Classic Hifi Care

My grandmother saved all the letters her sons sent from college and from WW II, or at least a big trove of them. I was reading through. Much fun. People wrote every couple days back then. My Dad went on some sort of road trip in about 1937. They had a flat in a rainstorm and when the rain stopped they switched to the spare. The tire could not be repaired so they bought a used tire & tube. My Dad observed that it wasn't really bad luck; the tire had lots of miles: 27,000 miles on it.

I just replaced the tires on the Mustang for the 2nd time. First set at 70K; second at 80K. I'd call that progress. That last set had a few more miles on them but since they were> 10 years old, I knew nobody would work on them if I had a puncture. Sometimes we forget how different "the old days" were.

On the other hand, I do remember when gas stations had a service bay or two, and usually a rack of used tires sitting outside. Now gas stations make their money on potato chips, sugary drinks, beer, and lottery tickets. Need a serpentine belt? Sorry, you're SOL.

Chris Campbell

Yes, Chris, and I remember when you would pull up to the pumps and someone would come out and pump your gas, check your oil, wash your windshield, and check the air in your tires. And all of that for 19 cents a gallon.

Bill

Some of the best memories of my youth were of pumping gas at the local Cities Service station. We had a two-rack shop. One inside for working on cars and a heavy duty one outside so we could lift farm trucks. Curly, the mechanic, could fix anything and usually did. Cars, trucks, farm equipment. He would put new husking rolls on your corn picker if you brought it in to him. He put new sections in mower sickles and sharpened them. He'd put brakes or u-joints in old dirty farm trucks, full of baling wire, fencing, and just general farm junk. To patch a tube, you used this patch, then put a thing on it that would burn and get hot enough to vulcanize the patch to the tube. Chevy and Ford wheels had a reverse offset. You had to remove the tire from the back of the rim. Buick and maybe Cadillac had unique-size valve stems. We had a whole wall with oil filters and air filters, one wall with hoses, one wall with belts. We had a Van Norman brake lathe and a Sioux valve grinder. Curly kept a squared-away shop. Even had the windows washed, which was rather uncommon. We had to vacuum out the floor boards on cars when we did a grease job. If the weather was nice, we also washed the windows. You always new that Mrs. Roeschlein (Rush-line) would want ten gallons of regular and her oil checked, so I didn't even ask. Doc Moses would leave his car if it was a Saturday. I would wash it, then take it back to his office. The first one of his cars I took care of was his Seafoam Green '63 Electra 225 two door hardtop. After that he had a '66 Cadillac Eldorado. I new everybody in town, what kind of car they drove, what oil it took, what the number oil filter fit their car. We would sell recapped tires for cars for $7.95. New Goodyear Double Eagles were almost $30 apiece, an astronomical price in those days. A oil change, with filter and lube was $7.50. We sold Willard batteries, most of them, except the size 27 that fit big cars were $19.95 for the good ones.

One of the lessons is that in those days, cars needed enough work that every gas station could have a Curly around. Old guys like me will remember the 1,000 mile chassis lube intervals and 2,000 mile recommended oil changes. Geez, we must have spent all our spare time getting the cars serviced.

And things did crap out regularly. There was the weekend night about 1968 when I was returning from a night of attempted carousing and the Chevy's generator light came on. I pulled into a gas station around midnight and they had a generator. My buddy still laughs about how I had to explain to the guy how to install it, but the point is that they had a generator because those failed often enough that there was a call for them. I don't remember the instruction part because they had two hydraulic lifts and I walked into one that was up, gashing my head so I was bleeding. No wonder the station attendant was distracted. It's a wonder that we live to full adulthood.

Chris Campbell

If you need a little reminder ... narrated by Kurt Russel ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsAv5akyi5A

That was one weird movie, don't know what those people were on but I don't want any! Lots of cheesecake for a Disney production though, at least that part was OK, that and seeing all the '60s cars!

I do remember Dad taking the various Ford wagons to his usual ESSO station for regular service, seemed like every couple of months for a grease job, tune-up, oil, or something. I liked watching that thing spinning around in the glass on the gas pumps when he was getting a fill-up.

And the little bell in the pump would ding when it pumped a gallon.......

Don't forget the bell inside the station that went ding when you drove over the rubber hose letting an attendant know you were there.

Bill

I remember having to take that greasy, slick glass oil container with the spout into the back and fill it if someone wanted the cheap, bulk oil. I hated that. Mr. Franklin always drove an old heap truck that drank oil. He'd come in for "a dollar's worth" of "raggler" and a quart of the cheap oil. 39 cents for the cheap stuff, reclaimed, non-detergent, 30/40/50/90 weight, whatever they had "reclaimed". IT could be anything. It would barely flow in cold weather.

In terms of "How things have changed," think about oil-burners. In the old days it was common to see an old car driving along with a blue cloud behind it. My Chevy was dumping visible stiff from its road draft tube. Dumping crap into the air is the equivalent of dumping sewage into our waterways. But wait, we used to do that too. IN any event, blue smoke is very rare, usually from a Chrysler minivan of a certain age.

Chris Campbell

On that subject, I can remember the myriad of additives sold to help a person eke out a few more miles before the right and usually more expensive thing would be done to set the old heap straight. Some have followed along into the 21st century, but the promises have become more subdued.