Yes..I know I missed a week. But here is what I missed sharing
4/28 – Ferruccio Lambroghini born in Italy 1916
4/29 Ford makes it 50th millionth car in 1959
Here a big one 5/1 American Motors was formed 1954 – The merger of Hudson Motor Company and Nash-Kelvinator – bring us the great muscle cars – the AMX and Javelin (my favorite – I was introduced to Javelin in high school, when a girl friend’s father get her one as her first car.)
5/2 Chevy becomes part of GM – 1918.
5/3 Willys Jeepseter phaeton hits the market in 1948
1948 Jeepster
5/3 The Gold Packard’s we given to dealers as part of Packard’s 50th Anniversary 1949 – 2000 were produced.
Golden Packard 1949
5/4 Milestone in car racing, the first (24 Heures du Mans) 24 Le Mans race was held in France, in the town of ….wait for it…… Le Mans
5/6 De Soto is released to the public – 1928 – by Chrysler.
1928 De Soto
Chrysler didn’t stop there…the next day in 1928 they bought Dodge!!!
One of my favorite things are abandoned cars. Every year I get the Hemming calendar of abandoned vehicles and look forward to various car publications that have a section where they highlight these photos.
One of my fondest memories growing up was playing across the road from where we lived with an old Plymouth, 1950’s vintage that was left in the field. I remember my dad saying after I asked him if it would run, that it needed a carburetor. My brother and I tried to fashion one out of can and some metal fins from an old ice tray. This was back in the late 60’s, we were pretty young.
Out here in the southwest you use to be able to see them all the time. The desert really knew how to tear down a car. As late as the mid 90’s you could still find them along the side of the road of major highways and if you dared to head out in to the mountains of southern Arizona, trek up the nearly impassable mining roads you’d find them. There would be anything from the 1930 to late 1950. Some would be sitting right beside the road or a mine and many could be down the mountain a ways, not a road in sight. When they died the owners left ’em where they fell. But often, since the road was so narrow, they would push them off the side and down the mountain.
During the mid 1980’s and early 1990’s I spend some time in the mountain, looking for ghost mining towns and generally in join the trips with relatives. You would find abandoned car dotting the dirt roads that wound up and down the canyons. Somewhere in the mid 1990’s the Forestry Department started fencing off the old abandoned mines and as part of a plan to allow the areas to return to their natural state, blocking off the mountain roads to make impassible to all but the most daring 4 wheelers. eeeerrrkkkkk….I’ve been places in a 1970 Monte Carlo that some folks with 4 wheel drive won’t go. Part of that initiative was to haul out the old wrecks that had been there for decades. So a lot of them are gone.
I recently began look for abandoned cars as a hobby and photograph them. So I thought maybe some of my readers might what to join in and catalog the wrecks and their locations and well as photographs.
Then I thought, maybe a contest would be fun. So I’m looking for the readership to email me photos of abandoned car that you run across. Of course there are some rules.
What qualifies as an abandoned car? I’m going to be pretty liberal here and we’ll extend the criteria to include neglected backyard finds as well. It has to appear to be pretty much untouched and neglected.
Two more rules:
You have to provide a general location and it has to be an original photo, not snagged from the internet.
Here is one example.
The house in the photo had been empty for some time according to the locals in Tombstone, Az. These three cars were in the back yard covered with weeds, trees and debris.
This a 1950's Chevy pick up. I wasn't allowed to get any closer.
Next in the same yard was this:
Chevy Monte Carlo
And this Ford coupe:
Ford Coupe
I’ve one more good one..but I’ll save that for later.
For the first two individuals writing in with a good photo of an abandoned or neglected car, I have a DVD from the Hot Rod Magazine Library “Dream-Build-Drive” collection.
You can email it to me (timsweet@cox.net) or post to my Facebook page (look me up: Tim Sweet).
So let’s get to my runs. As I mentioned, there were 2 sets of runs, one for time and points and one for just time. Each was five trips on the course.
One thing they have you do is of course walk the track which is to get you someone familiar with the corners. I walked it twice. Once on my own and once with the novice “coach”.
This is my second auto cross. If you’ve been a constant reader you might recall that was on Jan 25 2010 and it was mainly corvettes. We rented the area and set up our course. I did fairly well there for my first time. But this course was different. A lot tighter corners in a row and two sets of very tight slalom. Nothing a vette couldn’t handle with the proper speed and a good surface..this was not a good surface, however.
My first run was a darn right awful. I look like some crazed speed demon with a severe hatred for orange cones. I over drove every tight corner. My second run wasn’t much better, I didn’t even hit the first corner and then a took a cone for a ride under the vette.
So now I feeling like a knucklehead. I had the oldest car there and maybe the one with the most torque, but certainly not the most horse power. My third run was better and I took along one of the novice coaches but I still had a CD (course deviation) on the backside by missing the second slalom set of cones. I dropped off the novice coach and my 4th and fifth runs were clean as far as CD’s go but I still got a cone on each run.
So here is how it end up in the first set of 5 runs.
My next runs were much better. I did have on CD and I did get a cone, but the times were getting better. The 5th run below I took a cone and spun on the back side of the course.
1. 51.643
2. 53.146
3. 52.622
4. 51.645
5. 54.188
So I ended the day with the following times and points.
PAX Time Points
46.260 753
43.575 796
PAX time is like a handicap in golf, it takes the class of your car and the skill level reduces your time to keep you somewhat competitive.
Not bad for my first real “formal” event.
By the end of the I was worn out. That is a lot of driving, in the heat (ok..only 88 degree..little hotter on the course).
The vette performed perfectly, no over heating issues (one of my biggest fears) and nothing broken, did have to rub out a few cone marks….but I showed them whose boss!!!!
You’ll notice a lack of pic or vids on this one, didn’t have my son along as a camera man, and when I wasn’t running they put you to work resetting cones.
So the other cost I mentioned will be in the area of tires.
In this event I just ran with my street tires 255/50 ZR 16 BFG GForce Sport and stock rims (only chrome). There was a lot of tire spinning and some smoking. The surface of the track was…well lets just say less the optimun..ok…fine…it was horrible. (You could toss in a few cuss words in front of horrible and you wouldn’t be over dramatizing.) It was black top, cracked, uneven and there was grass and weeds growing on the far end. The tires looked rough when I finished the 10 runs. Too many more events (this was the second auto cross on these tires) and I think I’d have to replace them.
So that really means that to protect the street tires and the chrome rims, I really ought to have an other set of tires and rims. Now you are talking money that many of us average guys aren’t going to spring for. This is true for vette owners..tires are not cheap for the older vettes. Not so for my co-worker running his Civic, they are reasonable.
Take my C4 the tires and the Wheels are uni-directional. Not unusual for tires, but my 1984 C4 rims only go one way and are labeled left front, right front and the same for the rear. I do have the original set of rims that I will eventually restore to the factory aluminum and clear coat, but right now they would for auto crossing. But the rubber can run upwards of $700.00 and if I put racing rubber on it, according to SCCA rules it will change my class.
The last cost is the “I broke it cost.” They could be just about anything on a car that’s racing. Anything mechanical, brakes (oh..they will wear out a lot faster in auto cross…or at least the way I do it!!!!), undercarriage, right down to the dreaded “cone damage”. (yeah…yeah….I know you aren’t suppose to hit them…I know the object of the race..but man did I kill some of them ‘good’..no doubt!!!) I did no damage to the vette but I did see a Evo that took out a portion of his front air dam.
In fact the vette performed flawlessly, only problem was the driver. I’ll get to that next blog. You’ll laugh and I’ll give you my times and points and we’ll talk about PAX times and classes.
The name of my blog includes “racing”. This isn’t meant to be watching on TV and reporting back, it’s meant to be my events. My blog title also includes “Average” and includes budget as well. (You might as well include ‘time’, as in average amount of time to spend on the hobby.)
I just finished running a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) event. It was a blast!! I’ll get to my times in a bit, but first, let’s talk about cost of this particular event.
Straight up to join SCCA there is the yearly fee for the national membership and there is the fee for your regional membership. Total cost here was $80.00. Now the events are not free. In my regional club which run events in the Tucson areas and Phoenix as well, they have to offerings. They have a round for points and time and they have the time only round. There are separate prices for each.
Today when I showed up (you can pre register and save ..I think…$10.00) filled out all the paper work and went to pay. The fellow taking the money asked if I wanted “time only” and I’m thinking…do I only want to be timed…so I said “No.” and he said “That will be $30.00.” So I paid.
Now I have co-worker who talked me into joining SCCA and he attends regular events at the local drag strip – the auto cross is held in the huge drag pit/parking area. He cleared up my misunderstanding and said if I wanted the “full” experience I need to go back and say yes I wanted the ‘time-only’ round as well. That cost me another $10.00.
So putting this together we are at 120 big ones this month to race. Not too bad, I’d have to say.
There are more costs and I’ll get to that in next portion of this subject.
I replaced all the fuel lines and brake lines on my 65 a few years ago, and I used this flaring tool and the thread seal that comes in a tube. I have never had a leak, and I have never used the teflon tape. You don’t need a real expensive flaring tool to work on these old Mustangs.
I’ve worked on the gas delivery systems in my Vettes and Mustangs. This always involves removing gas lines from the carb or throttle bodies and of course the possibility of leaks after re-installing them. One of the last things you want is gas leaking here and there in your engine bay..NOT GOOD!
I’ve always use teflon tape to wrap the threads.
Teflon Tape on one of the Corvette’s fuel lines.
This helps seal the connection, and sometimes with older cars you need that was the threads aren’t bad enough to replace….errk…Getting new fittings and flaring the gas lines is sometimes necessary and can be a pain..but if threads are really worn, take the time to do that. Yes..I know cutting the lines and get correct type hose and some clamps you’ll be fine…but it won’t look as good and since both of my car are trophy winners at car shows, I try to keep them looking professional.
Using the tape does have a of couple drawbacks. It can form a lip around the gas line opening, partially blocking the flow. Additionally, pieces can tear off during installation and get into the system. So some companies offer a thread sealer in a tube, which is made of Teflon in paste form. I’m using that next time I have to go into the fuel systems. I know that Permatex makes some (what don’t those people make!?!?!!?!). They call it thread sealant and it comes in different “models” like High Performance and High Temperature.
