Really Old

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yogi
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Re: Really Old

Post by yogi »

Well, Gary, I don't know what to say. As a young man you certainly were wild and crazy to say the least. LOL The go-cart tracks I've been on were paved with asphalt (I think) and had more than a few curves. But none of them were like the one you describe made of wood. I'm really happy you did not kill yourself with that little race in the rain, but I have no explanation for why you did not. :mrgreen:
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Re: Really Old

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My cousin and I, were the ones who got out on the roads after an ice storm and drove all around the area, mainly because there was no other cars out there and we could have a ball.

An ice covered parking lot was our playroom, hi hi.

I'll see if I can find a Google Maps image of that Go Cart track, I'm sure it is still there!
They have several track there, but this one I added the Link for is the one I was talking about.
They do have another wood track that is coated with sand and tar also.
I tested the link twice from a different browser and it went to the right page.

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x ... EmXx&hl=en#
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Re: Really Old

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I stand by what I said. I am totally amazed that you did not kill yourself on that go-cart track. LOL

Ice storms are the worst nightmare of driving that I can think of, and that's the reason why I fear them when they happen around here. There are many things that can go wrong on an ice covered highway which is the reason why I learned that it was to be feared and avoided. You got to remember I put on my first million miles driving the streets and expressways of Chicago. Doing spins on an open surface with nothing to crash into was not an option. There were no such places in the city. Fortunately the ice storms in Chicago area were rare. I've already seen more of them down here than I have in my entire life up north. Then again, I've seen a hella lot more snow up there than I have here.
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Re: Really Old

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Yeppers, we had a lot of ice, and even if it snowed, under that snow was ice.
This is why we all had snow tires with studs, until they outlawed studs, then we went back to using chains when necessary.
All of our trucks carried two types of chains, the normal chains you are probably familiar with, but we also had strap chains as well that could be installed and taken off real fast.
Plus every truck carried coarse river sand which helped to get unstuck at places we made deliveries.
The nice thing about the strap chains is you could put only one on if you were just stuck in a hole and get yourself out easily.
You couldn't put standard chains on if you were already stuck, because you had to be able to lay them out an drive over them, then pull them around the wheel and affix them.
While the strap chains just slid through the slot in the wheel and had the chain part over the tread, and the locking clamp on the side of the tire facing you.
It was not uncommon for me to put snow tires on all four wheels.
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Re: Really Old

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When they were legal I used the strap chains exclusively. When they were banned I never switched to snow tires. The theory is that they work better in snow, which could be possible with a couple inches of snow cover. Never got stuck in that kind of snow. When the depth of the white stuff got to be about the same as the diameter of the tires, the tread pattern does not make one bit of difference. I had cat litter and rock salt along with a snow shovel in my trunk for those occasions when the snow was crippling. There were only a few times I had to actually dig out of a snow trap, or at least that is all I can remember at this point. It's the memory of those adventures in Chicago snow that makes living in O'Fallon more palatable.
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Re: Really Old

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I was driving, and also delivering goods, long before we had snowplows hitting anything except state highways.
This was a pain, because you couldn't run chains on the roads they cleaned, it would ruin your chains and the road too.
When it was legal, we had studded snow tires. But then they decided those studs were also ruining the roads and banned them.
This is about the time we started carrying strap chains, so we could turn off the road into a subdivision, clamp a couple of strap chains on, and get to our delivery. Then right before we pulled back out on the road, pop them back off real quick.

For a very short time, a company came out with plastic grip. It was formed such that you hooked the hooked end of the two piece strap around the tire, and the road gripping clamp was nothing more than like a click slot, sorta like a dog collar breakaway collar.
What made them unique is you didn't have to take them off. When you hit pavement, they would pop apart and end up on the road. It only took about six months for them to get banned also, hi hi.

There was a soft tar product that came on rolls, normally used in the AC business.
I used to use it on train layouts in place of the expensive cork roadbeds.
Even made and sold it in several hobby shops for a few year too.
Well my crazy uncle I've mentioned a few times.
He would take about 3 inch long pieces of these tar strips, heat them with a blow torch and stick them to his tires.
He used to live in Fenton, who never heard of a snow plow by the way, and he used them to get to the highway.
Once he hit the highway, they would melt back off his tires real quick. Then other cars driving over them would smooth them out on the road like a tar patch.
Then the cold would make them fall apart like black sand on the road until they disappeared entirely.

Everyone used to get snow tires every year, until they came out with these so called Radial Tires and told folks they didn't need snow tires anymore. And guess who all was getting stuck in the snow then, hi hi.

Did I mention that only two of my first cars did not have positraction?
The 1946 Ford Deluxe, and the 1955 Ford Custom.
Even my 1962 Belaire had limited slip, albeit not all that great compared to the PosiTrack system they came out with in my next cars. It was an option you paid dearly to get too!
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Re: Really Old

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There was a product available for a few years which could be sprayed on your tires to increase traction in the snow. It looked bogus to me but my mom bought a can of the stuff and kept it in her car. One day she told us how that goo was easy to spray on the tires and how it did in fact allow her to get out of a rut she created. So, I bought two cans of it. One for my car and one for my wife. We didn't need to use it but a couple times, and to my utter amazement it worked great. After a few years it disappeared from the market. It might be available somewhere, but we could not get it in the neighborhood we lived in at the time.

I am convinced that variable slip differentials are the only way to build cars for the snow belt. I had one car, I think it was a Dodge, that supposedly had it. I didn't keep that car for a long time so that I have no memorable history of how it all worked in the winter, but the theory is sound. I have a vague memory of watching the back wheels switch from left to right side drive one snowy day, but that's all the detail my old brain can come up with. I'm sure it was an expensive option. All features that work well are expensive.

I guess most of the tires I purchased were of the radial style. It seems like they could not be purchased any other way. In any case I didn't ever make an effort to go for a particular ply, I just bought tires that were rated for high mileage. I can't say I never was stuck in the snow or never slipped on wet pavement. I did all that. But, I never could come up with a reason to switch to snow tires in the winter. I got around with my radials just as well as anybody else did.
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Re: Really Old

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I think I remember that spray on product. It originally was not designed to use on car tires, but as a traction coating on outdoor staircases and decks. And I think some guy just relabeled the product for use on tires and perhaps added more of the quick dry component to it too.

On the farm, we had an old Dodge Car. It was a stick shift, with a clutch, the clutch pedal was bright red.
What made it unique is it had a torque converter (like on automatic cars) so you could stop without pressing in the clutch.
What grandpa actually bought this car for, was to teach the girls how to drive a stick shift without burning out so many clutches, hi hi.
I think it was called Dodge Hydro-Drive, but don't remember for sure.
It was just another one of those cars that ended up in the back barn, didn't even earn a place in the old stables where he kept the better cars.
Although some of the true antique cars were sold when grandpa died, one of those was a MOON automobile that fetched a lot of money when it was sold to a collector.

Well, you were not a NUT like I was, who had to PUSH the LIMIT on what I could do with my cars.
When you live on a large farm, you can experiment with a lot of things.
I did make a few mistakes in my youth, like using tractor tires for a small tractor on my car.
Besides the rough ride and noise, they were not made to go over 30 mph, so when you hit 55 mph they rip apart the sidewalls.

On another note about tires. ALL of our tractor tires were filled with calcium chloride, to add weight to the tractor which gave them better traction on a plowed field, and also lowered the center of gravity.
A few of our Whoopies also had calcium chloride in the tires, why I don't know.
But dad had our riding lawn mowers back tires filled with the same also.
BUT DON'T ever do that to a car tire! Yep I tried it, hi hi.
You can't get ALL the air out, and rather than help balance a tire from centrifugal force, it does the opposite, throws the tire grossly out of balance so you go bouncing down the street.
I'm sure you've seen a car or two in your years on the road that had a grossly out of balance tire hopping on down the road.
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Re: Really Old

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Yes I have seen, and owned, cars that "hop" down the road due to tire imperfections. I went through a period in my early days of car ownership where the tires staying in balance was a major problem. I must have had to take that old clunker to the local service station three, maybe more, times a year just to save the tires. And there were times when I pushed the thumping too far and wore out the threads in a 300 mile on the road trip. Then one fine day I was complaining to the mechanic balancing my tires and he told me it's the brand of tire causing the problem. Firestone was what I was buying because they were cheap and close to my home. I switched to Goodyear and paid a higher price for a better tire. No more balance problems. I thought at first it was just the mechanic not doing a good job placing the weights on the wheels, but I did go to a few different places. When I changed brands I sort of convinced myself it was Firestone and not the mechanic deliberately sabotaging my tires.

I've not heard of calcium chloride in farm tires until you told me about it. I guess it makes sense when you think about a measly small tractor pulling a gigantic farm machine across soft soil. Some heavy duty weight on those tractor wheels definitely are helpful.

I think you were talking about Fluid Drive when you mentioned the clutch that did not have to be pressed. It's an interesting idea and I'm not surprised Chrysler came up with it. They always seems to be ahead of the curve.
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Re: Really Old

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Found this Blurb about Hy-Drive:
Basically, the Hy-Drive was Chrysler's old Fluid Drive, refined. The Fluid Drive used a fluid coupling with a three speed manual transmission and a clutch, to provide clutchless shifting once the car was in motion. The HyDrive replaced the fluid coupling with a modern torque converter, which gave two advantages: drivers didn't have to lift the accelerator to shift gears, and power transfer was improved so it was practical to use with the Plymouth Six.

The red rubber clutch pedal (imprinted with the words "Hy-Drive") was only needed for putting the car in gear (or going from Drive to Reverse); you could also start in third, or in first.

Hy-Drive used a manual transmission with a torque converter/clutch assembly.

I never had problems with Firestone tires, albeit back in the 50s to 70s we usually bought Cooper Tires, but new cars I bought often came with Firestone or UniRoyal tires. When I bought the TA it came with Michelin's and I took it back to the dealer and told them to take them off and put on UniRoyal Tiger Paws, hi hi.

One of our tractors had huge iron weights on each side of the rear tractor wheels. Plus they were filled with calcium chloride.

A neighboring farmer in later years filled his rear tractor tires with beet juice. Logical since he was a sugar beet farmer, hi hi.

As an aside, if you take the tractor on the road way, you should fill the tires at least up to 75%, not 40% as recommended.
Then there is grandpa and uncle Clarence, and cousin George who insisted on filling them as full as possible, hi hi.
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Re: Really Old

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The whole idea behind a clutch has to do with gears and engines not being synchronized in terms of rpm. I guess they worked that out by using such things as Fluid Drive, Hy Drive, and of course automatic transmissions. Never did understand torque converters. LOL

When I think about it all it makes sense to weigh down tractor tires with a liquid, or armor plates on the sides. It doesn't seem like a good idea to use that kind of tire when moving along at highway speeds. Farmers are pretty clever people when it comes to mechanics.

Well I don't know about Firestone tires other than my experience with them. The were an industry standard that shipped with new cars so that somebody somewhere thought they were good for something. I knew of Cooper tires but never used them until I got here to Missouri. There is a lot of advertising about Goodyear tires, but nobody seems to actually sell them. They can get them if I want them, but that might take a while. So the last time I bought tires for the Saturn they were Coopers. I could not tell that they were any different than the Goodyears I've been accustomed to.
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Re: Really Old

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I know why we used Cooper Tires. It was because of two old gas stations and their owners, and a service shop who recommended them. So almost all of our delivery trucks, and family member cars all used Cooper Tires.
But by the time I hit around age 30 I guess, I didn't like the tires Cooper was offering.
Besides, I changed cars so often back then too, I rarely wore out the tires that came on the cars, hi hi.

A torque converter is a simple device. Works like a friction clutch using a high viscosity liquid instead of asbestos shoes, hi hi.
Basically you have a flywheel with curved vanes on it, and another one with curved vanes that is driven by the first by the force of the liquid against those second set of vanes. Early ones were fairly lossy as far as power goes, but later ones not much at all once you are moving, they like lock in solid.
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yogi
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Re: Really Old

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Yes, that's the problem I have with torque converters. The link is liquid. Even if it were so viscous as to be grease, I still don't see how all that power (torque) is transferred from one system to the other. Obviously it works well because that's what they have been doing nearly all my driving life. My earliest days were spent using manual transmissions and clutches. That made sense.

I don't really know how I learned about the Cooper brand of tires. I have heard of them well before I came here to Missouri and the stories were all favorable. I never switched previously because the Goodyear tires I was using were good enough for my purposes. So I didn't want to fix anything that wasn't broken. LOL
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Re: Really Old

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Today's torque converters have a type of locking mechanism when you are holding a constant speed so they have zero slip between the two segments. It could be mechanical or magnetic, I don't know since I never looked into it. But I can feel it engage and disengage when I'm driving. But then I'm really sensitive to the sound and feel of my cars too.

I don't know the reason our family chose Cooper Tires, but I'm sure there is a good reason since before they became popular.
Could be due to some type of early family ties, or dad may have served with one of them in the service during WWII.
Heck, maybe grandpa did in WWI, who knows now. I do know their tires are rated excellent.
Plus they had a huge following in our town as well.
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Re: Really Old

Post by yogi »

Are all Cooper tires made in the USA?

But Cooper does more than just manufacture its tires in America: they research, test and design them here too. Cooper Tires manufactures its tires in three different states, supporting local economies. They have production facilities in Findlay, Ohio; Texarkana, Arkansas; and Tulepo, Mississippi.Jun 27, 2021
And, best of all something I never knew ...
AKRON, OH – June 7, 2021 - The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (Nasdaq: GT) today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, finalizing the merger agreement made public on February 22.Jun 7, 2021
I bought my Coopers prior to the merger, and sold them with the old Saturn I replaced this summer. I believe Goodyear tires are on the new Saturn, but I could be wrong about that. One issue I had way back in the past was the size of the Saturn tires. Apparently they are bigger than most tires and dealers don't like to stock them because few people need them. I don't know when, or if, I'll need new tires for the current car. I've only been driving it once or twice a week lately. Nothing says I can't do more. I just don't have a need to.
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Re: Really Old

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Wow, interesting info Yogi.

My poor Blazer sits under a Poplar Tree that leaks sap like an old Ford motor does oil, hi hi.
So it is covered in black sap all the time. Looks like a derelict old car, and I do get stares when I pull in somewhere in it, hi hi.

We are supposed to be able to get a special insurance down here if we are retired and drive less than 50 miles per week. Heck, I drive less than 50 miles per month, and that is usually going to doctors appointments, hi hi.
I only carry liability and glass on my car, so it is around 135 bucks every six months.
I keep full coverage on my wife's 2002 Blazer, only because we often rent cars, and if you have full-coverage on your newest vehicle, you are covered for a rental car, so you don't have to pay them for optional insurance.
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Re: Really Old

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Black sap, eh? I guess that stuff is good for waterproofing and keeping the rust off your car, but sure as shooting it is ugly. LOL I had similar problems many many years ago in my very first house. It was a real challenge trying to clean that stuff off without damaging the paint. I ended up paying a dear price to a detailer who would not guarantee the results. Fortunately he was very good and got it all off without damaging the finish. Much later I found out that something like kerosene did a great job at removing sap and not harming the paint. By then I had the offending tree removed.

The Saturn is costing me something like $270 every six months for full coverage. That's an increase of about $10 over the old Saturn I replaced this summer. At one time State Farm offered a policy that was based on the number of miles you actually drove. Thus the price would change each renewal date. However, I had to subscribe to some satellite radio that is built into the Saturn in order for them to track me. It was about $10 a month for the subscription so that the total cost of insurance would not be much less, if any. Plus, I wasn't sure I wanted my insurance company to know where I am all the time. Google knowing is something different. LOL
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Re: Really Old

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When I used to get gung ho about cleaning my car from all that sap, I used a 50/50 mixture of water and ammonia, but you do have to wash it off with soap and water else you will get streaks which are harder to wash off.
I did use kerosene one time and figured out it was not the best for using over a blacktop driveway, hi hi.

I've never like blacktop and intended on putting in a concrete driveway here. Had it all dug out, the side forms put up, the gravel bed laid and rolled out, and the 4x4 welded wire fabric delivered, all ready to go. Then I found out concrete down here costs 10 times more than back home. So I called a guy who gave me a deal on blacktop, and he did a great job too. Put down the coarse layer first, then the topping layer over that. Almost 20 years ago now and it is still holding up well.
I only used oil based sealer on it after the second year, then on the fourth year I used oil based light beige paint and sprinkled some dry sand over that so it sorta looked like concrete. Then about three years later I just had it coated again with a black semi-water/oil emulsion that was considered like oil. Didn't like it too well, and the next time I had it done, nobody but nobody had the thicker oil based topping, they all used a thin water based product that doesn't seal the fine hairline cracks. So now those cracks are a tad wider that they should be. I did have the last guy use a sand finish in the mix, but it left white streaks all over the driveway, and still didn't fill in those small cracks.

When I was driving OTR, there were some fees over and above our normal road use fees that had to be paid based on mileage.
Much of these mileage based fees applied to each trailer, which is why you see odometers on the hubs of so many trailers in some states.
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Re: Really Old

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I've had both concrete and asphalt driveways. Neither one was perfect. The concrete cracks or flakes off a top layer after a few winters of salt trucks splashing harsh chemicals on my driveway. There is no good way to patch concrete imperfections and any thin layer added to the original is only temporary. Asphalt demands maintenance almost every year. Like concrete it too cracks, but those cracks can be filled with black tar that sort of blend in and don't look as bad as the same tar would on a concrete surface. My previous house had lots of asphalt that I did not maintain at all the last ten years I lived there. I did pour some of that tar into the bigger cracks, but never did keep it sealed. It wasn't shiny black like the neighbors, but it was a hard surface that stood up to the weather and the traffic. If it dried out due to no sealer, it didn't seem to affect the bonding of the stones. When we sold the house I replaced it all just to make things look better. About the best asphalt driveway I've seen was a neighbor who had concrete ribbons along the side of the driveway. If I didn't move from that last house, I would have eventually done something like that.

I've seen those trailers with odometers on the wheel hubs and often wondered why they where there. Thanks for the enlightenment.
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Re: Really Old

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Well,I agree with New Concrete. All of the concrete drives around an on our farm, some of those were over 100 years old and did not show a single crack. The main entrance drive that went to my grandfathers house was installed about 10 years before he built his house in 1913, and it never had a crack one in it either.
But new concrete, I have to agree with you on. Not only does it crack and shale like you mentioned, but they usually don't last more than 30 years before a slab needs replaced. They just crumble apart.

If you can get concrete glue and PM-30 topping mix, you can recoat a driveway and it will last for 20 or 30 years. Why? Because it makes the repair next to water proof, water won't soak into it. But the old soft concrete under it could attract enough humidity to freeze and crumble. There is no place down here that sells anything similar to the old PM-30 topping mix. I've checked many times. Most folks never even heard of it!

I don't know how on earth companies kept track of their trailers.
After I dropped of a trailer somewhere, I would check for a trailer going back toward home, and if one was available I would stop and pick it up. For example: When I pulled a load up to Kit Carson, Colorado, I would bobtail it up to Denver, visit my aunt and uncle who lived there, pick up a trailer of meat scraps from the Denver stockyard and pull it all the way to BowWow Dog Food company in Rolla, Missouri, then bobtail it home from there. Sometimes BowWow had an empty trailer going to the National stock yards in Illinois, so I would grab it. Don't like running empty though. Normally I would rather bobtail it than run pulling an empty trailer. But a few times, they used the same trailer to send a shipment of bags of dog food to distribution warehouse in South St. Louis. The only thing bad about that was I had to wait for them to unload the trailer and then take the empty trailer even further south to drop it.

Had a friend named Johnny Boyd who managed to land a US Mail contract. Talk about a cushy and fast job! Always running full, never empty, and never a lag time. Drop off a trailer in Kansas City and bring one back full to St. Louis. Sometimes he only had to go as far as Jefferson City to drop, and pick one up coming back home. Later it even got better than that. No more downtown driving. He picked up westbound load in Ferguson, took it to Hays, Kansas, and came back with a full trailer to Ferguson. All highway, no city driving at all, well for him that is, his other drivers took care of the stops he didn't want to run himself, hi hi.
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