I actually have one of those spark indicators that mounted on the dash. Mine is in need of repair. I took it out of an El camino at a junk yard years agio, thinking it was a tach. My dad had one in a 57 chevy years ago and siad it was really cool looking at idle at night. Matt
Vicky, I am timing light poor now ya want me to send you one? An old roundy round trick was to point a timing light at a tire with a strip on the tire. It had something to do with determining speed or when to shift or something like that. I remember reading about it in some auto publication a few years back. I know it has nothing to do with making lights flash in the portholes of an old Buick but when will I get another chance to tell that. OH by the way while on the subject JC Whittney used to sell little lights that went on the spark plug end of the plug wires. They marketed it along the lines of being able to tell at a glance if your engine was firing properly. Boy that would be scary if the sequence just changed all at once and you wouldn't know without the lights.
Maybe some things are just regional. I remember in Texas as a kid hearing stories about old Buick port holes having lights in them. I grew up thinking it was common practice to add lights to them. I can only remember seeing one of them first hand. I was so dumb that I thought they came from the factory that way and that most them had just burned out and the owners never fixed the bulbs. As far as all of the guys throwing rocks in their gl*** house, keep in mind that most things that you do are probably viewed as stupid by someone else. I've met plenty that say that restoring a car or building a hot rod is a severe waste of time and money and is therefore stupid. If you think about how much time and money we waste on these things, it is stupid, but it is what we all like to do. I remember when everyone hated whitewall tires in the 80's. Yet my 54 Chevy had 3" wides on it no matter how much ribbing I took. I see a few of you that used to throw rocks at me with white wall tires now. Maybe Buick portholes with lights will make a comeback.
Ha. In the Pacific NW when I was in high school in one of the towns close to where I lived it was popular to take the gun sites out of a '57 Chevy hood and put lights in there. In the part of town that I hung out in it was popular to hang a couple of lights off the rear end, then turn your tail lights off when cruising. I still hang lights off the rear end every once in a while, just because I can. You used to be abel to tell where someone was from or what car club they belonged to just by looking at their car. By the way on a different subject, is it OK to walk around naked in a gl*** house?
Cool idea. Only thing non traditional about this post are the stupid comments, as usual. Keep us in the loop... Cheers.....
Colored LED are not bright enough. I think only white one could be used. Just a 1/4 hole in the port hole for the LED, a piece of plexigas acting as a light diffuser, et voila.
......There was a guy in my hometown who had a '51 Chevy Sedan with what must have been about 60 or 70 lights mounted everywhere you could put one. Not sure how that old 6 volt system kept up with it, but that POS looked like a Christmas tree going down the road at night. There's no accounting for taste
You obviously never spent time in the OL' Man's shop. I used to have a vacuum whistle that my uncle gave me. I wish I still did. It operated with a chain, you could make it sound like a cow or a train whistle by how far you pulled the chain. I had a lot of fun with that old thing. Put it on the Vic once, talk about phsyc in the staging lanes. They made me remove it after the first p***. HDbob, Thanks man. I completely forgot about that old whistle until I read your post. I like to remember fun things.
How come you guys think a hood ornament that light up is cool but not this? Go for the neon lights in the portholes. I think it's a hell of a good laugh. The first guy who does it will be cool. The next million who copy it will be idiots, just like the Olds valve covers on a Chev, fake patina, etc.
Hey Beener... I have one of those old whistles and plan on putting it on my '26 Model T build !!! I always loved them.... Also, my Ol' Man never had a shop...Loved him dearly, but he had the mechanical ability of a pigeon !! Cheers,
Easy enough to do if that is what you want. I doubt the flash from an NE51 type bulb will be very visible if it is running on the leakage from your plug wires. If your ignition leaks a current like the antenna on a radio transmitter then you have other problems. It is possible to light an LED from an inductor wrapped around the plug wire - but it will be stealing a lot of energy from the plug. A better solution would be a darlington transistor, triggered inductively by the plug wire, switching 12v power to an LED. That way you get a quick, bright flash. It depends on your state & local regs, but it would be best to use amber LED's. Amber is ok on the front & sides of the vehicle in most places. The flashing part of things? well you can get a ticket for anything the "fun police" don't like. Enjoy your hobby, however odd it may seem to others. B.
Thanks to all who replied to my question, the helpful ones and those knocking it. I got some good ideas on what to try. This will not happen soon, as the car has a long way to go, but after I do some experimenting I will report back. To the "traditional police" I also enjoyed your comments. I have always said if you can dish it out you had better be able to take it when it comes your way. Looks like it was coming my way this time. Brian
Making them glow brighter according to revs might give a more pleasant look - flashing with firing will be stroboscopic at best, and a softer glowing effect would be less 'disco'. Seems like that would be easier to wire too maybe? On the other hand it might just look like your engine is on fire..
Well you do pretty damned good for a fella that had to learn the hard way. I'm real proud of ya. I wouldn't have traded my Ol' Man for anyone's. He lacked perfection, if you don't believe that take a good look at me. That old whistle was a lot of fun. We put it on the merc and the wife got in a lot of trouble for following the cheer leaders and making it moooo. Mostly every one in our social standing thought it was pretty funny, but those of better breeding didn't see the humor in it.
Might be cool to route the real exhaust out the portholes.Maybe find some Tetra ethyl lead so the exhaust leaves a white stain on the body like a WW2 aircraft.Might even see real flames on the over run when backing off the gas.Anything less is just a video game.............
It might be more acceptable to the traditional police on here if you used candles or real small coal oil lamps in the port holes. Just saying.
LMFAO That's just wrong. As long as it is 6V no one should have a problem with it. This is just a guess but isn't it going to take a bulb along the lines of a timming light bulb to keep from blowing it out? I mean even a week coil fires at something 40,000 volts. There may be the necessity of a little transformer for each light. Also how many portholes does the buick have? Are 4 per side or 3 per side? These are just questions, OK?
First of all there seems to be this perverted view that just because something was done once or even a few times in days gone by that somehow makes it traditional and therefore OK to do again. Well Son, I'm here to tell you that almost any stupid idea you can come up with has been done before and you can probably find a picture to prove it if you look hard enough. So the whole argument about something being "Traditional" or not is a bunch of bull **** anyway when used in that context. To me the HAMB is NOT about can I prove that something was done before to justify my lame *** idea, it is about an almost intangible concept of how Hot Rods and Customs were during a certain era. If a guy wants to put goofy little lights in his Buick Port holes, which by the way are properly called VentiPorts and the number of them (3 or 4) denoted the size of the straight 8 that the car had, he can go right ahead - the public will think they are cool, and most real car guys won't - in my opinion. But he likes them, that's fine. Personally I think they will be as lame as Neon under the car, Spinner Wheels, and a Hood Ornament of a guy thumbing his nose at you. But it's his car and if he likes it, good for him - besides he can always remove them if he gets tired of it. And by the way, all thought the styling was originally supposed to mimic the exhaust on fighter planes, the justification was that they ventilated heat out of the engine compartment, not unlike louvers, and that is where the name VentiPort came from.
I think if you find a led light that your like. I think if you get a 555 timer from Radio Shack and a bag of tranisisters, you could have each fire in the order you want, you can only see one side at a time so make 2 circuits. Set timer for speed you want.
I just thought they were for looks. I put some in an old Effie I had once to let hot air out. I really thought I was being an inovator. You really rained on my parade. You are absolutly correct about stuff being done. There are a lot of things that we find and think that they are cool and they are as lame now as they were back then. The problem sometimes is that if you were not there you don't know just how lame something was. if an old fella points it out he gets called traditional police or synical or both.
Hook em up in series to the florescent lights under the car as well as the plasma TV's in the wheelwells and headrests. That should do it for you
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