californiamilleghia said:SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:Recommended oil change intervals on cars in the 1930's was every 500 miles. So, even if absolutely NOTHING goes wrong, there are 6 oil changes for a cross country trip!
But with a modern full flow spin on oil filter and modern oil would you still need to change it at 500 miles ?
No, the oil was crappier then too.
Add a zero to that figure and you'll still be fine.
I will be the third voice for tracking down Peter Egans Model A trek.
As a matter of fact, I highly recommend buying the collection of his road trip stories. Very entertaining. Trying to take the Isetta from Wisconsin to Road Atlanta should be required reading for people who want to road trip an older car.
The road trips are awesome.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Best automotive writer ever, I'd say. And, I'm sorry, but present hosts are not excluded.
Now I feel ungrateful.
I was lucky enough to spend a sunny afternoon hanging out with him a few years back. He is exactly like you'd expect from his writing.
How original does it need to be? I ask because I've thought of a similar trip in an old car, but upgrading the engine, transmission and brakes to something more modern and somewhat common, but a bolt in example requiring no hacking. A Model A with a rebuilt Pinto 4 cylinder and 4-speed, for example, would probably be more reliable without looking out of place in the car. A '57 Chevy with an LS and disc conversion would be an easy button, dead nuts reliable and easy to go back to bone stock.
Or, is he looking at buying something and just driving it without much work other than just making sure everything it topped up and tightened up and ready to roll?
-Rob
While in the USAF a buddy had a 260Z with a SBC swap. I helped him move out of the dorms as I had a truck and was a sucker.
A pair of duffel bags and a small toolbox fit incredibly well in the hatch portion, I always felt that it would have been a great road trip car.
After meeting a teacher (learned later he was the brother of a friend) driving a Model T and camping during his summer break, I often thought about doing something similar. Peter Egan also influenced this line of thinking. A brother wanted to get his early 50s M37 from Minneapolis to Fort Collins. I happily volunteered. He (very little mechanical ability) decided it would be a great adventure for him and his teen age son. The adventure ended somewhere in Nebraska. Called brother in law living in Colorado to bring trailer. Truck was still drivable, but slowness/ride/noise was overwhelming.
I would vote for the Model A. As a teen I started my auto mechanic training on a 28 A. Very basic, no fuel pump, easy to work on, Mechanical linkage rear brakes is a drawback but 50 mph is good traveling speed on back roads. the owners manual was a small version of the shop manual. Both are available on the net. By the best restored A you can find, go through it bumper to bumper, new tires and good road maps discover America or Canada.
Or, purchase a late 50s/early 60s Corvette and relive TV version of Route 66.
Pretty much any Chevrolet with a six cylinder will swallow a much newer one, with pretty much zero mods. Late 20's Chev, lose the iron piston splash'n'clatter 215 and install anything about 1953 to 1980 and it will cross the country just fine.
Keith Tanner said:captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:Currently, you're not that likely to get parts for anything overnighted. You'll want a drivetrain that was produced in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions to improve the likelihood of parts being available locally upon the route.
Which usually means 1960's GM products.
I like how the original spec is for "nothing newer than '32, like this 1948..."
A 1932 automobile is 90 years old. Mechanic work will be part of the adventure and spares should be carried on board as they will not be readily available. It's not an old car, it's an antique.
Peter Egan did a cross country road trip in a T or A in the early 90s or so, it would be worth hunting down his stories about it. That was 30 years ago.
edit: Model A Odyssey, Mar/Apr 1988.
I'm glad you caught that. Nothing post war ••••• to a 48 Buick woodie.
The conversation was one of those free flowing ones where everyone threw ideas out and everybody else responded.
Anyhow he's the neighborhood wooden boat guy. And old Floatplane restoration person.
He likes the idea of a woodie to pull his wooden boats. Recognizes he needs more power than the 80 horsepower a Flathead makes.
It was my suggestion to use the Buick straight 8. That's got 160 or 180 horsepower. He remembers seeing a 1948 that he could get excited about.
Then we discussed all sorts of woodies but few of them had the power or were common enough to make parts available.
The Buick ticked all the boxes except where would you find parts? He figured some parts he could haul along. But what about serious stuff? A transmission, blown rear end? Engine? How interchangeable are such things?
We talked at length about such things. Both he and his wife smiled and spoke of the adventure. They are ready.
This is a guy who turns a bunch of rotten wood into a splendid piece of art and sound.
Restores a Grumman Mallard to once more take flight. Life has put him in a position to travel with his wife and seek adventure.
Appleseed said:Cadillac. Nothing will be more relaxing to. cruise. Probably sorted , it will be reliable enough to not worry.
He couldn't get excited about a Cadillac. I agree it's probably the best cruiser of the era.
DeadSkunk (Warren) said:I always see late 30s Chevies on all those foreign adventure rallies (like Peking-Paris). Admittedly, they've probably had tens of thousands of dollars of rally prep thrown at them, but that old stovebolt six ought to still have parts available. Even a '37 doesn't have a really wide passenger compartment if they're big folks though. A 50s or 60s car makes more sense to me for cruising America, or an old body on modern running gear.
Edit: A late 30s flathead Ford would be another one I would think has a ready supply of parts.
There is something about lining up the radiator, headlights, and wheels that screams classic.
32 Ford, later Model A, MGTD/ TC, Flat Rad Morgan,
ShawnG said:Packard.
Reliable, quiet, very well built and better parts support than just about anthing short of a Ford.
We skipped right past Packard. Assuming parts scarcity.
I'll run it past him again.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:Currently, you're not that likely to get parts for anything overnighted. You'll want a drivetrain that was produced in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions to improve the likelihood of parts being available locally upon the route.
If you have drivetrain failures on a road trip, you don't need overnighted parts, you need plane tickets and a car hauling service.
Ignition points. Belts. Hoses. Fuel filters. Alternators. That is what can fail for you in such a way that you can get yourself mobile again.
Not if that's part of the planned adventure. Sure you need to cancel the trip if you're on a schedule. But if not that's part of the adventure.
californiamilleghia said:1957 Chevy Nomad .....or 1957 Chevy 4 door wagon ,
Cheap parts , anyone can fix them , a wagon gives you enough room to put your junk , or take a nap :)
Yeah put an alternator on it and a few newer updated parts......
Too new
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:Wait- how is the answer NOT jaguar?
For me it would be or my MGTD ( well except my wife wouldn't fit).
But those are too new for him.
frenchyd said:ShawnG said:Packard.
Reliable, quiet, very well built and better parts support than just about anthing short of a Ford.
We skipped right past Packard. Assuming parts scarcity.
I'll run it past him again.
Max Merritt, Kanter, Egge and Straight-Eight all supply parts for Packard. They're probably the best supported of the full classics.
After 1937 you get IFS. Hydraulic brakes started a little earlier but even the cable brakes are more than enough. You run out of traction before you run out of brakes. They started using drop-center wheels around 1934 so any tire shop can handle them without trouble.
I ran into this guy In Yosemite and he was driving across the country. He was loaded up with a lot of stuff.
Believe it or not, they were perfectly capable of driving across the country back then too.
Model T's and Model A's are damn tough cars, you just can't expect interstate speeds out of them but that's not why you drive an old car anyway.
I daylied a 1958 Pontiac for quite a while, people always asked "How do you drive that thing every day?". Simple. I get in and turn the key, just like they did when they were new.
Only bad thing that happened to me was the wiper linkage fell apart in a rainstorm on the way home one day. Quick stop at a gas station for some Rain-X and I was on my way home. Half an hour in the shop and a new retainer clip and I was back in business.
Old cars aren't just museum pieces or lawn ornaments.
I have a customer with a 1910 Sears model L and he drives the wheels off of that thing in downtown Vancouver. It's like being on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride with him.
ShawnG said:californiamilleghia said:SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:Recommended oil change intervals on cars in the 1930's was every 500 miles. So, even if absolutely NOTHING goes wrong, there are 6 oil changes for a cross country trip!
But with a modern full flow spin on oil filter and modern oil would you still need to change it at 500 miles ?
No, the oil was crappier then too.
Add a zero to that figure and you'll still be fine.
With iffy carburetion, weak spark, and engine design and machining practices that do not promote good ring seal, 5000mi is reeeeally pushing it. 3000mi is pushing it.
Agreed, the oil change intervals weren't just about the crappy oils. Old engines, even rebuilt to OEM specifications, consume oil and have frightening amounts of blow-by and gasoline dillution. 3000 miles is about all I'd drive any antique on an oil change,
Egan's writings may be the best I've ever read. I have his collected works book on a shelf here somewhere, I've read every story in it at least once. The Model A is a must read.
Thinking about Buicks...I really like the '38 Century. The straight 8 went to drop-in bearings that year, they had a relatively conventional floor-shifted 3 speed, 100 mph top speed, and decent (for the era) brakes. I've kindof wanted one for a while.
I'm posting this as an example, not a suggestion.
We encountered this Stanley, I think it's a 1911, on Mount Washington. He drives it about 2000 miles a year, all over New England and upstate New York.
The only modification is the Harley Davidson disc brakes. The owner said it's very reliable.
The wheel is jacked up to level the car so he could pump more water from the tank to the boiler, a concession to the long climb. That's never necessary during normal driving.
The brake photo was taken in the parking lot at the top of the mountain.
In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
That's really cool! I read the Wikipedia page on Stanley cars and it says a Stanley was the first car to ever climb Mount Washington.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Motor_Carriage_Company
Twins Francis E. Stanley (1849–1918) and Freelan O. Stanley (1849–1940) founded the company, after selling their photographic dry plate business to Eastman Kodak. They made their first car in 1897. During 1898 and 1899, they produced and sold over 200 cars, more than any other U.S. maker.[1] In 1899, Freelan and his wife Flora drove one of their cars to the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire,[2] the highest peak in the northeastern United States. The ascent took more than two hours and was notable as being the first time a car had climbed the 7.6 miles (12.2 km) long Mount Washington Carriage Road; the descent was accomplished by putting the engine in low gear and braking extensively.
Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:I'm posting this as an example, not a suggestion.
We encountered this Stanley, I think it's a 1911, on Mount Washington. He drives it about 2000 miles a year, all over New England and upstate New York.
The only modification is the Harley Davidson disc brakes. The owner said it's very reliable.
The wheel is jacked up to level the car so he could pump more water from the tank to the boiler, a concession to the long climb. That's never necessary during normal driving.
The brake photo was taken in the parking lot at the top of the mountain.
I very much like the idea of a Stanley steamer. I think he will too.
volvoclearinghouse said:Agreed, the oil change intervals weren't just about the crappy oils. Old engines, even rebuilt to OEM specifications, consume oil and have frightening amounts of blow-by and gasoline dillution. 3000 miles is about all I'd drive any antique on an oil change,
Egan's writings may be the best I've ever read. I have his collected works book on a shelf here somewhere, I've read every story in it at least once. The Model A is a must read.
Thinking about Buicks...I really like the '38 Century. The straight 8 went to drop-in bearings that year, they had a relatively conventional floor-shifted 3 speed, 100 mph top speed, and decent (for the era) brakes. I've kindof wanted one for a while.
That's what his thinking is too( regarding the Buick ). He Flies for Delta and likely won't pass the next physical. His wife hates to fly so she's pretty much been house bound her whole life.
Their plans are the 4 corners, Seattle San Diego, Key West, Maine. Then might come back through Canada.
They very much want to stay in little Mom and Pop motels. Or camp. So a Woodie wagon gives them plenty of space for spares tools and camping equipment.
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