Moral Dilemmas of Hot Rodding

I don't say this because I'm one who believes old cars were safer. I don't. Newer cars have all sorts of safety benefits old cars do not have but I've watched that video over and over and I could be wrong but I have a feeling the 59 is missing it's drivetrain.

 

My child is 42 she like me turned out just fine.

There was no vanity involved in the raising of my kid contrary to your judgment. She grew up just like I did, funny you didn't take time to judge my dad. Maybe you have, I just don't know it, do you have a problem with my dad as well?

You don't know that I have ever endangered anyone's life in a car or on a bike. You have not been there and just made a very poor judgment not based in fact just your own assessment on something that you have no real knowledge of.

I won't even approach the drama part of all this, because you are too happy in your own little universe and I certainly wouldn't want you to find out that there is a world that does revolve around you.

 

Living in the past has a price...one way or another, all of us have accepted that. No use fighting over the details, except that it is clearly immoral to use any cup holder not shown in a JC Whitney catalog published before 1964.

 

So to me it seems there really is NO Moral Dilemma when it comes to Hot Rods, just a huge concern about what happened to Common Sense where driving is involved. It just don't seem to be as Common as it used to be. And now they are talking about Driver Less cars in the near future. What's Wrong about that?
The Wizzard

 

If seat belts are so Damn good and our Children are the most important thing we have why does every Suzzie Home Maker nation wide with school age Children that use the School provided transportation put there Child on a buss that only has a Seat Belt for the Driver?
The Wizzard

 

There goes that Common Sense thing again.
The Wizzard

 

I know someone that installed these on a 34 Ford. Corbeau retractable shoulder belts. They have 3 and 4 point belts that look like they would be safer than just lap belts. My 32 Ford 3 window, it doesn't look like a good way to instal standard 3 point belts because the B pillar is wood. So I think I will install these and anchor them in the rear of the car to something more substantial.

 

Of course this all is up to the the individual, but I use seat belts in both the '61 pickup and the '65 Cruiser. The pickup has lap belts, but the Cruiser has 3 point belts in both the front and back seats. My older two grandkids enjoy riding in the Cruiser and I would not let them without the 3 point belts, but they don't ride in the pickup.

 

Seat belts is such a hot topic and discussion point.

I rode in a traditional car seat.
I ride my bicycle without helmet too.

 

When I was real young there was no car seats or any seat belts.

 

C'mon Vicky let's show a little...restraint!

 

Hi Larry! ..... "Moral Dilemas" in HOT RODDING? You don't have to even think about such things; the Government will let you know what's good for you ( and fine you if you don't agree).Where the hell is my racquet????

 

My little sister got the new fan dangled one like this. A bit off topic.


Mine was like this - TRADITIONAL !!!
Face mangling steering wheel and torso ripping levers.



Fords better idea, also approved for lap belt.

 

Moral dilemma, eh? Welp, I believe if I'm gonna have a family, it's my moral obligation to take the best care I can of them. It was with that in mind I sold off my prized 56 Pontiac hardtop to pay closing costs on our first house. The apartment we had been living in began to house gangsters and it became overun with cockroaches...time to move my family. It was my moral obligation.
When my son was growing up, I always had some kinda car project but they were cheap, non mainstream cars and our family budget NEVER suffered because of my car projects, in fact I had to sell them off occasionally to pay for new appliances, out of state trips for the kid's sports tournaments, etc etc. I was always able to find another one when there was a small surplus of cash and they never cost over $300.
It was my moral obligation to teach my son how to work on cars, both to build 'em and to just maintain them. It has paid off in spades now that he has his own family and car fleet.
Regarding seat belts.........my wife helped out with that one. She totally required everybody be belted in before the key was ever turned. The one and only time she wavered from her own rule, my son fell out of the passenger door and she ran over his leg! Luckily her car was a little shitbox 83 Plymouth horizon and there was probably less than 300 LBS weight on each rear wheel...the kid was unharmed.

 

All most all of us did some really stupid shit with motor vehicles of one sort or another and lived to tell about it myself included . The scars on my neck and leg from running my 54 Buick brush buggy (cut down chassis, engine and seat and nothing else. No roll bar, cage or what not.) through a barb wire fence after missing a cattle chute built out of cross ties on the other side of the road. I walked away from two helicopter crashes in Vietnam and only five minutes before the first one I looked down and saw that I didn't have my seatbelt/harness fastened. When the bird went into a right hand spin I'd have gone out the door along with the grenade launcher laying on my lap if i hadn't been fastened in.

36 years and about three months ago I was taking my wife to work one morning in the 48 and she was leaning against the door with her back as she quite often did years ago and on a slow turn the door flew open and all I saw was legs and butt flying out the door as she flew out and landed on the gravel on the outside of the turn. It took the male nurse at the emergency room a couple of hours to dig the sand and gravel out of her cheek and knees. There are a hell of a lot more reasons to have seat belts in your rig than that "big crash" and that was one of them. That was the same day we found out she was pregnant with my now 35 year old daughter after the doc who was a personal family friend did the test while she was being cleaned up.

I packed bruises for years after I rolled a 70 Chev pickup while missing a gal who had pulled out in front of me. Even though I always buckled up somehow I got distracted that one time and bounced around the cab of that truck on ever one of the three rolls it took tweaking the steering wheel and bending the 4 speed handle that I had a death grip on.

My guess is that guys and gals looking in your car when it's parked could give a shit if it has heaven forbid seat belts in it and 99.9999 percent of the time they don't pay the least bit of attention no matter what year or model the car is.

 

I can still remember.......I couldn't have been any more than 3-4. We had a 58 Plymouth.....This couldn't have been later than 65. There was a rust hole in the rear floor (not all that large). I used to like to sit on the floor and watch the road go by through that hole. Kids rarely get to experience that joy any more.

 

No moral delemas here, I was raised with much common sense, and our govt down here requires seatbelts in all modern cars. There is a start year, possibly in the early 60s, so cars before then don't have to have em.
We have an awesome system for hot rods, that has great safety requirements, while not being stupidly restrictive.

Now, where do I find $500 for that new manifold I want for the Hudson?

 

I use a roll of duct tape in my coupe.......holds a lg DD coffee just fine....

 

Supposedly the interior of the buses are engineered to protect the kids riding in them and are safer than if the kids were wearing lap belts UNLESS the bus rolls over. I'm not sure I believe that but a school bus just ran head-on into a big truck north of here and while the bus driver died, the worst injuries to the kids were broken bones, none life threatening. I have seen video of crash-test dummies in school buses with lap belts and they end up with head and neck injuries from folding at the waist and hitting the seat in front, while without the belt their whole body hits the seat back at the same time without causing the head and neck injuried.
I've been told to make the buses safer they would need three point harnesses, properly mounted which would be difficult and then the bus driver would be resposible for making the kids put the belts on AND keep them on. Not an easy job with thirty kids or more in the back.

 

The point is........While I agree with your point overall it's not my place to tell others what to do. Sure, you can demand your kids to buckle up but IMO you shouldn't be able to demand your neighbor to do it.

You are fine with old cars......not all of the nannies are. Leave people the eff alone to live their own lives (or not if they make bad decisions)

 

I get it, because being exposed to that kind of stuff surely will make a person either hyper vigilant or numb. Let's just say that your aren't numb.

Having clients such as chrysler and gm, well they need to watch the bottom line, cut corners to do it and all the while try to design an idiot proof vehicle. They choose the lowest bidder and it often bites them in the ass. Someone gets maimed of killed or worse, survives but wishes they were dead because they saved 20 cents per car. If you pay attention here, there's plenty of guys who embrace the building of safe cars and the junk gets shunned. Sadly there are more web forums that embrace the unsafe junk than those that don't.

 

I think you are a bit too wound up. I said you can make your own kids to do what you want. Read it again.

 

Gary Reynolds; After making this statement; Quote " I spent nearly ten years in a law office defending product defect cases, GM and Chrysler were our clients." end of quote; I understand you so much better.
The Wizzard

 

So the circles you travel in bring the worst of society to your door step. That's an exception and there are individuals that should not breed. You've clearly pointed that out. Too bad something didn't happen to their great grand parents then you wouldn't have had to see that.

 

Hmm. Interesting perspectives.

I can't buy on to the "back in the day we survived" theory. Yes, I lived through it. But when I was in those cars of the day, with the safety equipment of the day, all the ones around me were fairly equal. Not only is that not true today, but the sheer number of better performing vehicles on the road, compared to then, is probably a factor of ten.

Having trouble with the "gotta die sometime" crowd as well. I get the rebel without a clue perspective, and respect your right to do so. But I think of it in the perspective of my racing days - I knew it could kill me any time I climbed in, but I was going to do my best to see that it didn't kill me today. So I bought and used the best safety equipment I could get.

But I think some of it may be a function of when and how much you use your Hot Rod. If you are pulling it out a once a week to putt down to the local cruise, a lap belt and a careful driver are probably good enough. But my next project is going to be an 80 mile a day daily driver. Not a could be driver, but a rain or shine drive it to the office 25 out of 30 days commuter. That means it will be in interstate traffic, and all the lunacy that is the reality of urban commuting. Will a 48' Ford club coupe ever be totally safe in that environment, probably not.

But in an effort to put off death as much as possible, it will be a very traditional appearing car with - three point modern belts, hidden disc brakes, LED lighting, a discreet third brake light, bear claws, and headrests. Some will see that as overkill, or wussing out, but I consider it stacking the deck in my favor. When I look out in the driveway at my full sized SUV (I'm in the boat biz - so I have to have a modern heavy tow vehicle) I try to imagine me being hit by the other me . . . . and it makes me think those three point belts for the Ford don't look to bad.

But opinions will vary.

 

Gary, you can't fix stupid

 

There is a law in Colorado that says if a kid is less than 60 pounds, they must be in a booster seat. Got in a pissing match with my son about that and told him to put rocks in the grand kids pockets in case the highway patrol is carrying scales.

 

Why would anyone not do everything possible to protect their kids??

 

What I've been trying to figure out is how do you drink your coffee when you've duct taped it to something, sounds more dangerous than texting drivers,,, unless you tape it to your head I suppose.

 

this thread reminds me of the crappy super bowl commercials........please let's get back to the build.