Thanks Erik. Here's another Warsaw Poland .I have 1,000s of them from my travels. Really must sit down one day and write a book. Will try and put a tread together on here for this years road trip. Starts in 3 weeks. Can't wait
Jeff, I was admiring your photo of summer in the West Coast and thinking about the drives I made over several years around various bits of the South Island (never including the West sadly) and in turn that reminded me a Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Away (well, about 1989 near Tokoroa) I spectacularly blew up the engine of my Daimler Dart; which is really just an excuse for seeing if I can put up some photos of an identical car - without blown up engine I might add. Good practice loading the photos, but rather meek and embarassing pics next to ugliefrance's really well-travelled deuce.
Those Daimler engines sure look cool, but you don't see many around. There was a kiwi who had one in a C Cab, who moved to England, and took it with him. The pic I put up is in our Winter, although we are having a warm one so far. We had 30 odd cars on the run, from Greymouth up to Westport, then through the Buller gorge, and back down the valley to Greymouth. Great day out, nice feed in Westport. I'll stick a couple more pics up, but half the cars are OT. We also checked out the Seal colony just outer Westport. Enlarge last pic to see the sea slugs on the rocks.
Car has arrived in Texas! Well, its taken a month but the car is at Midlife Classics where it will be for the next year or so. Edited collation of Bob's initial reports on its arrival. Hi Erik, The Rocket arrived today. It was difficult to start and keep running, but it was “driven” off the trailer and down to the shop. Given that there are no brakes (save for the parking brake), we opted to push it into the shop rather than risk trying to drive it in. A quick survey shows that all the glass is in need of replacement except for the back window. There are new door windows in the trunk, but the LH vent window is badly broken and the rest of the glass is delaminating – especially the windshield. Also, both door holds (keep the door open) are rusted and problematic. The driver’s side is especially bad and requires some effort and fiddling to close the door. But, I’m sure we’ll find a way to make it workable. There was just too much going on today, but we’ll try and have a better look at what we’ve got tomorrow. That may prove somewhat of a challenge since the hood release cable handle in the dash isn’t connected to a cable. So, don’t yet know what lurks under the hood – other than an obvious fuel leak judging by the smell. ....... Looked under the car up front to see about unlatching the hood. Oldsmobile did a good job of shielding it from potential thievery. It looks like we may need to cut the cable housing somewhere (likely under the dash) to get at the inner cable in order to release the latch. The cable originally attached to the “leg” of the T-handle about 3 inches deep into the cable housing. We’re going to look to see what replacement options are available before we start cutting. Worst case scenario may be that we replace it with a universal choke cable assembly and try to swedge the original T-handle to the new inner cable. This is what makes this kind of work fun…and unpredictable. I’d start hunting for a replacement windshield and both vent windows. I can get new pieces cut for the vent windows and rear quarter windows if necessary – and at a surprisingly reasonable cost. But, it takes a couple months to have them made. ..... Dakotah was able to get the hood open this afternoon. Apparently the cable had been spliced in some cheesy manner. We'll get it right. Got a quick look underneath before closing. First pass see no show stoppers. Large pass-through holes have been cut in the X-frame for exhaust passage - much larger than necessary. We should be able to make that right with the body off. Will need to discuss options for exhaust routing. P7070055 by Erik Andersen posted Jul 12, 2016 at 7:40 PM P7070051 by Erik Andersen posted Jul 12, 2016 at 7:40 PM
Biggest vulnerability on spares sorted! Trying to figure out what spares would be absolutely critical to keeping rolling but not capable of being thrown together by versatile bush mechanics in Kazakstahn the pretty unique Oldsmobile kingpin steering and front shock system was the standout; especially the upper control arms which are incorporated in the Delco lever shocks and will be on a car weighing close to 4500lbs fully loaded and being flung around dodgy roads but which I was very concerned about finding. I'm very excited that flattopbob32 has sourced and supplied me a spare set which will go off with mine for a full refurb.
Yes, 49 was split, you can install the split window in a 50. you have to have the center divider and 2 piece stainless trim. I have gone the other way installing a 1piece window that was a 2piece. Don't know of anybody that would want a 2 piece when you can have a 1 piece.
Talking to an Inspiration! Roy Asbahr Recreation Of Panamericana Winner Herschel McGriff by Erik Andersen posted Jul 19, 2016 at 7:42 PM Roy Asbahr Recreation Of Panamericana Winner Detail by Erik Andersen posted Jul 19, 2016 at 7:42 PM My interest in the Rocket 88 was first kindled by Herschel McGriff's win in the 1950 Carerra Panamericana and in learning about him and his car I discovered that his (very well travelled) vehicle had been written off in the late '50s, but Roy Asbahr from McGriff's home state had more recently built a faithful replica of the McGriff car - and had done so with help and input from the great man himself. The re-creation had featured at the Amelia Island concours in 2010 and was itself an inspiration to me independent of McGriff. I had the great pleasure the other day of talking to Roy who very kindly took a cold call from some random person in Australia and was happy to talk with me at some length about his car and what was and wasn't done by McGriff to his stock 88 - and more generally about many of the queries I have about my car. As with virtually everyone in the community he was open and friendly and has kindly offered to let me pick his brains. Thank you Roy.
I think BobK already did this with his Chebby....! Hahaha... Looking forward to following this adventure.
Disassembly of the body has mostly happened. Nothing too horrible - the engine seems to be a '54 or '55 324 block with original 303 heads - nothing wrong with that and the seller did say so though I had forgotten - and generator and starter from a '55 & '57 respectively. Some floor rot has been patched in the past - still thinking about whether or not I can live with that. Bob at Midlife makes the good point that the body is going to get a bit of a beating anyway so why make it too nice before sending it on its way into the world.
I'm starting to love the shape. I chose a '50 Olds 88 because of its cultural history and what it had achieved as a race car - its looks didn't do it for me at all. But the more it is stripped back the more the look is growing and growing on me. I mean, take off the frippery and reveal its bones and it becomes something else - just losing the hubcaps somehow frees it even more. It's got 'attitude' that hasn't been manufactured by slamming it and putting outsized modern wheels and low profile tyres (I'm looking at you Gas Monkey!) Stockholm Syndrome???
And in the news.... The ERA has released the route for the 2019 Peking to Paris!!!!! Spending days visiting Borat, Ferry across the Caspian Sea, driving the Caucasus mountains. (I think I just wet myself)
I'm available as a co-pilot having retired in April 2019. Lots of mechanical experience, happy to share the driving
Update on the bodywork. The car has been stripped and soda blasted and I'm ordering some panels from Alex at EMS. Rockers and the front of the quarter panels are the panels, along with bottoms of the door skins. DSC00029 by Erik Andersen posted Nov 1, 2016 at 1:54 PM DSC00025 by Erik Andersen posted Nov 1, 2016 at 1:54 PM DSC00022 by Erik Andersen posted Nov 1, 2016 at 1:54 PM DSC00012 by Erik Andersen posted Nov 1, 2016 at 1:54 PM DSC00053 by Erik Andersen posted Nov 1, 2016 at 1:54 PM DSC00016 by Erik Andersen posted Nov 1, 2016 at 1:54 PM DSC00003 by Erik Andersen posted Nov 1, 2016 at 1:54 PM
I recently found this '49 88 in southern CA. I trailered it back to New Mexico and have started the restoration.
Hi there. I just stumbled on this. Waaay back in 2016 you posted this on a thread of mine about my ‘50 88 I was then starting to restomod for a round the world adventure. 3 years on I’m about 2/3rds done. Just finished the 2019 Peking to Paris rally and the car is in Poland for much needed TLC. I see your 88 had tube shocks all round, and I’m curious how you did the front ones. The front lever-arms really aren’t ‘enough’ for what I’m doing with it. Do you still have yours. Cheers Erik Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Time flies when you’re having fun!! The car restomod was finished in late 2017 - too late for the NYC-LA rally I wanted to kick off with- and the first part of the round-the-world trip was a dash from Dallas to Oakland to catch a ship to Singapore for the Road to Saigon rally through Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia & Vietnam in Feb ‘18. It was then shipped home to Australia but after only a little bit of adventure I chewed the camshaft in the Targa Great Barrier Reef and barely got back on the road in time to ship to Beijing for the Peking to Paris 2019. We made it to Paris a couple of weeks ago, and she’s now in Poland getting TLC. The plan is to cross the Atlantic next summer via the Faroes and Iceland - hopefully getting a run at the Roll n Flat beach races near Venice on the way. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Glad to see this thread again. I'd have to rob a few more 7-11's to be able to participate, however. Good luck, all.
Like. I to have had the need for an early Olds. My choice is the 50 but I chose the Holiday 88 Hard Top coupe. Still in progress, Hope to bring it home soon.
In 2007 a Roger & Author drove a 1950 Ford Coupe with stock running gear circumnavigated the 18 thousand miles form Paris to Peking and never had a flat! HRP By implication, the new post-war Fords were designed for stuff like this: a driving environment of high-crowned pavement with no shoulders and at least casually groomed dirt that followed property lines out in the countryside. When they were first assembled, the intended range for the lineup of 1950 Ford cars was generations beyond the norms for ground transportation in Eurasia. More than a half-century later, the unimaginably huge steppes and washes across Asia still haven’t started that evolution. A very basic car designed for elemental roads won’t completely cut it in an environment where you can clock hundreds of miles on some of the roughest landscape known to man. Contests against the monolithic obstacles of time and terrain formed some of the earliest, most historic competitions in the annals of motorized sport. A century after their first runnings, some of the Homeric city-to-city, continent-crossing events were revived, run as endurance rallies for veteran automobiles. One of the most ambitious in the original bunch, and thus a prime candidate for resuscitation, was the Peking-to-Paris extravaganza of 1907. NASCAR-style, dual MSD ignition boxes and coils were isntalled, capable of being switched on the fly at speed if one sustained a failure in the middle of the Gobi. Fabricated panel controls extras, including power source for communications. Like a couple of other notable marathons in the very early days, the race from Peking was a publicity stunt organized by a newspaper, Le Matin of Paris, which would co-sponsor its sequel, New York-to-Paris, with The New York Times. Astoundingly, four of the five starters actually completed the 10,000-mile ordeal, thousands of those miles never crossed by a powered vehicle before. The winner, having taken sustenance from bouillon cubes washed down with oil-slicked radiator water, was Prince Scipione Borghese, racing in a giant 7-liter Itala. China’s second-largest city has been called Beijing since not long after the formerly Forbidden City was opened to the West, a consequence of the official adoption of pinyin transliteration. For the purposes of the revived rally in 2007, however, the name and starting point remained Peking, and attracted 134 intrepid vehicles from around the world–including both the actual winning Itala from 1907, and this 1950 Ford Custom coupe. The restorer and race-prep guy was Roger James, who operates a restoration shop, D&D Classic, in Covington, Ohio. Roger decided to go to China and, as we’ll see, keep right on going without a letup. Pair of U-bolts secures aftermarket harnesses to vertical roll-bar hoop. “I have a customer, Arthur Freeman, who came up to me and said it was his dream to drive in this kind of event,” Roger recalled. “He asked me what kind of a car I would recommend for Peking-to-Paris if I had to pick one, and right away, I told him a 1949 to 1951 Ford. I had a 1950 Ford coupe when I was in high school, and I thought one of them would be up to the toughest parts of the rally. I already knew these cars could take a beating and keep right on going. Other American cars from that era, like the Oldsmobile 88, might have more power, but they were also heavier. I thought that made them unsuitable for this trip.” With all those rocks, welding on steel guards for valve stems was wise, and worked. Enormous abuse was ladled upon this car, yet, as with most entrants in the rally, it is remarkably stock. The rules ensured as much, dividing the cars into broad categories of pre-1920, pre-1940 and pre-1960, with no pure performance upgrades allowed. Measures of latitude did exist for safety and reliability–essential, since the route included desert stages across sizzling, arid portions of Iran, Turkey and the Gobi Desert of China, where any breakdown could threaten a team’s survival. To cope with that, a minimum fuel range of 375 miles was mandatory, and competitors were warned that no better than 70-octane gasoline might be readily available. A high-compression engine would be useless. Against that backdrop, selecting a flathead Ford V-8 was completely prudent. With its stock 6.8:1 compression ratio left intact, a 1950-spec flathead can combust anything with a higher flashpoint than Yoo-hoo. When Roger and Arthur decided to take on the rally and found this Ford, though, its V-8 was a swamp encased in rust. It was still in Xenia, Ohio, where it was sold new. Water seepage and freezing conditions had essentially burst the block bomb-style; it was junk. Roger bought an intact Mercury flathead block locally, which dictated a lot about the subsequent engine build. Beginning in 1949, the Mercury boasted a full 4.00-inch stroke to reach 255 cubic inches. Like many latter-day flathead builders, Roger went with an aftermarket crankshaft to escape the wear, brittleness and associated re-machining endemic to typical well-used Ford crankshafts. Per the engine builder’s recommendation, his choice was a 4.00-inch-stroke SCAT cast crankshaft to which fit the stock Ford 7.00-inch connecting rods. Once the entire rotating assembly was balanced and the main bearing saddles were aligned-honed to ensure absolute trueness of the crankshaft’s alignment after it was torqued in place, the engine was then assembled, casting off worries about a journal snapping loose in some rocky place whose name is spelled in pictograms or Cyrillic script. Additional machining included a three-angle seat cut for the valves, an iconic flathead performance procedure. And a set of cast-iron Fenton exhaust headers were bolted on to free the exhaust gases from the combustion chambers as quickly as possible, thus providing some needed extra horsepower and torque. Most everything else was harvested from the donor flathead engine with the busted block. Those components included the Stromberg EE-1 two-barrel carburetor, intake manifold, cylinder heads, oil pan and drives. Those cylinder heads, incidentally, are stock, with none of the porting or valve enlargement you’d think to find in a flathead built for what amounts to competition use. Likewise, there’s no “relief,” the removal of metal from the block to ensure freer flow between the valves and the combustion chamber. Three-ring aluminum-alloy pistons were fitted to reduce reciprocating weight, but maintain stock compression–again, the better to ignite the low octane fuel that’s mostly available throughout the race. Plus, recall that even full-race flatheads built by legends such as the late Bobby Meeks, longtime adviser to Vic Edelbrock Sr., rarely topped 9.5:1 compression. The block did require a .040 overbore, which, with the longer crank throws, brings this flathead to a guesstimated displacement of approximately 265 cubic inches. A mild Iskenderian 77B camshaft with a higher .325-inch lift and longer 260-degrees of duration was selected to help make the engine breathe better. The engine’s biggest departure from stock displacement was Roger’s fitment of aftermarket oil and water pumps. The oil pump is new but stock. The severe-service water pump has a high-flow impeller on a ¾-inch shaft with both roller and ball bearings for increased durability. Continuing that thread, Roger selected an aftermarket Be Cool down-flow all-aluminum radiator, with two rows of one-inch tubes and a one-gallon overflow tank. Addressing the other half of the fire-and-water equation, Roger converted the electrical system to 12 volts, installing a high-output Power Master 75-amp alternator in an original-appearing generator housing, linked to dual MSD 6AL electronic ignition boxes with dual coils, independently selectable by switch from the interior. As Roger stated, “I wasn’t trying to build a hot rod here, but instead build in durability and redundancy. The ignition can be switched on the fly from one MSD box to the other, just like in NASCAR.” Apt comparison, because you find yourself thinking that the end result, especially thickly caked in Asian dust, looks as if it could have driven off the dirt-track Charlotte Fairgrounds in the earliest days of NASCAR’s Strictly Stock division. The body was lumpy with moles, which turned out to be body filler flung onto chicken-wire support. Once the dried Bondo was chipped away, a replacement trunk floor and new rocker panels were welded in place. Unlike some of the obvious engine-buildup choices, Roger conspicuously insisted on new old stock Ford components for the suspension rebuild, even the brakes. “I was a little concerned about some of the reproduction parts on the market, and this is a good car to do that way, with NOS. There’s a lot of original parts still out there, thus the brakes are completely stock, including the shoes.” Such authenticity was cheerily encouraged by the race rulebook, which was unexpectedly thin on rules. This Ford fell into the Classics category for pre-1960 cars. In that division, you can’t replace leaf springs with coils, or in this car’s case, fit Ardun OHV cylinder heads. A disclosure statement listing all modifications was due a year in advance of the start of the race for compliance purposes. In 1950, NASCAR didn’t mandate roll bars, and neither did the Peking-to-Paris Motor Challenge, choosing instead to use the phrase “strongly recommended” in the rulebook. Roger and Arthur chose to follow that recommendation. Roger welded in the roll bars based on a long-published design for production-class race cars, with U-bolts securing aftermarket three-point harnesses. The car is equipped with factory overdrive, permissible as original. Aftermarket limited-slip differentials are proscribed; the Ford differential is the car’s original and, while refurbished, is unmodified, though protected like the rest of the undercarriage by metal skidplates. We can’t explicitly verify it, but the James/Freeman Ford was probably the sole Beijing entrant in 2007 to get a thorough sorting by a major manufacturer, after a fashion. They took it to the Ford Proving Grounds in Dearborn, which performed a precision four-wheel alignment and static-weighed the car with a full load to keep its balance relatively centered. The cargo included sleeping bags, tents, mattresses, military rations and, as Roger said, “all the spare parts we thought we needed and would fit.” Another extra, literally, is fuel capacity. An aftermarket fuel cell was installed directly above the stock gas tank, with twin SU electric fuel pumps backing up the stock mechanical pump. Each fuel system is completely separate, activated by the custom center switch panel, the idea being that contaminated fuel could be immediately isolated. Effectively, the car can go 380 miles without refueling. To keep it all elevated, the team added rear adjustable Rancho shocks with air springs. Loaded, the Ford came to about 2,900 pounds. Nothing about the rally is easy to quantify. Given the huge variances in vehicle performance, there was no overall winner per se. The whole route took about six weeks to complete. Adding up the 22 timed stages, the Ford totaled just under 248½ hours–more than 10 days of continuous driving, over terrain reaching to 10,000 feet in elevation and, in places, more than 105 degrees. Rally support included an army of recovery vehicles, and each team was issued a Garmin GPS receiver with pre-programmed waypoints. An on-board satellite telephone was no less useful. Roger added a 110-volt inverter to the switch console to keep batteries charged; these ran a laptop and an air compressor. “We averaged between 200 and 500 miles per day,” Roger related. “Inner and Outer Mongolia were probably the worst driving conditions in my entire life. It’s like you were suddenly plopped down in Asia during the 1800s. The whole environment is basically dirt. You’d get to the top of a hill, and there you’d see eight faint dirt tracks, all heading off in different directions. The GPS was essential. There’s some traffic, an awful lot of motorcycles, plus an awful lot of horses and camels. We forded eight rivers, up to 24 inches deep. “In Russia, we were mostly on two-lane roads, but ironically, the closer we got to Moscow, the worse the roads’ condition became. You’d find yourself on a four-lane highway full of potholes because of all the heavy trucks. The one thing was, at night, we’d find ourselves camped near villages, and there was plenty of gasoline, even 92 octane. Mobil and Lukoil stations were a common sight.” Tires weren’t a problem, either, as the retrofitted Bridgestone all-terrain radials ran failure-free. Not just across Asia and Europe, either: After Roger and Arthur collected their bronze medals at the Paris celebration, they drove the Ford by way of the Channel Tunnel to Heathrow Airport in England, then had it transported by 747 cargo jet to JFK in New York. From there, they drove it back to Ohio. After a little fine-tuning, they then drove it again. To Anchorage, Alaska. Eighteen thousand miles, almost a global circumnavigation, no problem. “Not even a flat,” Roger said. “That’s Ford tough. This is one of the greatest experiences you could ever hope to have in life.”
The Jalopy Journal
