Hot Rods Automotive terms that don’t make sense....

The pointy end of a pig

Cheers,
Harv

 

Rumble seat. No draft windows.

 

Where did 3 on the tree come from ? I learned to drive in a '62 Chevy pick up with a 3 speed column shift. Never got the tree thing.

 

That could be an Aussie one as well. Been around down here forever. "Tree" is the column..... sort of similar, right???

 

Could be a regional thing. Around the South, I've always heard it called either the dash or the possum box. "Look in the dash and get me a screwdriver.". As far as possum box, probably a bunch of good ole boys after a night of drinkin' shine started gathering up roadkill for a meal and figured that was as good a place as any to put their prized dead opossum.....

 

One time many years ago I was in the hinterlands of Japan. I needed some 6 volt parking light bulbs. I went to several garages looking for parking light bulbs, with no luck. Finally I took a bulb out and took it to the next shop. He looked and said " Ah Dashu Lampu" and grabbed one out of the box.

 

Don't want to add to your anxiety, but what about .... male member..

 

So you're telling me my wife is actually a "Distributor Blonde"?

 

How do you guys feel about "spats"? Would you run them or not....???

 

I loathe it.
I don't like bonnet either. Sounds ...well we're not allowed to say that anymore.

 

Yep, spats is a weird one we could do without.....
And about bonnet, we all know how it sounds.

 

Thanks mate, one step further I see all Australians broken down into state (Or territory) i.e. Victorian, Queenslander, Northern Territory, etc. I also see tribal groups in the same way.
I remember my father telling me it was known as a 'Dizzy' because the rotor spun so fast that if you turned like that you would get dizzy. Not sure if that's a commonly held reason but it worked for me.

 

I did my panelbeating apprenticeship starting 1973. I worked for my father in his business prior to that and after I finished my time. It was always known as a bonnet especially if you were ordering a new one even though on Holdens especially they had hood on the knob you pulled to release it. Probably easier to spell otherwise you'd need a larger knob. (cue the schoolboy snickers)

 

Actually, it's Michies. True.

 

You laugh? Our local term is "banana branches".

 

Mast jacket is a steering column outer cover but it sounds like something on a sailboat.

 

I ran spats on the sedan version of my avatar. They were possessed, worse than Christine.

Maiden voyage on the highway, blew out a tyre and ejected the spat. Stopped, picked up the mangled spat, changed the tyre and proceeded.
Got a panelbeater to straighten the spat and repaint. Wind blew the spat off the painting trestle, and got bugs/dirt/grit in it. Clean, sand, repaint. He was not happy.
Took the repainted spat home and stored it in the shed waiting its turn to reinstall. A piece of rubber hose sitting above it dripped brake fluid on it and stripped the paint. That hose had been there for more than a year, and not dripped at all.

Clearly, the spats do not want to be on that car. They are stored in the shed, in a circle of salt with cloves of garlic.

Cheers,
Harv

 

Spider gears

 

True of all. Do we still have wars ? Do we still have violence ? There has been no basic change ! We humans are all complicit !

 

If nobody added this already it applies to specific terminology...a little. Also what we sometimes see as answers to a simple question in the hallowed halls of the HAMB (you know who you are).

 

I'm 79. My father always referred to a column shift as three on a tree. Then, there is Ford's 4 on a tree from 1961.

 

"The British may have invented the English language, but Americans made it great!"
-- Richard Rawlins

 

For some reason, in the back of my mind I keep thinking that in my regional area of the south, the term "dog house" was the group of components comprising the sheetmetal front end of a vehicle..........The hood and fenders along with maybe the grille and the supporting bracketry. If you went to a southern junkyard and bought a new "dog house" thats what you got. I think the rationale for that term was that in many junk yards, the traditional "junk yard dog" often slept under one of these assemblies and was chained to it.........hence the term "dog house".

Since there is no Webster's Dictionary of many of the hot rodding terms we used, and no one person appointed to decide exactly what something means or when it should be used..........terminology use often varies from person to person or area to area. So, my definition possibly has a little bit of logic behind it, but doesn't mean its the only explanation.

 

Coming from a poor area of town, I can remember guys taking column shifters out of cars and shortening them till they were about the size of a floor shift......then making a mounting bracket and using them as a floor shift. Nobody had money to buy much, so they often made things instead.

 

No shit!

 

Some terms are like song lyrics; if they rhyme, they don't have to make a lot of sense. I always figured that "three on the tree" came about after "four on the floor", a term that makes more sense. Sort of like a big block Chevrolet V8 being a "rat"; since a small block Chevrolet was often referred to as a "mouse", since it was a physically small engine when it came along in 1955, its big brother must be a rat.

 

A friend of mine did this back in the late 60s. He had used up most of his ready cash building his car. He had shoehorned a 289 Studebaker into a '60 Ford Consul. without the funds for a shifter, there was no room for the original column shifter, he cut it up and made a floor shifter that worked quite well. If I remember right, he got the idea from an old Hot Rod magazine that explained how to do it.

 

I had one of those 3/4 race cams once...the other 1/4 wasn't of much use though.

 

My kids all learned to drive three-on-the-tree. With worn linkages, it's often like stirring a bowl of porridge.

Please forgive me (and mods please delete) if it is politically incorrect to mention his work, but it reminds me of Bill Cosby's description of John Thomas' car.

John had four on the floor, eight on the roof and nine on the doors.

Cheers,
Harv

 

From reading, is a “spat” a fender skirt” ?