"60s Stuff, music, experiences... lets share um!

[Jack Staggs]

Been sharing stuff lately, kinda hijacking. Sorry. New spot for this stuff?
http://www.inmygarage.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/star-cars_janis-joplin-porsche_janis-on-car.jpg

[Jack Staggs]

Oh, Bruce, probably Koss Pro 4A headphone, I'll bet

[Bill Sampson]

Hey Jack. How about a reprise of the Mothers' Trouble Comin Every Day - back before talking blues was called rap.

Shortened version with appropriate video is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOGydWBJ1mE&feature=kp

Full version is readily available

[Jack Staggs]

That's a good video! My fave MOI is "Help I'm a Rock"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukbu9dmmzJg

[Bill Sampson]

After 50 years I am still in love with Suzy Creamcheese

[bbspdstr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpdvfTlKjP8&list=RDHpdvfTlKjP8&index=1

I was struck with a similarity within and without a certain car club's dialogue. Laws, Founding Fathers.....and the classic Zappa bleeped quote.

A few years ago, I was told by a certain now-retired trustee that "we are here to run the club, not sing kum-bah-yah." And then the firehoses came out.

Ah-h-h, the '60s, '70s, '80s 'til now...it's like deja-vu all over again.

That's for starting this throw-back thread, Jack.

-PhillyCheesedipper

[Bill Sampson]

"There will come a time when everybody will be free. . . . . . . There will even be a time when you can take your clothes off when you dance - wah, wah, wah, wah" - F Zappa

[Jack Staggs]

DBCouper, who posts here occasionally, wrote on thesamba.com :

I stuffed a Corvette engine into my '52 MGTD back when I graduated from Santa Barbara High in '63. What a death trap!

I saw this pic. Is that him?

[JTR70]

Following in the footsteps of Carroll Shelby I see...

[JTR70]

Hey Jack, I forwarded this onto Dave and received a really interesting detailed response from him. Great story and thought I'd share it:

Hey, Justin!



Thanx for the jab. No, that's not me, but the project surely looks familiar. My TD was red. Just like the photo, I cut the firewall back, and rebuilt it. The original clutch and brake pedals pivoted on the floor, which was no longer there, so I hung them from the top, and installed a Chevy truck double master cylinder on the firewall, and used hydraulic clutch linkage. That's where I learned my first lesson. I musta slept thru the Physics class on hydraulic mechanical advantage. I thought (along with some other fools I hung around with) that a larger master cylinder bore would increase braking efficiency. Of course, just the opposite is true. I nearly shoved that brake pedal thru the firewall the first time I tried to stop it. My dad and older brother, who were mechanical engineers, knocked me up side of my head, and drilled the correct principles into my brain.



Exhaust clearance was non-existent. A guy named Hooker (Hooker Headers?) worked in a little muffler shop in town, and he rigged me up something that ran outside the frame and thru the fenders. So, I had to run it with the hood sides removed. I also had to move the steering column and install Jeep power take-off u-joints and a jack-shaft to route it back to the rack-and-pinion steering box.



The TD rear axle was the weakest link (well, one of them) in the drive train. I replaced it with one from a Healy 100, which bolted right in using the original spring perches. Next lesson. That real axle had a 5.13:1 ratio and wire wheels. Looked nice, since I had already installed MGTF front hubs and wires. After a few burn-outs, though, I ripped out about half of the spokes. I removed the wire hubs from the rear, and installed disc wheels, which bolted right onto the existing studs. The 5.13 ratio made it necessary to use a Chevy 3-speed overdrive transmission for freeway driving. I got really good at replacing the second gear synchro hub, which was a weak link in that trans. But, slamming a second gear shift was a hoot! The frame would twist enough that the rear-hinged doors would fly open and strike the rear fenders. I had to put restraining tethers on them. I had to make up a new driveshaft with a Chevy yoke on one end and a Healy flange on the other. I also had to remove the drive shaft tunnel to get it to fit. Drove it for quite a while with the open shaft and u-joint spinning next to my thigh, until one night when I was reaching down to engage the overdrive lever. My cardigan sweater got wrapped around the shaft, and it slammed me to the floor in an instant! Fortunately the sweater was weak enough that it was ripped clean off me. When I got home, I made a tunnel cover out of a mailbox.



I had never noticed that Chevy engines are mounted higher in the front. Dad told me that this was to match the transmission output shaft angle with the R/E pinion shaft angle to cancel out vibration. I had mounted it with the valve covers level. As it turned out, this was OK, as the Healy pinion shaft was also level (got lucky). But, the Chevy intake manifold is wedged so that the carburetor would sit level. So, my 4-barrel carb was cocked forward considerably. I found a marine conversion specialty shop that sold me a wedge to get it level. I see that the guy in the photo also has his engine mounted level. His carburetor is also canted forward. Damn, that looks familiar! I was so anxious to try the thing out, that I used a piece of rope for carburetor linkage. The air velocity thru the carb overpowered the return spring, and it stuck wide open. I think that's when I learned about the brakes.



Cooling was always a problem with the stock radiator which I altered in order to pressurize it. Nobody I knew of had yet dreamed up electric fans, and I had to run it without a fan due to clearance issues. Traffic jams were a constant source of anxiety, and the brakes were always inadequate, to say the least. I got the TF front hubs on the wrong sides (didn't know there was a difference), and the L/F wheel kept flying off, until I switched them. One time it came off on the freeway at speed. Nearly flipped me over as it ran up under the front fender. A CHP trooper stopped and helped me look for the wheel, which we found hanging in a tree in the median.



Other than a wiring fire (who needs fuses?) and a nagging problem with the Chevy diaphragm pressure plate, I don't recall too many other failures. My hydraulic clutch linkage wasn't configured correctly, and would over-release the clutch. During a power-shift, it wound go over-center, and suck to the floor. Of course, the engine would rev wildly before I could get my foot out of the throttle. When the revs got back down to somewhere between 5-6,000, the clutch would come back in with a vengeance, stopping the engine instantly. One time when I was burning out on the islands of the Chevron station where I worked, it did that, and I heard a ticking sound in the engine thereafter. A few days later, I found out what it was. While drag-racing a Corvette, it threw a rod. I sleeved that cylinder, replaced the rod and piston, and was back on the road. The engine I had picked up was a rare 1956 Corvette 283 cu. in. warranty block that had been replaced at the dealership. Rare, back then, didn't mean much to me. Most people weren't even aware that the factory delivered a very few 'Vettes with the 283 at the end of '56. It was basically a 265 that they bored out an eighth of an inch. This left the cylinder walls rather thin. Not knowing this, I punched it out another eighth, because a buddy had a complete set of 4" fuel injection pistons that he sold me really cheap. This made it the high-revving, considerable over-square 301. When we sleeved it, we learned that the cylinder walls were paper-thin.



Overall, it was a huge educational experience, where I learned what might work, and what probably would not. I guess it's that spirit that enticed me to buy the EMPI rear disc brake kit, even though some others had told me that it wouldn't work. This time, they were right. I drove the TD for a couple of years. It was a lot of fun, until a guy in a Mini Cooper with four people crammed inside blew me off. As I recall, I parked it, and walked away from it. Like I said, it was death trap.



Wow! You probably didn't want this much information. I think that photo Jack posted took me back to 1963. Thanx for the ride, Jack! It was great being young and immortal. I'll try to find a photo of mine.



Dave

[356JAGER]

Long may it wave... South of Novato on HiWay 101, late 60's.

[Jack Staggs]

[Bill Sampson]

Jack:

THAT is classic.

How about:

"I dreamed I snaked Mickey Dora in my Maidenform" next

[DG58INNM]

In spite of Bruce's admonition, I was in the 60's, and I remember them.

I remember being pulled on a wooden sled, behind my grandpa's Farmall, down a snowy Illinois lane in January '66. I was three.

I remember being in a room with a bunch of old ladies crying, and the smell of flowers, also in January '66, for my grandma's funeral.

I remember riding tricycles around an apartment complex with a kid named Rusty in Columbus, Ohio, summer of '67

I remember playing in the yellow and gray mud in the creek behind the park, College Station, Texas, summer of '68. In spite of the fact that there were water moccasins everywhere, and Mom told us to never ever under any circumstances go down in that creek, we went there every day. And got paddled for it every evening.

I remember shrunken heads, Olmec heads, a miniature steam locomotive, and a monorail at Hemisfair, San Antonio, Texas, '68

I remember the beach, seaweed, sand dollars, and the smell of coppertone, Galveston, Texas, '68

I remember eating lots of alpha-bits, because you could send in the box tops and get little cars back in the mail. I got a Saab, with little jewels for headlights. College Station, Texas, '68

I remember a chrysalis slowly pupating, and a slimy monarch butterfly emerging into a little black wire cage, College Hills Elementary, College Station, Texas, '69

I remember driving out with my dad in the brown Plymouth four door to see these enormous mounds of earth being pushed up out east of town, College Station, Texas, '69

I remember driving back out to those mounds to see the Can-Am, Texas World Speedway, '69. The little white car was a Porsche, and I knew that already. But the orange cars really got your attention.

And I remember lots other stuff, not all of which I understood. My folks talking about being drafted and Vietnam. Friends of my Dad having to leave. Stuff on TV with police and lights. Music on the car's AM radio that my Mom liked, and I did too. The world seemed like a great adventure

So who says "if you can remember the '60s, you weren't there"?

DG

[bbspdstr]

Dave,

I am impressed that you can remember things from age 3, however, I'd guess you had not yet found drugs, sex and rock-n-roll.

'68-'69 for me doesn't really count as "the '60s." I was drafted away from teaching K-6 art to kids slightly older than you were then. I really enjoyed teaching and would have stayed with it if not for 'Nam. (Disclaimer: I never went to 'Nam by enlisting in the USAF)

That was, as you say, "the 'Nam era." I and most of those in the Class of '64 just had 50th reunions this year. Daunting.

My 'real' '60s was/were all about CARS! I worked for Penske Racing at Can-Am and Trans-Am races in '66 and '67...but it was a Lola campaigned then, the Porsches came along when I was living in San Antonio. I met the legendary Bill Jones there and I helped concours prep 356s with him when off-duty/weekends.

Still, the fondest (albeit slightly fuzzy) memories are from art school. Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll? Whew.......man.

Pot, beer, parties and still getting a degree? Cool! Teaching and getting drafted were total polar opposites, with military duty closing out that decade and into the '70s. I'm happy to be able to write about it all now. I've been lucky, even if I have not really used my degree, I play with CARS!

'The '60s' were to me the pinnacle of racing, music, new experiences, fear and conversely building confidence, anticipation and disappointment. A tumultuous time in any young person's life back then...who is now called a 'baby boomer.'

It's amazing how much difference a couple of years ahead or behind can make, but we are all aware now of how short life really is...and how much lawyers now wouldn't like grandpa pulling a 3 year old on a sled behind a tractor!

Regards,
-Bruce