The View on "Vintage" Before 1988

Wnat a great story, @Dagenham! Thanks for sharing.

my next door neighbor , says paint is finished , but long way to go!

.
ron

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I did much work on E Types then, but no one I knew cared to do “full restorations:” that’s partly because the nice ones were kept nice, and their then-value didn’t generally support the notion of doing such.

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Mine had two hefty issues:

(1) It was an east coast car, so there was surface rust at four years of age in 1971, when I acquired it. (It was a hobby car for my dad and me, and we waited for a “cheap” one to appear on the used market.)

(2) It had a teenage hobbyist as a caretaker (me). I scorched the pistons due to hot running and, on the advice of another teenage expert, ran straight 40 weight oil in 'er to keep the pressure up due to what turned out to be a cracked oil pump. That 40 weight worked great until the weather went below zero in Colorado Springs, CO one early winter morning. On startup, I popped every seal. I lost what looked to be a quart of oil every time I parked with the engine off! Geez…

Changing the brake pads and greasing 'er up before heading back to college. You can see the tool roll at bottom left, and grease gun at right.

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I was doing the same thing with my Cosworth Vega back in '83. One morning in the teens in Dallas it did not want to start and then would barely run. Oil was so thick that it jumped a tooth on the cam belt but did not do any damage. I switched to 20-50 in it after the engine rebuild a few years later.

David
68 E-type FHC

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I bought my '64 OTS in HS in '74 for $500.00 with a spare engine and trans. — Times change.

I look at it this way. If car values hadn’t risen we wouldn’t have the budget to fix them which would mean the aftermarket parts industry wouldn’t have flourished. I was quite happy to buy a restorable XK120 knowing that the parts I need will be waiting for me in a warehouse.

When prices fall that industry goes away. So does my hobby.

Pay a little extra, get a little extra.

Have you seen the cost of a good set of golf clubs?

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Why on earth would I do that? Even if I was of a golfing inclination, there is only just enough room in the back of an E for a few golf balls. And that’s to say nothing about the driving time I’d waste chasing one (or more) of those same balls around an artificial facsimile of the countryside.

(Runs and hides from golf club wielding Jag-Lovers!):stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Then there is the cost of all those little life jackets. :grin:

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That’s why you would own a 1935 Auburn Speedster: it had a golf bag door.

You can see it, just in front of the right rear fender: this is a fakey doo speedster, but, you get the idea!

image

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So did the Kissel and many other cars of the day

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poor people were not even allowed in some country clubs/ golf!
we have one of those type clubs close by, $5000. a yr?
ron

Question; how many on this site actually remember Pearl Harbor live?

I can see the factory jack hard at work on the right too, but I’m not seeing the jack stand. I’m sure it’s there, right? Do you still have both of those pegs? :laughing:

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I noticed that too however the jack can be barely seen under the front door. Maybe the stand is what is next to his knee
Hope there is a piece of wood or similar between it and the …ground.

Live? I do. Was there just about 18 months ago and again 2 months ago. :blush:

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Which just proves that sentence structure is so important.

:grin:

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DUH i mean Dec 7th 1941!
i was 7yrs old , and remember my DAD arms a flyin, and hollerin about some thing bad!

5 yrs later USA said we only lost just 600,000 men, simple huh! WW2.
ron

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WIGS you are correct!
ron

Mark;
I think the thing that might be a jack stand is actually the lower ball joint. No other visible support. Most of us did these type of things when ‘young and dumb’. Most of us by the ‘Grace of God’ lived to talk about it.

Regards, Joel.

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Good eye! Yes, I used all the tools available to a poor college student. And there I am changing brake pads and grreasing the chassis in my bare feet. As a buddy of mine says, “everything was better then. Everything is worse now.”

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