VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 She Runs!!! - Update

Hey Russ You Old Cuss!

Wow! Two posts in 8 years! Man, you are on a roll!!

Well...after I get Charlotte Mae road worthy, we plan on taking her for a test drive over to "Harley Dude Joe's" house (burning oil all the way no doubt) which is about five miles from here. That should give me an idea of how the "all original barn survivor" can handle the road and how the brakes perform. If all goes well, then we will try a longer test drive to Central Point, Oregon, which is about 15 miles each way. Got a friend there that wants to go for a ride in Charlotte Mae.

I have two goals for the car for this year: We have an old historical house out on the highway about a mile and a half from Eagle Point (it is one of the most photographed houses in the Northwest) and we host a car show on the grass around the house there every year in June. So, my first goal is to drive the '32 there as a "barn survivor" attraction to advertise the car show.

The second goal is the CHVA "Friendship Meet" car show up at Lost Creek Lake the end of August. That is a big car show and cars come from all around to attend the free gathering. The cars are parked on the grass by the lake and usually about 300 + cars attend. I want to take the old girl to that show as well...which is about a 20 mile drive on Highway 62. The highway follows the Rogue River for most of the drive. Also, there is some mountain driving involved too. If the car performs good there, then we will drive her around from time to time and have some fun. The best part is that I don't have to worry about judging....or getting the car dirty.....or rock chips on the fenders!

That all sounds like a lot of FUN to me. Especially in an original 32 Chevy!

Is your sister actually having trouble with the Camry or are you referring to the "Hype" being propagated by the media and the ambulance chasing lawyers? I do not like an accelerator controlled by a rheostat or Potentiometer and about blew a gasket the 1st time I seen the setup, but I do not believe it is quite the fiasco (danger to the customer) that is being presented. I and all of us at Toyota feel very upset that any of our vehicles might have caused harm to even one person and agree that they should be recalled and repaired so that the potential is eliminated. I also don't like electric assisted power steering but they have that too. The Quality of Toyota/Lexus is 2nd to no other non ultra luxury auto maker. Others may be equal but not better. As you might have surmised I work for Toyota and I see what extremes they go to for quality. I have seen them stop the production line to fix a scratch on top of a frame that a Tundra bed was going to be set on a moment later that would have never been seen again, but they brought in the Paint Team to touch up the small scratch less than 1/2" long. Just one of many, many examples that I would have likely let go myself and I consider myself picky, but Toyota strives for perfection. I hope your sister gets the kind of safe service from her Camry as I have from my 1998 Corolla. It now has 429,020 miles and the only engine work is it had a timing chain and gears replace by me at 356,000 miles. Struts were replaced at 320,000 again by me, it is a fairly simple car to work on. Chevrolet is still my favorite vehicle, always has been, always will be.

You gotta worry about any bit of meat that the media sniffs out and trys to make a whole hog out of. Remember what happened to the Corvair, just because one book writer did by writing a book to make money?

Well Guys,
I would much rather read about JYD's 32 Chevy than talk/debate about Toyota's!

You don't like talking about Ralph Nader???????? What a Guy.

Speedy- so far so good on the sister's 2010 Toyota Camry. Her previous was a 1995 Camry that was great. I see the class action lawyers are loning up already on this- business as usual. What year is your old Chevy?
Russ

Grey Goose, I mean Skipper,
Sounds like you are discovering my kind of old Chevy ownership! Good for you! It isn't always stress free when you get stranded but having the cell phone now and a good stash of spare parts & tools back by the runble seat usually takes care of things on that rae occasion. We took Mabel to our local car club night at the old drivein gut bomb joint this summer and you could barely see the car all the time we were on the patio eating! These are guys for the most part that are street rodders at heart. They loved it! First question was if it was for sale- of course not. Then it was 69 questions about '32 Chev vs '32 Ford. We left a couple hours later and picked up a favorite couple of ours and toured around with them in the rumble seat. I love that free wheeling for puttering around town. She ran like a clock, as usual.
One other question- these pics on the left hand side of the screen- if I click on one I get an "access denied" message. I have no trouble signing on here, but can't get this to work- if it's supposed to.
Russ

Hey Russ You Old Cuss!

You can't gain access to certain areas of this site until you are confirmed by Billy Boy Barker or one of his elves that you are a VCCA member. Once you are confirmed then you can go to those sites where you are denied at present.

Hey Russ,
Try it again! Should work now. Being a member since 1982 should count for something.

Just one of the little ole elves.

Chipper,
THANK YOU so much for fixing this old dog's identity for him- this is way cool now being able to "see" everything here!!!
Now I have to get busy and start looking at all this great stuff here!
Russ

Russ, my oldest is a 1930 standard coupe, then there is my 1969 Nova SS. My others are too new to mention.

Hey by the way do ya know the difference between a Lawyer and a catfish? Ones a bottom feeding scum sucker and the other's a fish! Sorry to that one honest member of the bar association out there. I don't know who you are but there must be one.

Uncle Ed I will try to limit my posts to old Chevys. You are quite right, they are much better to talk about.

JYD did you really mean to leave the '32 set for 35 years or did you just have more projects that were easier to get to than a land locked old Chevy?

Partly. I did plan on putting the old '32 in storage for several years since I had other projects at the time, but then, after a few years the '32 became "landlocked" so I just let it stay in storage since I really didn't relish the thought of moving half the shop to get the car out. However, I never planned for the car to remain in storage for 35 years though.

As part of my procedure to get the '32 ready for the road, today I spent the day working on the speedometer cable and the speedometer assembly.

For at least 50 years the speedometer has not worked in this car and I figured that the speedometer cable inside of the speedometer cable housing was probably broken. I removed the speedometer cable housing from the transmission and pulled on the cable. Sure enough...the cable was in two pieces as I suspected. Removed some new speedometer cable out of stock along with new cable ends that I had in my speedometer cabinet, and I made a new speedometer cable the correct length with my old AC speedometer cable crimping machine. Installed the new speedometer cable in the original cable housing after I lubricated the cable with some AC Speedometer Cable Lube.

By the way, the speedometer cable is a one year application, 1932 only, due to the length of the cable.

After the new speedometer cable was installed back in the housing, I studied the situation trying to visualize as to why the speedometer cable broke 50 plus years ago, and I determined that it was probably because of a frozen worm drive in the speedometer assembly.

Next, I had my oldest daughter remove the speedometer assembly since I am too big to get up under the instrument panel. Sure enough.....upon disassembly of the speedometer I found a frozen worm drive gear. I removed the speedometer drum and the drive gear which enabled me to gain access to the worm gear. After some lubrication the worm gear was working as it should again. Cleaned all of the gears in the speedometer, lubricated the drum and the odometer wheel shafts and then ran the speedometer on my speedometer machine to check for calibration. As typical, the calibration was way off so I zapped the speedometer weight with my electronic zapper to calibrate the speedometer. Ran the assembly on my speedometer machine for a couple of miles to verify that everything was working correctly and that the speedometer was in calibration, then my daughter reinstalled the speedometer back in the instrument panel.

Fired up the old '32 (which is still on jack stands) and put the transmission in gear.....the speedometer now works like a dream again! Cool!!

To be continued........

Skip, I'm enjoying these updates immensely.

As for today's update, as a guy who is 50 lbs over "fighting weight", I can sure identify with the problems of getting under the dash of these old ladies. Nice to have a slim and trim one to do that for you.

Keep em comin' !!

All the Best,

Chip

Glad that you are enjoying these updates so much Chip. Here is another one for you:

After I had my slim and trim oldest daughter install the speedometer back in the instrument panel, and since she was so willing, I decided to have her get on a creeper and go under the car and give it a much needed lube job that I hasn't had in at least 50 years.....maybe more.

Got out my old 80 year old Alemite metal flexible hose with the Alemite pin-type grease adapter and attached same to my modern hand-type grease gun. The daughter went under the car on the creeper and she pretty much stayed there for the better part of two hours greasing all of the lube points. Some of the Alemite fittings were really tough to grease but she got all of them....including filling the two grease cups on the rear axle and then giving them a couple of turns.

The '32 Chevy is now completely lubricated and I am ready to move on to my next project on the car. Hopefully by the end of April we can take the old girl for a test drive.

More later!

Yesterday, once again my oldest daughter went up under the instrument panel to help me with some items that I couldn't get to.

The next thing on my list was the "spark" cable. It was frozen. While I worked under the hood removing the spark cable wire from the distributor and the cable itself from the support bracket that is attached to the engine block, my daughter was under the instrument panel removing the spark cable nut and lock washer. Once removed we took the unit to the workbench and in less that a minute the cable was free and moving again. After lubricating the cable we reinstalled the spark cable assembly and it now works like it should.

The next order of business was to repair the wiring going to both cowl lights since the wires under the instrument panel were pretty much bare. The original wire covering was completely deteriorated and most of it was missing. Again, my daughter went up under the instrument panel to do the work that I couldn't get to. She removed both wires from the light switch and then she removed the fasteners from the driver's side cowl light. I removed the cowl light and the wire from the outside of the cowl. We took the cowl light to the soldering station in my shop.

Once at the soldering station the cowl light was disassembled and the light bulb removed. I tested the light bulb with my 24 volt DC power supply and the bulb worked fine. Removed the old wire assembly and made a new wire using cloth covered wire. Reassembled the cowl light and tested it with my power supply. The cowl light worked great. My daughter reinstalled the cowl light, and then removed the passenger side cowl light.

Repeated the same procedure with the other cowl light. When testing the bulb it was found to be defective so a new #63 bulb was installed. Reassembled with passenger side cowl light with the new wiring and mounted the cowl light back on the cowl. While under the dash my daughter then fastened both cowl light wires to the proper terminal on the light switch. Using a continuity tester she then tested the light switch for continuity.

The battery ground cable was attached to the battery and the light switch was pulled out to the first (park) position. Both cowl lights worked like they should.

Our next project will be to repair the three wires that go to the dimmer switch on the floor. An industrious mouse ate all three wires when the car was parked in the barn for 20 years by the first owner and the headlights have not worked since. That job is going to be a little more difficult, but, once again, my daughter will come to the rescue and give me a hand with the project and do the more difficult maneuvering.

Now Skipper,
Are you sure you want your beautiful daughter to move out, get married and then bring her kids back for Grumps to spoil? Or are you going to train her to push your wheel chair to the shop so you can watch her work on restoring old Chevy parts?

For those that don't know the background of this message, previous postings on ChatII by the Doggie indicated some of his desires. Or was it only BLUSTER?

Hey Dippy Chippy! Ya got the wrong daughter! The one that is helping me on the old '32 is daughter number one and she moved out 5 years ago. She has her own house with a two car garage for her Camaro. Besides, I already have her trained to work on old Chevys as you can see.

Wheel chair? Hey...I am way younger than you so you will be using a wheel chair long before me!

Okay, so she moved out already but still has the grandkids to come.

Maybe.....maybe not.

The next project was to be the wires going to the dimmer switch and to get the headlights working. However, only had a couple of hours available today so I decided to skip the headlights for now and jump forward on my list to get the tail and brake lights working. From what I can tell they have not worked since the early 1950's because part of the brake light socket inside of the housing was missing.

Removed the old tail light housing from the tail light bracket. Found three more tail lights in stock on the spare parts shelf and selected the best one of the three. Went to my electrical test bench and installed a #63 bulb for the tail light and a #87 bulb for the brake light. Tested the unit with a 24 volt DC power supply and everything worked as it should. Mounted the replacement used tail light assembly on the car and tested with the on board battery. Both the tail light and the brake light worked perfectly. Installed a nice used "Chevrolet" script celluloid lens and that job was completed.

Next, the "Historic Vehicle" license plates that I received way back in 1974 when the car was registered were mounted on the front headlight bar and the tail light license plate bracket respectively. Both license plates, and the registration to the car, were still in the original DMV envelope. By the way, the original 1932 Oregon license plate that was issued to the car when new was still mounted to the rear license plate bracket.

Next on my list is the dome light, so my daughter and I tackled that job tonight. The dome light is another item that has not worked for at least 50 to 60 years. Removed the dome light lens and tested the continuity of the wiring from the headlight switch to the dome light and from the dome light to the dome light switch. Continuity all the way. Tested the dome light switch and it works. Removed the #63 bulb from the dome light and tested it on my DC power supply...it works too. So, it appears that the problem might be a bad ground at the dome light socket since the bulb is very loose in the socket. Quit for the evening, but when I resume I will remove the dome light housing and check out the problem with the light socket. When that problem is completed we will then definitely deal with the dimmer switch and the headlight problem.

To be continued..........

I'm glad you're listing all these things. Although technically my car ran last summer, it had been sitting in a garage for years and years and could use many of the things you have listed.