52-59 forum

@Moriarity said just wait until there is a scammer problem in the social club section on the Ford barn and Ryan has to dump it... there goes your content again. I wondered the same thing when the group was relocated to a Ford Barn social group. Maybe that new Ford Barn social group isn't the best answer. It is what we have for now, until we come up with a better solution.

I understand and appreciate the scope of topics for the main board. For me, the attraction of the 52-59 Ford group was having a "convenient" place for information directly related to those vehicles. Yes, a lot of that information was OFF TOPIC for the main board. It was valuable to people in the 52-59 group, so that knowledge was collected and shared there. The path leading to the social forum was semi secret, but I don't think anyone there intended the forum to be a semi secret group. It was not unusual for someone to answer a 52-59 Ford question on the main board and include an invitation to join the social forum. Those invitations often included a link or instructions to join the group. I saw similar invitations posted over on the Ford Barn.

Thanks @corncobcoupe for bringing up the idea of a 52-59 sticky in another section, but I'm not sure that is the right way to go when the information is placed outside of a dedicated 52-59 Ford forum. A sticky should probably be reserved for information that is important to anyone using that section of the HAMB. Thanks to the efforts of a few founding members, the Ford Barn version of our social group has grown to 31 members as of 9/25/25. I'm sure that is a very small percentage of the number of people who are active members of the HAMB, and that the extensive sticky from the 52-59 group would not interest a majority of the folks frequenting the Antiquated or the Off Topic sections.

What if 31 members agree to post in the Off Topic section and include "52-59 Ford" in the title of each associated thread? That should make it easier to find our information, and keep us together here on the HAMB.

In a way, we are troubleshooting a problem. Most times that leads to some grumbling when the solution is not obvious. That's when we turn to the HAMB for help! Thanks to everyone who is working towards a solution!

 

…. Not sure if you realize it but you guys have pretty much proven the whole point. It seems like it would require its own section, which admittedly could be a lot to ask with a proportionally small audience.

I appreciate all you guys do to accommodate us in this matter and just in general. This is the best place to be on the internet. I don’t even consider the HAMB to be social media due the lack of toxicity.

 

The 52-59 Ford group wasn't full of front clips and frame swaps, and even on the main board I have seen a lot of late model engine swaps, but lets just agree to disagree, what the members told me the one thing that really pissed the members off is losing all the FAQ's.

Some of the information was share on the main board, but a lot of it was deleted before anyone cold save it, I have ask several times if the information could be retrieved and it seemingly fell on deaf ears.

When I tried to move the members over to the Ford Barn, with Ryans approval, I gave the members what they wanted but I have been unable to add the FAQ's although one of the members had saved some, help me out moderators, go back a save all the FAQ's from the old social group and I will be the first one to try and get the past members to move back to the hamb.

BTW, Mark, most of us are old farts and we have been doing this hot rod thing for many years and your snide remark, "seems to me like you guys have not learned a damned thing" is inappropriate!

And why would we want to be on a forum titled -

Off Topic Hot Rods & Customs
A forum for the shit on wheels that doesn’t belong anywhere else…

 

down-the -road, one of the members admitted that there was a lot of off topic material there. which is why those guys were hiding in the soc groups in the first place.

"A lot" is a relative term. "A lot" of the information was also very much on topic.

Until I started reading through the social group posts, I didn't know there was a difference, other than displacement, between a 1954 Y-block and a 1955 Y-block, or that there were different carb mounting bolt patterns for four barrel intakes on Y-blocks. Machining the openings to an oval shape on a stock four barrel intake to improve performance sounds pretty much on topic to me. So does information about changing from the original distributor to a 1957 and later distributor. I will also say that there was "a lot" of information saved in the 52-59 sticky that was very valuable to "a lot" of people. Group members put a considerable amount of effort into building that volume of information, and they freely shared it with others. It hurts to loose that.

I found social groups while exploring the HAMB. They must have been there a while before I joined. Nobody told me it was a "secret" group, and nobody said anything about "hiding" anything there. The social group was just a collection of folks that focused mostly on 52-59 Fords and Ford relatives.

I don't expect social groups to come back. I do hope that we get the information back that was saved there. Thanks for anything that can be done make that happen.

 

I respectfully agree. However, nobody saw this coming as the group shared and saved information. We used a feature that was available for years on the HAMB. There was no intention of underhanded or secret activity.

 

Thank you Ryan, I appreciate your candor. HRP

 

Cob and Mark, it hasn't been my intent to argue with you guys, I can see why Ryan dumped the social sites, my main concern was to try and save all the information that is pertinent to 52-59 Ford guys but could also be used to help out other makes & models.

Ryan, has eased my mind. HRP

 

That’s all well and good and understood. Having common themed threads located in a compartmentalized forum made it super easy to locate tech articles and other useful information. Kinda like when we had a tech category. If you used them then you would likely agree.

 

Outstanding! Thank you sir!
I noticed Corncob started a thread in 'Off Topic' entitled '52-'59 Ford Owners Group. That would be a perfect place to dump all the '52-'59 Ford content. Is there any way to make that thread a sticky? I don't know what that entails as I'm pretty much computer illiterate.

 

That’s a bit hyperbolic since it’s only been 1.5 hours since notification. Thank you both for setting it up and making it happen. It’s good to see some leadership [xxxx xx x xxxxx] in action

 

Thanks HRP. I submitted my request.

I'm still trying to figure out all the animus towards a a bunch of folks that, from what I could see over the dozen or so years I was there, just enjoyed sharing info and helping out others.

 

Thanks for saving that from the crusher.