Hi all.

Well the Lincoln deal fell through. Funny isnt it but both my Dad (was) and I am a GM guy so I guess it wasnt unexpected.

Still we keep moving on and here are photos of one that I have concluded. Its a 1948 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special, in Sage Green with Green Bedford Cord and Black Leather trim. This is another landmark design from Bill Mitchell, following on from his ground breaking 1938-41 Sixty Special. This was Cadillacs top of the line series for most of the 50s and 60s. Aside from the famous first ever tailfins inspired by the P38 fighter this pioneered the modern greenhouse to body ratio. Despite the fact that its nearly 19' long compare how modern it looks compared with most 1948 cars.

It is powered by a 346 ci (5.6 ltr) side valve V8 (last year) and four speed Hydramatic (goes back to 1940!) and hydra lectric windows and front seat. Windows are hydraulic and used brake fluid to operate them! These have been converted to ATF, not before leaking cylinders damaged some of the door paint. 33,000 miles recorded, I dont know if its correct.

Here are a few photos;




Cheers
John

 

Hi everyone,

This not a F@#D, its a Lincoln. Here are some shots of a 1956 Lincoln Capri I have just acquired. It is Glacier White over Summit Green. Fairly rare, they made 4,355 of the Hardtops for 1956 and this was a Christmas present from a Colorado Springs man to his wife. Paint and trim are original. Motor is a 368 ci V8, 3 speed auto, power steer, brakes and automatic lubrication. Weighs 1950 kgs and is 19.25' long. All things being equal it should be here in a couple of months.




Cheers
John

I notice the FC is painted Indian Ivory, you're right RET the Nats models are much better.

Hi all. Can someone remind where I can buy a boot mat? I had the details here somewhere......

Merry Christmas
John

Ah, remember when wall to wall carpet was real looxury and a sign of affluence

Thanks David.

Around 43 months I reckon

What you may not remember is the NSW "give way to the vehicle on your right rule".

This meant that if there was a car coming out of a side street on your right you had to give way to it , no matter what Can you imagine dealing with that on the Hume Highway today

I learned to drive just as this was changed, I can't tell you how stessful it was. Thankfully we followed the Canberra (UK) example of "major and minor roads" hence the Give Way signs we see today

Cheers
John

Miss Daisy will be cruising out to Eastern Creek on Saturday. She's a bit of a Cougar, she likes the younger chaps with large noisy engines

Cheers
John

Gary, this won't help much but...

I've had a number of engines rebuilt mostly high performance alloy overhead cam engines, however the last two have been grey motors.

As a non mechanic/engineer I've come to learn that an engine rebuild is just that and in broad terms the type of engine doesn't make a lot of difference, rebuilding an engine is a discipline. My mistake with my grey motors was to assume this wasn't the case and that because a grey is a simple engine a rebuild requires less skill. Whilst this is true to some extent the outcome is often very poor.

If I had had my second motor built in the fist place by the guy who rebuilt it again, it would have cost me less than half what it did.

What I learned is to have it built by someone who does it for a living and preferably normally builds better engines than a grey. Final thing is, no matter what engine it is, if its done right it isnt cheap, you do get what you pay for and sometimes not even that. A good start is someone who builds race engines.

Good luck

Alex, thanks for the pics, as always.

I'm sorry I couldn't make it, Nev was anxious for a run (he hasn't been allowed out since the Nats )

Gary, the ambo looks wonderful, congratulations on a fabulous job, I look forward to seeing it.

In 1956 Lincoln had a colour very similar to that terrific EK, called Wisteria. Can you imagine arriving home in a 20' long two door hardtop in that colour with the same colour and white leather interior. It was quite popular. Now if I can just find that issue of Hemmings......

SC 890s suffer badly from oil bleed which means the whitewall goes brown quickly and has to be cleaned for around a year before the bleed stops. The Maxxis tyres are excellent in this respect and would be my pick and they have a slightly wider whitewall. (I know as I have run both)

The gearing in a stockie is low and if you run any radial less than a 185/80 the car will be screaming at 55 mph. The rolling diameter of a 185/80s is about 3% less than a 640/13 crossply and is the closest to it. Unless you are running a warm grey (which also means bigger bore) or a red, IMHO, any diff higher than a 3.55 is too hard for the engine. In a warm grey or better a 3.36 works well. The other factor is that 13" wheels are small and on a stockie small tyres make these cars look odd.

So, if the ride height is stock or near stock and the wheels are stock or near stock width, run a 185/80. The engine and your wallet will thank you and they look better

For a modified, over to you...

Cheers
John

Hmmm, thanks for that Alex.

Might try the skirts on Nev, I thought they might look too much with the Tilli kit, not sure now.

Back on topic...I'll have one too John, don't care about the number

Cheers
John

First one was shot earliest August '62 as there is a Loddon Green EJ in it. The third was probably '61, maybe 62. Love the BP sign with Bob Dyer on it.

Notice how many of the cars had stripe kits on them. I think these were more popular in QLD than anywhere else, a number of surviving FEs with Tilli kits came from there.

Cheers
John

Firstly my apologies to Julius for debating your car without your involvement, no harm or insult whatsoever intended.

Ken, I don't wish to enter into a blow by blow debate here, but let me say this.

The fact is that based on the Top 20 awards Julius' car was judged at best 10th of the stockies. As have others on this forum, I have not only built Concours winning cars I have run and judged them for many years and I know what is required.

As has been debated here, there is a difference between an authentic car and a Concours car. I am aware that there are areas where Julius' car is judged to be unauthentic, but this is category is for the best stock car, taking into account ALL matters. In my opinion it is simply incorrect to eliminate a car that in every aspect is at least the equal of every car ahead of it simply because of authenticity issues. If the weighting given to these matters is enough to eliminate a car of this quality there really are judging issues to be addressed.

Let me briefly detail some of the issues that do not appear to have to been adequately taken into account. First and foremost is fit and finish of body panels. There is a myth that the panels on these cars don't fit, this is not correct. Aside from some very early cars it is not correct that front doors sit proud of the B pillar, front guards and sills do line up. what is variable is the actual panel gaps, mostly around the rear rear of the back doors. In a show car there is no excuse for poor panel fit, all of the panels on my FE fit very well, as did the panels on both my FCs, none had been interfered with. Poor quality orange peely paint is not authentic, its simply not up to scratch for a show car. All restored cars are show cars and the best should win.

I make no judgement as to whose car was best, but I looked very carefully at all the stockies and I know that Julius' car was not 10th best or worst, no matter how this is sliced or diced.

As I said in my earlier post, if the system is throwing out incorrect results it needs to be addressed, none of us should be afraid of this or afraid to debate it. If results inconsistent with common sense occur for long enough we really will dissuade people from entering.

Finally , my congratulations to all of those, particularly people like David, who put so much work into their cherished cars, it is miracle enough that they have survived at all.

John

It is unfortunate that the penalty for fresh paint skewed the results this year as there is no way Julius' car should have been placed where it was. My rule of thumb in judging has always been that if your methodology throws up what is clearly an incorrect result there is something wrong. I'm sure this will be rectified for the future.

Other than this I don't intend to enter this discussion. What I would like to do is to highlight some of the problems with highly original and authentic cars. I have an EH with 35,000 miles recorded and which is probably as authentic/original as any in existence down to paint chips, minor scrapes etc., Up until a few months ago it also had its correct - and I assume original - yellow wire hose clamps, which I was pretty happy about. On a short drive of less than 8klms the car overheated, pretty seriously. What had happened was that the clamp on the bottom hose at the radiator end simply broke and the car spat all of its water out. By the time the light went on and I could smell it, it had already overheated.

In our cars the two authenticity items commonly missing are these hose clamps and the tin reservoirs. I like both and on my previous low mileage FE reinstated the tins. Following the EH incident I will not continue to look for the wire hose clamps as a blown head gasket - or worse - is too big a price. Similarly, I made a conscious decision to leave the plastic reservoirs on NEV. Main reason is Nev doesn't get out that much and I can SEE if there is a problem, second after a while the tin lids can be buggers to remove and third, the less often I have to do this the less chance I have of spilling brake fluid on my restored engine bay.

So, I've made a conscious effort to be unauthentic in two critical areas in order to avoid potentially expensive problems and since I've done this there seems little point in bothering with a tar top battery. So, sometimes these apparent oversights are no such thing.

Just keep a close eye on those wire clamps....

Cheers
John

I recall an FX/FJ with a similar frontal treatment to that, it had headlights behind perspex covers, I think it was in an early issue of Custom Rodder, it looks neat.

No Ed, I mean forward of the crossmember about level with the battery.

Hi all,

How difficult is it to repair rust in the subframe just forward of the crossmember mount? Can it be done in situ?

Thanks
John

Might the short one be a wagon floor? - there looks to be a join at the front corner on both sides.

Did vans use rear part of the wagon floor? Its the only explanation I can think of.

Cheers
John

Keith, India Ivory is a US colour. You should be able to get a code from PPG.

John.