Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I have some old cars sitting around that don't get driven very often, kind of standby cars that don't cost much to keep. AND -- if the Rooshians ever set off the H-Bomb in space and cause the big electromagnetic pulse, they will be some of the few that will still run as they have no solid state electronics to get fused. Say, that isn't entirely true, because the alternators have diodes in them. I'll have to remember to put a few of my spare alternators in a lead-lined box just in case. Maybe I could just stack some of my cast bullet lead supply around them; that might work. Better yet, I'll put only the diodes aside, since they are so much smaller than complete alternators, I could just mix these into a can of lead wheel weights for protection. If you've read this far, please don't think I'm entirely nuts; I really don't seriously think the pulse is likely to take place.

Two that see the least use are in pics, below. One is a 1966 Ford Fairlane sedan that I have mentioned on this board before. The other is a 1972 Ford Custom 500 sedan. They spend most of the time in a shelter so I tend to let them stay there. Cars do like to be driven, however, so I try to take them out once in a while. We had some rare clear (but cold) weather yesterday, so it seemed like a good time to take these two out.





The blue 72 Ford came out first, and ran like a Swiss watch. I took it out and drove it around and into town to do some business, then returned. Next, it was a turn for the 66 Fairlane. I was a little rugged to start, but it hadn't been run in about 6 months. I got it going and out of the shelter and let it stand running in the driveway to warm up. When I went to take to the road, I noticed it would hesitate a bit on accelleration. By the time I had gone about 500 feet down my hill, it had quit running and didn't want to restart. I fooled around with it for a while and decided it had a vacuum leak. After hiking up the hill a couple of times, I pulled the PCV valve and plugged it to get a bit more vacuum. After I did this, I could get it to run, but only at about 2000 rpm; any less and it would die again. With the engine roaring away, I carefully put it in gear, and backed it quickly up the hill, nearly running a neighbor in their ridiculous HUMMER off the road. Back at my place, I got it backed into the shelter and went in the house for my lunch.

After lunch, I went back outside to see if I could get the car fixed. Since this is a base model sedan, there aren't many vacuum-actuated systems on it. There is one line for the auto. trans. modulator valve, and one line for a smog control diaphram (1966 first year for factory smog controls, only in some states, and I bought this car in California). I had checked these lines while down the road, so time to look at something else. I decided to see what the carburetor (remember those?) base plate gaskets looked like. If you have one of those go bad, it will create a massive vacuum leak. I pulled the carb. and looked it over, then took the aluminum spacer for the PVC valve off. Sure enough, the bottom gasket was all wet and looked like it wasn't sealing. This sometimes happens with old cars that sit around; the gasket gets wet with seeping gasoline and hydrocarbon vapors from the PCV system, then when you fire it up, the engine vacuum sucks the soggy gasket material into the intake manifold and burns it up in the air fuel mixture. Anyway, I put a new lower gasket on it, put it back together and now it runs like it did before this all happened. So, you have to run these old cars once in a while just to keep them viable.

nice looking cars gary , sounds like it was fun to get them out

_________________
Mark

Resident of the Northern Republic of Free California

"People should not be afraid of their Government, the Government should be afraid of the people." - V

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" - Ben Franklin

Martin

Here in the US (at least Calif) a car is a car. My 65 Mustang is cheaper to insure, register and no special safety taxes or inspections. There are no requirements to own "and this one bothers me" but you don't have to be a licensed owner or a legal citizen in the US to own a vehicle.

The only issue I have is in CA all trucks of any size have to be registered as a commercial vehicle! Every year on my 1956 Ford 1/2 Ton Pick up I pay about 50% more for the comm aspect of it being a pickup!

Here we pay for a yearly registration fee and that fee has taxes and fee's mixed into one fee. Over here I think larger over the road vehicles (big rigs) pay fees (taxes) per their weight. If we had to pay per weight there would be less old vehicles here due to (yes) our older vehicles weight a bunch. I had a 55 Oldsmobile that left a few years ago that thing weighted a ton

Insurance here if you register the older vehicles is not too bad. My Mustang for full coverage is only 75.00 a year and I think my 1966 Triumph Spitfire is the same. I don't know how much the truck is as its getting a full modernization so it will still look like an old truck (except lower) but has disc brakes with independent suspension all around and it has a modern fuel injection (and supercharged) motor and a 4 speed automatic transmission.

Oh and yes it helps to be some what of a mechanic to work on these but the best part is they are (in my mind) easy to work on and to understand. I would not dare to attempt to work on my wifes Honda!

Oh well I rambled on about this time---BUT I DO LOVE OLD CARS

Here is some of my vehicles since I'm here!!

1956 Ford Pu "big blue" Spitfire is "baby blue" Kids named them!

2002 For Lightning Super charged and FI motor with 4 sp Auto
Independent front suspension
For 9" posi rear with disc breaks. Might change to Jag IRS rear
AC
60/40 bench seat
Still in progress




Oh yeah and a 1929 Ford modal A lives here.

_________________
Mark

Resident of the Northern Republic of Free California

"People should not be afraid of their Government, the Government should be afraid of the people." - V

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" - Ben Franklin

Looking at these pictures I wish I was a mechanic.
I think I would love to work on those old cars......and drive them of course.
I like the 1956 Ford, but somehow I just love the car that is standing next to it.
Is that the 1929 Ford Model A ???????
Man what a fantastic looking car that is.
Thanks for the info Mark and for those fantastic pictures.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

MyBusa:

Does this 1972 Ford look familiar? Note the front number plate.



This is one of my cars, too. This one is a Custom 500 Ranch Wagon. I bought it from the government about 17 years ago. It was with the 62nd Airlift Wing at McChord AFB, Wash. The front number plate shows the original USAF registration number. There is a metal plate riveted to the instrument panel that identifies this as a former government vehicle. This car has the 351 Cleveland V-8 engine. The 72 Fords stayed in the inventory much longer than usual criteria allowed. This was because after 1972, they started to shrink more with every year due to the cost of fuel. In 1973, the gov't bought Chevelle sedans with a nice 350 V-8; no sedans purchased in 1974; Ford Mavericks in 75; Plymouth Valiants 1976; the final insult, Ford Pintos in late 1970's. It takes no imagination to think that General Officers just do not like to squeeze into a Pinto, and it's a severe loss of prestige to ride in such a small car. Therefore, the 72 Fords hung around a long time as gov't vehicles go. Also, the MP's and SP's preferred these to smaller vehicles.

For many years, my dad had a 1956 Ford F-100 pickup similar (even same color) to that one of yours. His wasn't lowered (except for the usual front-end sag on those models), but he had a 1957 Lincoln Continental Mark II 368 cubic inch engine in it. It didn't have the output of the mill that's in yours, but it moved the truck along nicely with those truck ratio gears in back. He had 15 inch Lincoln wheels on it, with 1957 Lincoln Premiere wheel covers. You might could say he had a "Lincoln Pickup." One of many funny stories regarding that truck: When I had just gotten out of the Army, I was helping a friend move with it. We had a load (uncovered, of course) of his stuff on the back, whistling down the freeway, and an end table blew off onto the road. As I was looking in the mirror, I saw a car hit the table and it just exploded into a vapor of sawdust. We laughed about it later, but of course we were young and stupid. People get killed through such incidents.

Dutch Mosin:

The licensing laws in the US vary from state to state, as it is the states that regulate the licensing of motor vehicles. In my state, Washington (not DC, the other Washington) we can obtain a Collector Vehicle license plate for vehicles that are older than 30 years. You pay a fee of around $40 USD one time, then no more fees ever need to be paid. Special, limited use insurance policies are issued for collector vehicles. I have several older cars, and I pay approx. $200 USD per year to cover them with this type of insurance. My cars covered by this policy are:

1940 Ford two door sedan
1966 Ford Fairlane sedan
1971 Ford Custom Ranch Wagon
1972 Ford Custom 500 Ranch Wagon
1972 Ford Custom 500 sedan

The value of the car dictates the price of the policy greatly. The basic insurance is quite low; when you increase coverage based on the value of the car, it shoots right up.

pintos ? , what possible use could the USAF put those to ?

Those are some nice cars that you fellas have, My Busa: What does one of them trucks run someone.?

_________________
GUNS...GUNS...GUNS...GUNS....GUNS...GUNS...GUNS...
GUNS AND GUESS WHAT...................................
MORE GUNS!!!!!!!!



Las armas de ayer

What on earth is wrong with a Ford Pinto and why is it such a problem driving them?
I'd love to have one of these.



Heck, I even think Kaintuck wouldn't mind driving a.....Pinto.





Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

guess i gotta agree , wonder what that accessory costs ya ?

gschwertley

Oh boy does that rings a bell!! Thats the twin of the one we had except it was a 4 door sedan. How in the world did you manage to get the AF plates and if you have a source let me know my garage needs one on the wall

Pintos Was not a fan of them and I'm a ford nut! The only little econo car that worked for me as a recipient for a v-8 swap was the Chevy Vega or the lesser known Capri with a 302.

My F100 started out 17 years ago as a restored 6 banger 4 sp truck. I used it in my cabinet making days and when the tranny blew I lined up a 429 and a c-6. I installed everything along with the independent front end and-------changed my mind like a dummy and decided to go all modern on it.

I have a friend who had a Ford lighting and when I realized the power he had and decent gas mileage he was getting with the mod motor all ideas changed to where I'm at now. The problem is I decided to restore the 66 Spitfire thinking "it's small wont take long" wrong it had alot of hidden body damage that has now been correctly fixed.

Stick with those old Fords we can work on them and find most parts new and used!!

_________________
Mark

Resident of the Northern Republic of Free California

"People should not be afraid of their Government, the Government should be afraid of the people." - V

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" - Ben Franklin

I think I was saying on another post somewhere that I can do just about all I need to on one of my old Fords, including auto. trans. and setting up the differential, even pretty close alignments without the rack. After repairing 1960's-early 1970's Fords part-time for 30 years, I've gotten pretty good at it, but of course like just about everything else I know, the knowledge is all obsolete.

The USAF registration plate on my wagon is a contrivance. So far as I know, they did not use a front license plate like this originally. Typically, these Fords were delivered with body side decalomania that said "US AIR FORCE" and the USAF registration number below that. On the wagons, it had this information on the tailgate from the factory. Typically from what I've seen, the license plate area was occupied with organizational ID information on the back, and perhaps nothing on the front. My 72 wagon didn't have a front license plate bracket on it, for example. I made the USAF plate that is on the front of my car for display purposes mostly, but since Washington only issues one Collector Vehicle plate (for the rear), I leave the bogus USAF on the front all the time.

USAF vehicle registration numbers are formulated just like aircraft registration (tail) numbers. The first two digits are the year of acquisition, followed by a serial registration number. In wartime, these numbers get quite high. The number for my wagon is 72B 3613, and that's the number that is stamped on the dash plate along with the factory VIN.

My interest in the 71-72 Fords came about from my own military experience. After I was on active duty, I worked as a technician in the CAL ARNG and we had a number of these cars at the division HQ where I worked. I was the guy who "rode herd" on these and other admin. use vehicles, so I got to drive the Fords quite a bit. I liked them from the get-go, but couldn't afford to buy one in 1975. I didn't get my own until 1990 and almost waited too long. This are a big, comfortable road car with adequate power, plus easy to work on, being very conventional.

The US Army version of this car was similar to the USAF, only olive green in color with black upholstery. They had the US ARMY and USA number decalomania on the body sides (a provision of the GSA special order contract), plus the same information on reflective ID ("license") plates front and rear which were locally made by the Guard state maintenance people. When I get a chance, I'll post a few pictures of the Army version.