I hear ya loud and clear! Thinking of getting an "older" DD...but, keeping the Tahoe for those days that I need reliability. Out here in the CA...going into LA is a pain with traffic, etc....some piece of mind with a late model. But..not nearly as cool!
In June of 1946 my father and mother decided to see the US. Fresh out of the Navy, the two took off on a month long drive, with no destination except a visit with relatives in Minnesota somewhere along the way. The were in most every state west of the Mississippi and recounted the trip often over the next 50 years, talking of the places and people they saw along the way. They never talked of breakdowns or worries, as they had just been through a war and the idea of breaking down in the middle of the US didn't scare them at all. They had no problems, drove about 5,000 miles and did it all in a 39 Ford Deluxe 2 door sedan. Yes, it was black, and my grandmother drove it into the 60's. We forget they were cars then, and when kept up well, they will still do the job. Plus, a paid-for car will almost always cost less than one that has payments, and the asset is appreciating. Not to mention the fun that goes along with it every day.
I broke the engine of my '62 Daily of five years (spun a big end). It happened at a very inconvenient time, it's never convenient. I've been sourcing parts and re-building it for the last couple of months, still I couldn't think of owning a "new" car! Like the man said; drive it, break it, fix it, repeat.
I get the worries too sometimes especially with the kids in the old cars. What is that smell? what was that noise? will it start when I get out of the store? why do I like these damn old cars anyways? But it is just too much fun, like an an addiction, when everything is going right and that old car is singing along and you cannot stop smiling and that is well worth a few worries of will I get the groceries home before the ice cream melts.
I've used that logic for years and it has served me well.And saved(and made)me a hell of a lot of dollars.
good insite. I was curious what a 39 Ford as nice as yours was purchased for. There is an equally nice 40 ford sedan by me that could be had for 14 k.
You didn't have phone service for 150 miles?!??!! Really?!??!! Last Thanksgiving I swapped an '08 GMC Sierra Crew Cab for enough $$$ to pay it off & cover the cost of a super-clean, low mile, 2dr, 2wd, '96 Tahoe. I love my new ride & the freedom from a car payment. What I'm saving on payments is going toward my '59 El Camino. (So I have something to drive if the Tahoe lays down & finally gets the LS swap I want to do.) JH
take 1/4 of what your payments and extra insurance for a "new" ride would be,save it towards upkeep of the '39.you would still be miles ahead. I have never had a car payment in my 20+ years of driving.Just fixed a used one up and drove it. I had a dakota that I drove for 6 years. after i sold it, I figured it out at $200 a year. That includes fixing everything that broke.Try finding a new car for those payments!
You all in Texas and similiar places have a huge advantage over us that live in areas that eat a car up. I drove a 54 Chevy for two years (or thereabouts) daily a couple years ago. It was what I guess would be called a survivor. No bondo, no holes, very, very little rust. I'd get home in the winter after working 12 hours with the car a mess in the winter.....my wife would look at it and say "that poor car". And she was right.....it deserved better. Before long the salt and crude would have really took it's toll. I couldn't do that to a car that made it 55 years or so without the cancer salt causes. My Pontiac is nearly as solid but it stays home in the nasty stuff. I'll run the piss out of it in good weather though.
One thing that may be over looked here is that any vehicle can breakdown at anytime, even new ones. Even with the pucker factor on that long trip the cool factor still comes out on top in my view. I cant wait to road trip when I get that far. I must say as I have said before, Ryan, that is one cool ride, I love it.
A wiser man than I once told me something. The greatest car stories you'll ever tell your friends start with "One time when I broke down..." That has been put to the test many times in my experiences. I have met some of the most helpful, most skilled, most generous people and have developed some deep friendships because of those breakdowns. Everybody will stop to help someone driving a classic car. Try stopping in a beat up minivan and getting help!
Put the costs aside. You chose for different reasons. Now, do you have insurance on the car? Of course you do. Now try this; Drop half the estimated monthly expenses of a late model into a savings account each month, say $500. In 10 months, you have the next flatty covered. Two or three gear boxes, or half a paint job. At 24 months, you have $12000, plus interest. Now that's a serious dent in any incidental repairs, right?
I ran into that on my 65 F100. I went through nothing when I bought it. It ran warm, carb would mess up sometimes, the alternator sometimes wouldn't charge. The truck hadn't been registered since 1999 (I drove it home in 2010). I blew one brake line on the way home. I am a cheapskate plus slightly lazy. I'll put off stuff till the last minute. I've put 12,000 miles on it in 10 months as my only transportation. I took it to my friend's wedding, 150 miles one way. Had some charging troubles. The battery nearly went dead. Adjusted the points in the voltage regulator and I was off and running again at a zero cost. I had the resistor wire for the ignition system burn up in the middle of winter. Wound up swapping out the whole ignition system out of my 77 F100 so I didn't have to buy points (yes I am that big of a cheap skate ). I swapped in a clutch fan off that truck too in an attempt to glean some more mileage out of the 65. Unfortunately it does not cool nearly as well as the old style one. I found out the hard way when I took it into town. I had cardboard over the radiator since with the old fan it would run 110 degrees when it was 20 below outside. With no heat in the truck it made for some super cold rides. Anyway I overheated the hell out of the truck with the clutch fan. Had I just removed the cardboard I would have been fine. But I didn't and blew a head gasket. Luckily it is a slow leak that leaks on the outside of the block. I've been ignoring it for months now. Lately though I've been having a lot of troubles. Rubber rag joint busted at work. Rigged it back together to get home. Now I've been having major brake trouble, truck might have to be parked for a while. I drove a 63 Rambler for a while. There too I did nothing to prepare it for daily driving. Like the truck it had been sitting for sometime. When I looked at it the car had been sitting for 2 years without being started. The guy had rebuilt the entire brake system a couple of years ago. So I figured it was okay to attempt to drive it home 170 miles. It started up, ran okay. Motor was a little noisy and really worn out (car had nearly 200k on it). I drove it for 7000 miles until it blew up. I put 20 bucks into fixing the generator and 60 bucks for a quickie spray can job. That was it. I wound up selling it for a hundred bucks less than what I paid for it running and driving. I seen the car later, guy was restoring it.
I been driving some sort of "Hot Rod" for 50 years. Drove my '34 Ford pickup from St. Louis, Mo. to Bonneville Salt Flats a couple of years ago. It lunched a valve seal coming down the mountain into Salt Lake City, Utah. I had my rope and had purchased a new seal at a NAPA store in Cheyenne, Wyoming the day before. I had been running well over the speed limit for a very long time when I noticed a little smoke out the back when I would lift my foot off the gas pistol. I knew then I would need to do some about it so I planned ahead and nursed it on into Salt Lake City. My co-pilot thought for sure we would need to buy a "crate motor" to get home. NOT! The next morning, before breakfast, I pulled the plug out of the hurt hole and fed my rope in until it wouldn't take anymore and bumped the starter until it lock up and used my valve spring compressor to take off the spring and then I popped the keeper off with a tap of my hammer and the rest is history! I had a blast at the Salt and made it back home safe and sound. If you going to drive em you going to have to fix em! Be prepared, adapt,improvise and overcome!! I drive the truck every day everywhere. Don't think nothing about doing 4-5 hundred miles anytime. Let the good times roll!
I drove my '60 Plymouth Savoy from Little Rock, AR to Louisville, KY to the AACA 75th anniversary car show this past July, 550 miles 1 way. I lost my lights at dark driving to Louisville. I spliced into the wiring harness with alligator clips and got there. On the way home I lost my fan belt and a family of Menonites picked me up and took me to the next exit where I saw a fellow Mopar head who drove me 15 miles to a parts store and then he drove me back to my car on the freeway. I never worried about that /6 getting me there and back in the July heat. Its those kind of memories that will last forever.
'Swings and roundabouts', I understand the anxiety by driving an 'old' car everyday, especially on long trips (55 Buick, in a country that never had them, and definately doesn't have any parts stores nearby if/when it fails), however, the flip side is the satisfaction/relief and appreciation of the decision when we make it, definately the road less travelled, and with it's issues for sure, but an adventure like no other.... And yep, fix that windscreen... Cheers, Drewfus
Ryan, I love your sedan! As you know I drove my 40 Coupe to LSR this year and the whole trip there I was waiting for something bad to happen and of course, like you, figured it would happen when there was no cell signal My 40 had not been more than a few miles from home a few times since the early 80's so a 1200 mile trip was a risk. The trip was great with really no problems. It rattled at anything over 2500 rpm in any gear and used a quart of oil both ways, again not bad! The trip back was all solo and I just relaxed and cruised. The trip back was soooo relaxing and I loved it! I am still trying to decide wheather to build a warmed up Flathead or stick my paid for 2x4 61 283 in it I really want to stick with the flathead but the SBC is done. Good luck with your sedan and don't worry, drive it, do the regular maint. and don't look back! Its all worth it.
That's a pretty car...drive it! BTW, compare it to driving a Lamborghini and you'll find that you've saved even MORE money with the Ford!
Ryan, It is always enjoyable to read your stories. I can relate to this one having just returned from my road trip in the Metro van. I broke down 10 miles from home the first morning and for a moment considered loading all of my Acme Merchandise into my daily driver GMC truck, then remembered that my traveling buddy Jack was driving my truck because his daily truck had blown up a few days earlier. Only real choice was to stay home or to head out into the unknown and deal with what came up. I sat on the freeway coming to terms with the fact that If I could get it going again I may break down again in the days ahead. You see I had been chasing a problem on and off for a few months that would starve fuel to the carb and as of that point I had still not figured it out. For those of you that read the Acme road trip to the Round up you know I ended up dropping the tank in Vaughn New Mexico after hours of Roadside attempts to figure it out (it happened again outside of a little town a few miles from the middle of nowhere). Then later that night after finding the tape in the fuel tank I got a leak in a power steering hose. These things happening actually made me worry less and reminded me of younger days when every car I owned would break down and I was always having to fix things on the side of the road. I came back feeling a lot more confident in driving my old stuff. Not that any of it less likely to break, just that I am not so worried about fixing it. I'm glad you drive the 39. It reminds people that it can be done. Keep it up.
The 60 wagon was a nice car but it just wasn't "you", maybe cuz it was yellow. Collin talked me into AAA, after seeing him thrash his coupe at the drags and go home on the back of a wrecker...ever taken your sunglasses off to better hear some noise that has started up?..my father called that "automatic rough", noises that started up as soon as you started flying over the ocean...
Ryan, you are a hero. I have thought and talked about doing this very thing manytimes. As a matter of fact, the thought of driving an old car as a daily just about consumes me. My thought is my car is payed off and I could sell it for enough to purchase a pretty good car, about like yours. I keep losing the battle (with my self) with fuel mileage. Just keep driving that bitchen sedan and letting all of us how it is going. Jeff
Go into a dark room, sit down, close your eyes and keep repeating over and over again the words..."I believe in my hotrod, I believe in my hotrod I believe in my hotrod" Keep those negative thoughts out of your head. When they start to creep in, just say "ya gotta believe" The HAMB seems to me to be a collection of worry warts. (this post is proving me wrong thank god) The only time I get nervous behind the wheel of my hotrod is in heavy bumper to bumper rush hour traffic. I get scared of the other idiots. I always think of Donald Southerland in " Kelly's Heroes" "negative waves, Moriarty, always the negative waves." Keep those negative waves at bay.
the key to making ANY car/truck reliable is to use the best parts available. THE DRIVE TRAIN IS NOT THE PLACE TO CUT COSTS! it is alright to use old parts on a project to get the style you want, but rebuild them before you use them. Ryan's car was built with parts that were designed to work well, and with each other. along with his upkeep on the car, that is the key. i'm glad you are enjoying the car. -Danny
So many great points on this already, I'll just toss a few more out there... When you built your flathead, you used better materials than original, right? The bearing material has improved over the years, as has the seals and gaskets. You've probably got better plug wires, a cleaner gas tank and better filters right? RIGHT! Now, I don't know about Texas, but here in Arizona we have E-15 gas in everything, so fuel delivery rubbers get ruined quickly (hoses, carb parts...) If you haven't done so, at least update your fuel hoses to injection quality to prevent rot. Still looks the same. Also, modern fuel ruins plenty of sending units. I spend my days at work replacing GM, Ford and Mopar fuel pumps and senders, sometimes 3 a day! Enjoy your already durable steed, as we enjoy ours daily as well! Cheers, bud!
Think about all the Okies that went to Socal in the 30's with bald tires and balin wire,AND, no duct tape, on pig trails!!! DRIVE IT.!!
I paid $100 for my 85 Cavalier, 3½ years and 14k miles ago. When people at work ask me why I drive an 85 Cavalier wagon -insert laugh here- and not something newer in the winter I say.... "You drive your 5 year old Taurus cuz you have too. I drive mine cuz I WANT to." Love the little beater! I've saved SO much money with that car its unreal. Nothing beats driving the hot rod in the summer tho. The wife has a newer car and that would be the major trip car if I HAD to be somewhere. However vacationing in the hot rod is SO much fun. AAA had been my friend over the years as well. later, Bill
my spring and fall daily driver is my 52 chevy panel. I choose not to drive it in the summer because of the intense heat and humidity but I could if I were not a big percy and did not care about stinking/sweating around my clients. Late last year the old 216 started running real rough on the way to work so I limped in to the mechanic down the street from my office. I walked to work and got on some sign projects that were hot. About 45 minutes later the mechanic calls and said the truck was ready to go and I inquired about the problem- they said I broke two push rods because I had used too long a bolt on my side cover. It turns out that weekend I had been detailing the motor and decided to paint the side cover and had used too long a stainless bolt in one of the top center slots and they were rubbing the rods and snapped them. Now I wonder on a modern vehicle, what would the time and cost be to repair such an issue? I think the bill was like $90! Still running strong I might add.