Project Cars--You Get to Vote on "Hold 'em or Fold 'em"

texases

Great picture after great picture, then WHAT? A huge subwoofer in the trunk??

Mr_Shiftright

Ohhh 230S....bad model for Benz. They love to eat valves.

texases

Good to know, any idea why? I'd a thought MB would have had that figured out by then...?

Mr_Shiftright

Something about the valve stem rotating, as I recall. I suppose by this time all the ones that were going to burn up have done so. That era of Benz always required meticulous attention to valve adjustment, which many American owners had no experience with.

Mr_Shiftright

Here's a project:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271979658730?rmvSB=true

I'm not seein' any upside on this one, but maybe I'm just not seein' it.

berri

Could you even get many parts? Didn't make a lot of them.

Mr_Shiftright

Lots of scrounging required I'd guess, especially trim pieces.

isellhondas

Mr_Shiftright said:

Something about the valve stem rotating, as I recall. I suppose by this time all the ones that were going to burn up have done so. That era of Benz always required meticulous attention to valve adjustment, which many American owners had no experience with.

When I had one of my VW beetles I bought the book How to Keep your Volkswagen Alive and it stressed the need for 3000 mile valve adjustments so every 3000 miles I would lie on my back and check the valve clearance. I don't think there was EVER a time I found a tight or loose valve. Still, I did it.

stever

I had Mr. Muir's book. I reset the valve clearance with my feeler gauge regularly too, seems like a gap would be a bit too wide occasionally iirc.

Also carried a box of wooden matches in the glove box so I could fix the centrifugal distributor and keep the brushes pressed in.

jpp75

qbrozen said:

Driving back from getting coffee this morn and this grabbed my attention so I pulled in and took a closer look. I had to look up the price online. Oddly, it is priced lower than I thought it would be given some of his other stuff, but still high, no?

what say you?
http://platinummotorsnj.com/mobile/VehicleDetail.aspx?InventoryId=5965893&Guid=e8d8ba58-e3a4-4b24-ad59-1e88dae15833

A random question some of you can probably answer, on older cars such as this (before A/C was common) I often see the climate control have a position for De-Fog and a separate one for De-Ice. What's the difference between the 2 settings?

jpp75

fintail said:

Took the old car out for a spin today - started right up and ran fine. It's so consistently reliable for something of its age - I must be driving it just enough to keep things going. Honked at a couple slowpokes - something about this weekend here has people really crawling. Fun moment was when I parked at a store and came out, a guy was taking pics of his kids in front of it, the boy seemed very impressed with the car. Crossroads area, Indian family who looked like recent arrivals (in a Camry I think, of course) - the father said "thank you" to me when I walked up to the car.

Remind me, what year is the old car?

fintail

I think all of the old small I6s need valve adjustments by the book, or they go. My car will eventually need the work.

Mr_Shiftright said:

Ohhh 230S....bad model for Benz. They love to eat valves.

fintail

My car is a 1964, late run for a 220SE, so I get dual circuit discs and the 4 speed in-house automatic.

jpp5862 said:

Remind me, what year is the old car?

andre1969

jpp5862 said:

A random question some of you can probably answer, on older cars such as this (before A/C was common) I often see the climate control have a position for De-Fog and a separate one for De-Ice. What's the difference between the 2 settings?

Back in the days before electric rear window defrosters were common (the little wire grids in the window), some cars had a blower motor back there to clear the window, that acted similar to the vents up front. I wonder if "De-Ice" might have been for the windshield, and "De-Fog" could have been for the rear window? You have me curious though. Next time I'm at an old car show, I'll try to ask an owner if I see a car like that.

I think my '69 Bonneville had a rear blower, but I'm not sure anymore.

ab348

When I bought my Cutlass, it had a rear defogger in the parcel shelf. I always thought it was aftermarket, but when I replaced the shelf a few years later I removed it and discovered it was a GM piece - the dealer must have installed it because the switch was a fairly crude installation under the dash. It never did very much good. It just blew air on the glass without heating it so any really heavy fogging would take a long time to remove. I didn't re-install it.

isellhondas

I once owned a 1965 Riviera that might have had every available option at the time. It too had that rear defogger
that blew air. I don't know if it heated the air because I never once used it. this was in Southern California.

A fellow Riviera owner who was REALLY into Rivs said he had never seen another one with it and that people
only ordered them in areas that got cold. Come to think of it, I don't know that I ever used the heater.

bhill2

I owned a '69 Volvo that blew heated air back there. Worked pretty well but that was Seattle so it got to de-fog a lot, but de-ice not so much.

I will take a guess on th de-fog and de-ice settings on the climate control system. I think the de-fog split the heated air between the windshield outlets and the cabin so that the passengers had heat too. The de-ice sent everything to the windshield and the passengers shivered

fintail

When I was a kid, a relative had a 69-70 Ford full size lower line sedan (a Galaxie or Custom, I forget). It was an old car then in the late 80s, but in nice condition. I remember it had a rear window defroster that I think was aftermarket - it was like metal wires similar to a modern defroster, but a bit smaller than the size of the rear window, thicker metal than modern units, and stuck to the inside of the rear glass.

Mr_Shiftright

These Are Nifty Cars But Is There An Upside?

sda

ab348 said:

When I bought my Cutlass, it had a rear defogger in the parcel shelf. I always thought it was aftermarket, but when I replaced the shelf a few years later I removed it and discovered it was a GM piece - the dealer must have installed it because the switch was a fairly crude installation under the dash. It never did very much good. It just blew air on the glass without heating it so any really heavy fogging would take a long time to remove. I didn't re-install it.

My grandmother's 68 Cutlass S had the factory rear window defogger. It was indeed a fan that blew against the rear glass. I believe it had two speeds. I do remember it was noisy and not very effective. It was controlled by a rocker type switch mounted high on the dash near the a/c controls and radio, under the ledge there. My grandmother special ordered her Cutlass from the factory in the color and equipment that she wanted. She was around 50 at the time and widowed. It was a 2 door hard top, light metallic blue, almost silver, with the oyster and black interior. Bench seat, full wheel covers, tinted glass, am radio, rear defogger, a/c, ps, pb, 350 2bbl, Jetaway transmission. It was a handsome car. Her mom complained when she finally took delivery that my grandmother should have ordered it in red--as that would be considered 'sporty' and attractive to prospective men. My grandmother dated once or twice and never more.

sda

isellhondas said:

The least desirable Z's were the one year only 1974 260's especially the 2+2's. The techs hated working on them. Very tricky carburators for one thing.

I agree. Back in the early 80's, one of the women I worked with had a medium metallic green, black interior, 74 260Z 2+2. It had about 100K on it. I was asked to drive it when she and her husband were moving and needed to drive the U-Haul truck and their other vehicle to their new home. I was given extensive instructions on not to jump on the gas as it would stall and flood out. Also the auto trans was starting to slur shifts, so another reason to drive gingerly. The a/c was shot and it had rust and suspension issues. A real dog. Yet, she loved it and would not even consider getting rid of it.

isellhondas

Mr_Shiftright said:

These Are Nifty Cars But Is There An Upside?

No upside I can see because of the rust.

Mr_Shiftright

Probably the worst thing that you can do---buy a car with extensive rust.

andre1969

That Cutlass sounds like a really nice car as it was, but then I've always been a sucker for those light, silvery blues and greens.

ab348

sda said:

My grandmother's 68 Cutlass S had the factory rear window defogger. It was indeed a fan that blew against the rear glass. I believe it had two speeds. I do remember it was noisy and not very effective. It was controlled by a rocker type switch mounted high on the dash near the a/c controls and radio, under the ledge there. My grandmother special ordered her Cutlass from the factory in the color and equipment that she wanted. She was around 50 at the time and widowed. It was a 2 door hard top, light metallic blue, almost silver, with the oyster and black interior. Bench seat, full wheel covers, tinted glass, am radio, rear defogger, a/c, ps, pb, 350 2bbl, Jetaway transmission. It was a handsome car. Her mom complained when she finally took delivery that my grandmother should have ordered it in red--as that would be considered 'sporty' and attractive to prospective men. My grandmother dated once or twice and never more.

Her car was not very different from mine. You could order a lot of options on them but I suspect very few had many of the trick things like power trunk, locks, or windows. Mine was equipped similarly when I first bought it except for the A/C. Mine had/has a black interior and if it was white like hers I would have kept the original turquoise paint, but I didn't like it with the black inside, so it is now that "sporty" red.

jpp75

fintail said:

My car is a 1964, late run for a 220SE, so I get dual circuit discs and the 4 speed in-house automatic.

Nice, I'm sure both of those make it a better driver. Such a great car.

jpp75

andre1969 said:

Back in the days before electric rear window defrosters were common (the little wire grids in the window), some cars had a blower motor back there to clear the window, that acted similar to the vents up front. I wonder if "De-Ice" might have been for the windshield, and "De-Fog" could have been for the rear window? You have me curious though. Next time I'm at an old car show, I'll try to ask an owner if I see a car like that.

I think my '69 Bonneville had a rear blower, but I'm not sure anymore.

Thanks, curious to see what they say, all the responses here line up with what I've thought but never could confirm. We never had a car with the blower in the back window, but it doesn't surprise me that they weren't very effective.

js06gv

My parents' 1976 Caprice Classic Landau had the factory blower type rear defogger. I'm pretty sure it had two speeds. It was the first car I remember us owning that had any kind of rear defrost/defog. We got the car in '79, by which time the more common setup was the wire grids in the back glass, so I guess that even though the car was only 3 years old the defog setup was already a relic. 

This was in NY, and I know that rear defrost is mandatory on new cars now, but not sure when that was put in place. I've lived in TX for the past 32 years, and it always surprised me over the years to see the number of cars that didn't have the rear defrost option when it wasn't standard, I guess because it wasn't a priority option in TX. I'm talking about nice cars too, Cadillacs (hard to believe it would be an option in the 80s/90s but it was) and others. Our '83 Electra Estate Wagon didn't have one either, but our neighbors had the same car slightly better equipped, and theirs had it. 

fintail

I can believe the rear defrost being uncommon. Here in WA, it is uncommon to find a car sold new here before 1975-80 with AC, unless it was a fancier car when new.

berri

I don't recall a lot of them in the Chicago area either. I don't think it was that expensive of an option like the electric rear window ones were - but IIRC they generally were slow and really just blew a somewhat small area clear. In the Midwest you need the electric one!

Mr_Shiftright

Have the Only One on Your Block--or Maybe Your Country

texases

Mr_Shiftright said:

Have the Only One on Your Block--or Maybe Your Country

Would make for a good Bob Newhart telephone comedy skit - "Hello, Autozone, I need a fanbelt for a Toyota Tiara...no, it's not a Crown, that's a different one.."

andre1969

It's actually kinda cute, in an oddball sort of way. Here's a pic of what one looks like in nice shape:


I see that Toyota learned a few bad habits from Ford, with those drop-in gas tanks. Unless Toyota did it first and Ford learned it from them?

Mr_Shiftright

Good luck finding those back-up lenses and trim bits.

isellhondas

Wow, it's had 15 bids and it's hit 900.00! Shocking to me anyway.

berri

I dunno, aren't early Japanese vehicles kind of a current thing in California right now? Japanese art deco???

bhill2

andre1969 said:

It's actually kinda cute, in an oddball sort of way. Here's a pic of what one looks like in nice shape:


I see that Toyota learned a few bad habits from Ford, with those drop-in gas tanks. Unless Toyota did it first and Ford learned it from them?

Am I right that these were sold in this country under the nameplate 'Toyopet' rather than 'Toyota'?

ab348

bhill2 said:

Am I right that these were sold in this country under the nameplate 'Toyopet' rather than 'Toyota'?

Tht's correct. If you Google "Toyopet Tiara" you find some interesting things, including a presentation from Toyota on the early history of their imports to the USA. They describe this car as having numerous inadequacies for this market.

Mr_Shiftright

As the story goes, the first Toyopets coming into this country were rather unattractive and not quite up to American highway speed levels or comfort levels. The American dealers who handled them couldn't sell them, so they used them as personal vehicles, shop vehicles, or lent them to customers. Thing is, it was discovered that despite all their inadequacies, they were incredibly tough and difficult to kill. Finally Toyota and Datsun sorted things out around 1968, giving us the 510 and the Corona, which were pretty nice cars for the money, fairly attractive and good performers. Of course they were not as lavish or well-equipped as American "boats" but people starting buying them. Compared to a VW bug they were from another galaxy. The rest is history.

explorerx4

Hold'em or Fold'em? This one is a tough decision.
hartford.craigslist.org/cto/5220833943.html

xwesx

explorerx4 said:

Hold'em or Fold'em? This one is a tough decision.
hartford.craigslist.org/cto/5220833943.html

LOL That isn't far off the mark!

uplanderguy

Maybe not in CA, but in the northeast, early Japanese cars were rusters that would live up to early Vegas!

Toyota got the last laugh, but a friend of mine's Dad and uncle were Ford dealers in Illinois in the mid-sixties (can't recall the city now, but it wasn't a real big one). One day the Toyota road man came to show the brothers a Toyota and see if they were interested in selling them. My friend's Dad called his uncle out front. The uncle was a veteran of the Pacific theater. He walked around the car and said "Now what makes you think we'd want to handle a POS like that?". LOL

Mr_Shiftright

Too bad. He could have become a rich man.

berri

IIRC there is a Japanese, I think Toyota, old car museum somewhere in the LA area. But I can't recall the town or name right now. It's probably more like a collection than a museum. Might have seen something about it a few years ago in a WSJ article?

berri

Found it: http://www.toyotausamuseum.com/ in Torrence

andre1969

Mr_Shiftright said:

As the story goes, the first Toyopets coming into this country were rather unattractive and not quite up to American highway speed levels or comfort levels. The American dealers who handled them couldn't sell them, so they used them as personal vehicles, shop vehicles, or lent them to customers. Thing is, it was discovered that despite all their inadequacies, they were incredibly tough and difficult to kill. Finally Toyota and Datsun sorted things out around 1968, giving us the 510 and the Corona, which were pretty nice cars for the money, fairly attractive and good performers. Of course they were not as lavish or well-equipped as American "boats" but people starting buying them. Compared to a VW bug they were from another galaxy. The rest is history.

Toyopet Crown was introduced here in the US in 1958, in a recession year. It base priced at around $2100-2200, a subcompact that was priced on par with an entry level standard-sized Chevy, Ford, or Plymouth. It did the quarter mile quicker than it did 0-60. It was heavy for its size though, about 2700 lb, for a car on a ~99" wb and only around 169" long overall, so it was probably pretty sturdy. In contrast, I'd imagine a Rambler American was the cheapest, smallest domestic on the market in '58. It was on a 100" wb, about 178" long, had a base weight of around 2450 lb, and a base price of $1789. The American, however, was only offered initially as a 2-door, whereas the Toyopet had the versatility of a 4-door. What little demand there was for the Crown was probably seriously crimped in 1959 when Studebaker's new compact cars gave it some new life, and the final knife in the back was most likely 1960, when GM, Ford, and Chrysler all jumped into the compact field with cars that were cheaper, larger, faster, and more suited to US tastes than the Crown.

How much would a VW Bug have cost in 1958? I've heard that by the late 60's they were around $1600.

Mr_Shiftright

Competition was fierce during the "compact wars" starting in '59. The Renault Dauphine actually outsold the VW bug for a few months, in 1960 I think it was. Somewhere around there. Only the VW really had the stamina to fight off the Detroit products...probably due much more to the service and parts network than the car itself. Renault, Toyota, Fiat, just couldn't cut it, and British compact cars were as usual, problematic. Probably the one company that snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory was Renault. They lost a golden opportunity.

Of the American compacts, I always thought that initially, the Valiant was a better car than the Falcon or Corvair or Lark or Rambler. The Slant 6 and Torqueflite transmission were very tough, very good components. Styling? Well, other compacts were more attractive.

uplanderguy

A couple things unique to the Lark in '60, compared to the other compacts, was convertible and 4-door station wagon body styles, as well as the availability of a V8. Of course, that all changed with the Big Three one short year later.

I like the later, slightly-larger Larks better, but I do like the '60 in a convertible.

My Studebaker dealer friend said he had to hire a salesman in '59--he couldn't handle it all himself anymore. The company made the biggest profit in its 107-year history that year, and after 1960, never made a profit again. 1962 saw an uptick of sales, exceeding 100K cars, but the strike where the president came to blows with an assembly line worker ruined any profit that might have been made.

My dealer friend was approached by a Mopar road man to pick up the Dodge franchise, which went away in our town in '61. He went to the dealer introduction in Detroit for the '62 Dodges. When asked what he thought, he replied, "Those look worse than Studebakers". LOL--an opportunity lost. He and his Dad sold Studebakers from '26 to '66, Packards from '41 to '50, then '55 to '58, and M-B from '58-64. He added Simca and Sunbeam around '64 as well and of course sold used cars. This in a town of under 10K people, not a suburb either.

stever

I remember Bugs running just under $2,000 in the late 60s.

When my Dad's Valiant threw a rod, he got a Falcon. He happened to break down in front of a Ford dealer at 6 am going fishing and had to wait for the dealer to open to buy it. Then he had to wait for his bank to open since they didn't think the bum had any money and wouldn't take his check.

uplanderguy

I remember Rambler Americans being advertised in the middle-or-later sixties for something like $1,789.00. Bland? Yes, but what an apparently good value.