Hot Rods The (mis) Adventures of a Compulsive Tinkerer

Some things just bug me. The rear bumper on the Stude. It’s a little too high to my eye, it’s wrinkled in a few places and it’s held on with hex bolts instead of real bumper bolts (remember those?).
Looking for instant gratification, I wasn’t going to remount it or try to straighten it, but I could at least deal with the missing and wrong bolts. The ones circled in green were missing and the ones in yellow were rusty old hex bolts.


I dug into my stash of old bumper bolts and made it look a little better.

 

Last but not least, I worked on the Austin last night. I bought some carpet off of eBay and have been cutting and fitting it to the back seat area. It’s a bitch kneeling in the car, marking and cutting. There will be no photographic evidence presented because I’m useless as a trimmer but hey, it’s supposed to be a race car not a show car, right? I have all of the pieces cut, just need to do a final trim as I glue it all down.
My reasoning for carpet? Many of the early gassers had full interiors (like Stone, Woods, and Cook) like the street cars they were supposed to be. My Austin has nice plain black panels and headliner so I decided to cover the sheet metal in back with thin black carpet. Besides, it might hold out the fumes slightly, making it more hospitable for when the wife decides to go to cruise night. lol.

 

Hey Bob, I've been using Blue Magic Metal Polish Cream. It comes in a short little glass jar, I found it @ O'Really's. This is the best I've used in a long time.

 

Thanks. Does anyone use an instant detailer type product on their chrome? I used to use it on my roadster on the black paint and the polished aluminum. I was thinking of maybe using it in between the deep cleanings but I wasn’t sure if it might take off the wax or just supplement it. I don’t know how it works.

 

I went to Bakersfield last weekend for the California Hot Rod Reunion. I decided to hit the swap meet right off the bat. I was looking around my shop for a steering wheel for the Austin and noticed that my steering wheel inventory was getting low so the first item on the swap meet list was cheap useable steering wheels. I stopped at the Mooneyes booth for comparison and a simple black steering wheel is $130 or $150 now. I found these three for $15 each…… one is foam, I’ve never used a foam one, we’ll see

I was also looking for a suitable tach for my Stude pickup and found these. One for $60, one for $20. I’ll test them on the Stude tomorrow. Either one would be just fine.

My phone was misbehaving so I couldn’t take any pictures at the swap meet, but although it was small, there was some interesting stuff. A complete Holman and Moody 2x4 setup for an FE with the big cast aluminum scoop and the H/M timing cover, some Halibrands, various 2x2 and 6x2 setups, magnetos, etc. Prices seemed reasonable.

 

Good hunting Bob!!

 

Well, I’m glad I didn’t pay too much for the tachs. (or did I?) I looked up the wiring for the nice Stewart Warner one but when I hooked it up to the old Stude it did absolutely nothing, it didn’t flinch. I tried several different grounding points, nada. Who repairs S-W tachs?
I had to repair/replace a couple wires on the other one and it works, kinda. It shows 2000 rpm at idle (actual = 650) and it does climb with increased rpm.
I just took an educated guess at the wiring of the little one based on the remnants of wire left behind. Two were obvious: the red wire led to the light, and a black wire led to case ground at the light base. The green wire disappeared into the mechanism, so I assumed that it was “coil - “. There was a contact that had a brown wire jumpered over to the black wire at the light ground. And there was another separate contact next to the brown wire with a stub of copper wire sticking out of it - I assumed that this should go to the ignition switch.
With that last wire connected to the ign post at the switch, the tach reads full scale, with it disconnected, it acts normally but seems to read high at idle. Any thoughts?
Oh well, at least the steering wheels work like they’re supposed to….

 

Every tach I've installed has had 4 wires:
Red, Ignition hot
Black, Ground
Green, Coil Negative
White, Light.

Devin

 

Yeah, me too. And the S-W tach was true to form, but the little cheapie tach had a factory red wire going straight to the center contact of the night light. Pretty obvious. There are two small round contacts protruding from the insulated back plate. One had a brown wire which jumped over to the outer shell of the light socket along with a black wire that exits the case. Again, pretty obviously a ground. The other contact had a wire broken off right at the contact with no insulation left for identification. I assumed that it would be “power in, from the ignition switch”. The green wire disappears into the body and I can’t tell where it goes. All of the wires were cut very short, just barely sticking out of the back.
I’ll probably just have the Stewart Warner tach fixed if I can find someone to do it.

 

Bob, these guys might be able to help. Worth a call maybe.
Palo Alto Speedometer: Repair, Restoration, and Sales of Automobile Gauges

 

Williamson as well

https://williamsons.com/

 

Thanks! I’ll check them out.

 

Bob
I had one of those S-W tachs in the late 70's, thought it was a thing of beauty, don't recall where I got it, it wasn't new, I never could get mine to work either, sat in a drawer for years, finally put it in a donation box during a "decluttering" session.

 

Come to think of it, the only tachs I’ve ever had trouble with were Stewart Warner. My other tachs were Sun, Autometer and Airguide, no problems. The S-W tach in my roadster died, to their credit they replaced it. The S-W tach in my Dad’s boat died, I just wrote it off to age and exposure.