Antique & Classic Cars Blog

Time flies, at least for us mortals. For engine parts, however, it strolls leisurely and sometimes sits down for a nap. That’s why New Old Stock parts are so much fun–their materials, design, packaging, are frozen in time.

Old parts are survivors of simpler times, when you could pop a hood and recognize everything without having to follow wires or peer under covers and into cramped nooks.

At Little Dearborn I snapped some Hadees thermostats. Tom at Adelmann Engine, which has been around for almost 60 years, has plenty of them, plus the old applications guide. So if you’re out on I-94 and your Crosley or Kaiser or Hupmobile or Nash-Lafayette starts overheating, maybe you better look up the part number for a new thermostat.

There are lots of boxes and parts that have sat idly by at Adelmann since mid-century last, witnesses to rebuilds of hundreds of engines–some for rare, fast, unique or otherwise amazing vehicles.

The sheer size of some engines or their components can also surprise the modern driver. A Lincoln V12 is a mighty hunk of cast iron.

And the connecting rods from a smallblock Chevy–strong enough for uncountable millions of miles on our roads–are insignificantly puny compared to the same part in a stationary diesel engine once used for an oil-field pump.

This pair of Ward Riverside ribbed dirt-track tires has shod the front wheels on many a racecar going back the late ’30s or early ’40s. Tom once met a guy with racks of them, never used. He bought a pair for $13 apiece. Today unused examples go for over $150.

With so many cool parts, something as desireable as a triple-carb intake for a flathead Ford nearly goes unnoticed atop one of the many rows of shelves.

The yellowed ad framed on the wall? How many times have customers walked by it and not noticed that it’s a real magazine ad for a Tucker, one of the great failed efforts to take on the big American manufacturers with something different. Cool!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 11:45 am and is filed under Car parts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.