Technical A Kid's First Project: 1957 Fairlane 500 Town Victoria.

well, i accidentally turned on the heater fan, i assume that drained the battery enough to cause weak spark, as the starter barely turned the engine over, currently i have it on a trickle charger. i also need another capacitor, theres quite a few extras on the black corvair, gonna nab one. the previous owner seemed to want to have as many as possible, there are two on the generator, two on the coil (now one) , one on the points, and two on the voltage regulator.

 

No, it doesn’t make you anymore or any less of a hot rodder. It does make the people in your town look really stupid though!
Where I live no one would even notice.

 

The reason there are so many capacitors on it are for radio noise on AM. So when do we get to see the Corvair run and drive around town?

 

Many years ago I took a Torino stock car with a 429 under the hood around the block twice after midnight, no exhaust and it was double-secret loud. Got it back under cover about 45 seconds before a prowl car went by.

 

I recall in the ‘70’s when HEIs came out guys from pre-HEI days would take the alternator belt off and I guess use a shorter one to bypass it. And the battery got lower and lower of a charge the ignition would start breaking up at higher RPMs, but no mention of an engine running rich.
When I say “I remember…” I should clarify that I recall reading it in HRM.
Too lazy to tap here and there on my phone screen to edit it

 

thats what it did exactly, at around 3500 on the first gear shift it popped and cackled, and then when i shifted into 2nd it flooded. eventually it would hesitate even above 1500 rpm.

so thats why, someone installed a sound system in it in the late 60s, rear speaker, aftermarket am radio, and capacitors galore. it even has the static removers in the front dust caps. i figured they have so many capacitors because they were having spark issues (see doubled up ballast resistors)

 

theres a couple people who whine about any loud cars or people doing donuts in the abandoned schools parking lot, saying "they'll hit my house" when they both live several houses away from the lot. they constantly whine about my brother and his camaro and squarebody, both just have glasspacks.

they didnt call the cops this time (i think) but they absolutely whined on the internet.

 

Are you speaking of the Corvair, I’d thought it was about your Fairlane. GM started using/playing with a transistorized ignition in the 60’s, but no idea if on the Corvair or if low voltage would affect it.

 

on the corvair, someone hodge podged the ignition. im missing a couple capacitors on my fairlane, namely the one on the voltage regulator, and i had to replace the one on the generator.

 

As @SS327 said it was most likely done for static. Things progressed though. I have a package of “wire noise suppressors “ from the mid 70’s for those who didn’t want to upgrade spark plug wires or plugs I guess. I can’t recall the old Fords my dad had, but never saw a cap on a GM regulator or generator. Does your shop manual show them in the diagrams?

 

i do not believe it does, the only ones i see in the book are:
one on the voltage regulator, one on the generator, one on the points and one on the coil.

 

They usually put them on blower motors also to cut down on the RF noise for the AM radio. Sorry about your crabby neighbors. Had those as a kid, cops told them to stop worrying about what might happen and to only call them if it did happen. I went over and made nice with them even got the old man on my ct70 and never had a problem with them again.

 

The ones on generators and voltage regulators are radio noise suppressors.

 

Did they come that way (never noticed I guess) or were they added later?

 

my actual neighbors are my grandma (she doesnt care at all, my dad drove a '70 oldsmobile 98 with a 455 in high school, not even a muffler on it, shes used to it) and my other neighbor drives a harley. its just a couple people in town with nothing better to do.

my radio booklet let me know this, but ive never seen someone use more than one on each place like this one does.

 

Usually one suppressor on the generator and one on the regulator.

 

Some mechanics thought you could get rid of the noise with more. Their wrong. Clean power and grounds did a better job of suppressing noise.
I have a 69 Olds 98 rotting away in the yard. I just keep it around for parts and the toronado 455 engine that is under the hood!

 

his was green sedan with a white vinyl roof. it was a positraction car and it did the easiest burnouts. he never could wear out the bias plys it came with before he traded it for a '72 Cadillac.

 

off topic from our previous conversation, but how much pedal should i need to panic stop? i can the lock front wheels (they lock evenly, so thats good) at around 1/2 to 3/4 pedal. my dad hit the brakes when someone tried to pull out in front of the truck and it locked them all up at only 15 miles per hour because i put the pedal all the way to the floor. but they dont stop quite like im used to with disc brake cars, are all drums like that, or is it because they are non power drums? they stop just fine, just not as abruptly.

 

Manual drums don’t really lock up that well, unless you really step on them. Just make sure no air in the lines and their adjusted properly.

 

Code enforcement came out, we had no idea they worked that late. I know some people had little kids, that was probably it. We had a customer with a pro-stock Vega that would make a pass in front of the house in the wee hours a few times.

 

I just did a Google, seems late ‘60’s when resistor plugs became available. Earlier (couldn’t get a decent dated
info) for plug wires.

I wish my pops was still around. I was too young to remember being in his ‘57 with the radio. I’d ask him if he got the humm/buzz. Everything I had from the era had a radio that didn’t work, or didn’t have one in it.
Edit: meant to add that he bought it new with the 235, I only remember the 283 in it as a kid. Too young to even recall how the tube radio sounded. When I was 10 or so he went with a BBC of from 1970 so was up to date for the time I suppose.

 

my radio really likes 610 talk radio, and can pick up 1300 (my preferred station) after the sun goes down, which i find strange. i think if i got out of this valley i could pick the signal up better. i remember my dads tape deck in his '83 monte when i was a kid, the lack of subwoofer, and him having to shift gears manually, even though i distinctly remember it being an automatic, as the valve body was broken and it didnt shift on its own.

 

Used to be am at night you could get stations from all over the country. Used to listen to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday nights I was in Whiting Indiana.

 

We could pull a good rock station from Connecticut on some late evenings, WPLR which was FM. During the day it was very weak.

 

is that how someone as far as texas could hear XERB?

 

FM signals travel line of sight, AM signals bounce off the atmosphere, so they follow the curvature of the earth more. I’m not sure if it’s still allowed, but there were several so called super stations that didn’t have to sign off or cut their power at dark, and they could be heard many miles away. Examples include WWL New Orleans, WSM Nashville, WSB Atlanta, WLS Chicago. They were grandfathered in when the FCC started licensing radio stations. When I first started trucking in the 1980’s, few trucks had FM radios. I would listen to WWL at night no matter where in the southeast I was, but when sun up happened, the local stations powered up and you couldn’t get the super stations until dark again. FM is only good for maybe 75-80 miles on level ground, less if there are a lot of hills or buildings. But what FM lacks in range it makes up in quality sound, no static. There is so much electrical static interference nowadays that AM doesn’t get out as far as it used to, you have to pretty close to a strong station to hear over the static.

Radio is a interesting topic, I’d suggest you study it on Wikipedia to get more details.

 

I recall hearing on the radio as a kid “Kxxx, 50,000 watt powerhouse”.

 

Can still get WSM after 10:00pm most nights.

 

Just as an FYI, not sure if I've posted this here before, but you can decode the belt lengths by part number. For example, a belt with part number 15455 is a 15 series belt, that is 45.5 inches long. That might help you if you need a belt at the local spot and don't need to give them an application.