Remember The Old Days?

Pumping the accelerator peddle to start the day. Valve covers that always leaked oil. Bias ply tires. Tires with tubes. Split rims on 3/4 ton trucks. The other thing back seats used to be big enough for. I think the trunk in my '64 Galaxy would sleep four. Gas wars...I remember seeing gas at .19 a gallon.
 
DaveT435 said:
Pumping the accelerator peddle to start the day.
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Ha ha, yeah, to set the choke and get a prime out of the accelerator pump...and then having to unlearn that when you got a fuel injected car.

DaveT435 said:
Valve covers that always leaked oil.
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That's not the old days either, I have one of those jobs in my future but I'm not looking forward to having to take the upper intake manifold off and lie across the engine to get to the back bank.
 
Windshield wipers without a washer fluid tank.

Plain glass windows with no sun screen built into them.

1137 and 1162 light bulbs; still have some of those in my toolbox along with my Dad's Craftsman wrenches/sockets from Sears made in the US.

3M Rubber electricians tape in a round metal can but no duct tape.

Cigarette lighter in the dash ashtray with one built into the back of the front seat too.

Vinyl floor coverings without carpet; that's what mats were for.
 
Pulling down the rear plate to put gas in the car.

That job used to be a lot easier back in the day Setec! If you had the aluminum valve covers with the T bolts you could change on in 5 minutes. I don't think anyone ever torqued them properly back then.
 
3-speed column shifter. <---Summer job. Carpet company. Old van.

Ask passenger friend to give a hand with bench seat.
 
Old International V-8's that were timed off of the #8 cylinder.
 
6volt electrical system, No power steering or power brakes, vent windows, lap belts, 15" wheels were the big ones, stink bug stance, air shocks......

View attachment 53587
 
Folding the shoulder belt up so you could put it in the clips above the door...
 
Upgrading a car stereo to one with a cassette deck.
 
Rmd said:
Upgrading a car stereo to one with a cassette deck.
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I had a friend who was notorious for as soon as he got a new (to him) car, pulling out the radio because he was "going to put in something better". Invariably, he then drove around for the entire time he had the car with the old radio on the floor in the passenger footwell and wires sticking out the hole in the dash.
 
At least we old timers had to learn about mechanics, how to fix a car in the middle of the road, carrying all assortments of tools when we were in a trip.
Nowadays the young generation are all wussies, don' t know s&$# about anything, call AAA for a flat tire. They just wait for help to come, watching their cell phone screen. Sad.
 
I know some of you guys have made this into kind of a general car nostalgia thread and that's fine, I was actually kind of marveling at how (for the most part) we need to do so much less maintenance today than in days of yore...but you got me thinking about these cars today with the 4-valve heads with the spark plugs in the middle and how a lot of them you have to remove part of the intake manifold to get to the plugs...eesh! But then again you only have to do that every 60,000 or 100,000 miles.

Remember the old days when you'd have a V-8 and that last plug on one side in the back was almost impossible to get to (until you figured out some combination of extensions and universal joint...or until someone outsmarted you with a ratchet with a pivoting head)...and when you finally got it out, it was a different brand than all the others, and you realize the last guy that changed the plugs just said screw it? And it was really bad when it was your parent's car and you knew they had paid someone to change the plugs--except for that one.
 
RPM_BR said:
At least we old timers had to learn about mechanics, how to fix a car in the middle of the road, carrying all assortments of tools when we were in a trip.
Nowadays the young generation are all wussies, don' t know s&$# about anything, call AAA for a flat tire. They just wait for help to come, watching their cell phone screen. Sad.
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Ha ha ha...now you are bringing back more memories...the days before cell phones and the stupid things we do when we're younger.

I went for a Sunday drive, beautiful sunny day, it's about 4PM and a cloud of steam comes out from under my hood...I pull over into a parking lot and one of my heater hoses has a split in the side just above the clamp where it attaches to the water pump. So I hike ABOUT A HALF MILE down the road to a phone booth and call my best car friend, who fortunately was home, and he agrees to come help me (I'm worried because back then most stores weren't open on Sunday, let alone Sunday afternoon, and there was simply no place to get car parts at that time).

So he shows up with a car full of our friends (apparently they had been hanging out having a few beers), and did something that I never would have thought of: he pulls the hose off, cuts off a few inches of the end, where the split was, and puts the hose back on (fortunately it was long enough), and I'm good to go.

So dumb kid that I am, I don't take this as any warning sign I should change my hoses...until a few months later I happen (fortunately) to be in a chain auto store browsing, and I come out and there's a huge puddle of coolant under my car. Open the hood, top radiator hose is blown open. Well, I'm at the store...but I don't have any tools. Call my best friend from the phone booth at the store (who again, luckily was home) who came got me and took me home to get tools and to a better parts store to get parts, then I changed the hose in the parking lot and drove home and changed the rest of the hoses...except for that pesky bypass hose that went from the water pump up to the intake manifold, that looked like it was too hard...

Fast forward a year or so I come out of work at the end of the day, I smell coolant...open the hood, yup, bypass hose is split. Fortunately I had some tools at work, and a co-worker was kind enough to run me down the street to a parts store to get the hose...I just had to put up with everyone else leaving work seeing me under the hood of the car and asking if everything was ok.

So I learned my lesson on that one, and tried to always change hoses every 4 years...until the cars/hoses got better and I remember changing a set on a relative's car that was 6 years old...and they were like new. I had a similar car...so I thought maybe I'd wait on mine until 10 or 12 years...well, that car still had the original hoses when I got rid of it after 16 years--as I've been saying...times change.
 
One word..."sigh!"

Started turning wrenches (professionally) back in the late 50's-You could actually see the ground when looking through the engine compartment. Nowadays, one can't see the engine through the plastic-LOL!

Being of the 'older generation' I remember it well, all to well.

Ah crap, now I REALLY feel old <grin>.

Bill
 
The bypass hose reference brings back some not-so-fond memories. I worked for a Buick dealer in the 70's. Buicks all had front-mounted distributors and the pre-75 models were points-type ignitions. Drive around in a hard thunderstorm and you'd see Buicks parked on the side of the road. Drive thru a deep puddle and you'd flood the distributor, killing the engine. The Z-shaped bypass hoses were extremely fragile. Once they cracked or split, they'd spray the distributor with hot coolant, again stalling the engine. We used to recommend owners keep a spare hose and two hose clamps in the trunk, as anybody who could handle a screwdriver could change it in a few minutes.
We also would encourage our customers to change a water pump at 40,000 miles. Back in '76, I was driving from Pittsburgh to Knoxville Iowa for the Outlaw Sprint Car Races. Since my 455 '73 Buick Riviera was likely to hit 40k miles enroute, I had packed a new water pump and gasket. After arriving back home, I was headed to the DIY car wash to blow off the bug guts, when the power steering belt started to slip, due to the antifreeze drips from a failing water pump. At least I made it home.
Bill
 
Upgrading a car stereo to one with a cassette deck.
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O' yes, my big ol' honkin Craig underdash slide mount. Of course the used 'house stereo' speakers in back.
 
Lucky to be alive. My youngest brother and I installing the Hooker Headers with car all the way up on 'Bumper Jack'. Shutting the engine off at stop lights on way to Midas to have them build the new dual exhaust!! Thought for sure is was gonna' get busted.
 
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