They are cool but like Ryan, I can't afford another expensive collectible uless that ship I have been waiting on finally shows up. HRP
1940 Rexner Zipper. Designed and manufactured by Chuck Gardner. The Zipper had a stamped sheet aluminum body and is a spur drive. I've been told that the body was stamped at a L.A based aircraft company after hours. Maybe Lockheed or Douglas. The car was extremely light and was a good performer, but the company went under shortly after its introduction making for few examples built. All came with Gardner tires and wheels and this one, like most, runs a SuperCyke engine. Ron P.S. Does anyone else have any tether cars that can be shared on this site?
BEST ROAD TRIP About 10 years ago John Lorenz and his wife Alice invited Clark Smith, long time collector of tether cars, and myself, to spend a few days with them at their home in a suburb of Detroit. In the three days we were there we went to a tether car meet, an engine collecto, and an automobile swap meet. Also, we spent a half day at the Henry Ford Museum. But the best was yet to come. John had a lead on a tether car collection that belonged to the late Bob Henick Sr. We couldn't believe the amount of stuff Bob collected over the years. I was able to buy about 7 cars, many engines, and parts. (See last picture on fireplace). Beside all of this, we got to see John's mite car collection. Unbelievable! 300 cars then. More than that now I'm sure. About the car pictured, a 1946 Fox proto, it was raced by Bob Sr. This car ran on the tracks in the Detroit area and won many races. First by Bob Sr and later by his son Bob Jr. These cars were built by Clifford Fox in Oakland California. They were out of business after only two years of production making them somewhat hard to find. They were built complete with engine and ready to race. These came with aluminum pans and a carved wood top. This one has a Dooling 61 with magneto. As with all Fox cars C & R wheels and tires. Ron [/ATTACH]
Ron, your collection is what my collection wants to be when it grows up! Lol. Thanks for sharing. Lots of high quality and rare cars you have. Rick
Thanks Rick and Mick. All the cars I have collected are not rare but they are what I like. I have gone through 100s of cars in the last 20 years. Selling some I wished that I'd kept. You make some mistakes, and you can't keep them all. Ron
I'm probably the only one here who remembers "Spike Jones & his City Slickers" band. I loved their zany renditions of popular 40's & early 50's tunes when I was a kid, but Spike also sponsored some race cars as well, making him even cooler in my book. So I've been slowly piecing a Dooling F together for a while as a tribute to 'ol Spike and his midget racer. I've got it painted, tried to replicate the flame pattern, windshield, exhaust etc. I had Bruno Perry outline the flames and hand letter it. Didn't want a perfect replica, just a tether car done up in the Spike Jones livery. Gotta finish the ignition and am still looking for the bridle brackets, correct springs that go around the front axle and the small front gas tank. I think it turned out pretty good so far. Mick
Mick spent a hour watching old Spike Jones shows on utube. Spike did a show with Billy Barty. Very funny. As to your f car very nice. You must have spent a lot of time polishing.
I couldn’t remember if I had posted a pic of my all aluminium Martin Flash or not, so here it is: Bevel drive unit. McCoy .19 power. Handmade brass wedge tank with ‘shut off’ valve. Solid rear tires and razor edge fronts. Handmade aluminium body (formed over a plywood buck) that wraps tightly around the cylinder head. Two tone green paint and even a leather seat! Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
[AT TACH=full]4915449[/ATTACH] MY ERROR I listed this car as a Interceptor it is a Richter cabin car all mag body Hornet engine. Roy Richter Owner of Bell Auto Parts built about 300 of this model. It proved to be very competitive and at the 1940 Nationals in its class the first four finishers were Richter Streamliners.
In the next couple of weeks I will be sharing a few of my tether cars that are home builts. This prototype shows excellent design and workmanship. The perimeter frame is built out of 5/16 aluminum bar stock. No welding. Everything is drilled, tapped, and screwed together. It looks like all the pieces were fabricated with a saw and file. The car's rear end is a Dooling F car item. The engine is a post-war Hornet, and gas tank is custom made. Body is hand carved wood. I don't know who built this but they did an excellent job. Car has been raced and my guess is it was built around 1950. Ron
This is one of my favorite threads on the Hamb. I've been checking on it regularly since it started, but I wasn't sure if I had seen it all, so I read through the whole thing yesterday and found I had missed a lot. I hope some of the guys who have been posting here for a long time will check your old posts for missing photos, and post new info. about the many websites that are no longer at the web addresses given in some old posts. Here is my small collection. I have a question for the experts about the last car. It's made by Rite Spot Plastic Products, and has a wind up motor, but I think I've seen one with a gas motor. Does anyone know if these were sold in a gas powered version? It's close to the same size as my Cox Thimbledrome Specials.
LEPUS, nice collection, in great condition. Your Rite-Spot racer used the same body as the Wen-Mac Automite car, powered by a Wen-Mac .049 engine. Here's my Wen-Mac in its original box. Mick
Here's my other Thimbledrome Special.The first photo is what it looked like when I bought it. The body and wheels had a lot of corrosion. I stripped and sanded the body, milled the slots in the wheels, polished them, then decided I liked the brushed look better, turned fins in the brake drums, turned the intakes, bent, milled, and silver soldered 1/4" brass tube for the exhaust, made new axles and hubcaps, painted the body, and put on number decals, and my favorite part, turned and assembled the banjo steering wheel.( the spokes are .023" stainless wire. The holes in the rim, which is anodized aluminum, are .030" apart and .05" apart in the hub. If anyone is interested in the construction of the parts, I would post photos.
I have another question for the experts. I got these motors at an estate sale early this year. They were on old, beat up tether airplanes. They all moved freely, with good compression, once I put some solvent in them. I wasn't sure if they were old until I found the 1954 catalog in the OK Cub box.Not bad for $12.50. Anyway, my question is, would these engines work in a tether car, or is there a difference in the design of airplane and car engines? Or would I just have to add a flywheel? The engine at top middle is marked Veco, and 29. The back drop of the photo is my copy of "Spindizzies", one of my Christmas presents. What a cool book.I bought it from Ziffer, here on the Hamb antiquated classified. I think I got his last copy. Thanks for any info, I plan on making my own cars.
LEPUS, that steering wheel is beautiful, love to see your how-to. There's no reason that an airplane engine can't be used in a tether car with a flywheel. Ron, Always look forward to seeing your cars. Mick
2 x 4 Special home built. Simple low dollar build but nice looking and I'm sure competitive. Pan is a 3" x 4" aluminum channel. Car is fitted with a McCoy type of rear end. The Dooling engine is mounted on aluminum blocks. It has a dropped front axle made out of flying wire with Dooling tires and wheels. The body is carved out of a piece of douglas fir 2 x 4 and has the look of an Indy roadster. Many racers came up with very ingenious ways of getting into the hobby designing and building their own cars. Some because of lack of money; others because they were talented and enjoyed creating their own. Ron
How I made the banjo steering wheel for my my Cox Thimbledrome: I designed it using a cad program. The first step of machining the rim, was to face, turn the i.d. close to size, and leave the o.d. over enough to mill flats to drill through, so I wouldn't have to worry about the drill walking. Then put it in an indexing head in the mill,to put the spoke holes in, center drill, drill undersize a few thou., then re-drill .024". Then back in the lathe, turn the i.d and o.d to size, then grind a radius tool, and turn the radius 3/4 of the way around. Next, part the piece off, then hold it in a scroll chuck the other way around, and radius the other side of the i.d.. The hub was done in the same way, oversize with flats, drill, then turn to final dimensions, then polish, then drill and tap the back 4-40 for mounting in the dashboard.
Lepus If I had a mill and a lathe I do not have the skill to use one but happy people like you have the equipment and skill. Very nice work. Ron
The spokes are .023 stainless spring wire, also called piano wire. it comes coiled up, so it has a curve as you can see in the first photo. I use a trick I learned many years ago from another machinist to straighten it. I drill a .025 hole in a piece of brass, then put the wire in a drill chuck, and through the brass block. I run the chuck at about 1,000 rpm, and starting near the chuck I tilt the brass block, and draw it nearly to the end of the wire. (In the photo I'm only holding it in one hand because I needed the other to take the picture.)It only takes a few draws per piece to get them really straight. You have to leave extra length on each end, if you use this method. Next, I made a bending jig for the outer pair of wires for each spoke from some left over 3/16" square steel, with .024 holes drilled through one piece, and 1/16 deep in the other. I clamped the piece with the 1/16" deep hole to a piece of plate, and clamped on another piece as a stop.It didn't make as sharp a bend as I would like, but I don't know how to make it any sharper without risking crushing the wire slightly, which would make it impossible to get in the holes without drilling them oversize, which would look bad. Next, I cut the spokes to length and deburred the ends. the bent pieces were put through the rim from the inside, then I put the rim and hub in a jig to keep them concentric, then put a dab of Loctite cylindrical parts adhesive on each end of a wire, and use tweezers and needle nose pliers to curve them and get them into their holes in the hub. the inner pair of each spoke is a lot easier to get in. If I make more of these, I will probably angle the outer pairs of holes in the hub, so I don't havs to bend the wire. The rim is black anodized. after the loctite had time to dry, I filled in the holes in the rim with a paint stick that's used to fill in engraving.
Lepus - great craftsmanship. I need to build a similar exhaust for a car I'm working on. If you're open to it, I may have some questions. I can be reached at RJ1AZ at aol dott comm. Haven't figured out the private message system on here yet.
Hi Rick, I'll write a description of how I made the exhaust here. I had some 1/4" diameter brass tube, and a bender, so that's what I used. I bent the 4 pieces to 90 degrees, then sawed off most of the excess from the short side of the 3 short pieces. I held them in a collet block in my milling machine, and ran a 1/4" endmill through them,( a drill would not work, it would be pushed around a lot going through the curved part) then deburred them. You can see how I held them in position to silver solder them. I used 1/4' aluminum for spacers and steel blocks against the parts to hold them still while I soldered Unfortunately I chose this project to try different solder and flux, and that plus using propane instead of oxy acetylene gave me very sloppy blobs of solder. after filing and sanding the excess solder off,I measured the spacing of the headers (.437, .437, and .440, pretty good) I drilled the holes in the hood of the car. Then I sawed the headers close to length, then tapped them10-32, and screwed in brass inserts that were tapped 4-40 for the screws that go through the intakes, then sanded them to length on a belt sander, a bit at a time, until it looked right, and the 4-40 holes lined up. The ends of the headers touch the inside of the intake side of the body. I still have to do a little more sanding and polishing, and fill in some bubbles in one place in the solder, then I'll get it and the intakes chrome plated.
Here's one that my friend had as a kid. He was wondering if I knew anything about it. I wasn't much help. But we're going to try, and get it running again. Ron......
Ron, your buddy's car is a Scientific "Half Pint" mite size racer. Made by the Scientific Model Airplane Co. in Newark N. J. powered by an O.K. Cub .074 engine. The early ones were made out of a pressed wood substance they called Scientific Wood, the later ones were plastic bodied. I believe they were from the late 50's through the mid 60's. These were basically toys and not meant to be serious racers. but would still be a lot of fun. Mick
Beware. In searching Ebay today I came up on a tether car for sale. It is a Dooling Frog and is a reproduction. This is the second one this dealer has had on Ebay in the past month that wasn't disclosed as a repo. Sellers can go to great lengths to make their car look original (aging parts, used tires, etc.) Most months I see a couple of these on Ebay. When spending your hard earned money make sure you know what you're buying. Usually there is a disclaimer saying they know nothing about tether cars and bought from either an estate sale, swap meet, or thrift store so they can say they weren't aware that a car is not an original. This doesn't include home builts that aren't trying to be passed off as original factory cars. I'm sure in some cases they might not know themselves so just be aware.
The Jalopy Journal
