Weird, cool stuff you found in the woods.

Automatic that lost reverse probably?

 

One was the push button i remember that much. Been far too long ago to remember what exactly.

 

1964 was the last year for the push button shift.

The reason they went away is that the Fed Gov't began requiring a standardized P-R-N-D-2-1 shift pattern in vehicles they purchased, the push button shift could have eliminated Chrysler from government purchases.

 

The fact that you remember all that, let alone can pick it out of an overgrown pile of weeds is impressive

 

Funny...
Things like that seem to be on speed dial in my brain -- yet I don't have any idea what I did last Tuesday.

 

Back in 1972 I had a push-button (on the dash) Valiant, 1963 model if I remember right. Bought it for $25, dad made me buy it so I wouldn't keep borrowing his '55 Chevy. The Valiant had been totaled out, a drunk ran into it from behind at about 4am while it was sitting out on the street. Ran like a champ, but I couldn't get a date driving it. (I wouldn't have let my daughter leave the house either with me driving up in that thing.) In protest, for having to drive that bitch, I never washed it, because, after all, the trunk was smashed up to the back window. Also in protest, I ran the fuck out of it. To its credit it was bullet-proof. One night it left me on the side of the road on the way to swim team workout, flat tire. I walked home, slowly. You DID NOT miss swim team workout per my dad. All four tires showed worn to the bias ply. Dad was pragmatic, wasn't going to put tires on that pig. So we went to look for a used car the next night. Found a 1971 Dodge Demon 340, $1800, money I had earned sacking and carrying out groceries since I was 14. I had been wanting a 340 for a long time. There was 21 Demon or Duster 340's in our town of 7000. Because of their light weight and their quick-spooling 340's (full floating wrist pins, not pressed) they could outrun most every muscle car on the road at that time. A 340 could easily outrun an equally prepared 350. Outran the quickest car in town that night, a Duster 340 belonging to the guy that lived across the street from me. News spread fast: when I dove onto campus the next Monday morning it was like the E.F. Hutton commercial, "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen".
Everybody was silent, staring at that already-storied Demon. I had easily outran Dennis's Duster, too easily: something was intriguingly sinister with my Demon, but not obvious. It went on to always be lengths ahead of every car I ran in the 1/4 mile, but without any explanation why. Several months later I needed work on it. Mechanic said the rocker arm he ordered was not like the others. Further research on the VIN revealed that the Demon I bought was a Mr. Norm Special, a sleeper, custom built to look stock by Mr. Norm at Spaulding Dodge in Michigan.
Equivalent to a Yenko, or a Shelby, or a Rousch today. What Yenko was to Chevy, what Shelby is to Ford, Mr. Norm was to Mopar. He was THE DRAG RACE KING of Dodges and Plymouths back in that day. Headwork (flow and compression), distributor swung, carb definitely not stock, jetted and worked over, but stock appearing on the outside with no Mr. Norm insignia. It was a true sleeper in the most literal meaning of sleeper, bone-stock in appearance, giving no clue to its increased potential. That's how the first owner had spec'd it out. So, the 10th-grade kid who sacked and carried out your groceries had unknowingly purchased one of the baddest of the badass 340 variants available at that time. I owned and raced the quickest car in town for a few months. 36 straight races without a loss. I had NO TROUBLE getting dates in that car! Went from being made fun of to the having the baddest car in town. In the tenth grade! All thanks to bald tires on a ratty-assed, totaled-out '63 Valiant with a push-button shift slant six. That slant six ended up in a dirt car that ran the 6-cylinder class, mounted in a Chevy! (Finally lost to a COPO '70 Chevelle SS-396, custom built on the GM production line in Michigan. The owner worked on the production line, took a day off and walked it and its motor through their production line assembly, hand-delivering the aftermarket performance parts to each station to be installed by his buddies. Came with a full factory warranty. And I lost BAD!)

 

Not exactly the woods…



Saw this yesterday. Beached on the Delaware River shore in Philly.
Kinda surprising because I’d figure it would be easy to track down who owned it by the numbers on it.

 

Sort of beautiful and sad at the same time, at one point that boat was a big purchase and a big deal in someones life.

Abandoned boats are a problem all around the country that often fall back on the local or state.
Finding the owner and getting them to pay out thousands of dollars for a recovery are two different things.

 

The prices of houseboats on Lake Powell and Lake Mead are sinking (snicker) fast. I expect they will be bottoming out (ahem) sooner than the lakes.

 

Well you just found him huh.

 

Found a few more cars out in the woods mountain biking today. I think the first one was a flat bed truck. The others are car bodies in an old metal dumping spot. It’s amazing how good old steel was. That truck frame is perfectly solid with just a coating of surface rust.

 

$21,000 , serious offers only I know what I got.

 

The engine is a Chev "Stovebolt" built from 1929-36, so called because the bolts that held the engine together resembled the bolts that were commonly used to assemble wood burning stoves at the time.

194 cubic inches (3.3L) 50hp from 29-34
207 cubic inches (3.4L) 60hp from 34-36
Note: For comparison the Tacoma V6 is 210.9 cubic inches (3.456L) and 278hp

These overhead valve engines had a 5 to 1 compression ratio and 3 main bearings that were pressure lubricated, the connecting rod bearings were splash lubricated similar to a lawnmower engine.



These engines had what are called "babbitt" bearings, to rebuild them a rough finish bearing was installed and then the engine block with bearings installed had to be line bored by a machine shop to the correct clearance.

Chev didn't switch to a modern precision insert style bearing until 1948.

Babbitt bearings:



Precision insert bearings:

 

Can you quote torque specs on them stove bolts from memory?


The stove stove bolts, not the engine stove bolts...cuz clearly you need a challenge

 

I don't remember numbers well, I use a chart for torque specs.
The stove bolts wouldn't take much torque, about equal to a modern grade 2 bolt.

These car in the woods pictures are always a fun little mystery, some like last weeks Valiant I can pull most of it right from memory others require sleuthing.

 

I've seen you do this before...you are @Rusty"Rainman"Green dood