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Al Abrahamson put out a brief email this evening that Paul passed away at 5:25pm PDT today, April 5. RIP, Paul, the PAS greatly appreciates your sustained efforts, including four years as President, for about 60 years.
Rear lights: I use a #1133 (32 cp) spotlight bulb (mushroom head) for stoplight and reversing light, and #1129 (21 cp) for taillight. The original #63 (3 cp) for tail is impossibly dim for today’s driving.
Auxiliary/parking lights: As long as you are using them for turn signals rather than as parking lights, I’d use #1129 (21 cp) rather than #81 (6 cp). Another option is #87 (15 cp).
I have no info on LEDs.
Try Then and Now Automotive in Weymouth, MA. They are primarily known for their rebuilding of mechanical fuel pumps, but also have a warehouse full of mechanical parts. About 12 years ago, I bought S80 valve springs from them for about $7.50 each.
VERY nice people to deal with.
Carl, Wikipedia has an exhaustive article on Calif license plates at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_California
The mirror-less top clamp on the sidemounted spares is the same as on my 1930 roadster. A different clamp with mirror was in the 1930 accessory catalog. Mirrors-on-sidemounts require another person to adjust while you critique them, or about 30 times of getting-in-to-check if you’re doing the job by yourself.
Thanks to the late Lee Garoyan, a mirror product that works only on slanted-windshield cars (B roadster and tourings, A 7-p touring) is reproduction stainless mirrors for 1928-29 Model A Ford open cars–with a minor modification. The thread on those repro mirrors must be changed from 5/16-18 to 1/4-20, then remove the chromed screw on the side of each stanchion and thread in the mirror. It’s a 5-minute job to replace for judging. Perhaps others have some ideas for mirrors for closed cars.
It’s a 1929 or 1930. I can’t tell if there are courtesy lights on the splash aprons–if not, it’s a late-1929 133 (133″ wheelbase as appears proper from proportions) equipped with hood doors rather than louvers, OR a 1930 Model C (132″ wb). If you can see round courtesy lights, it’s a 1930 Model B (139″ wb). Those headlight lenses appear to be flat rather than convex which would be 1929. The auxiliary lights also look like the smaller 1929 units with flat lenses. The 1930 headlights are one-year convex “happy face” prisms, and the 1930 aux light lenses are miniatures of the HL lenses. The sidemounted spare brackets appear to be 1930.
I appreciate the extraordinary effort to capture movie frames, but I’m not sure someone who does not know the particular car can positively identify it. By the way, that’s a **1963** series of Calif license plate which has a current year of registration sticker only on the upper right corner of the REAR plate, and those plates remain valid today.
1133s are spotlight bulbs with “mushroom heads” and I use them by choice in my 1918 48. 32 cp is correct, and ampere draw (each) is 3.91 from an old chart.
The closest original bulb was the OLD 1129 (to early 1960s) which was more focused than today’s. 1129 are 21 cp and draw 2.63 amps each.
Bear in mind that these are single contact bulbs, and S80s dimmed the huge 21 cp with a resistor. Beginning in 1929, dual contact/dual filament #1000 bulbs were used.
Some of us, including me, are going to need the translation of “duffy plate.” I’ve been sheltered all my life 🙂
Just a guess, but your old spring appears similar to the one I found in my 1936 8-cyl that was far too strong once I had the rods rebabbitted. So I speculate that some previous owner or mechanic installed a much heavier spring in your engine to compensate for extremely loose bearings. With a rebuilt engine or new bearings, a much lighter spring is needed.
Later blocks are more difficult because one has to drop the pan to gain access to the spring. On my 1936, the first spring was too light, but I’d only put four bolts in the pan and six quarts of oil. The second spring was the charm–a good thing because I had three others of different tensions as possibilities.
Thank you very much, Herb!
The Shoberg-Oakes 1934 1248A has been in the same family since 1945.
Congratulations, Paul! I think you hold the current record. Anyone else?
I’d put 8 quarts in, start and run for 5 minutes, give it 15 minutes to drain back, and note the level shown on dipstick. You’ll need to add at least one quart. Run again, let it rest. Continue adding oil until you reach the FULL mark. Now you’ll know what 8 and 9 quarts look like on the dipstick for all future oil changes.
As I recall, Tony, they were $250 each but I bought other items at the same time so that may have been the quantity-discount price–four years ago.
Jim, my 1934 (virtually identical to your 1935) has its horn relay near the right front engine mount. You can (barely) get to the contacts over the fender, but I found it easier to detach the relay’s “can” from the sheet metal and poke it down under the radiator to facilitate marking the wires.
I had to ask Bob Jacobsen for this info because I couldn’t find the darned thing! So credit him with the answer.
Our member Scott Henningsen in CA is making / repairing them. I bought a couple from him at the 2018 Meet.
Jim, thank you very much for the very thorough and carefully reasoned explanation.
I should add that the 66 hp engine was a very low rev engine, with a published redline of 1,500 rpm. The 1918 dual valve has a 2,500 rpm redline, and for comparison, a Series 80/81 a 3,000 rpm redline.
Jim, can you please clarify for me the temperature “release points” (as it were) for the higher viscosities in multi-grade oils?
Marlin Hansen attached a temperature sensor to the oil pan of his then-owned 1917 Series 66 which he drove from MN to CA about 13 years ago. He told me that even at 60 mph all day in 90+* weather that oil temp (again, measured on the outside of the oil pan) never exceeded 118*F. I think I remember him saying that he used only single-viscosity oils as a result of that finding.
Because of our usual use (shorter runs), I’ve used 15W-40 with so-far satisfactory results, but now question whether the oil temp, especially in my 1918 48 dual valve, gets hot enough on LONG runs to achieve a suitable degree of protective viscosity. That is, prior to the Modoc Tour or a Glidden Tour with 120+ mile days, should I switch to single-viscosity oil?
Adam, I’m sorry to hear of your misfortune. Yes, Optimas cannot tolerate a really deep discharge. If you haven’t tried the method above (charge in parallel with a decently charged other 6V battery), you just might be able to salvage them.
My experience is that if an Optima discharges below, perhaps, 5.9 volts, that conventional charging of that battery alone will not bring it back. What usually works for me is to wire the discharged Optima in parallel with another 6V battery (which can be wet cell) that has at least 6.1V, then slow charge. By slow charge, I mean 4-6 amps, for perhaps four hours. Give it a rest and do it a couple of more times. When the discharged Optima will hold 6.1 or 6.2 overnight, then you can top off the charge with that battery alone.
While the Optima(s) are coming back, suggest you hunt for whatever is pulling them down. This is much easier on cars which have fuse blocks–i.e., not 1929-forward Pierces. Use a volt-ohmmeter (VOM) but with the meter set to accommodate 10 amps. With a good 6V battery in place, disconnect the ground cable and connect one lead of the VOM to the battery ground post and the other to the detached ground cable, checking for amp (current) draw. There should be NONE. With a fuse block system, you would remove one fuse at a time until you get the desired zero reading; but with Pierce’s circuit breaker system you have to disconnect one electrical item at a time.
Wild guesses:
1. With battery disconnected, test the master shut off switch both open and closed and look for a short and/or resistance. Then check the cutout.
2. For your car, the clock would be the first power-consuming item I’d disconnect.
Please keep us posted on what you find.
