Antique & Classic Cars Blog

The internet has helped the car hobby in uncountable ways, bringing people and parts together. As wrecking yards and individuals get online, it’s as good for chasing old stuff as brand new goodies.

With the ‘net, though, there’s this issue of currentness (or posting date). What went up yesterday might still be there. A post from two or three years ago is probably worthless… or is it?

Often your search will take you into some enthusiast forum where motorheads of one sort or another are discussing things kicking around their garage. One offers something for sale, you find it. If at first you’re excited but then your heart sinks when you see it’s from 2005, don’t give up so easily. Just because someone offered it doesn’t mean it’s sold.

I found a ‘61 3-speed bellhousing in a Jeep forum. It was from ‘04 or ‘05. I almost let it go–but it was just some guys talking and the posts didn’t indicate anyone had bought it. I joined the forum, emailed him and sure enough he still had it. Now I do–but not for long.

I posted something about it on a site for V8 British cars and someone else looking for that bellhousing hunted me down. I’ve since found a 4-speed example, my true quest, so I’ll be mailing it off to Massachusetts next week, where its new owner will be using it to put an aluminum V8 plus T5 5-speed into a Fiat spyder. Cool.

So when you’re surfing the web for a part, give even the old clues their due and drop a note if nothing says it sold. As my mother used to say, “It never hurts to ask.”

It’s fun to go to the motorcycle show at the Minneapolis convention center and look at all the bikes I can’t afford. The venue is also good for thinking about classic versus modern iron–issues like looks, speed, starts every time, vintage versus modern braking, handling, power.

Urals are like the (original) VW Beetle of the two-wheel world–they’re simple, relatively inexpensive, and exude classic styling. With their boxer engines (pistons moving in and out like a boxer’s fists, rather than up and down like a kid on the interstate trying to get a trucker to hit the airhorns), they look like BMWs. The legend I heard was that they essentially are vintage BMWs, made with tooling seized by the Russians at the end of WWII. (I’ll google that later.) Here my friends Keith and Michele contemplate sidecar living. (They really want the sidecar to transport their greyhound, Gobi, since K & M both own bikes.)

Ahh, a Harley flat-tracker. Ever see footage of the old Triumph and Harley guys battling it out on a dirt track rounding the turns with the bike half-sideways? Great stuff. Betty’s Bikes and Buns, a coffee shop that used to be just off Central Avenue north of Minneapolis, used to show them all the time….

The BSA lightning is one of the coolest looking bikes ever. Someday when prices reverse and I can get one like this for $1500, I’ll be riding or pushing it all over town. There was a ‘53 Vincent Black Lightning being raffled off too–now there’s a valuable bike. But it was $5 and they were going to sell about 25,000 tickets…. Sheesh. Odds of winning were like a million to one. I bought 5 tickets for a ‘68 Mustang at World of Wheels last year and I still didn’t win, so I guess you’d have to buy like 20 tickets to assure you got it. I didn’t have $100.

A recurring thought at the show was how much comic art has influenced motorcycle design. Didn’t lines like these appear first in anime or graphic novels or even Power Rangers?

Didn’t see Prince at the show, but he might have liked this bike (or the vehicle formerly known as this bike).

Here’s an interesting approach. Can’t decide on a paint scheme? Then pick your best two and do a little Batman’s Two-Face action.

Fast.

And finally, an MV Agusta F4…. Mmm-mmm. (Yes, that price on the back does say $25,000. Soon as my eToys stock rebounds, it’s off to the dealership.) Yee hah.

Writer Dennis offered up this vehicle as his bid for coolest car ever. He didn’t have a link to the car, but he did have a photo! Roger Ward gives station wagons a good name–very good.

We’ve had a few quizzes here over the months. This is more a taste test. Of all the cars ever made, drawn, animated, claymated (claymation, like Gumby & Pokey) or conjured in any other way, which one is the coolest of all?

Here are my one and two–and I’ll throw in a third cool car, whose place as third coolest ever I’m willing to quibble about.

First, the coolest car ever, bar none, period, is the original Batmobile driven by Adam West and Burt Ward.

The second coolest car–and I’ll tell ya it was the thinnest margin separating the two–is the original Mach 5, from the Trans-Lux version of Speed Racer. The Batmobile wins out only because it was a real, three-dimensional car one could realistically dream about owning or cruising around in.

Another car I’ve always loved just for its sound, looks, and quintessential muscle-carness, is the yellow Camaro Gary Busey drives in Gumball Rally. Is it really my third pick for coolest ever? Maybe not. But it’s one amaaaazing car. OK, Herbie the Love Bug is pretty cool too. And yes, I mean the original Dean Jones one.
What you all got to say? Prius? Bugatti? Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang? Bond’s DB5? Zenn electric? Speak, or live with others’ proclamations.

Apart from the dirt and grease, disassembly’s easy. Get some wrenches–air if you can–and start takin’ stuff off till there’s nothing left to unbolt. Cleaning everything up makes you want to put it back together, but there’s also the issue of what goes where.

Handy people have not actually rebuilt much of the stuff they tear apart and put back together. You just have to be willing to go where others have gone before you. That’s where a good manual comes in; if you can see where each piece is supposed to go, you can figure out how to make it go there. For the T10 rebuild, I had a 1964 Buick Chassis Service Manual, with a blow-up diagram of the T10 and step by step instructions for tearing it down and rebuilding it.

Still, there are a few tricks. The critical one for the T10 is the wooden dowel that goes in the countergear to hold the 80 free roller bearings in place (along with grease) before your drive it out with the countershaft, which then takes its place. Trying to do this job without that dowel would be an unparalleled exercise in frustration and futility. I bought a dowel at Menard’s, sawed it to length and my friend Tom, whose engine shop was the rebuild site, turned it on the lathe to exact diameter.

Twenty bearings encircle the dowel, then get pushed in with a washer to abut a spacer (cylinder) within, then another washer, then another 20 bearings for each side. I then held the loaded-up countergear while Tom tapped the countershaft through one end of the case and out the other, replacing the dowel as it passed through. (No free hands to photograph that.)

You then slide the mainshaft in all loaded up with gears, clutches, synchro rings, get the main bearings in place and the main case is about done. I forgot to put the idler gears in before getting the mainshaft in place and therefore had to pull it back out again. There’s another set of roller bearings the end of the mainshaft fits into on the main drive gear and these pop out when you separate the two components, so patience is a virture. A shaft on the extension housing goes through the idler gears when you put that on to close up the unit.

Eventually it all went together, though I forgot to put the snap ring on the back of the mainshaft that sets the depth for the slip yoke and so had to pull off the extension housing again.

Still, it turned out mighty nice. A little oil on the gears to keep them rust free and it was time to put on the side cover and wait for spring. Taking the grungy, cruddy and making it like new sure is fun….

Next mission is to see if a shifter from a ‘66 Chevy can be made to fit a transmission from a ‘63 Buick. (My bet is it can.)

At the beginning of Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane (Welles’ thinly veiled sendup of performance guru George Hurst) mumbles “FourSpeed” as the shift ball from a Competition Plus shifter rolls down a shadowy staircase in San Simian, Hurst’s Detroit mansion.

While the film was a flop, the enigmatic opening piqued the interest of moviegoing drivers and put Hurst’s performance industries on the map. His Competition Plus became the racer’s standard, slotting more gears than shifters by Billy Wilder, John Huston and Alfred Hitchcock combined.

Needless to say, when an NOS Competition Plus turned up on eBay, I had to have it. True, it was made for a ‘66 Chevelle with Saginaw transmission, neither of which I had, but this one came with the original box! A reckless bid and she was mine.

Fortunately, I later came upon a Borg Warner T10, which sort of looks like a Saginaw and was rare and cool and sure to fit a 215-V8-powered TR6. Odds that the Hurst would bolt up to this transmission were pretty good. We’ll soon see, given that that gearbox is 99% rebuilt….

(It’s been a while since I’ve seen Citizen Kane, so some of the details above may be off.)

Hey two-wheelers, here’s a reminder that the motorcycle show is at the Minneapolis convention center this weekend. Lotsa eye candy and fun bikes to sit on and dream of summer.