Drive a stock 50's car cross country? Unsafe?

Old cars are out-dated and dangerous. I'd never drive one.

 

Oh, something I forgot--plan on a big hassle at the airport if you bring your tools...after they x-rayed my bag, the TSA guard did everything but cavity search me (man, was I bummed--she was cute!)!

Tucker

 

Go to your local carry out and get about 3-4 empty heavy cardbord long neck cartons to put your tools/parts in. Don't tape them closed. Check as luggage/tools with the agent and let them tape them closed. Tools are only a problem if you try to take as carry on.

Poncho is prolly 6 volt so take your cell wall charger along and maybe a spare cell phone battery too.

Wave as you're comin' through Ohio!

 

FWIW. When I bought my Pontiac last month it took me 10 minutes to decide I wanted it, 4 hours to decide whether to drive it or ship it. Checked everything, took a long test drive, checked it again. Drove it home, over 1200 miles. Needed the spare gas, cause the gauge was off, needed a can of stop leak for the radiator, needed the cell phone to keep calling the wife and telling her I was still rolling. Most fun I've had in years. You make instant friends at every stop. Besides, you're talking about a new car, mine's a 41.
Your "car sense" will tell you if it is worth a shot, after that just relax and deal with whatever comes up. Have fun.

 

my grandpa drove a kaiser from wisconsin to cali in the 50's so i guess its really safe.

 

AMAZING! You mean to say, people actually drive their cars???

 

I say go for it!
- up until a couple of months back my daily was a 4 drum car (not I have discs in the front), just make sure that you have a firm grip on the wheel when you are hitting the brakes!

Sounds like a good time, take pictures and keep a diary. Once you are back, post it all on the HAMB!

Joe

 

If it'll go 50 miles then it'll go 1000. Keep the speed down to a steady 60, keep out of traffic jams and drive smooth.

 

Thats funny. That is something I find myself saying everyday. People in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s drove their cars long distances in those days so why can't I drive those cars today? It amazes people that think back in the day people didn't go anywhere. Just the other day an old timer was telling me how in '57 he went to Cali bought a '32 and drove it back to Ohio never having knowledge of the car other than the day he bought it. This whole adventure sounds like fun to me!

 

do look at brakes and seals- check drums too
check exhaust as its gonna shake apart the hangers
don't grease things much as all play/looseness will show up when lubed
extra set of points and ign parts -no one stocks shit except farm stores for points-dist caps etc.
be prepared old fragile wiring will only short or break at night.... still - 6 volt !!!! bulbs are 6V too
vaccum wipers ???BLADES???
flush radiator have spare water pump and belt
drain and check gas tank-unleaded gremlins show up in carb parts this old

I drove my frame crushingly lowered 52 BuicK RIV.HRDTOP daily for a year and a half all weather everywhere ... lotsa miles and lotsa fun ... some problems so low it coud not be towed on a hook
People will help a fellow broke down with a old car..
OH YAH
get AAA GOLD card
I DO LOVE 52 OLDSES AND BUICKS

GOOD LUCK
PAPERDOG

 

Ya gotta get to the car and get that zen mind meld thing goin' with it. Check it out, drive it around...sniff it's ass a little...make friends with it...drive it around some more...check shit again, and deal with anything fishy.

Then get yer ass in it and go! If somethin' breaks, somethin' breaks. Just keep yer head and enjoy yerself and gettin' to know the new ride, and deal with anything that pops up as you need to.

Aside from the basic getmeouttajambonsideofroad stuff...cell phone, maps, few hunnert bucks on the card to fall back on...and the hamb helper pages to look up a few folks on the way.

Go for it!
Olson

 

DRIVE IT! Don't worry about taking spare parts. If you take a spare part for everything, the trunk won't be big enough. Just make sure everything works when you get there. If it doesn't, fix it then hit the road.
Every year I pick a place in the US and roadtrip in my old 53. From MN to Niagra Falls, Smokey Mountains, Florida several times, Grand Canyon, Vegas. This year I can't decide between Key West and Bonneville. Anyway, take a camera and share the trip with us when you get back.
Here's a pic of me at the Grand Canyon.

 

DAMN 83 KB limit. After resizeing here it is (pretty small now)

 

Amazingly. my uncle drove a bunch of Kaisers from Detroit to Shreveport LA. in the fifties.
Of course, They were brand new, but they actually made it with drum brakes. Sometimes he drove a Frazier and it made it too.
I had a 6 cylinder Ponch in the sixties and it was a sweet running little car and the mileage will surprise you.
I would tell the guy you bought it from that you are driving it home and have him tell you what he would worry about on the road.

 

First I'd calculate exactly what it's going to cost to make the trip. 2.75 per gallon, let's say 15 miles to the gallon if it's a straight 6 with a three speed (estimate), so 2.75 for every 15 miles travelled on the highway, muliplied by 2000 miles = $366 in gas. Then there's food. Let's say $20 a day. You'll probably be doing about 60 mph, So you're looking at a 4 day drive if you do 8 hours a day, so that's another 80 bucks to eat. Then if you don't plan on sleeping in the car, plan on 3 nights at the motel, which at a minimum will be $40 a night. So that's another $120.

So $366 in gas, $80 in food, and $120 in motels comes to $566. So basically you're going to gamble on a 50 year old pontiac to make a cross country trip with no issues to possibly save $340. One mechanical issue would either have you breaking even or losing money. And losing money sucks.

I'd ship it.

Don't get me wrong, a cross country trip in a 50's car is something I'd absolutely love to do. I once drove from Chicago, IL, top Portland, OR, through s. Dakota, Montana, Washington, etc, and it was very memorable. But I was driving a truck that was a company vehicle, and my food, gas, and accomodations were paid by the company.

I'd love to drive a 50's / 60's car across country, but it would be a car that I was familiar with, with new brakes, belts, tune-up, and anything else I could think of. It would be a car that I had taken a few "test" road trips of say 100 to 200 miles round trip from home to see how the car behaves on the highway. Sometimes a car that runs fine in the city will begin to unravel on the highway, and things like old dry rotted tires and belts begin to blow, and tired mechanical parts begin to fail causing overheating issues (or worse).

Here's a nice little nighmare scenario for you. I used to know a dude in Florida who decided he wanted an old car. He bought a car in Illinois (which I advised against because of rust issues) but he insisted it was the deal of the century. He intended to drive it home, which I advised him against doing as well, but he convinced himself that "the gamble" was all part of the fun. He paid $2500 for the car, and had $500 in his pocket for the road trip home. Long story short, the motor went in Alabama and he ended up selling it for next to nothing to a garage owner and took a bus home with next to nothing in his pocket. Needless to say he told me afterward that he wished he'd taken my advice.

 

Whose sig on here was "drive it like you know how to fix it"

 

I'd love to say, "just go for it and have fun", but I'm with Repoguy. I contemplated doing the same thing about a year ago with my '49 Ford Coupe. I bought the car because it was a true, two owner 54,000 mile car and the body was excellent. When the owner said it was driven regularly but sat for the last 2 years I thought I'd just drive it home and save the shipping. He figured he just needed to drain the gas tank and put in a couple of wheel cylinders to get her running again to "get her ready for me". My friends thought I was nuts even contemplating the 900 mile drive home . I got busy at work and thank god I decided to have it shipped. I'd do the trip now, but that's after I....

- redid the entire braking system (cylinders, master cylinder rebuild, , flexible lines, shoes)
- rebuilt the gas tank and rad
- new fuel pump
- rebuilt rad and generator
- new clutch and resealed tranny, new axle bearings
- new tires
- rebuilt carb
- replaced 40% of the wiring
- etc, etc, etc

You'll know within 5 minutes whether it would even be possbile when you see the car in person. In my case the car would not have made it 50 miles, let alone 900. If you want the experience of picking up the car, I'd drive out with a late model truck with a buddy and some tools. If the car is as good as you think, you can follow him home. If its not or you have problems, rent a dolly and pull it back. Just my 0.02.

 

Cars are mechanical things, and prone to breaking. Maybe my way of thinking is backwards, but being older, and surviving this long is a good indication it's tough enough if you would take it easy...

NEWER vehicles have problems too, that's why there's recalls. Case in point: Last week my father and I drove his '97 Dodge Diesel Super Duty and a 16 foot trailer to Macallen (sp?) TX, after a load of watermelons. Started off as a pretty normal trip, made it there in what seemed like no time flat. (Interesting food at those circle K stores, what the hell is a Molejita? Do I really want to know what I ate?) It wasn't until on the return trip that things got a little strange. Coming into Victoria, a fan blade decided to part ways with it's brethren, and impaled itself into the radiator. By the time someone stopped with some water, and led us to a garage, it was too late to find a replacement for either the fan, or the radiator...but, the mechanic who owned the shop found us a new radiator and fan, at cost, and said it would be there the next morning. Dad didn't want to leave his melons overnight, so we slept in the parking lot til the next day. Randy (the owner) let us use his tools to change out the fan and radiator, and we were back on the road in no time flat.

back on the road..great, lesson learned, dont trust ANY vehicle, take tools with you..nice drive up 77, saw a truck in some small town that I'm sure someone on here knows, looked a lot like a hudson pickup, but chopped, with caddy dagmars up front...

all was well until I-35 in Ft Worth. The reciever hitch decided to come loose on one side, twisting the 1/4" steel the other side was made of like it was newspaper, thank goodness for the automatic breakaway trailer brake...swaying across two lanes of a four lane freeway during 6:00 PM traffic in a dually with fully loaded trailer is not exactly fun...

made it home, a day and a half behind schedule...still in one piece, but barely.

Take it easy, take back roads, see the country instead of the interstate, I've driven 40s and 50s cars with STOCK components on 700+ mile ONE WAY trips with not so much as a flat tire, and then I've had them give me 9 kinds of hell at a later time...it's not so much the age of the vehicle as it is your driving method, and how the car was treated over it's lifetime.

Do it, You'll be glad you did

 

I belong to the National T Bucket Alliance and the National Street Rod Association also. Both of those organizations have "Buddy Lists" with phone numbers for the purpose of lending assistance to a fellow member who has broken down in the area. The "buddy" may only have to provide the stranded driver a ride to an Autozone or whatever. I take my list with me every time I travel very far from home. HAMBERS could do the same. BTW, I've driven over 1200 miles in the last two years with 47 Merc front brakes and 55 Chevy rear brakes. They work!

 

Dude I'm 100% behind that! You start a new thread in the main forum about this and asking for names, cities, states, and contact numbers and I'll be one of the first to post my info.

 

what ever happened? did you drive it or ship it?

 

Go for it!! just cruise nice and easy.. Have an adventure

 

Throw your tools in the trunk with a few gallons of water and a case of oil. Then hit the road.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=114465

 

Hell man, when are we leaving. I'm in L.A., been throwin wrenches most my life, lots of trips to Baja, so I know how to rig shit. Hell where's the car? Lets go. Been feeling a little dead around here last couple of months, BRING IT ON. Dead serious man, PM me. I'm itchin to get outa here.