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Here are a few street rods from same car show.
- Thread starter George-CT
- Start date
Wayne in BC
New member
much work and time those guys put in! Unfortunately most are our age before they can afford to do it! Great hobby though
TexasCharley
New member
Around here, back in the late '50s, the cars most guys 'customized' were '49 thru '51 Fords & Mercurys. The big thing was to chop & channel--you had to drive 'em on pool tables--dechrome 'em, & paint 'em in gray primer only. They had to repaint about every 6 months. I've seen a '49 Mercury with a windshield that looked to be about 6" high. How they got into those things I have no idea.
I drove my Model T to school, but I had trouble with hills. The T had no water pump, no oil pump, no fuel pump, no true brakes, & no distributor, but it ran. It used 'thermal cooling,' which meant it boiled most of the time, it had splash oiling like a power lawnmower, fuel was gravity fed from a tank under the front seat, & it had a timing gear & 4 spark coils mounted in a box on the firewall inside the car. Going up or down hills was a problem. If you were going up a steep hill you had to back up it to keep gas going to the carb. Since there was no oil pump the back bearings going down a hill or the front bearings going up a hill were dry. That's the reason so many roads back in the teens, '20s, & '30s of the last century were built in a series of switchbacks. You stopped at each switchback & revved the engine so you'd get oil on the bearings for the next switchback. Just before you turned the engine off you'd have to rev it to insure there was oil in the cylinders for the next start.
The thing had a planetary transmission--2 speeds. There were 3 pedals on the floor. The left pedal was reverse, the middle pedal the 'brake'--it grabbed the transmission--& the right pedal was low & high. There was a clutch lever on the left. To go forward you made sure the clutch lever was pulled all the way back, pressed the right pedal, then adjusted the spark & gas levers, mounted on the steering column, until you got enough speed to shift to high. Then you pushed forward on the clutch lever & let up on the pedal & you were in high. The 'accellerator' was a lever on the right side of the steering column, while the spark advance was an identical lever on the left side. When you had both levers in the 6 o'clock position you were 'running with both ears down,' as fast as the car would go. On a level road with the top down & no headwind that was about 30 mph.
I drove my Model T to school, but I had trouble with hills. The T had no water pump, no oil pump, no fuel pump, no true brakes, & no distributor, but it ran. It used 'thermal cooling,' which meant it boiled most of the time, it had splash oiling like a power lawnmower, fuel was gravity fed from a tank under the front seat, & it had a timing gear & 4 spark coils mounted in a box on the firewall inside the car. Going up or down hills was a problem. If you were going up a steep hill you had to back up it to keep gas going to the carb. Since there was no oil pump the back bearings going down a hill or the front bearings going up a hill were dry. That's the reason so many roads back in the teens, '20s, & '30s of the last century were built in a series of switchbacks. You stopped at each switchback & revved the engine so you'd get oil on the bearings for the next switchback. Just before you turned the engine off you'd have to rev it to insure there was oil in the cylinders for the next start.
The thing had a planetary transmission--2 speeds. There were 3 pedals on the floor. The left pedal was reverse, the middle pedal the 'brake'--it grabbed the transmission--& the right pedal was low & high. There was a clutch lever on the left. To go forward you made sure the clutch lever was pulled all the way back, pressed the right pedal, then adjusted the spark & gas levers, mounted on the steering column, until you got enough speed to shift to high. Then you pushed forward on the clutch lever & let up on the pedal & you were in high. The 'accellerator' was a lever on the right side of the steering column, while the spark advance was an identical lever on the left side. When you had both levers in the 6 o'clock position you were 'running with both ears down,' as fast as the car would go. On a level road with the top down & no headwind that was about 30 mph.