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Shift change photo

I worked at Lockheed when we had 35k or so working at the one plant. I used to ride my fzr1000 all the time. just because I could park near the gate. after I walked a 1/2 from my work area.
 
arse_sidewards said:
I'm not alleging that anything went 100k on the original engine in those days, just that a lot of the vehicles themselves probable went 100k, using a few engines and maybe a transmission along the way. 100k then is like 300k now. Not gonna happen without at least a few major expenses but not rare to see either.
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I'm sure that was the case with many of those cars.

But one thing those cars had going against them was that with auto technology evolving as quickly as it was back then, spending money on an older vehicle was a lot less appealing. A car made in 2001 is not all that different from a modern one, but a 1940 car in 1960 was a dinosaur, no matter how rebuildable it was.
 
eb_staff_break.jpg


Lunch break in the 70s here at Electric boat, there is a bar to the left out of frame, that used to sell a ton of booze during lunch. Ill have to find the article on it.
 
Mikel said:
I'm sure that was the case with many of those cars.

But one thing those cars had going against them was that with auto technology evolving as quickly as it was back then, spending money on an older vehicle was a lot less appealing. A car made in 2001 is not all that different from a modern one, but a 1940 car in 1960 was a dinosaur, no matter how rebuildable it was.
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I don't think any of those cars made it past 1950. There was a massive technological leap forward when the OEMs refreshed all their product lines after ww2. The difference between early-mid 1930s cars (1930s designs, not something like the model A that was designed in the mid 1920s) is very slim, like the difference you describe between a 2001 and a 2021 car. The difference between a 1940-45 car with design roots in the late 1930s or early 1940s and a late 1940s, early 1950s car is massive.

A 1945 car has a hell of a lot more in common with a 1930s car than it does with a 1948 car. Practically nothing made in the 1930s was being driven as more than just a novelty once the post-ww2 models started showing up.
 
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arse_sidewards said:
I don't think any of those cars made it past 1950. There was a massive technological leap forward when the OEMs refreshed all their product lines after ww2. The difference between early-mid 1930s cars (1930s designs, not something like the model A that was designed in the mid 1920s) is very slim, like the difference you describe between a 2001 and a 2021 car. The difference between a 1940-45 car with design roots in the late 1930s or early 1940s and a late 1940s, early 1950s car is massive.

A 1945 car has a hell of a lot more in common with a 1930s car than it does with a 1948 car. Practically nothing made in the 1930s was being driven as more than just a novelty once the post-ww2 models started showing up.
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99% chance that whole yard was crushed out for ww2.
 
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gunracer1 said:
99% chance that whole yard was crushed out for ww2.
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They were already crushing. That's the business model. High scrap prices just increase volume coming into your yard and make shit move out of the yard faster.

You get a car in, it costs you $250 once it's sitting there after labor, if you can get $200 from it with scrap after labor then you only need $50 of profit from parts sales to break even.

If you can only make $100 profit crushing it then the car has to sit longer and make more profit on parts.

Of course there are a lot of nuances but this is the basic business model.
 
An interesting glimpse into what it took back then to bring a complex machine into production.

 
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Mikel said:
My Dad (Spain in the 50s) used to say that by 30-40K miles, you could count on pulling the engine for a complete overhaul, not counting the many times those engines would be opened for minor adjustments and repairs. It was part of car ownership in those days.

Were there outliers that lasted may more miles? Sure, but it wasn't a normal experience. There were also outliers on the other side, engines that lasted 3000 miles before they blew up :laughing:
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My Dad was a Chevy man, and we had three different small block powered Chevs in the 70's and all three of them wore through the rocker arms before 100k. Lubricants are much better these days.
 
Roc Doc said:
My Dad was a Chevy man, and we had three different small block powered Chevs in the 70's and all three of them wore through the rocker arms before 100k. Lubricants are much better these days.
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I remember as a kid in the 70's my Dad would start looking for a new truck at about 70k miles:laughing:
 
Probably not many of you remember adjusting points. Shit they’d wear down rubbing on the distributor cam and slowly get closer. Son of a bitches hurt when you stuck the Allen wrench thru the window on chevs to set em with a dwell meter and missed and hit the points.
Edit….I’m still not as ancient as Gary!
 
Mikel said:
My Dad (Spain in the 50s) used to say that by 30-40K miles, you could count on pulling the engine for a complete overhaul, not counting the many times those engines would be opened for minor adjustments and repairs. It was part of car ownership in those days.

Were there outliers that lasted may more miles? Sure, but it wasn't a normal experience. There were also outliers on the other side, engines that lasted 3000 miles before they blew up :laughing:
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Most cars I knew of from the 1950's vintage were worn out by 50K - 60K miles. Most cars that I owned from the 1960's vintage at least had the heads pulled for a valve job by 60K miles. You also changed plugs every 10K and did a "tune-up" then too.
 
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