VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1916-1922 - Model 490 The Chevrolet 490

Time to invest in a DVR...

Well I have one! Mine has been in my family since 1973, it is no where near a show car. It is a 1921 with electric start. It needs paint and a top, but, it runs great! It was the first car sold at the dealership that my grandfather worked at for 50 years. I even have pics of it from 1921!

Hi Wes W , and welcome to the VCCA chatter11, That sounds like a nice car to have with all that family history. You are off to a flying start here at the website with 8 Postings today already!!

Why thank you! My grandfather sold Chevy for 50 years from 1955-2005 at Clippinger Chevrolet in Covina. He was the top Chevy car salesman in the country for a number of years selling about 200-500 units per month out of his office alone. I have a lot of neat Chevrolet stuff that was his through the years! Including the '21! I am a member of VCCA and have been for about 6 years, but, I discovered the website a while ago, and I guess stuff switched over and my username and password were no longer good, so, I re-registered again! My family and I have owned almost every major Chevy product over the past 56 years! I am a big fan of Chevy and Buick! I am buying an '88 Chevy Corsica tomorrow with only 70k and it looks like brand new!

What a lovely family story. I really hope you could spend some time writing some of the story for printing in G&D.

The reason I bought my 490 was: My grandgrand father bought one in 1919 and my father learnt to drive it and got his drivers licence in 1930. Think about being 18 years and be able to drive a car in those days? In my childhood and youth I was "driving" for hours in the machine shed at the farm in my summer holidays.

Hey Wes, Can you do me a favor? I have a 21 490 touring with 15,000 miles and my has a 21 490 with 10,000 miles. He is the second owner. The deal is the top on mine had been replaced and is tacked along the body below the rear windows. Dads top and side curtains are original and I have the side curtains here to duplicate but forgot to look at how the top is supposed to fasten to the body at the rear. It would have been tough to do anyway since his top is folded up and stuffed under the car at the rear and the garage is totally stuffed plus the long drive to get there. Can't get back there to see anything with out moving a bunch of stuff. Question is what type fasteners are used Ones called "Lift the dot" and are stamped on the part that goes on the top, OR the Murphy type which has the twist knob that passes through an oval hole? Does you 21 still have the original top on it?

I have no idea if things changed between 1916 and 1921, but my July '16 car has the Murphy type across the top of the back, and the oval holes in the top. The top was replaced in 1963, but they kept the original linen lining, and I'm guessing they wouldn't have changed the attachment type. The Murphys are definitely OLD.

Come to think of it, my '25 Roadster also had Murphys holding it down in the back. So there's 1916 and 1925, with 1921 squarely in the middle.

no unfortunately the top rotted away, I remember it was on the car when I was a kid about 20 years ago, and then the next time it was gone, so, my grandfather probably got rid of it. But, it is garaged so there is no rush to get a top. I did get caught in the rain one day on the way back from the cemetery were my grandfather is... That was quite a ride! I have owned the car for over 6 years. My grandma gave it to me because she "didnt want that junker!"

can anyone tell me how the front pulley comes off a 22 baby grand engine (490)? also one of rear cam lobes is really rusted. How do I go about repair on that?

Bob

Hi Bobn,
Here is a link to a previous post on removing the front pulley.
You will probably need to have the cam lobe welded, and reground and hardened by a special cam shaft regrinder.

https://vccachat.org/ubbthreads.php/topics/210371/Re_1922_FB#Post210371

The current total I have for 490s (1916-1922) is approximately 77 cars with about half this number residing in Australia and New Zealand. This number I have tallied from people who have wrote on this post of their cars and cars they know about. And 490s of people that I know and cars that I have seen in museums. My latest 490 find was of an early 1917 Touring in a private collection in Portland, TN. I was able to see the car last weekend and currently it is not open to the public. The car is in original unrestored condition on the rough side, but a real time capsule! She clearly has a Mason cylinder head (the head has Mason on top in between the center pushrods), but I don't believe the block is though (I did not see Mason on the block, but not sure where it would be located if it was). The block date was a bit dirty, but appeared to be 121816 or 121316. Very few items were missing from the car, that including: the shifter knob, the rear hub caps, the bronze balls from the tops of the spark plugs, and had a later style coil and condenser installed. The car appeared to have been sitting for 50 plus years, but with a little work I believe it will run again with the shape it's in. The car had the original battery cables with the rusty battery box in place (it appears we were all wrong about the bottom plate of the battery box. It is neither flat nor one hole in the center. I will try to blow up my photos to see a clearer picture). The car did not have safety glass, an oil can on the firewall, nor side mirrors (I still am not sure what an original style mirror looks like for a 490). This certainly is all food for thought.

Cheers,
Gary

I have become convinced of several things about the very early cars - all of the 1916s, maybe even into early 1917.

First, there is no mirror supplied by the factory, and none in the early Parts Book.

I have half-a-dozen pre-August 1916 cars that have absolutely no provision for checking the oil pressure - no sight gauge / drip gauge, nor pressure gauge; and no evidence there ever was one. This is kind of surprising because obviously it is pretty vital, and the earlier 1914-15 Model H's had a drip sight gauge. This must have been another of the efforts to built the car to a price.

Finally, I got a phone call yesterday and became aware of another early 1917 touring, also in Tennessee, but on the other side of the state. It is for sale, the owner was trying to get accurate information about what he has. Also has been sitting for about 45 years, but it runs and is pretty darn well preserved. The guy wants to ask $10,000, if anybody is interested let me know and I'll put you in touch. This car has an engine casting date of Dec. 26, 1916. It seemed odd to me that they would be casting engines on the day after Christmas, but I looked on a 1916 calendar, and Christmas fell on a Monday that year - so they had already had their 3 day weekend!

Don,

Thank you for clearly up the side mirror question for me.

Another question about the '17 that I found is the purpose of the half moon blocks that are in the door jams, one above the latch and one below? Are they just alignment blocks for when the door is closed? I checked my 490 and they are gone, but the mounting holes are there for them. On the ends of the doors you can see the half moon slots that these blocks would fit into when the door is closed. Perhaps, they kept the doors in alignment as the car traveled those rough roads back then as the body and frame flexed when in the ruts of the road? On today's roads I can feel the body flex when entering or exiting a steep driveway. Even without those blocks I have never had a door pop open when the body flexed.

Now for the '17 Touring that found you will bring it to 78 cars.

Cheers,
Gary

Hi Guys

I have just had my 1916 490 Chev Roadster on the latest Chev 4 Tour here in Australia and other than the poor weather for 3 days the little car ran sweet. My 16 also had no oil sight gauge which makes driving a little unsure when you don't know if the plunger pump is working or not. Thanks to Jim Karne from Oregon one of his spare parts car wrecks that he has in the yard had an aftermarket original era oil sight gauge. He was kind enough to part with the item and the complete gauge with lines and with a little oil tank that sits ontop of the pump and has a lever that comes thru the floor so it can be primed when driving if the pump fails.
A fantastic addition to the dash and nice to know that the oil pump is working.
You can add another early 1916 Chev Tourer parts car to the list hear in Australia. Although very rough and missing the tub hear in Oz we start from worse so if there is another 490 tragic with way too much money and lots of time then you may be interested. Amazing to see these early Chevys coming out.

Gary, they used the half moon pieces you are talking about until at least 1925 on the open cars.

And while on the 6 Cyl. Tour in Virginia last month we visited a car museum at Luray Caverns, VA. They have a 490 displayed that is labeled as a "1915." But it has an operating driver's door, demountable wheels and other features that tell me it is a 1917. (I tried to find somebody to talk to about it during our visit, but could not.) So there's one more.

Twin4, that's great that you have your '16 out cruising! This winter, I want to get mine sorted so next year it can do some serious driving, too. And one thing I will do is find an oil sight gauge, for sure.

We have reached 14 or 15 of 490s in different conditions here in Norway now. Half of them in possible running order. Solan is the "only" one from 1916 in the Nordic countries, as far as we know yet. He is originally an Aussie, not imported new to Norway. The small numbers of 490s totally and specially 1916-1918 in our countries are mainly due to the Great war and German subs.

My grand grand father bought his Chevrolet 490 in 1919 and as it cost a bit more than a T-F**D and he could afford it, he might have considered his buy to show a higher standard in the village.

I have a 1918 490 Touring that I have had for about 3 years now. It is in running condition and was restored about 40 years ago and has been in storage for about 35 years. It needs tlc, They were using the space the 490 was in to store other items and has some scars from it.

Hi
I am working on a register on 490s i Sweden. Now I have reached 16 in different conditions, and I have spotted two more. Only my own is running regularly. A couple of them seems to be very difficult restauration projects. A couple of them are restored but in a way that you cannot state production year. The rest needs more or less renovation, so I would say that it is not impossible to reach ten, maybe twelve, quite fine, running 490s in Sweden.

Most of them are 1919 or 1920, maybe one 1918 plus a couple of 1922. Like Solan writes, no 1916-17. All are Touring, maybe there is one runabout project. Most of them has the steering wheel to the right. Most of them has the SIMMS magneto.

Gary
I can send you about 8-10 photos of restored Australian 490's and some original.
Also I have over 30 photos of US 490's in my photo files.
If you give me your email address I'll send them all to you.
Although I don't have a 490 (I have a 15 Amesbury Special) I'm into early Chevs and it's good to see someone who's willing to carry out the near impossible task of getting a list of the known ones together.
There is one original 1916 Aus import with 1915 casting dates, also one that was imported to Aus about 10 years ago that has 1915 casting dates.
The H series blokes have a list of all the known H series Chevs about 30 odd
Chris

I am in Hershey. Today I learned of a 1917 touring in eastern PA, running, non-VCCA member, trying to recruit him. Also learned of a 1916 touring in SC, I am trying to learn more, maybe for sale, not running. Trying to verify some numbers and the year. So there's 2 more...

I just realized I am signed in as my wife - I have her coputer with me! This is actually ChevyGuru...... sorry.

Hi Guys,

I would be more than happy to compile a list of 490s. Right now we are looking at approximately 105 cars worldwide. I know there are more.

If you guys that are 490 owners (running or not) could send me a PM of:
Your name, city & state (or city & country)
Year of car, body style and place of manufacture (if known)
And Engine block date (if possible)

For Museums that you know have a 490. Please provide:
The museum name, city & state (or city & country)
Year of car, body style
(I will try to contact the museum for the other information)

This way we all will have more accurate information on cars still in existence which will better help us all.
Once compiled, which may take a year as cars trickle in, I could print out copies for those interested and/or post figures here on the Forum.

Thank you all for your time and consideration,
Gary

I can ask the Norwegian and Swedish people having 490s. Hope fully they will reply in some time.

Here are my lates pictures of Solan:
http://s889.photobucket.com/albums/ac98/solan1916/solan%20clutch%20-%20gear%20box/

Front left to right:

starter, fly wheel, hose to feed oil to collar
clutch collar w/ oil hose filling through lid
clutch collar released. Use a wooden stick to keep the pedal down
clutch hub drive ring secured. I had to drill holes and use a steel tread, as you can see.
gear box side filling

I will show you a NORS clutch collar and a really worn out in the next pictures.

Gary -

Just a thought - in collecting this data, it would be extremely useful to have the Flywheel stamped number, especially for the 1916 & 1917's, many of which have no Car Serial Number (and sometimes no engine Casting Date). In those cases, the Flywheel number is the only relevant piece of data.

I know I'm asking for a lot, but in perfect world we would want to track:

(1) the Block Casting Date,
(2) separately the Head Casting Date,
(3) the Flywheel Number, and
(4) finally the Car Serial Number
(the number of the "Four-Ninety" Tag on the dash, firewall, or wherever it might be found in a given year.)


The problem is frequently one or more of these numbers might be absent, or changed with the changing of a Head or Block over the past 90+ years. The more data, the more reliable our records and conclusions.

I will certainly volunteer to help anyone understand where these numbers can be found. All of them are easily visible without taking anything apart. Sometimes covered by dirt or grease.

O.K. Gentlemen,

There you have it from the ChevyGuru himself! The more numbers you provide the better. It is important for you and the VCCA Club as a whole. This will only work if everyone gets their input. We don't want to leave any 490s and their owners out. Guys, you can send me your information in a PM or send to my email address: ferretrus@hotmail.com

Information is already being compiled.
Thanks,
Gary