Technical HAMB-appropriate parts that aren't popular nowadays

Pie Crusts
https://imgur.com/lJmcpiK

 

two piece windshields on a roadster.

 

Matching painted containers for gas, oil, water & first aid kit.


Trunk upholstery with slots for wrenches.

 

Scavenger pipes: ~4' chrome straight pipes routed under the rear axle, with flared tips.

Pat Ganahl's Chevy:

 

Hello,

Most of what folks see are extended chrome straight pipes running under the rear axle. Those come from the mufflers and just look like the original concept of “scavenger pipes.” Early photos are hard to come by and the one most everyone has seen is the Chevy sedan from Pat Ganahl’s build.

The “real” scavenger pipes: The angle of the pipes looks to come from ahead of the mufflers and reach past the rear axle.

The idea came from hot rod folks at the drags trying everything possible to get more horsepower for the myriad of stock car classes. The fast guys had short down tubes from the stock manifolds the were allowed to be uncapped for the time trial runs. But, because they were not officially factory stock, they had to be capped for the elimination races.

Now, as hot rod folks are well versed in rules and how to adapt to them. They decided that if down tubes were open and running through other pipes, the whole length of the car, it would be like straight through pipes, with a toned down sound. (which it was.) The extra cost was also evident in the daily drives to work and school. The toned down sound was soft enough to keep the CHP and local police at bay. But, they were not cheap. If one chromed the tubes, it got really expensive for a set of pipes.

Jnaki

In the race to win more trophies in the stock classes, this was something a lot of racers tried.

The twin downtube exhaust outlets capped up for class elimination races. (With normal diamond shaped outlets and caps.) The real scavenger pipes are connected to those downtube pipes and use support brackets closer to the rear.

These were custom made from our local muffler shop, “Moe’s Muffler” close to our Westside of Long Beach house. Chromed, full length from downtube exhaust outlets, under the car and the rear axle. There were several brackets to bolt onto due to the weight of the pipe system.

After a few weeks of runs using the scavenger pipes, they did little to none in the performance range and so they were left on for the street cruising scene. Popular as the old stories go, they were a nuisance, as the first thing done was to scrape the brackets or tips as it was lower than anything on the car. Some stops from the local police and CHP started to wear thin on the owners and a lot of folks took them off.

So, where did our set of dual scavenger pipes end up? As soon as we took them off, there was no place to store them in the small backyard garage. So, we put them up in the open cross beam rafters. Now, as we were working on the main floor concrete areas, above us were two sets of dual chrome pipes, all nice and shiny. That was 1959-60.

39 years later, when we sold that last Westside of Long Beach house, those chrome scavenger pipes were still in the rafters. They would not fit on top of our surf racks or inside, due to the weight of the pipes. Surf racks are good for about 80-100 lbs. It was a house warming gift to the new owners, who probably did not know what the #$#@! they were, sitting up in the rafters. Ha!

How did they dispose of those heavy, long chromed pipes? There was a local drive-by vendor who came by every Tuesday prior to the city trash pick up truck. Most folks knew this and if they wanted to dispose of large items, this local vendor usually picked them up just before the city trash service came to pick up all of the trash. Not that chrome scavenger pipes were trash…

Note:

This is where the concept differs. Some folks welded a short chrome pipe(s) onto the muffler system and ran them back toward the rear axle, calling them scavengers. The idea started at the drags where everyone in the specific stock classes had the same motor/hp rating and needed every advantage possible. So, 3:78 gearing now became 4:11 gears, then 4:56 gears in the 58 Chevy A/Stock class. Then since headers were illegal, anything possible was tried, including the uncapped down tubes during time trial runs. But, they had to be capped during the eliminations.

The name? Scavengers supposedly scavenged the exhaust and funneled them out as quickly as possible, without using custom made headers or mufflers. The sound? Different than stock, but slightly louder and more hollow “pipey.” It changed from a direct loud uncapped outlet sound, to sounding like it was in a chamber hallway, echoing off of the walls as it exited out the back.

The idea caught on in the stock classes as real headers were the thing that separated the Factory Stock Class from the Gas Coupe/Sedan Classes. These were not real headers, but a version of the side lakes pipes uncapped. Did it improve performance? Perhaps as people have their own stories of real scavengers. For us, not so much… “quickness and skill is always faster than trickery…”

Note 2:

The advantage, they were direct exhaust outlet connected and noted to run the exhaust out of the back faster than through curvy mufflers.

The disadvantage, we could all lift those long pipes as a “bench press” item as they were heavy. So, the weight advantage, or in this case dis-advantage played a part in getting rid of them in a few weeks. Sure the exhaust left in a straight through pipe… but the times and speeds were not significant enough. Then finally, someone complained to the tech inspectors and the decision was made that they were not factory stock items anyone could buy at the dealer’s parts department.

So, folks used short straight pipes still connected to mufflers and called them scavengers, which they did no such thing as scavenge exhaust from a direct source without going through curvy pipe interior mufflers. Despite being wrongly named, the label was still used by some to continue being associated with “scavenger pipes.” “Hey, I just got some scavenger pipes…” was a misnomer, when all they were was a set of short straight pipes welded on from the baffled muffler to the rear axle. YRMV

 

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but cut down sports car doors.

 

I noticed something was wrong with her , she is left handed by the bows tied in her pant legs . Do you notice this also ?

 

Never looked that low.

 

Hell, I didn't even know she had hands