Antique & Classic Cars Blog

The New Old Stock U-Joint that will spin behind my 1963 Buick Special transmission was in pretty good shape, except for some surface rust. And it’s NOS!–genuine vintage!–which means it was an irresistible purchase.

Too bad I popped the caps off. While this exposed the contact surfaces to a rust inspection–none there–it also set curiosity in motion. I slid off one of the cork grease seals and gave it a little squeeze to see how it was holding up. Answer: pretty poorly. Now.

But every problem is an opportunity. There must be modern replacements for these I can slide right in. In the meantime, let’s try lining up the broken pieces and gluing them with a cement suitable for cork.

Stupid? Yes. But dumb? Possibly.

More to come….

To go with the utterly incredibly rare and much loved Borg Warner T10 4-speed transmission a Fountain City, WI, wrecking yard handed over for $110, I sourced this 1963 Buick Skylark/Special U-joint on eBay for under $20, including shipping.

It has some surface rust on the caps–outsides only so not too relevant–which seemed like a good opportunity to test an old theory: does white vinegar remove rust? On the insides of my TR6 fuel tank after sitting a few years, the answer was yes, but I think I also added salt then, which I did not do here.

In response to whether white vinegar alone gets the job done, we must say…not so much. It clearly loosened up some of it, which wiped right off, but the thicker stuff was undeterred. We’ll try again in the future with some other rusty piece and a measure of salt.

And if you think that surface to the left in the top photo, on which those greasy car parts are sitting, looks like a granite kitchen countertop, why that’s just– “Oh my gosh, look! Over there! Isn’t that a Supercharged Model J Duesenberg?! Look!!”

MAN WITH WRENCH runs off stage left.

With a self-imposed deadline of June ‘08 for finishing the, uh, leisurely V8-in-a-TR6 project, something needs to happen each week. The present task was to prepare the front turn signals and side marker lights. I thought this would involve cleaning them up a bit and installing new lenses–the old ones were crazed or cracked or both.

Digging back into the turn-signals box (each removed part was placed in a marked container) I discovered (remembered? re-discovered?) that the lens mounting holes on one light fixture were, well, gone. The car had been in a front end accident sometime before I got it and relatively well fixed. But the pot-metal light housing on that side must have cracked at its lens mounting screws. When I went to remove the lens to remove the fixture, they fell right off.

First conclusion was junk, replace. This was because the mounting holes were not just anchors: they also were stops that the screws would pull the lens down to and no further–allowing the lens to seat snug and watertight but not be pulled so far that it would crack. In other words, they have to be at the exact right height and angle. Even if fixing the pot metal housing were possible, how would one get the fix so precise?

But the holidays are a leisurely time with opportunity for scheming about car stuff. Threaded spacers, available at the local hardware store 100 yards from my house, look an awful lot like the original mounting points. What if I took some leftover JB Weld and mounted a pair in the holes at the right height and angle? I could put the mounting screws through the lens from the opposite side to hold them in exactly the right spot as I “welded” them. Hey, stores were closed anyway–why not give it a try?

First job was to cut some grooves in the aluminum spacers so the JB Weld could get a good purchase. (2 photos up)

Next, hold the spacers in place with the mounting screws. (3 photos up)

Then, put one blob of JB Weld on the spacer, flaring out the top to form a flange for the lens housing to sit on. Then set the housing in place, put another blob of “weld” on the back side and squeeze it into place to fill the holes and secure the new mounting points. A little wax paper taped to the inner lens ensured the JB Weld didn’t get greedy and grab more than the spacer.

Welded fixture was left upright on a piece of wood for about an hour (label says the JB Weld hardens in 20 minutes but I had time).

Result: not bad. A little silver paint completed the fix and the new lenses both screwed down snug and in place. Moss Motors lists the turn signal housing as not available, so this fix was definitely worth it. The spacers and screws cost about a dollar. The amount of JB Weld involved couldn’t have been much more. Just how strong this product is I can’t say, but holding a plastic lens in place will not test its limits. Only one who will know this isn’t an unrestored, perfect lens housing is me. And, uh, all of you.

Our cat, Dean, wasn’t directly involved in the repair but since he must get himself into most everything that happens, he was present and generally in the way–but happy. He struck this angelic pose on the 25th–a complete ruse.

Jim Northrup sends in this gorgeous ‘64 Vette drop-top to remind us what the term “hit the jackpot” can really mean. His wife Patricia won this car at Black Bear Casino. Turning a roll of quarters into a cupful has never held much allure for me, but turning anything–including another car–into a classic Vette is very appealing indeed.

Since the missus is afraid to drive the car, that arduous responsibility falls to Jim and son, Aaron. Now I’ve been known to go the extra mile for a friend, or even a stranger, so if you guys find the car needs to get out and you’re too busy, I would be willing to forego other plans and take a spin for you–you know, just to keep it running smoothly.

I’m a little too old to have hit the height of the MySpace thing, but if I were a young man looking to put my best self forward, it would be pretty hard to top a shot at the wheel of a ’60s Vette. Next time the casinos are offering up Corvettes, someone give me a heads up!

Here’s an interesting classic Brit–the only one of its kind, boarded right here in Minneapolis. Don Piccard has used this ‘67 Morris Minor as his balloon chase car for 40 years. In fact, he got it for giving Morris’s public relations director a balloon ride around Oxford, England, Morris’s home.

This one-of-a-kind Minor has several unique features. Most significant in the 1275cc MG Midget motor under the bonnet (that’s “hood” in American English, whereas they use hood for “top”). It was known to be virtually a drop-in swap, so Piccard prevailed upon them to drop one in. They had to change the back air cleaner, pointing it down, but not much else.

He also got remakes of the older-style seat with better padding and a more rounded and supportive backrest, and real wood at the back of the car, rather than steel and stickers. They even contoured the panel to flare into the “running board.”

The Morris symbol is not a cow over stylized wavy lines, as the neophyte onlooker might guess, but an Ox crossing water–that is, an Ox fording, as in Oxford.

With simple lines and tremendous efficiency in its use of space, the Minor is a practical little car and a unique classic.

Some British cars of the ’70s contained Japanese-made radios. My ‘72 TR6, which I bought from a woman in Philadelphia in 1982, held this radio, which does not work but fits the face plate perfectly. The knobs look good too–in a period way. It’s imprinted Made in Japan on the side, though the label is from Automatic Radio Mfg. in Massachusetts.

Does anyone out in cyberspace know if this radio could have been original to the car in ‘72? The serial number contains the digits 1-9-7-8, which could be date but not necessarily. If it’s the original item, I’ll have an outfit like Electro-Tech clean and update it to modern stereo. Otherwise, I’ll hunt around.

Thanks for any wisdom. MM

My wife styles it “embarrassing junk,” but she hasn’t been in the trenches, the mud and the weeds foraging for lost automotive treasures. Those in the know can appreciate that Bigfoot appears more frequently than 4-speed bellhousings for the 215 V8–though in photographs of the two, he’s always blurrier.

To mount an equally rare ‘63 4-speed gearbox to my V8 Triumph project, I had sourced a 3-speed bellhousing (left). This is probably as rare, which is fun, but it requires modification or an adapter to fit a four speed. I had planned to modify it but stumbled across a sale for various 215 parts including a 4-speed bellhousing. I fired a quick email offer to the seller just for the bellhousing and he accepted. Here it is (right).

This version of the 4-speed bell’ (named for its shape) also has the 3-speed holes, which you can see are narrower. (Gearbox photo below demonstrates wider 4-speed holes.) Shouldn’t take too much effort to cut and file some aluminum stock in the shape of the “missing” pieces and weld them onto the 3-speed for the same effect. But this is a genuine 4-speed housing for a genuine 4-speed gearbox and that’s even more exciting. (”More irrelevant,” my wife says–she’s just envious of the automotive Indy Jones, prowling the boneyard with whip, hat, leather jacket and fuzzy photocopies of obsolete parts.)

An intriguing mystery here is the date-stamp on the “new” part. Ten years of seeking and studying 215 parts has never disclosed anything to suggest this bellhousing was still produced in 1964. Its engine-side bolt pattern is unique to the 215 V8 and 198 V6, neither of which were produced after 1963–at least no known production info says they were. Production years for the cars made with 215s (Buick Special, Skylark; Olds F85; a few Pontiac Tempests) are 1961 to 1963.

Was the 215 (with 4-speed) still available as a forgotten option on the 1964 Buick Skylark and Special, for which Buick built a new 300 cubic inch cast iron V8 to replace the 215? (The 300 bell’s bolt pattern is different.) Did GM keep making them as replacement parts? Did they build a few for performance entrepreneurs like Carroll Shelby, who supposedly considered the light 215 engine for his Cobra?

Anyone with a clue on this, please let me know! Every other part I’ve seen for the 215 or 198 has been stamped from ‘61 to ‘63, like the 3-speed bell, which is stamped ‘61.

We invited readers to submit photos of your classics, plus whatever details you wish to provide. Brent Lundquist with Minnesota Rolling Thunder Car Club stepped forward with his in-the-works ‘65 Chevy Chevelle.

Here are some comments from Brent:

“I’m glad to see the big local paper dedicating a section to this great hobby!… My current project is a 1965 Chevelle 300 Deluxe Post in beautiful grey primmer. It currently sports a very sluggish and not so clean inline 6 cylinder with a manual 3 speed on the tree.”

Now that’s a classic engine-swap candidate. The Chevelle has nice lines and lots of potential, but an inline six offers neither great performance nor exceptional economy by modern standards, and a “three-on-the-tree”–that is a steering-column shifter–is a long way from sporty.

“Plans for this winter are to replace the tired old inline 6 with a very healthy 489 (.30 over 454 with a 4.25″ stroke crank) a built TH350 automatic transmission and a ford 9″ rear end with 4.11 gears. The 489 and TH350 were taken form a past project and are ready and waiting in the garage for their new residence. And of course there’s plenty of interior work yet to do as well as suspension. I plan to have all this done and have it on the road by April 1st (with help from some good friends of course). Paint and body will have to wait till next year–horsepower first right? Anyway thanks for the great automotive pit stop on the web; it really is nice to have another local outlet to the classic automobile.”

Thanks to you, Brent, for writing in and sharing a cool project. Any glamour hidden by primer is made up for in spades by that awesome lift. Beats scooting around on cold concrete, which is how work gets done on the underside of my car!

–Motormouth

If you like to wrench on cars, you have to have a good spot to do it. Some things you’ll do on the car, of course, but garages get cold in Minnesota’s December! My buddy Lee is a writer-photographer who just finished a book on garage projects–one of which was a workbench. He needed some help building it, so I got a free bench for helping him out.

But I don’t have to tell any American that life is busy and time is short. We built a nice bench and could have screwed the top down, but I wanted to glue it too. The planks we got at Home Despot were pretty good but not dead perfect. Being the precise person I am, I wanted to plane the edges, edge glue the boards and then screw the top down. Probably overkill, but some jobs–like rebuilding instrument panel pieces–involve small parts and I didn’t want them dropping between the boards on my bench. Also, gluing the top so that it behaves like a single piece of wood will add stability–not that this bolted behemoth is short on that.

The thing itself is simple and sturdy. We used 4×4s for the legs, 2×6s for the top, and 2×4s as supporting frames for the top and the shelf below. The frame is screwed together then bolted to the legs. Pretty solid. The shelf is many pieces of laminated wood that we bought instead of plywood because we didn’t need a full 4′x8′ sheet and it was available in close to the size we needed. Waste not, want not.

I brought the beast home, put it where I’d designed it to go and then measured the lean. I knew the floor wasn’t level–there’s a drain down there and the floor slopes away from the walls to make mopping and pushing water toward the floor drain easy.

A basic carpenter’s level laid across the frame for the top revealed that the wall side was 1/2 inch higher than the front of the bench.

It wasn’t rocket surgery (to steal from my friend, furniture builder Keith Moore) to determine that sawing a 1/2 inch off the wall-side legs would give me a dead level bench.

A workbench doesn’t need to be level, one could argue, but when you’re dealing with car parts, many of which are round (bearings) or cylindrical (tubing), level means you don’t have to chase parts as they head for the floor.

Shortening the wall-side legs a half inch yielded dead level, so it was time to glue up the top. But first a few spots needed to meet my handplane. Laying the boards out, numbering them to avoid confusion, and marking the offending areas with pencil made this job a snap–it’s easy to tame pine but try working maple with hand tools.

With the planks marked, numbered and planed, it was time to glue ‘er up. Fortunately I’ve saved some cardboard odds and ends from various projects for just such purposes as protecting the shelf below from drips. (Note that wives are always impressed by that. They never say, “when are you ever going to use those ugly scraps of paper?”)

Run a bead of wood glue down each edge, smooth it out with a finger, set the boards together, and clamp ‘er up. You clamp two ways of course–side-to-side with the pony bar clamps to bond the edges and top to bottom to make sure the top doesn’t bow and no boards pop up. Tomorrow, the top can be screwed down to the frame and the vise I got from friends Rachelle and Susan (who bought an old dining room table with the thing mounted to it) can have a new home.

If you read about the cool ‘63 Borg Warner four-speed I sourced in Fountain City, WI, this bench will be the site for rebuilding it. Sweet.

There are considerably worse things than to have Dream Garages sold out on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com–the trailer for the new Speed Racer film, for one; another article on steroid use in baseball another. But it’s the Christmas season, the big sales time, and the internet is the late shopper’s lifeline. When these sites say “will not arrive by Christmas,” what they really mean is “still available through the Motorbooks website.” Wish they’d just say that.
:^)