I had a 1964 convertible with a lot of rust that I bought for $15 sitting on the side of the road. Rebuilt the engine to make it run. No heat as it was rusted out.
The I had a 1970 coupe. Over the life of the car (I was the third owner) it was involved in seven accidents. In all seven cases, the car was either parked or stopped at a traffic light.
There was no heat on KG's that *weren't* rusted out, either! Dad first bought a booster fan kit from JC Whitney's but in the cold NY winters, the rear-mounted air cooled VW engine just couldn't pump enough BTU's forward to make it comfortable. I assume the air leaks in a rag top made things even worse.
I can still remember helping him locate the corrugated tubing (1" in diameter, I think), cut it open, cutting open his hand on the sharp sheet metal the vent hose was piped and finally jamming in the tiny booster fan in a space not really big enough for it (there was not a glut of space in the KG's). After all that he was really pissed that it did virtually nothing to boost the heat. The one thing that could get him to curse a blue streak was car repairs.
I was the designated flashlight holder and I learned some pretty impressive Navy-style cursing whenever he burned his hand on the manifold or scraped an inch or two of skin from his knuckles. Early on he tried to keep a lid on it, but that only made the eventual eruption even worse. (-:
He tried a second JC Whitney unit with an electric coil booster but when you ran it, the lights dimmed quite noticeably and the airflow was still luke warm. IIRC, it used a 6V battery mounted under the seat that occasionally shorted out, so overloading it was something he didn't want to do. The cabin was so small that two humans did more to heat it with body heat than the KG's heater.
I have no doubt. I had a similar experience when I drove a Jag MarkX. So did a friend with a bright red restored '56 T-bird. People gawk at unusual designs and since many aren't paying that much attention to the road to begin with, any little distraction causes them to lose control.
<(Not his car, just an image from Google. It really brings back memories, though. He got rear ended a number of times - I think people got hypnotized by the unusual spare tire mount.)
I had someone back into the side of my car from a driveway when I was stopped in a traffic jam on the main roadway. After she hit me (with four incredulous witnesses in my car) she jumped out screaming, "didn't you see me coming? Why didn't you get out of MY way?!!" God's truth. She insisted on calling the police who came and wrote her a ticket. Boy was she fit to be tied after that, screaming at the cop that I had "the last chance to prevent the accident." We make people take driving tests but passing them doesn't seem to indicate that the teaching "took" in any meaningful way.
I'd guess PT Cruisers and other "different" looking cars end up getting run into when stopped much more than plain Jane vehicles. Gawking caused so many accidents on the Capital Beltway they had to put up special blinders to keep people from looking across the road and rear-ending someone. That sadly says that some people are so easily distracted you have to treat them like horses and put blinders on them. Now, of course, people are too busy texting while driving to even notice accidents on the other side of the highway. )-:
Looks like a fun ride:
There are some rusting hulks for sale, too. It's not too late to relive your youth!
My 66 Rambler had wipers that ran on the engine vacuum. They bolted a vacuum booster pump on top of the fuel pump so when you hit the gas, the vacuum was maintained and the wipers kept working.
When the diaphragm in the booster pump went bad, I simply connected the input and output hoses together. It's a lot of fun having your wipers stop when you are accelerating onto a highway.
Per snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com:
Hey, I had that job for years as a kid. Learned a lot doing it.
My brother, an ME, came up with a design to convert it to 12V. He took a Chevy alternator, had the shaft bored and left hand threaded so it could be screwed on to the existing generator shaft. Then a bracket held it in place and kept the body from turning. Changing bulbs was easy, but the wiper motor needed a rheostat
Different dificulty, depending on the brand and model.
how do locksmiths get into cars?
marc
Per Ed Pawlowski:
A looooong time ago when I was living in Hawaii and surfing the North Shore of Oahu, we made a practice of never, ever locking our cars. We even usually left the windows down. Valuables were padlocked into a steel ammo box in the trunk that was attached to the axle with welded-on chain.
Our theory was that it prevented broken windows.
The summer after high school I was coming home from work as a Fuller Brush man, driving through Ft. Benjamin Harrison and it was probably
6PM when they blew Taps and set off the cannon. When the cannon went off, they were so loud, like I was 10 feet away from one, and I was so startled I drove up on the sidewalk.No one was around to notice. And it turned out the Taps and the cannon were recorded and played every day through speakers. I never saw the speakers, but they were sure loud.
I drove that way a lot, but I guess never at exactly 6.
I remember that one.
I'd be spooked too.
Dawn usually wakes one up when he's sleeping in a car or outside.
The Slim Jim - The Slim Jim is a thin piece of metal which is inserted into the weather stripping that separates the driver's window from the door. The Slim Jim is designed to catch the locking mechanism in the door and allow it to be opened without a key.
Wedges - The Wedge is a device which separates the window just slightly so that a wire can be inserted into the car and allow the locksmith to reach the unlocking mechanism. Wedges are another device commonly utilized by locksmiths to assist those locked out of car, but they are typically the second choice to the Slim Jim, because they can require a bit more maneuvering.
Lock Picks - The lock pick is the most familiar tool for most locksmiths, but they are used much more commonly on homes and other non-mobile locks than they are on cars. Lock picks allow a locksmith to help a customer who is locked out by directly picking the lock and unlocking the car. Since, picking the lock requires even more time and skill it is done less frequently when the other options are available.
The Coat Hanger Method
The Suction Method
You can also use a tennis ball for the suction method.
Google's got dozens of other suggestions on how to get inside your car when you're accidentally locked out.
Mythbusters tried the tennis ball method and deemed it Busted.
They say the video was faked by having someone off-camera use the key fob just as the tennis ball suction was being applied. Granted, they think it's air pressure, not suction, but regardless, they could not match the results in the video they showed.
Detractors say it does work but only on certain models of older cars (80's & 90's), depending on what type of locking mechanism was used.
----Android NewsGroup Reader----
I think the plunger and tennis ball solution was posted on April 1. Absolutely NO WAY it can POSSIBLY unlock the door. The lock cyl needs to turn or the linkage attached to the cyl needs to rotate to push or pull the linkage to the lock.
As for coat hangars and slim-jims - they can do a lot of damage in the hands of anyone less than an expert - and an expert can open the door with a set of picks faster and with less chance of damage.
I personally like the solution on my wife's Taurus - keyless entry (code pad) if I can remember the code!!!!
A few years back 60 Minutes did a segment on auto theft. They parked a car on a very busy street and locked it. Then they had a "reformed" thief try to steal it in the middle of the day with a lot of people around. He walked to the driver's door and in seconds he was in, a few more seconds and the car was started and driven away. No one noticed.
A friend of mine parked her car right outside her office in view of the window, about 12 feet away across a sidewalk. Came out of work one day and the car was gone. Broad daylight, locked and alarmed. The clean stripped body was found a couple of months later.
As a locksmith who has worked on car door locks. I assure you, this is totally false. . Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
I missed that one.
I just included it for its novelty value. Didn't realize it got so much exposure that it attracted the attention of the Mythbusters.
It's probably the last method of the ones I listed I would try. The others usually work well enough to get the job done.
Probably true, but it's an awfully elaborate description for a hoax. It does sound dubious, though, doesn't it?
True, but sometimes an expert isn't available or practical. I've seen people open up cars doors in seconds with a slim jim so I know *they* work! (-:
My friend locked his car with the engine running in park with a key fob. I drove him home to get the backup fob - and you guessed it - wouldn't open the door with the engine running.
Yep, it was an auto repair apprenticeship. Too bad modern cars are so electronically-oriented that the number of people doing their own repairs has dropped off so dramatically.
occasionally
Wow. That's quite a mod. Do any cars still use 6V systems?
Sounds a little like the patient in Catch-22. He had a bottle with a tube going into his arm and a bottle with a tube coming out of his groin. When the upper one became empty and the lower one full, the nurse would just switch the bottles. Eeeww!
Boy, am I ever glad the automotive industry gave up on vacuum powered devices. Somewhere, I have a cruise control left over from one of my dad's cases. He investigated serious injury accidents after retiring from the Navy and that particular cruise control (IIRC) was vacuum powered and operated using a small beaded metal chain of the type you see in ceiling light socket pull chain switches. It was incredibly complicated and tended to fail in a very bad mode. I believe that if the chain broke, which it did on a number of occasions, the device would essential stomp the accelerator pedal full blast.
I had a '67 Buick Riviera that had a very twitchy "Electrocruise" speed control that I recall had vacuum hoses attached to it despite its moniker.
It did have a really neat drum speedometer:
In the Jag, all the heating vent flaps were vacuum controlled. The engine always ran very hot and those tiny rubber vacuum lines would just disintegrate from the heat. Once they opened up, all sorts of crap got sucked into the vacuum system. I wonder why Detroit thought vacuum powered devices were ever a good idea? My mom's '67 Cougar had vacuum-operated headlight "flippers" that drove my poor dad near crazy.
Vacuum was available before 6 or 12 volt power in cars and it was reliable and cheap to use for wipers and air flaps. But then, things got complicated and it took a while before the electrical engineers won the battle against the mechanical engineers in automobile design meetings.
Vacuum systems also saved gas because you had to go slower up hills in rain or snow to keep the wipers going.
Tomsic
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