago for about 10 years, then ended up at Studebaker, working in the factory as a ‘check’ mechanic.

Bling ad 1928

Who knew they had ‘bling’ back in the 1920s??? 🙂

And your ‘new’ car didn’t have a heater, but they’d sell you one…

losee heater ad 1

Back in those days you could actually WORK on your car… Grandpa wouldn’t touch a car newer than 1967, he said they’d gotten stupid with all the ‘crap’ on them.

Of course at that time, he was in his 90’s and still puttering with cars. He was still driving and loved his 1954 Bel Air…

It looked like this one, and was the same color. It had a 283 and a Powerglide transmission in it. His favorite saying when I’d ride with him and complain about the heat in the summer was 2-55 was good enough…

Anybody old enough to know what that means???

For those who aren’t old enough, 2-55 was 2 windows down, 55 mph was his version of ‘air conditioning’!

 

Comments

TBT… — 21 Comments

  1. Robert Earl Keene talks about when his landlord would drive up to talk to him, he would roll the window down about a half inch so he could talk without letting too much air escape. Before the 1973 Arab oil embargo your step-gpaw had a 2-70 AC.

  2. When we got married in ’79 the wife’s car had AC, and that was the first time I had a car with AC. I did not get AC in “my” car until we bought the Toyota pickup in ’85.

    Our first vehicle with an automatic transmission was the Ranger pickup we bought in ’98. My wife was still driving her stickshift ’89 Corolla until we got the Subaru wagon in ’07. (we gifted the Corolla to family and they got several more years out of the car.)

    I did my first car tune up on my parents’s Plymouth. Quite embarrassing to see the car leave our drive hanging from a towtruck as I could not get it to start. Sigh. I try to remember that when I get a little big for my britches.

    And mentioning another piece of ancient technology, the no start was probably because I did not get the points exactly on the highest part of the cam.

    Great post, thank you!

  3. Every car or pickup I drove until I was 20 didn’t have a/c. West Texas can be a warm place, but a cool cushion and 2-60 a/c kept me alive. Who knew? Amazon still sells them! http://www.amazon.com/Allison-39-3236-Arctic-Aircool-Cushion/dp/B0002JM69W

    I learned to drive in an Apache, 3 on the tree. 69 Ford F100, 73 Ford LTD, 69 Chevy C10, 74 Fury (most fun car ever), 73 Olds 98, finally got a 76 LTD with a/c and CRUISE!! I didn’t have to pay attention to the speed limit anymore!!! 12 hours at 55 would drive me batty today.

    Hey John, when my dad said you could use a dime to the gap the points, I used 2 nickels!! Didn’t work.

  4. We had 4-40 A/C for years. The car I took to college had it, too.

  5. Matchbooks were .035″ thick which was handy to know.
    In the eighties, when I worked in the Willow Run Assembly Plant, there was a period of time that due to a lawsuit, we could no longer offer an AM radio as a base installation.
    We sold a lot of cars with an empty radio slot so that an optional radio could be purchased after market and installed without having wasted money on a factory radio.
    Don’t see that these days with integrated sound systems.

  6. I like integrated sound systems. Their adoption pretty much destroyed the aftermarket for them, which in turn really cut down on theft.

  7. 6Shot- Grandpa didn’t drive over 55, country roads and all that… 🙂 He ‘admitted’ he wasn’t as sharp as he used to be.

    John- I think I might have beat you by a couple of years… I rebuilt my first engine at age 10 (under his supervision, only got one connecting rod in wrong) LOL

    STx- LOL, love it! Mine was a ’53 Dodge Power Wagon! And dimes or matchbooks worked well! 🙂

    Nancy- It’s cooler where you were 🙂

    Ed/CM- Yep, integrated sound systems did kill the aftermarket, but finally knocked down the theft, after the dumbasses figured out the systems the stole wouldn’t work!!!

    WSF- Nobody, and nobody does radiators anymore either… dammit…

    Robert- But you could go anywhere in it!

    PH- Yes ma’am!

  8. Drove ol Betsy for a lot of years, without air conditioning. It routinely gets 110 here in the summertime. When I got the new ride, I still rolled down the windows, and went like a bat outta hell. Dad would shout from the passenger seat. “You can turn on the A/C now!” old habits…

  9. I had 455 A/C on my high school car; no A/C until the ’70 Galaxy I bought on Adak.

    Now that you’re done laughing at the concept of “you don’t need A/C in the Aleutian Islands!”, notice I said it had A/C. Never said I used it. 🙂

    But I digress: my dad’s favorite car was a ’36 Packard, and he reckoned he never had another that as good, as comfortable, as easy to work on … etc. I suspect he (and I) would have gotten along just fine with your step-grandfather.

  10. “…integrated sound systems…in turn really cut down on theft.”

    Yeah, but the price of said integrated sound systems are theft in and of themselves. What would cost approximately $400 on the aftermarket costs ten times as much for the equivalent system from the dealer.

  11. When I was in high school, my brother let me use his ’55 Chevy. It was the three speed with the gear shift on the column. Great car that took me everywhere. But the SOB sold it while was in the Navy. Miss that car and the time I had in it.

  12. Provided that you understand the system, and can make the difficult but necessary mental adjustment, I think most newer cars are easier to work on than the older cars, for a few reasons. 1) Modern cars are much easier to diagnose, with the advent of OBD-II. 2) Modern cars have much better manuals than we had back in the day. 3) Modern cars are, generally, more reliable, particularly for the really big repairs (head gasket, valve seats, etc., just aren’t done). But the piddly stuff that people used to do ALL THE FREAKING TIME (spark plugs, carb adjustment/rebuild, setting timing, points and condensers, valve adjustment, etc) isn’t done on modern cars, so things are pretty different. Instead of doing that, you’re replacing O2 sensors, cleaning the idle air control valve, replacing the mass air flow sensor, and in general replacing stuff that didn’t exist 40 years ago. So, it’s quite an attitude change.

  13. Heh. $6.50 for a heater system. Today that would get you a good headlight bulb.

  14. Dammit- Yep, they ARE hard to break! 🙂

    Rev- Most probably… 🙂

    Roy- Oh so true!!! Dammit!

    CP- Ouch! Yeah, that would be a nice ride today!

    Keads- You’re welcome!

    Rockeye- You hit the nail on the head, you’re not ‘fixing’ them today, you’re just replacing parts… 🙂

    Bob- Actually not even that! Maybe a taillight bulb… sigh

  15. The cars then were amazing.
    One of the best cars I owned was a 1967 Plymouth Fury with a 383 with a Holley four pumper

  16. Uncle always bought a new Buick every-other year. One broke down during a winter trip to relatives in Florida, so he traded it in. Somewhere around Delaware he discovered it hadn’t been delivered with a heater.
    My folks’ ’56 Chevy had the straight-six with an automatic. (Dad traded our ’49 Ford V-8 with the 3-speed/overdrive after Mom had a chance to drive her brother’s Hudson with an automatic.) I could sit on a fender with my feet in the engine compartment to tune it up. I was 13 – and found out “carburetor” was French for “do not touch”!

  17. NFO- Actually there is a radiator shop in Abilene Texas that does radiators! I just picked up my JD 4640 radiator that they hot tanked and repaired the leaks. Of course it was $199 for the fix but cheaper than a new one at $800. But you are right about the new radiators. Being plastic and aluminum they are not fixed, just replaced. Many many many years ago I worked in a radiator shop and can fix my own if need be!