Now I feel Old

Got a call from my 25 year old son in law this afternoon. Said he was mowing this afternoon with his 1956 International tractor and it just missed a couple of times and quit. He does the maintenance on his vehicles and is no dummy. It's a side draft gravity fed carb with 6 gallons of fresh gas so fuel's not the problem. I asked him if he checked the points. Nothing. Silence. Finally he says "I don't really know about that. I heard of them but never seen any." Then it occured to me that he was born after electronic ignition came along. He thinks it's normal for a car to go 100K before you change the plugs. That he never had to whip out the pocket knife on the side of the road and scrap carbon off the points to get it home. He doesn't even own a set of feeler gauges. Hell, I still have a mini set on my key ring. By the time point ignition was thoroughly understood, I think he was kind of amazed that that old crap acctually worked so I didn't dare venture into the realm of centrifugal and vacum advance. When we all die off will the art be lost. I hope ther are more young guys out there than I know to carry on.

When I was 16 I got stuck on a country road. No tools. A cop was the first one to stop. We set the points with a book of matches and cleaned them off with a Buck pocket knife.

I run points in my 80 Firebird because of the tunnel ram.

On a side note if it just stopped running it may have some dirt stuck in that carb. IMine does that from time to time. I cup my hand over the carb mouth and choke it. It about sucks my hand in the carb but it clears out the gunk.

Believe it or not the coil was fried. That lead to a whole new lesson about ballast resistors. I managed to scrounge up a 12 volt coil for him.
We used to get grass seeds in those old Autolite carbs (through the vent somehow was always the guess) on the farm trucks and they would wind up plugging a jet. Simple cure. Cross a couple of wires let it backfire a couple of times and you were good till it floated back in again. Air cleaner mandatory for this cure!!

I read about points enough to get them! Well kinda. I was excited that my baby came with a distributor, but it's the HEI so it doesn't really count.

Believe me! Points are great for nostalgia but if you're going to put it on the road and run it trouble free, electronic ignition is the way to go. At one time I would have said "Yea but I can clean up a set of points on the side of the road and be on my way". Fact is though modern electronics are practically bullet proof and just WORK.

Sigh, I know I know I'm just a romantic about my wheels.

So what are you running? There is always a place for period correct equipment. Just ask the flat head guys.............and girls.

RebStew wrote:We set the points with a book of matches and cleaned them off with a Buck pocket knife.

I have never seen and/or used a feeler gauge to set points. I thought a book of matches were the proper way to set points. On the other hand, a book of matches if more than likely becoming more difficult to locate than a feeler gauge.

My son is 25 as well and he does know more about the older cars than most, but only because I owned so many of them when he was growing up. He keeps a set of feeler gauges in his glove box. But at one time when I asked him to get me my feeler gauges, he looked at me with a shocking look and asked me what I was talking about.

I will honestly say, I've never used a box of matches. I've used a buck knife several times to take the carbon off of a plug when I needed too. I learn something everyday, although like Greg says, it's difficult to find a box of matches these days.

I know I'm getting old! know one run's the roads like they did when I was younger. I tell my boy and granson's when I'm gone no one in the family will like or keep old cars all the rest of my older family have all past on. I'm the only one left that has any thing old the wife tell's them they will sat or she may have too sell them to put me away I'll stop going on an on, so have a great rest of your life....

There are still a few young ones around that I think will carry on my sir name in this car hobby. My youngest is nuts over cars. I'd rather see him go into the medical field or something that makes money but I fear he will keep grease under his nails like his old man.

RebStew wrote:There are still a few young ones around that I think will carry on my sir name in this car hobby. My youngest is nuts over cars. I'd rather see him go into the medical field or something that makes money but I fear he will keep grease under his nails like his old man.

He can still be a gearhead in the medical profession, just skim large quantities of rubber gloves from the supply closet!

My son is only two and a half years old, but he never misses an opportunity to help dad "work" (scatter tools throughout the garage) on the "pedal tar" (Stylemaster) in the garage. As a matter of fact, he was home very sick and lethargic yesterday due to allergies, but made his mother take him to the garage to see the "pedal tar".

Arieldouglas,

I recently started in on a 91 Camaro with a 350 out of something else in it. I tore the motor down and, hopefully tonight, my uncle is helping be measure my bore, check out my pistons, and see what all I really have to do to get it in tip-top shape. My build will depend somewhat on what I have to replace.

Sorry am I thread-jacking?

Newbie Nate wrote:Sorry am I thread-jacking?

No you are not. We are not like that around here. We want gearheads to hang out, chat and talk about what they want to. Just act as if you have known everyone on here since you where in 1 grade and you will be fine. Hell some of us still act like we are in 1st grade