Appreciation for hard work is fading, and old cars aren’t easy (Leno)

Excellent read here in case it doesn't pop up in your newsfeed elsewhere;).

https://www.hagerty.com/media/opinion/leno-appreciation-for-hard-work-is-fading-and-old-cars-arent-easy/?fbclid=IwAR3T2Jx93galgmunHj8xRaUt8VCaTpJtUBqV8RVDMTfWplrej0V637-Cx58

Yes!  Very well said!  And I really loved the bit at the end: "And while few of us will ever climb Mount Everest, restoring a classic car is enough of a mountain for most people. Give them some credit."  But I'm sure that he really meant classic "vehicles".  

Very true, whether restoring or restomoding as Gary and I are doing, he with Big Blue and Dad's and myself with Darth and T2K-CAR. There is a lot of work, sometimes a real, oh crap, what do I do now moment when something didn't go as planned, or you find a mystery leak. Occasionally you have a piece of electronic gear that the smoke leaks out of.

I for one appreciated the parts in the article about the dirty work and the hard work. Doing some rough math, I've spent an average of I'd say 25 hrs a week working on my 1980 since August 2020. Probably works out to about 750 hours so far, and of that 750 hrs, probably 400 of them were wearing ear plugs AND ear muffs, a dust mask or respirator, safety glasses, coveralls (sometimes), and/or a welding helmet. Aches and pains, ears ringing, and blowing black dust out of my nose on Sunday afternoons...lol. You have to really REALLY want to do this stuff...

Thanks for linking to that.

"Our appreciation or understanding of other people’s hard work is fading, and that rankles me."

Will echo the sentiment of how well worded the article is and just wanted to emphasize the part bolded.

Oh I can appreciate hard work and more over the skill it takes to do it not only on our projects but most everything. But I guess that comes from doing all the work myself as I did on my truck.

How about plumbers, carpenters, computer techs, etc. as I have done a little in each field.
What they say "don't talk till you walked in their shoes".

I also loved the car they had in the article looked like a Alpine Tiger - a go cart with a factory 260 Ford SB and a 4sp. Had a customer that had one could not drive it well as my boots were to wide to work the pedals, vary small pedal box LOL
Dave ----

I'm into the 73 Bronco for about 173 hours, this is where I am. From this to this.
Lots of time still to come.

That was beautiful and really hit home.

The pedal box on those is narrow to fit the 260 in there. There are access plugs on the sides to allow you to insert the 13/16" spark plug socket (or, since it is an English car, sparking plugs). There were actually 2 prototypes, one done by the group that raced Sunbeams in the US and the other by Shelby American. Shelby's crew first removed the Sunbeam worm and roller steering gear and linkage an put an MGB rack on to allow the engine to sit back far enough for decent balance (the Sunbeam center link went behind the engine and the double ended pitman and idler arms allowed easy change from right to left hand drive).

The two prototypes were flown to England and Lord Rootes, who was in his 80s, took the two cars for a spin, and came back with Shelby's design and said "How soon can we start building these?" Sunbeam was at one time a big name in European racing and Lord Rootes was well aware of the history and heritage of Sunbeam.

When we lived in Virginia Beach, dad bought a 1963 Alpine, 1725cc with an overdrive, he found out the OD unit was trashed and ended up selling the car. Neighbor across from us had a 1964 Alpine which had a Solex 2 barrel, dad's had dual Zenith downdrafts on it, later models had SU and the Zenith Strombergs. Last vestige of Sunbeam in the US was the Plymouth Cricket, a Hillman Avenger.

Great article. Really enforces the "built not bought" saying that is pretty common at car shows.

My 55 Dodge has taken years to get where it is now and still needs years more work to be what I would call finished. The attached pic shows it evolution over about 3 solid years of weekends. Since the last photo, I have built a vintage hemi for it, thousands in chrome and other parts. I havent even gotten the Hilborn and OD tranny all finished. Few more years to go! People simply dont understand what all goes into restoring a vehicle. I have a 54 Ford coupe that I hope to some day get back to and finish. Probably gonna be my retirement hobby car.

Nice!

Nice Dodge, I bet you have a lot harder time finding parts for it than the Ford LOL

When I was a lot younger my dad had a Dodge 5 ton flat bed truck. From what I can remember looked like that style. I do remember he could not go vary fast because of the low gears out back.

This is what I put on my front bumper

I have had the guy at the local dump, use the truck for weekly trash runs, ask me what all I built.
When I told him everything he was like what? Body off frame 4 year rebuild and did all the body work and paint too! I also now carry a photo book with pictures so they don't think I am lying!

If shows ever start again I would love to have someone ask about the plate and show the pictures to.
Dave ----

Yup, the Dodge is much harder to get parts for compared to the Ford and the price is also much higher. But I like having something different. One of those vehicles that you keep an eye on Facebook and Craigslist for parts and buy when they come up whether you need them or not. I now have 3 complete frames I got for free. Mine is bent on one side and I need to get around to swapping in one of the straight ones.
My other project is putting Hilborn injection on the 325 hemi under the hood. Another labor of love there... it took alot of milling and port matching to make the stock 4bbl manifold work with a modern pattern carb. Now I'm pulling it off and going to fuel injection.

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That Hillborn is cool. Does it use pellets (jets) to adjust the AFR?

Had a buddy run one on his sand dragster Jeep (chevy 350) many years ago.
Ran it think 2 times and sold everything!
Dave ----

No, it was a mechanical injector originally. So instead of the pills and jets, it been converted to EFI with LS injectors etc. Mechanical is just not meant for street driving.

Boy that Dodge brings back memories, I helped a friend with a 1956 Dodge pickup. He too kept it all Mopar, 360 engine built with 10:1 compression, moderate cam, Edelbrock intake and Holley 750 double pumper. Use a 727 Torqueflite, but Ford 9" rear and (big mistake) Mustang II front suspension.

He bought a painless wiring kit for it and their steering column (pure GM), A set of Explorer power seats. He outsmarted himself a couple of times, first was the brake pedal, he bought a nice kit to put a dual circuit power brake under the floor, had a nice small OD dual diaphragm booster to use the stock pedal. He didn't think the pedal looked right so he shortened the curved portion then couldn't understand why he couldn't get and brakes. I asked him didn't he remember older cars where the pedals came up through the floor and the pad was pretty much vertical. He rebuilt the pedal the way it needed to be. Then he wanted to use the original hydraulic brake switch, we ended up with a nice Chevy lever actuated switch from the 40s.

He had started wiring it before he asked me to help, I would have done the wiring differently, I did mange to conceal the voltage regulator and Mopar Performance ignition system under a nice polished box on the left side underhood, found him a 12V wiper motor and ran the engine wiring nicely along the inside of the valve covers.

He had the entire front clip welded and filled, but kept the clamshell hood. He stuck the vacuum pump for the brakes on the inner fender, can we say drumhead! I relocated it to the side of the frame just outside of the booster, it was a demand pump, only ran with low vacuum, which it needed due the the cam he used. Fun truck, he drove it about a year, decided he wanted something different and sold it.

I had a car with mechanical injection and worked on a lot of them. It was Bosch mechanical and the cars were Mercedes-Benz models. Mine was a 1961 220SEb, and I serviced and set up a number of the later 280SE/280SL models and had to remove and send for repair one on a 600, it sat down in the V on the 6.3L V8. Real pain to remove, then disconnect the battery so no one could accidentally crank it and ruin the engine.