A little while back i had posted asking for help to get my 56 to quit over heating...no matter what i did or tried...nothing worked...so i parked it in the back yard..put it up on blocks and forgot it through the winter..i figured i would wait until it was warm before i tore the motor open again to try and find out what was wrong with it.. Fast forward to last week...i was at my friends garage...and he was working on his mud bogger...i call it the flying mosquito....its a model a sedan in skin only...and has a 440 with fender well headers on it...no fenders..no hood..35 chevy grill...when you look at it from the front head on..it looks like a monster mosquito. We get to talking and he knows i have been fighting with the 56 for quite awhile..and he tells me..well after the races this week bring it over and i'll take a look at it...so i wait till my next day off..throw some water in it and drive it to his shop which is about 4 blocks away from my house.. I get there and it is hot...really hot...puking all over the ground hot..so i get off give him my keys and tell him..have fun... Next day he calls me and tells me he cant get the car to run hot...What... you saw it puking when i took it to you...he tells me to come by the shop when i get a chance..So i leave tire marks all the way to his shop...the 56 is in the bay idling...Now my friend is in his 60's...the guy that works with him has to be in his late 60's early 70's...The older guy's name is john and when he sees me walking in the bay he yells over to Dave... hey bossman you gonna make this kid feel bad now or wait till later... Dave just gets his little evil smile on his face and tells me I dont know what your problem is...the car runs fine...I start to open my mouth to say something and he continues..of course you did have a few things F###ked up in here..like take for example this 7 pound cap..i dont think they have run that low of cap pressure since the 50's..true you have a 50's bodied car but the motor is from the 60's when they were making some power and even the road runners had a 16 pound cap on them..oh yeah you were just a little shit in diapers when they came out..well now ya know..i put a 16 pound cap on it for ya and it aint puking no more... And when you set timing...who the hell showed you how to set timing?? Well it dont matter..it was F###ked too so i went and set it for ya...Didnt you tell me you burnt your light out when it hit the positive side of the coil??? yeah you did..said you had to sit down cuz the MSD bit your little candy ass...Hey John what do you think he would of done if he got bit by a mag we used to run back in the day..John laughs and says hell bossman i think he would still be crying...They both start laughing.. Oh and one last thing that piece of shit gauge your running in there is 40 degrees off..why dont you go and get a quality mechanical guage and put in there..see what that does for ya!! So i got my car and feeling kinda dumb i went home...got a new gauge...did some other stuff Dave told me to..and man...the car is up and running..i couldnt believe that some simple stuff was shooting me down...Alot of my friends are i guess what you call greybeards..i try to learn as much as i can from them now...cuz once there gone i'm going to miss them...they have a whole different way about them...they dont take any lip...have a crude sense of humor...and they will teach you if you want to learn..but they wont go out advertising it..once you are let into their circle and they know your not a punk assed know it all...they share alot of valuable knowledge.. So with that said...i'm going out crusin..
great story. got any pics of the elusive 56 Dodge? the reason i ask, is cause i'm building one my self and it seems that the "tri-five" mopar guys are a rare breed. ncg
Great story, and glad you found them to find your problems! I met an old codger (must have been 75 or so) through his grandson. I went over to see his grandpa with him to eat lunch, and I told him about my U-Joints being bad. We went down to the store and got some replacements, and I was about to put the first one in when he said whoa boy, you got to prep them first. He takes his little mallet and whacks them on the side, and sure enough instead of being real hard to turn, they are real loose now. I asked him what that does, or why it works, and he said he didn't know, but if you don't do it, they never loosen up. So I'm showing him my new air cleaner and shit, the nut falls all the way into the carb. Shit! So I get a few tools to take the carb off, and he says something like "stupid punk" and grabs a screwdriver, wraps some wire around it about 20 loops, and then shorts the wire across the battery. Takes the screwdriver, pulls the nut from the intake and says "here you go boy." He probably had about 1000 little tricks...
You've just discovered what hundreds (maybe thousands) of young men have been learning for decades. The old guys are the real "been there done that" generation. For the most part they are more than willing to share what they have "learned" from years of trial and error and having it handed to them by the real pioneers of this hobby. Example: I learned how to "reverse the eyes on a leaf spring, by using a hammer and an anvil ,in 1958 (I was14 at the time) from a 75 year old man simply by hanging out at his garage, keeping out of his way and giving him a hand keeping things picked up and the floor swept along with asking a million questions. Actually I learned many things from him that I still use today. Before him it was my grandfather who gave me a love and passion for anything mechanical. Today, at 62, nothing compares to giving a younger guy a hand with his car. I've especially enjoyed the time spent with Lucky77 getting his new ride ready for the road. Frank
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