History Vintage "Cageless" Midget Picture Thread

I ran an Ambler box for 13 years in Vintage events and it was fine when I sold the car. Started out with new bearings in the front and rear of the box and packed the bearings and the innards of the box with solid grease.

The box was never apart in that time.

A ball or roller bearing only needs a smear on the races and balls to be lubricated. Some people fill the boxes with a liquid rear axle type grease. You can usually tell who they are by the grease stains on the lower pant legs of their driving suit and by looking at the inside of their belly pans.

The grease fittings on the Ambler let grease into the cavities of the box, not directly to the bearings. I did give these a couple strokes of a grease gun two to three times a year.

 

This is what we did normally. We did have a bad nose bearing and had to remove and replace it. This was not a fun project, but not nearly as bad as properly setting the ring and pinion in an older quick change rear. I thought the OP might be having an issue with this bearing, thus my answer.

Doc

 

Yes this is like a Ambler front quick change box. It has 3 sections, the forward section has a roller bearing that gets lubed with grease, the center section is lubed with gear oil and the tail section with the u joint is lubed with grease. The problem I am seeing is that when the center section is filled with gear oil it is going past both the front and rear bearings into both the sun gear and the u joint. This looks like it is going to make a mess and Im not sure how to prevent this. I will try to limit the amount of gear oil in the center section but am worried about the sun gear. Thanks guys for your info it is a great help and I know I would have over greased both the front bearing and the u joint.

 

I am not certain that the planetary gears cannot be greased rather than lubed with gear oil. There needs to be a seal of some sort to keep the gear oil in the gear case and out of the other parts of the box. I think we just smeared grease in the whole thing. I could be wrong as that was over 50 years ago.

Doc

 

Cool! I was at Hinchliffe on 9/30/47 when Ritter first drove the car. He had a 3rd in his heat and semi and a 4th in the feature behind Bill Schindler, George Rice and Tony Bonadies.

I have some photos of him and that Offy, and if you want any, e-mail me at: ygordad@yahoo.com

Might you be visiting Hinchliffe on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend? I made it last year with my daughter, and am planning to do so again. From the "huge" place I rememberd as a 12-13 year old, I was somewhat disappointed in how it isn't really that big.

 

Grease isn't a bad gear lubricant if it is kept clean and the operating speeds are low enough -both big IFs in the QC gearbox. Our first couple midgets had a Tomsche internal gear QC and it was a real mess if you weren't careful. Being young, foolish, and stupid we usually weren't so there was always a lot of oily mess on the floor.
BTW, it is not a "planetary" unless there are parts which rotate around the internal gear's axis. Without "planets" it is just an internal gear drive.
Proper shimming to adjust the "center distance" is important to get good performance. Sealing could be improved with using o-rings and modern "sealed" bearings so the gear lube doesn't have easy passage to the engine bay or torque tube.
I encountered this gearbox very early in my professional career and it helped spark my study of unusual gearboxes.
I'd enjoy learning more about Fred Tomsche, Otto Hamburger, and other Midwestern midget pioneers,

 

Well I completed putting it all back togeather again. This was alot of work to just check out the box bearings and sun gear. The box is still in great shape and the bearings were undamaged. I used a new synthetic grease for the front bearing, sun gear and the u joint. I also used some synthetic gear oil for the center section. Going to start up the old car next week and will see how it all works. Thank all of you for your help it did change the way I looked at the method for lubing the box. I think it will work great if not I will let you all know.

 

Sorry for being late regarding the Hillegass grill but I thought some of you may find this interesting. The grill on my sprint car is a copy of the Culp Offy in the Hillegass Museum and the other is the front of my Hillegass Midget. While restoring the midget the front grill was damaged beyond repair but was a copy of a Kurtis grill and I added the arrow at the top. Last week I was talking to Joe Lingle about getting the correct grill for the midget and he told me some old timers were at the museum and were looking at the difference of the old Hillegass midget grill and the Culp Offy grill and I was told the only difference was the arrow at the top. I ordered one and am going to remove it to replace the KK grill on the old midget.

 

Latimore Valley is coming up shortly. I am planning on fulfilling an item on my "bucket list" by towing out there. In March I requested input on some Vintage Car diversion while in Las Vegas and was blessed to learn about the Caruso and Rachinski museums from the HAMB.

Now I'm asking the same for any garage or collection visits I could make on the way out and/or on the way back. My primary interest is pre war and early post war midgets and big cars of unusual construction and engines.

Anybody have a "steer" for me?

 

Hello, Guys. Been busy this summer. Started running A midget first timer. Here is A old photo. Don’t know where I picked it up at?

 

Looks like Jimmy Bryan to me

 

Have to agree on Bryan. Notice the extension on the windshield? Probably because of his height?

 

I`ll pile on. That`s Jimmy Bryan!

 

And Bryan ran Ascot diggers a lot.

Doc

 

Yes, that is Jimmy Bryan. Here is another photo

 

Hi all, I have searched though several pages of this thread but not all. I was hoping to see if anyone had some pics of my grandfathers car. He never drove, just built them. He raced them in the late 40's through the mid 70's. His name is John Renstrom and he lived in Norwalk Connecticut. He built most of these cars with his lifelong friend Woody. I don't know Woody's last name but I am sure I can get it if needed. These pics would mean a lot to Grandpa and myself. thanks for any help you can offer guys.

 

Hi Joe,do you still have thar car ?,Have not seen you in a couple of years.

Ed Duncan

 

Do you know the names of any of his drivers? What about car numbers? Do you know where he ran? There are lots of photos of local midgets through the years in collections here, you just have to connect with the right person(s). I had much help on this board in finding old midget photos of my late uncle. I'm sure some guys here have some. Good luck and don't give up.

 

I am looking for some tec info regarding my old vintage midget with a model A rear end and Model T hubs. If anyone out there is running this in their midget and knows the set up I would like to talk to you about the axle spacing. Please PM me and thanks for helping.

 

Does anyone know of a book or document covering midget racing and results in CT/MA. in the 40's and 50's? There were many tracks in this area that ran the midgets, but not much written.

 

Will be at EMMR weekend after next with four of the five Crocky Wright volumes for sale. Ignore the price shown on the covers.

 

Unfortunately not off the top of my head. I will ask him to write some of the names and numbers down. I know they raced up and down the NE coast, mostly in the Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York areas. At the time he said they were racing between 3 and 5 nights a week, some stock car races, some midgets, modified, or whatever else they could build at the time. I do know he said a few of the drivers were in the military and used false names because they weren't supposed to be racing, or something like that. I know they were never famous or big time, just some guys having fun. He has a small collage of pictures,that my aunt made him of several of the cars they raced, I will take a pic of it next time I am at their house.

He is 82 now and has no use for computers or the internet, but he lights up when you ask him about his days of racing and building Hot Rods. He came over this weekend and I showed him the vintage stock car thread. I can't remember the last time I saw him get so excited about something. He kept saying "It sure would be something if one of my old cars came up on here." I will try and get some pics up in a few weeks when i visit with him again, maybe I can make that happen for him. Thanks everyone for all the great pics so far.

 

EMMR has scoring books from midget events in this area from roughly 1946-49. They may have been Pappy's wife's?

 

What's EMMR?

 

If he was from Norwalk, he had to race at Candlelight Stadium in Bridgeport, most likely West Haven also. They were run under the United banner (Harvey Tattersall), but I don't know what history has been written. I'm trying myself to find midget results from the area from the forties and fifties.

 

Eastern Museum of Motor Racing

 

Is there a show/meet going on there in two weeks?
Where in PA. How far from Williams Grove?

 

EMMR is a little south of Williams Grove off Rt 15

 

http://www.emmr.org/

Every year on the second Sunday in November, Stan Lobitz puts on an auction/movie party/lunch and sit down dinner to raise funds for the EMMR. Normally, the ARDC has a meeting at the same place, same day, too.

 

Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, NJ - news:

This will be in my column this week:

This years Hinchliffe Stadium Expo is on Sunday, September 4. The show coincides with The Great Falls Festival. Admission is free and entering a car or exhibit in the show is free. Come out and show your support for Paterson's rich racing history. See you at the show...<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
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