Good Cars and Bad Cars --- According to Kindergarteners

[38Chevy454]

The problem with the Vega was that it had an aluminum engine block. If the car ever overheated the block would warp. People would then have a major engine repair on their hands.

The bigger problem with the alum engine that affected many more customers was it had alum cylinder walls, without steel or iron liners. The excess wear of the walls would cause poor ring seal and excessive oil consumption. Iron rings vs alum cylinder wall, the walls lost that matchup. There was a hard coating put on the alum walls, but it did not last.

I do agree an overheated engine will/did cause head gasket sealing issues.

 

[eytonxav]

No one bringing up the car that Ralph Nadar killed, the Corvair?

 

[Andre1969]

Ralph Nader would love to take credit for it, but the Chevy II and then the Camaro are what really killed the Corvair. The Corvair was too complex and offbeat to make it as a cheap, mass-market car, and came nowhere near the Ford Falcon in sales. To its credit, the Corvair did discover a niche market for sporty small cars, and that niche got exploited to its fullest once the Mustang hit the market.

By the time Ralph Nader set his sights on the Corvair, GM had already decided there would be no more development work on it, and it would just slowly die out at the end of its natural product cycle. A shame, really, because most of the Corvair's safety issues were worked out later in the first generation, and the '65-69 was truly a thing of beauty.

New side impact protection standards took place, starting January 1 1970, I believe, and that might be why the Corvair was dropped after 1969. Another casualty of those standards was the Ford Falcon. The 1966-70 version was produced through the end of calendar 1969, and for the rest of the 1970 model year they issued a "1970.5 Falcon", which was a stripped down Torino.

Speaking of the Falcon, I always wondered how it slipped past Nader. It used a "drop in" gas tank. Instead of a normal gas tank that was strapped underneath the trunk floor, the top of the Falcon's tank doubled as the floor of the trunk. It saved a few bucks and a little bit of time on the assembly line, but in the event of a rear-end collision, if the trunk floor buckled the gas tank would rupture, and spill fuel into the car. The Mustang, based on the Falcon, also had a "drop in" gas tank, and I think the midsized cars (Fairlane, Torino, etc) did, as well? Anyway, it didn't take much of an impact to make them leak fuel.

 

[ls99]

Want cool factor? At times in Hungary my brother who was 18 yrs older than I, would take me to school on his motorcycle. Never heard of a school bus until I got to the US. No helmets of course, only racers wore them. Private ownership of cars was unheard of.

 

[imoldernu]

any excuse to post a "remembered" story.

Last year of college for my beloved and me, back n 1958... For her, Sargent College in Harvard Square, Boston, and me at Bowdoin, in Maine. It was in April, and we were scheduled to graduate in June, and to marry in July. Her dad had provided a 1952 Nash Rambler for her last year of school, and she was driving up from Massachusetts to visit me for a party weekend.. The red temperature light came on, and she kept driving until the car stopped.

We partied and then called my dad, who was a textile worker, but also had some mechanic skills. He and his friend drove the 160 miles up to the Maine Turnpike (new, then), tied a chain to the car and towed it back to Rhode Island, where we lived.

Now, we didn't have a lot of money, so dad ad I decided to do an engine job, to free the frozen engine. Like ... this was a little bit different that what most engine jobs were... We did the entire job without taking the engine out of the car, or even taking the head off the engine.

We put the car up on blocks and did the entire job from underneath the car. Can't remember all the details, but, we removed the crankshaft, then the pistons and rods, then forced new rings on, and then pounded the pistons back into the block. Somewhere along the way, yours truly managed to mix up the crankshaft bearings, so the reconstruction was a little bit hit or miss.
For the cost of rings and a few gaskets, finished the entire job in a day, in time to get back to school.

It wasn't exactly easy to get the car running again. We had six kids from the neighborhood push the car around the block about 10 times, before the engine loosened up enough to fire, and it ran a little rough for the first 20 miles, but the operation was a success... and we kept the car for three more years... marriage... honeymoon, and two kids later.

One of the early adventures in frugality... rings, gaskets and some small parts. Probably under $75.

Yeah, not what the thread was supposed to be about, but that blue Nash Rambler was good to us.

 

[youbet]

Uphill both ways through the snow?

In my neighborhood, hills or bad weather didn't matter as much as knowing what routes to avoid to keep from getting your head bashed in on the way to school!

 

[jjquantz]

...
Her dad had provided a 1952 Nash Rambler for her last year of school, and she was driving up from Massachusetts to visit me for a party weekend.. ...

Beep, Beep. Beep, Beep. His horn went beep, beep, beep.

 

[stephenson]

Good opportunity to explain "Paid For" and "Owe Money On."

 

[ls99]

In the early seventies while w*rking in the Aleutian islands of Alaska I'd rent some villager's pickup truck.

A good one was that would start and actually move. What windows? Steering play about one and a half turn, fine view of the mud through the floor, where the floorboard would be. Don't need no steenking brakes either. A few gears not working, clutch slipping a bit. Had to stop at the swamp half way to the airport/bar/foodstore/feeding hole(restaurant) (4 miles) to refill the radiator. Only $50.-/ day. Can of Olympia water (beer) at the barwas $4.- Milk at the store when available was $8.-/gallon and drink it fast before it spoilt.

Still better than walking along and get cozy with the brown bear population. And the joy of ever present wind and rain, typically 40F in July. But the views were spectacular.

Was lucky if someone actually would let us have one.