Volume 3 Issue 3 Published by Lee Thevenet May - June, 2011 HORSELESS CARRIAGE REPLICA NEWSLETTER A Publication dedicated to the reporting of news, events, articles, photos, items for sale, etc, having to do with replica horseless carriages. Newsletter published six times a year and special issues when needed. From the Editor Hi everyone, Those of you who were not there, are the one’s that missed out on a great time, making new acquaintances and lots of great buys. Yes, I’m speaking about the Pre War Swap Meet that takes place each March in Chickasha, OK. Like every year before, there was a great time had by all that attended. Lots and lots of vendors showing their goods and beautiful cars to be had for the right price. For myself, this year’s trip to the candy store began a good twenty four hours before the meet was to begin, simply to be there when the vendor’s started to arrive. Remember the old saying “The early bird get’s the worm”. In this case, it was true. My quest this year was to find a very special part that would enable me to complete my REO build that has now gone past the completion time allowed to the project. The plans for the carriage had been completed and put up on the website quite a while back and the actual build, for the most part had been done for almost a year now, except for the final steps of painting and reassembly. Thus, the reason for not having any colored pictures on the REO Plans Page of the HCR.com Website. To keep the boredom of a long story to a minimum, this special part “top hood vent cover” was found & purchased within the first hour of being there & this past week & I finally finished the painting & reassembly. Lee 1 In This Issue Page From the Editor………………………..1 A Whimsical Story………………….2-5 Toon & Crossword……………………5 Building A Front Axle…...............6-12 A CDO Story Update……………12-16 “Sokay”………………….............17-18 Shoestring Budget CDO. ……..19-21 The Beginning……....................22-23 The 1886 Benz Power Wagon..24-27 Caveat Emptor………………….27-29 Items for Sale……………………29-31 A Whimsical Story REMINISCING “The Old Chevy” By Stu Martin When I was about 17 years of age and had just got my driver’s license I was lucky enough to purchase two Whippets for the princely sum of 30 pounds, the dollar didn't come to Australia until later. I loved the Whippet but eventually sold it off for 50 pounds - the only car I've ever made money on! The second one I never picked up and for all I know it may still be in the original seller's shed. Biggest mistake I've ever made, well almost, Ha! Ha! Back on the old push bike until one day I came across this 1935 Chevy “Touring” sitting up on blocks at a neighbors house. Bought it for 15 pounds and managed to get it running. Lovely machine and it no doubt, with its straight six, put me off V8's. Poor Ford never got a chance after that as I was hooked on GM! The old Chevy had one major problem and that was the body. It was just about ready to fall off onto the road. White ants had eaten all of the bodies wooden frame work. The leather covered seats looked and smelled like something dredged up from the grave but at least it had wire spoke wheels which didn't groan and creak as did the Whippet's wheels when doing a 'fast' cornering exercise! 2 Not only that but the Chevy's brakes, although rod operated drum brakes, worked fine, certainly much better than the Whippet's ever did. The body eventually gave up the ghost so I completely removed it. The seats also went to the rubbish tip as well & with the body removed there were now no longer any anchoring points for them. I managed to drive the car with just the open chassis and sitting on a wooden box until one day the local copper stopped me and suggested that I retire the poor old beast. We were living in a small Queensland country town in those days with one copper who knew all the residents and he showed more compassion and had more understanding of the locals than the bombastic modern ones tend to do in our overgrown, over populated cities. The old Chevy then sat in the shed, until night time, when me and my mates used it for a shooting brake to cull the roo’s from the old man's wheat paddock, also, the occasional night prowl, to get to the local hall dances, or the movies. The car only had one headlight. One beam & that was high beam, and looked to the whole world like Cyclops on a bad night. We were a cunning bunch of troublemakers and usually knew the local copper's whereabouts. He was keen on one of our female previous class mates from the school days and she lived just up the road from my home, so I had what is called a bird's eye view of his location, which as one could understand, was usually parked up in some love lane. That meant we were free to terrorize the local streets! I ended up making two bucket type seats from cutting up a 15 gallon drum in half, diagonally, leaving the bottom (top) of the drum intact which then formed each seat and with the diagonal bit being the back rest. Folded the sharp edges of the plate and welded them to 1 inch solid elect galvanized conduit formed to shape, and then dropped a couple of Mum's cushions into the bases to have something soft to sit upon. They looked and felt the part. Much more comfortable than the wooden box and not only that, they didn't slide all over the place. Never ever fitted rear seats, the extra passengers sat on the fuel tank with their feet resting on the diff housing, the most comfortable seat in the contraption! In order to have some sort of excuse to keep the Chevy on the road, I then thought about building a sports body for it. I lowered the chassis by removing some of the leaf springs both fore and aft, and because I didn't have access to the necessary tooling to make up shortened 'U' bolts for the spring leaves, I placed the one's I had removed from the bottom to the top of the cluster and reused the same 'U' bolt spring clamps. Looked like a modern trucks 'helper' springs but worked fine. 3 The ride previous to this adjustment was as rough as hell. Almost the same one would get from using square shaped wheels. The sports' body was just a framework made up again from one inch elect steel conduit welded together. Over this frame I then screwed sheets of aluminum panel belted into shape with all sheets held on by self tapping screws. Pop rivets weren't around in those days. The finished product looked real grouse to my eyes, if not to everyone else's satisfaction and the car looked a bit like a war tank with all this screws sticking out like dog's knackers. Gave it character I reckoned. As youngsters we often visited our town's rubbish dump to have a sticky peek at its contents. One day I came across this old Oldsmobile engine and chassis complete with differential and gearbox. The Chevy wasn't very fast even without the added weight of the original body & rarely exceeded about 60 mph, which in those days was like the speed of a bullet. So to cut a long story shorter, I removed the Chevy's original diff and tail shaft which were an integral unit (the tail shaft was completely covered in it's own tube sheathing) put in the Oldsmobile's gear box mounted in reverse and added to the Chevy's original gearbox, then added the diff from the Olds as well. This gave me about three overdrives and really made the gear selection a job for someone holding a PhD! Weird thing to drive and if both gearboxes were in reverse gear it moved forward, but Gee, could she go! Went like a scalded cat! The extra load on the original Chevy clutch soon started to burn it out from all the slipping. Mate’s in those days, I couldn't even spell “Engineer”, let alone think like one, so to overcome that problem I just added a number of bolt washers under the clutch springs as extra packing. That made the car even more difficult to drive as one needed the strength of a weight lifter just to depress the clutch pedal. Soft starts, you'd have to be joking. Press like buggery to hold the clutch pedal down, select front box for second, the rear box also in second and drop the clutch with relief. The clutch smooth takeoff action was replaced by the rear wheels losing traction and one had to keep his chin clear of a thrown back knee! Still wasn't happy with the car's grunt so with careful consideration ground off about 1/8 inch of the head using a hand held angle grinder. Rough? You bet… This was the application of that old theory, SWAG - Scientific Wild Ass Guess! Don't forget the Chevy only had pick up lubrication for the engines main bearings.