VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1912-1928 25 Superior K Sedan Windshield Question

I have what appears to be an early 25 Superior K sedan. The serial number tag is missing so I can't pin down the place or time in was built. It has headlights that are bolted to the fenders with no crossbar and the throttle and advance controls are mounted on the steering wheel and that's why I believe it to be an early 25. I bought the car in Canada near the U.S. border and the previous owner restored the car decades ago so it may have parts on it that are not original.

The windshield does not have the vertical ventilation feature that I have seen on pictures and and in the parts manual. The windshield has no regulator to move the glass up and down. It appears that the windshield is original to the car so my question is could the car have been manufactured without the VV feature?

Captain D; Are your amp and oil gauges round and side by side or oval and on top of each other? Round gauges are 1924 and stacked are 1925. All 1925 closed body cars had V V windshields.
Steve

Steve - I'm deployed to Italy with the military as a contractor and my car is back in Colorado with my family so I can't look at it but I recall to the best of my memory ( I'm getting old) that they are oval and stacked on the right side of the panel. In addition to the spark and throttle controls being on the steering column my car also has the following:

Valve covers ( can valve covers be added to a 1924 engine?)
Block casting number is 344624 (is it possible to date the block?)
Oil pump is mounted behind generator
Horn is mounted on fire wall
Round tail light lense
Nickel plated steel radiator shell (Canadian or truck?)
Gear driven generator

Could it be possible that the car was assembled in Canada and they used a solid windshield because they wanted to get rid of their excess parts from the previous year?

With the exception of the windshield I think everything is pointing to an early 25 (between January and August).

Rob

Captain D you may have what is sometimes called an assembled car.(different parts from different years) Maybe someone with more knowledge than I can add to this.

To answer your questions:

Yes valve covers can be added by adding longer studs to rocker arms.
A date code is on passenger side of engine. An alpha-numeric code. ie; D - 23 - 25 = April 23,1925
Tail light and oil pump were the same on 24 & 25.
Horn was mounted on engine for '25 closed bodies.
1925 & 26 had aluminum radiator shells.
Generator set up was the same for '24 & 25.

I hope this helps.
Steve

G'Day,
CAPTAIN I am addressing a couple items from Steve's response.
-1) HORN: I have a Canadian made 25 Superior K Sedan.. Engine code: D 16 5 ( April 16th 1925) The car has been in the family since 1927. The horn is mounted in the firewall. It has been my observation over the years viewing 1925 Canadian & USA built cars, that the horn was moved to the engine in later production of the 1925 model year. I believe the 1924 Superior also had the horn in the firewall but others can advise.
2) The radiators and headlight rims were aluminum on USA cars and steel with nickel plating on Canadian cars. The 1926 model year may have also had aluminum headlight rims to go with the headlights now mounted on the bar instead of the fenders. The trucks in both countries had steel painted rad shells as far as I have seen.

In all the advertising I have seen for the 1925 year, the Coupe & Sedan were suppose to have steel rims while the touring, coach and roadster had wood spoke.
I believe this is another Canadian idiosyncrasy in that this did not always hold true in Canada, as most (not all) sedans I have seen, including mine, have wood spoke wheels. Are your's steel or wood ?
As to your VV windshield question, as Steve suggests, it may have been a left over 1924 piece (?). If your engine is numbers correct for the year, the date code may offer answers.
Vive la difference n'est-ce pas ?
FWIW...……..Joe.

I would like to weigh in on some of Joe, Rob and Steve's comments about the '25 sedan.
My Sedan came from Minnesota and was assembled in the month of November. It came to me with wood wheels. I have since converted to the original four lug disc wheels, which were a one year only feature. The 1924 had 6 lug discs and so did the 1926 closed cars. My horn is mounted on the exhaust.

As far as the fixed windshield on Rob's car, maybe the mechanism was frozen and could have been eliminated when the glass was replaced. The telling clue to whether it was originally a VV feature, look at the top part of the dash and see if it extends higher than the bottom of the glass like the VV has. This would allow you to raise the windshield just enough to all allow air to be directed to your feet without coming straight into yourself.

Roger

Steve - I can't look at the date code because I am overseas but I am assuming it's stamped into the block on the passenger side.

Joe - My wheels are wood spoke. Did U.S. built cars come with a wood spoke option? Did Canadian built cars have wood spokes as standard? Are wood spoke and disc wheels interchangeable on the car or is the lug pattern different? If you swap from disc to wood do you have to change the axle or brakes?

Roger - I'm confused as to what you mean by the top part of the dash being higher than the bottom of the glass.

Is it possible someone can post a picture of what that would look like and also include a picture of the inside and outside of a VV type windshield? My windshield appears to be original. The previous owner did a very poor restoration and I don't think he had the expertise to replace the windshield. The wood frame on the car is in good shape so I don't think there would have been a reason to replace it.

Is there a way to date the frame of the car?

Did Canadian built cars use the same species of wood in the frame as U.S. made frames or did they use something local?

Thanks for all the help..........Rob

Re wood used. All plants used some locally sourced no matter where they were. I have seen a number of Oshawa (Canada) built cars that were primarily maple with some ash (regulator boards and such). I own two 1929s and they are mostly maple. Not related but I have been working on a 1928 Durant from Leaside (Toronto) plant that also was mostly maple.

WOOD vs STEEL RIMS:
CAPTAIN In addition to my Grandfather's sedan, I also have another Canadian built sedan that has the steel wheels. The hubs are definitely different than the wood spoke, but as it was a complete chassis with the body on, I have not tried to dismantle the hubs to compare one against the other. I can't comment on all USA built sedans , but one sedan I know of that was imported into Canada from the Indiana USA area, had wood spoke wheels.
I'm sure others will be able to elaborate on the difference between the hubs.

Rob - Here is a sketch of how the dash extends higher than the bottom of the windshield glass.

Roger

Captain D,

To save any confusion with the names of the various wheel parts, the twenties Chevrolet wheels (and most other early wheels) have four distinct assemblies, the hub, the spokes or metal disk, the felloe (pronounced felly) onto which the rim fits, and the rim. On the 26 and 27 cars (and probably 25s; I am not very familiar with the earlier wheels) the complete wooden wheels and the disk wheels are interchangeable between cars. The rims are interchangeable between the two wheel types. The wheel bearings are interchangeable.

The wooden wheel hubs and the disk wheel hubs are definitely not interchangeable. This is because the wooden spokes are much thicker than the steel disks. The steel disks are shaped to compensate for this and ensure that the rim on the disk wheel is located the same place relative to the axles as the wooden wheels.

To make sure that the two hub types cannot be accidentally interchanged the disk wheel hub flanges have a different diameter pitch circle for the hub bolts from the wooden wheel hub bolts..

The 28 wheels (both wooden and disk) are different again: they have a wider felloe and wider rim. The 28 back wheels will still fit onto the earlier cars, but, because of the 28's front wheel brakes the hubs (and their stub axles) are completely different and not interchangeable with the earlier cars.

Frank.

felloe is pronounced same as fellow.

Depends on what part of the world you live in!

e.g. from Refinitions.org:
"A felly is the outward rim of a wheel: it was formerly written felloe."

Plenty of examples of either pronunciation on a Google search.- take your pick. Most of my acquaintances use "felly"

Accents. Each country tortures english a bit differently.

My wife pronounces (bet you say pronounce different too lol) several words with almost a southern USA accent and we grew up in the same City. For some reason she gets mad when I correct her...

I take "felly" as a colloquial term (like barby for barbeque). I see no way in phoenetics to get a "y" sound from "oe". No offense as I am from a place with many more such oddities then you have down there.