It's also possible that it had a few exhaust valves recede, since it's from before they started hardening the seats for unleaded fuel, and the little engine has to work pretty hard to move that big of a car.
Through the years I worked at the gas station as a first job, I learned pretty quickly that many (and probably most) low miles car got very few oil changes. Back in the early 70s, most people changed their oil when the oil got 3,000 - 4,000 miles on it, and many of those only got the oil filter changed every other time! The motor in Jim's Checker only has 89,908 miles on it since 1970. If those miles were added on and were spread over the entire length of time, the car was only driven 1,615 miles a year, on the average. In all likely hood, if the car was well taken care of, the car may have gotten an oil change once a year, and weather or not the filter was changed then may be pretty questionable. There are very good reasons most cars from before the 2000 model years never made it to 100,000 miles. Poor oil change care, the motor seldom running long enough to even reach operating temp, they spent most of their driving time putting around town and got really loaded up with carbon deposits, very low thermostat temps, tuneups only when they ran so poorly, they barely moved, were just a few of the issues. I learned early on not to but a car for me that didn't at least average 5,000 miles per year old it was. The lower miles cars all had more issues.
This car seems to have got a bunch of use when it was nearly new, then ended up sitting for a few decades. I imagine that it started out "unfashionable", and that only got worse with time, so there was very little motivation to keep up with maintenance.
I'm still recovering from the last one! But seriously...nothing planned right away. I'll be busy with the high school robot team for the next few weeks, then I'll do something.
So, your going to put teaching high school kids how to make a robot function as a higher priority then taking a bunch of hot rodders on your next car adventure??? You are a good man Jim. Good luck with those kids, and have some fun. If there would have been such a thing as robots back when I was in high school, I would have been all over it! We will wait for the next car adventure.
thanks! Sometimes I get to combine robots and car adventures, but usually they stay kind of separate. But they can also conflict, last year I missed out on the robot competition to go on a fun drive in my Corvette. The kids won't let me do that again!
@squirrel your can do positive attitude, will do work ethic and shared road trip adventures are amazing here. Having you work to bring the next generation up with hands on build/troubleshoot/teamwork and I'd imagine healthy competition is a whole other level. Thanks for all your efforts!
When I was a kid growing up around my dads wrecking yard, I also worked at a parts house pushing a broom, and doing various gopher jobs and when I could, learned how to use the big racks of catalogs that parts men used, to deal with customers. Sadly those days are gone, and now the future is here on a variety of different levels, that require kids to use their fingers to type in information, that more often than not, leads them down a rabbit hole only to find that the part doesn't exist, or the typical "404" error code. Seeing how @squirrel is helping the robot kids to have some fun, its a shame that there isn't the equivalent of a "HOLLANDER" Robot parts interchange, actual book/catalog for the robot kids to have as a reference source written by @squirrel !
@squirrel, how about a video of what the kids build? I am betting they are learning a lot more then just robotics.
I need to get some good video of the robot they're working on, doing it's thing. One of the kids is doing programming, using virtual reality to model the field in real time, so the robot can tell were it is using a few QR type tags that are scattered around the field. The robot has "swerve" drive, each wheel has independent steering and drive, so the robot can spin around as it drives along a curve, etc. Pretty wild. It also has to deal with some game pieces, such as a big rubber ball, and 1 foot lengths of 4" PVC pipe. This is the game it has to play. And at the end of the match it's supposed to climb on a "cage" and lift itself off the floor, but we're still working on that part. Here's a picture of it dropping the big ball into the chute the first time, yesterday. The "mailbox" at the top with the two green wheels, takes in the PVC and delivers it to the pegs to score it.
I was volunteered to assist a local HS with their robotic effort around 2001. It was to be my senior project for my BS in Manufacturing Engineering. I get there and immediately the shop teacher-leader pegs me for a SPY and sends me packing. I suppose some of that does go on.
some teams take this stuff really seriously...and there also are some crazy people in the world. We don't care what other teams know about what we're doing. Also, several teams (even some really good ones) do an "open build", where they post what they're doing every day on the internet, for other teams to see and either learn from, or, better yet, to tell them they might have trouble with that idea, and perhaps try something else instead.
Squirrel, I am guessing you've been to the championships in Texas? A local kid was there about 2 years ago.
We last made it to Champs (in Houston) in 2019. But we did go to Champs in other locations in several other years, starting with our rookie year 2006.
The Jalopy Journal
