Living Easy

vermont ice stormA couple of weeks ago we had an ice storm that knocked the electricity off at our place for 30 hours. While lying under a thick quilt, double shirts, socks and a wool hat on my head, it brought thoughts of our forefathers and mothers who went through the whole winter without electricity and of course, no central heat, electric blankets, heaters, lights, indoor plumbing, electric stoves, dryers – get the picture? I barely survived 30 hours and the temp outside wasn’t that bad. The house temp got to 50 but the worst part was no hot tea or coffee on demand. To top off the insult, it was almost Christmas! I was brought up with no dryer, no central heat but did have a good heat source, hot water and a great radio. What I am getting at is that I have become so “soft” in such a short time. How did they do it? Get up in the freezing cold, start a fire (not turn up the thermostat), bundle up and run to the well or river – break the ice on top and get a bucket of water. The first water hauled maybe wasn’t for you but for the animals. After chores, then you get some breakfast which might be plentiful or not depending on what you did to put up provisions in the fall. I’m sure there was-n’t any fresh fruit or great coffee. I have been trying to think of something that you cannot get year round now. Sure you may have to pay more for something ‘out of season’ but you can have it if you are willing to pay the price. Fifty years ago we were eating only what was in season at the time. We all have grandparents who had never had a banana when they were children. It boggles the mind! Now having ram-bled on about my hardships, I want to talk about all the people that make our lives so comfortable. Behind every convenience that fills most of our houses, there are many bright, hardworking people. Just think about what and who is behind getting that banana on the table and that is just one tiny thing that makes life (or Gary’s cereal) better. Right now my hat goes off to all the men and women who worked hours and hours in freezing rain and snow and cold to get my electricity back on. Some of them traveled from miles away to help the Vermont crew in our hour of need. Also, thanks to those who came to cut downed trees, branches and clear roads, lines for the electrical workers. I would add that these jobs were done in what were very dangerous situations and done round the clock and some gave up their Christmas with their families to see to it that we had a bright, warm Christmas with our families. So I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all those behind the scene that make life ‘living easy’ for me.

Plastic Welder – Dave’s Garage

Most home workshops have some type of welder. Whether it is a simple arc “stick” welder, a wire feed MIG welder, a modern TIG welder or a simple set of Oxygen-Acetylene torches, these tools are invaluable to a “Hands-on” automotive enthusiast.

Today, more and more things are made out of plastics. Inevitably, while working on a project, there will be a need to weld plastic. Unlike metal, plastic can not be electrically welded, as plastic is an insulator, not a conductor.

Like metal, plastic can be thermal-welded.This simply means fusing two similar plastics together with heat.

There are two affordable plastic welders available for the enthusiast. The most inexpensive type, is a hot air jet type. This type simply uses a jet of hot air to melt the welding surface and a plastic welding rod. This type of welder looks like a conventional hand held hair dryer with a metal cone tip at the end.

I have found this type to be particularly tricky to use. It is difficult to modulate the temperature, and the right temperature is critical for a good weld. If the temperature is too hot, the plastic burns, too cold and you cannot get a good bond.

The other option is speed tip welding, or airless welding. This welder looks a lot like a conventional soldering iron, only there is a slot in the tip for the welding rod to be fed into the machine. Speed tip welders have an adjustable heat setting, so the operator can “dial in” the proper temperature for the particular type of plastic.

I have both types of welders. I have used the speed top exclusively for the last several years, with very good results. I have successfully welded plastic interior parts, rubber bumpers, and many other miscellaneous parts.

I have a Urethane Supply welding kit. I bought my welder on Amazon for less than $200.00. It literally paid for itself the first time I fixed a bumper cover. They have much less expensive models starting at about $50.

This welder came with an instruction manual, welding rods and the welder itself, everything needed to begin plastic welding at home.

Like most welding, plastic welding takes a little practice. The right temperature is crucial. Too hot, you burn the plastic, too cold yields a cold weld with little strength.

As with metal welding, you have to use the appropriate plastic welding rod. It takes a little experience to be able to determine which rod to use with which plastics.

This tool turned out to be one of those tools that has proven to be very valuable, I can’t imagine not having it.


Please email all inquiries to: Dave
or snail mail
32 Turkey Hill Road
Richmond VT 05477

1963 Plymouth Valiant Wagon

1963 Valiant WagonMany vintage car collectors tend to migrate to the cars that were special to us in the past… the cars we grew up with or that have special meaning like your honeymoon car or the one you learned to drive on. Our ’63 Valiant 200 station wagon falls into that category to a small extent, but not entirely.

I’ve always had a love affair with the A body Valiants from 1960 through 1966. My Dad had a 1960 Valiant that was a very interesting car with many new features. It was Chryslers first “compact” introduced in 1960, along with the Ford Falcon from Ford and the Corvair from Chevrolet. But the Valiant was different. It had very distinctive styling, a slant 6 engine and an alternator replacing the generator. I enjoyed driving that car very much. It was relatively quick and with it’s torsion bar suspension handled like a dream.

Fast forward to 1968 and the need for a second car to support a growing family. As a Mopar family the choice was a ’65 Valiant wagon secured from a used car dealer on North Ave. in Burlington. I loved everything about that car. It was the right size, reliable, easy to care for and fun to drive with stick shift and it’s peppy Slant Six. I never forgot that little wagon and over the years kept an eye out for another from the ’63 to ’66 body style era. Mostly what I found were either butchered into Rat Rods or rust buckets or both. Many of these wagons were produced but most were family haulers that paid their dues over the years. I was casually surfing the internet in 2010 and lo and behold up pops an original, low mileage, rust free, stick shift, top of the line 1963 Valiant wagon… and close to home, no less located in Nyack, N.Y. Three days later and we were headed south to check out the car. She was everything I’d dreamed of. Mint bright red original interior with a rust free body in white and a smooth running 170 ci engine only 41,000 original miles. The car was being sold through a broker. We took her out for a test drive around the local neighborhood and everything checked out. A few days later and the deal was struck. Our test drive had only been on local streets around Nyack but now it was time to drive her 300 plus miles on 20 year old tires. The shortest route was up the NYS Thruway, then the Northway to Lake George and onto mostly two lane roads to Vermont. My safety net was that my two brothers, both from Long Island, were planning a visit to Vermont and agreed to follow me home just in case. Valiant reliability and comfort came through and the trip back to home was a dream. Despite the intervening 47 years it’s amazing how easy it is to flashback to the 60’s ! The trip home was uneventful except for a blown 20 year old tire valve on I-89 just before the South Barre exit. Luckily the spare had air.

Very little work has been done to “Val” as she is named [ not very original but it fits ! ]. There was a tune up and new shocks. I expected trouble freeing the old shock bolts but after a little PB Blaster they spun right off. Then there was this oddity. The original radiator had a small “V” cut out of the radiator neck, enough so that the cap would not lock down. Here is one of the things I love about these cars. It took 15 minutes to remove the radiator for repair. Remove two hoses and 4 bolts and out she came. I’ve tried to trace Val’s history without much luck. Papers stuffed in the glove compartment indicate she was sold new by a Wisconsin Chrysler / Plymouth dealer and later spent time in Minnesota. This adds even more mystery to the car as there is absolutely no rust anywhere on the original body despite her snow belt beginnings. If only she could talk!

Station wagons of the 50’s and 60’s era were in their glory days. They were family work horses but not very sexy compared to the other options of the day like tri colored hardtops and convertibles of the 50’s and Mustangs, Corvettes and Barracudas of the 60’s. But I’ve learned first hand that they’ve endeared themselves to those who grew up with them. Two cases in point. At the WPC National Meet in St. Johnsbury a couple of years ago I had Val parked next to our ’65 Barracuda Formula S. The “Cuda” is a really nice car, but the Wagon got most of the attention. At the Stowe Show last August I had Val parked next to our ’64 Valiant convertible, also a very nice mostly original in red but it was the wagon most folks migrated to with tales of the Valiant wagons they grew up with.

I love Val… she embodies everything I like about the ’60’s A body Valiants. She’s reliable, easy to work on, kind of funky in her own way and always brings happy memories to those who meet her. Other cars will come and go but Val is a keeper.

1963 Valiant WagonEditor’s note… To the left is a Plymouth sales ad from 1963. The ad discussed the many factory tests performed before release to the public. It read:

“Hour after hour, hour after hour, the car was driven in the white-hot heat of the Arizona desert. They were driven 50,000 miles at top speed over all kinds of road surfaces– some 10 times the strain any ordinary car would ever have to withstand.

Horns were blown 58,432 times, turn signals checked 241,032 times and trunk lids opened and slammed 3,652 times. In all, our prototypes went through, beg pardon, hell and high water, but it was worth it to us and, more importantly, to you.

We uncovered 358 design flaws. Not just fixed or corrected, mind you, but improved– back to the drawing board– redesigned, rebuilt, retested, until the result was right. This we did in spades. Get on and start a great adventure story all your own.”

Battery Life – Dave’s Garage

Hi Dave. I have a question that may be good for Wheel Tracks as well. Battery life. Since we all have old cars that are not used too much–or not enough is a better description. I am now in a position that 6 car battery’s are over 8 years old. Some still working and others don’t have enough power to crank the starter. That can be a size-able expense that will face me again in about 5 years assuming that is the life expectancy. What options are there for Battery’s besides going new?

There are two real options for buying new. Conventional “wet” batteries, and newer, spiral glass mat gel cell batteries, like the “Optima” battery. If properly maintained, batteries can go strong for eight years or more, while a service life of 3-5 years is more typical. The biggest issues with the conventional “wet” batteries are:

  1. They leak. Battery acid is nasty, and can do considerable damage to the body of the car it is in. Leaking near the terminals can also cause considerable corrosion at the terminals.
  2. Conventional batteries lose energy, about 1% a day. This is made worse if it is a parasitic drain on an installed battery, like radio memory for example.
  3. Conventional batteries do not do well in hot environments, the water in the acid solution will evaporate. Heat is one of the biggest killers of “wet” batteries. It is often said that batteries are fatally damaged in the summer, then fail when the weather gets cold in the fall.
  4. Conventional batteries discharge explosive hydrogen gas, presenting the possibility of an explosion given the right situation.
  5. Conventional batteries must be mounted rigidly, right side up. They can not be tipped or subjected to severe vibration or jarring im-pacts. If tipped, they will leak. If shaken, they will fail structurally inside and could potentially short out. If loose, in addition to being unsafe, they will jounce about causing failure internally.
  6. If not properly charged, conventional batteries will freeze, and be destroyed. A charged battery has a freeze point of -95’F. A discharged battery will freeze at 20’F.

The other option is a glass mat spiral gel cell battery, like the Johnson Controls “Optima” battery. These batteries are significantly more expensive, about $50 more.

Gel cell batteries do not leak. Because they do not have the acid bath construction, they can be mounted in any position, even up-side-down. There is no concern about leaking acid or corrosion on the battery terminals. These batteries also do not discharge hydrogen gas, so there is no issue with venting them. Because there is no issue with evaporation of the electrolyte, they hold up better in very hot environments.

Because of the spiral, fiberglass mat gel cell construction, these batteries hold up very well to vibration and jarring impacts.

AGM batteries discharge at a much lower rate than conventional “wet” batteries. This can be a big plus for a vehicle that spends a considerable amount of time in storage.

The down side of AGM batteries is they are considerably more expensive, and there reliability is spotty. I have had three fail in less than two years. The warranty of the Optima is only a two year replacement warranty, kind of skimpy given the high purchase price in my opinion.

How can they be stored over the winter to maximize life?

Conventional “wet” batteries do well with a battery tender hooked up to them. Battery tenders charge the battery, then provide a “float” charge to maintain a full charge. They will not overcharge the battery. When the vehicle is returned to service, simply unplug the battery tender, and you are good to go. AGM batteries can simply be unhooked and left in the vehicle, they will not discharge.

Do battery’s like “Optima’s” last any longer in rarely used vehicles?

In theory, yes. In reality, that depends. I have had three Optima batteries fail in under two years.

Also, when I check my acid, I am finding particles in the fluid. Is that a sign that the plates are going bad? It actually looks dirty. I’d also guess you’d tell me to wait until spring to buy one. Otherwise it will sit on the shelf for 5 months.

When you check the acid, it should be clear. If it isn’t, there are impurities in it. This could be caused by sulfate on the lead plates, or impurities suspended in the acid. Either way, the battery is no longer good. If the plates are sulfating, the battery will not provide the proper amperage. If there are impurities in the electrolyte, the battery could short internally.

Proper maintenance of the battery includes checking the level of the acid in the individual cells. Only add distiller water. There is a myth that you should add acid. The level drops when the water in the solution evaporates. If you replace the water, you are keeping the concentration correct. The plates should remain under the surface of the acid.

I have learned that buying a new battery that may be “special” and some are, does not mean your getting a fresh battery. It may well have been left on the shelf waiting for me.”

The first thing you should check when purchasing a battery is the manufacture date on the battery. It will give the month and the year of manufacture. The battery should only be a month or two old. Any older, and I would ask for a newer one.

I always load check a battery to check it. I have a carbon pile load tester. It will put a load on the battery, and maintain the load for about ten seconds. There is both an amperage and a voltage gauge on the meter. If either the amperage of the voltage falls during the load test, an alarm sounds, and the needles on the gauges sweep down. If the battery is good, the needles on the gauges hold. Snap-on sells such a tester for about $600. I got mine at Harbor Freight for $50. I’m sure the Snap-on is a much better unit, but mine has worked fine for many years and I have no complaints. The Harbor Freight unit is well made and has good reviews.


Please email all inquiries to: Dave
or snail mail
32 Turkey Hill Road
Richmond VT 05477

1960 Hillman Minx

1960 Hillman MinxHillman is a name not well known in the automotive field anymore. Hillmans are British and like most British manufacturers of automobiles, the Hillman Motor Car Company is defunct. The last Hillman imported into this country was the Super Minx of the mid 1960s. The company was still being run by Lord Rootes, a founder, at the time. The Hillman Motor Car Company began in 1907. Previous to that, the company had made sewing machines and bicycles. Hillman played a role in pioneering the American automobile market, opening doors for other makes back in the days when those funny foreign cars drove a lonely road in this country.

Hillman had been importing small sedans since before World War II, but after the war, the small car market became more competitive. To get a leg up in styling, Lord Rootes hired the designer Raymond Lowey (think Studebaker Hawk of 1953) in 1948 to design a new car. Thus came about the shaping of my car, which takes styling cues from the 1953 Studebaker and the 1955-56 Ford. To further compete in the American market, Rootes sought a technical advantage as well. After all, some American manufacturers were starting to build “compact” cars, bidding for sales with fresh new packages. Consider the Ford Falcon or the Chevy Corvair. In 1960, Hillman was offering a product that no one else had-a fully automatic transmission that did away with the power loss associated with ordinary automatic transmissions of the day. Acceleration of a Hillman does not suffer as a result of the Easidrive option. This was important in 1960 because thousands of drivers in this country didn’t want small cars because of the bother of shifting gears manually. The Easidrive was a significant small car development in the days of oversized Detroit sedans and small, slow American cars optionally equipped with automatic transmissions.

I bought my car in 2002 from an antiques dealer in Wiscasset, Maine. It had been acquired by him as part of an elderly man’s estate. It had 40,000 miles on it then and I have taken it 24,000 sort-of carefree miles since then. My initial test drive of the car did not inspire confidence. Looking behind the steering wheel I noticed it had….an automatic transmission? I had always feared foreign automatics of the post-war generation since they could be weird and prone to trouble. Oh well, the car did start right up and sounded solid and quiet. The gear selector quadrant is minimalist in nature: D 2 N R in that order. There is no P position and I assumed the handbrake was a dubious instrument as evidenced by the rock placed behind the rear wheel. The car moved forward in D but would not shift into a higher gear. I stopped and gave it another try. This time, at about 15mph, I lifted my foot off the throttle and heard a distinct “clunk” and then we were in 2nd gear. At about 27mph the car shifted automatically into 3rd which felt like top gear. I could live with this. I came to a full stop and tried reverse. There was a slight grinding of gears to be heard as I shifted the lever. What the hell kind of automatic was this???

Thus begins the tale of what makes this car different. Here in layman’s terms is the Easidrive story. Remember the science experiment back in elementary school in which iron filings placed on a piece of paper were arranged in lines of magnetic flux by a magnet placed beneath the paper? If you can visualize that experiment, you have the basic idea of Easidrive. Easidrive uses a magnetic powder coupling in place of a friction clutch. The transmission itself is a regular sliding gear type 3 speed transmission. Imagine a drum bolted to the flange on the rear of the crankshaft. Then, imagine a slightly smaller drum which fits inside the aforementioned drum and is connected to the transmission input shaft. These drums are separated by a small air gap filled with an amount of iron powder. In neutral, as the crankshaft turns, this powder is thrown harmlessly by centrifugal force against the inside of the outer (crankshaft) drum. Now surround these drums with a stationary magnetic coil mounted in the transmission’s bell housing. When this coil is energized, the iron powder organizes itself in columns of magnetic flux between the two drums, forming a solid coupling between the engine and transmission. The advantage to such a coupling is that there is little or no slippage. There is no hydraulic torque converter to waste power, an important consideration in a 57 hp, 2375 lb. car such as the Hillman. This represented a design coup, applying a fully automatic transmission to a 1500 cc car.

But the devil is in the details, of course. All this stuff under the floorboards is con-trolled by the troublemakers under the bonnet, or hood as we Yanks would put it. This trouble includes: an electric gear selector switch, a governor which monitors road speed and throttle position, a gearshift solenoid and a control unit (black box) which contains eight 2 way relays, a thermal switch and a rectifier. Maintaining this lot is no problem if you’re an electrical engineer, which I am not. Fortunately for me and my Minx, my brother is. All the above-mentioned electrical units are wired closed with lead seals from the factory. Even Hillman mechanics were not allowed to open them up and investigate what might be wrong inside. Units were tested and if found faulty, replaced. Even the experienced garage mechanic in the early 1960s had no idea what he was looking at when he got under the hood of an Easidrive Hillman Minx. It was just another weird foreign car that nobody, including the dealers, wanted to deal with. This contributed greatly to Hillman’s demise. As the Easidrive reputation spread, dozens of new Easidrive cars sat in dealers lots unsold for years.

My car has experienced burned relay points and a broken wire in the control unit as well as another broken wire in the governor. My brother was able to decipher its woes from among the 96 symptoms and numerous wiring diagrams featured in the Easidrive repair manual. We broke into the sealed units fearlessly and solved my Easidrive’s problems. It wasn’t easy. It took about 8 hours, but I’ve been lucky. Most Easidrives were converted to normal Hillman 4 speed manual transmissions or simply scrapped. And that’s a shame because it is a nice car on the road or in town. I’ve driven without trouble to Ohio and back for 3 different “Hillmans on Holiday” car events, cruising at 65 mph with no trouble. I only know of one other Easidrive in the country, in Washington state, which is still running. I doubt we’ll ever meet car to car.