This is an opinion, but since it relates primarily to RWD cars and their owners,
I am posting it here (among friends?).

As we in the US celebrate the date of the declaration of independence a thought
comes to mind which should be near and dear to the RWD community. I haven't heard
much about this lately but I think it bears remembering.

Many efforts have been made and probably will increase to get the relics that we
hold dear OFF the road. I would recommend that whenever you hear of such an
effort, register your feelings on the matter as soon as you can before public
opinion is swayed to the view that the Government knows what we should drive.

My own view is that food should NOT be taken from anyone's mouth to make motor fuel.
Here in Oklahoma they are now posting on the pumps at gas stations that
"This fuel may contain up to 10% ethanol." In talking to a friend who is in the
fuel policy group at ConocoPhillips I learned that, at least in their stations in
this area, what we are getting is pure gasoline with no ethanol.
Apparently the mix is largely controlled by economics.

Many of you know that I live in what was the first oil patch in Oklahoma, and
that in fact there was oil production here BEFORE it was Oklahoma, 110 years ago.
The whole area was under oil production and much of it still is today.
Nonetheless you will have to look VERY hard to find lasting environmental damage
in this area relating to oil production. (Lead and zinc mining were and are a
very different matter.) A lake that I used to fish in (and sometimes swim in)
has had as much as several inches of crude oil on its surface dozens of times,
yet the wildlife in the area is much the same as it was when I was a kid 60 years
ago, with the exception that we now have armadillos. Fishing was rarely affected,
and never for any great length of time.

Many states have a "Get them off the road" policy that makes maintenance and retention
of older cars very difficult. Auto parts recycling centers (aka salvage yards or pick'n pulls)
are being forced out of business by shortsighted environmentalists,
who don't seem to realize that keeping a car going eliminates the environmental
damage of replacing it and getting rid of the residue, which is becoming less and
less easy to recycle, unlike the old "iron" cars.

So, as an oldtimer who loves the oldtimer Volvos, my view is, "Let's do what we
can to preserve what we have!"
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!

Hello George, hope this Indy day finds you well.

Certainly this is a day to recognize that freedom includes personal taste. I have a stable full of old enthusiast cars (or some such term) that I love. I'd be damned upset if anyone told me that I HAD to get rid of them. I don't drive them often enough to affect national fuel usage, and I feel I should be allowed to keep 'em (and I regularly contribute to mail campaigns here in California to make sure I can).

My daily drivers have been 240s for many years, and as long as you guys keep the wells going (at least someplace, if not in OK) then I'll keep doing so. I would like to point out a rather different twist on the "junk it" philosophy though: This week I found myself in need of a transmission. Not a common occurrence with a 240, but it does happen. I opted for an AW71 and went searching at my local yard. Denizens of the self serve auto parts recycling emporiums will share my tack on this sort of thing. How does one decide which automatic to pull? If the car is wrecked, chances are the engine and trans were running. If the car shows no damage, maybe it's in the yard because the trans is gone! I found a 1990 740t with only 108k miles on the clock. Car was exceptionally clean. Some of the interior had been removed, but no sign of vandalism, collision, nothing. The head and turbo were gone. My decision to pull the trans was based on one thing: In the glovebox I found the manuals, some maintenance paperwork, and a pad of note paper with much scribbling on it that accompanied a failed smog test report. To make a long story short, the car failed smog, and the owner sold it to the Governator. In fact, I think this may account for what I see as an increase in very intact cars showing up in the yards of late. I just hope Arnold doesn't show up on TV with a mechanical arm shaped like a scrap metal magnet saying "I'm heah for yawr cah, ya?"

DS

P.S. Trans is perfect and came with what appear to be new seals and a new OD solenoid too. Score!

Hi George,

This really does not illustrate your point, but...

In December 1977, I set out on a clear evening from Illinois for Baltimore in my 2-month-old bought-for-work '78 Chevy Van (250-stick) with two daughters, five months and 18 months, and their mom. Gas was being diluted with alcohol that winter, and I thought, well, isn't that what we put in our tanks to prevent gas line freeze?

Down on rt. 70 somewhere east of Indianapolis, the truck began to starve for fuel. I was able to limp it into a rest stop at about 5 mph. In 12-degree weather, I managed to get loose the fuel filter - about the size of my thumb, and find the black rubber (don't ask me what kind) flap check valve swollen shut. I ripped it off and got the truck running strong again, but when I got back in to drive, found my family had nearly frozen to death. Apparently, working under the hood was warming to me, and I had no clue how much time passed or that I should have sent my family inside the rest stop building. One of the most dangerous things I've ever done.

I've seen some of the proposals to age out cars, in the name of emissions reduction. Fortunately this is mostly under state jurisdiction, where I believe California will serve as the canary in the coal mine for the old car hobby.

Speaking of the original oil patch, have you seen the movie based on Upton Sinclair's Oil! - called There Will Be Blood? What a performance! "I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!" Entertainment.




--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap. - Bob Hope

A number of years ago we were in Estes Park, Colorado, in our 1973 Volvo 164,
dubbed "Righteous" by my son-in-law. We took off through Rocky Mountain National
Park with my wife, myself, Daughter Esther, Daughter Peggy and her husband and two
of their children after filling up in the town of Estes Park. (I noted a sign on
the pump AFTER I filled the car which said that the fuel contained Ethanol, but
could get NO information on how much from the attendant inside.)
We rode about 25 miles into the park and the car started to falter and finally died
up in the mountains by a meadow. We quickly diagnosed the problem as fuel starvation.
Car was D-jet fuel injected. I unhooked the gas line at the fuel rail and turned
on the key - nothing came out. So we unhooked it at the pump and turned the key
and got LOTS of gas. I blew back through the line from the front and got about a
double handfull of brown, rust-colored gooey stuff on the ground from the back.
We hooked it back up at the rear and turned the key again, got plenty of gas in
front and so put the whole thing back together. We were on our way in about 40 minutes
from the initial failure, but I shudder to think how it would have been had we
not had some idea what we were doing. Since then I have avoided alcohol-containing
fuel at every opportunity.
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!

To present-day, minus a few years... Around here we had a choice: fuel with alcohol or fuel with MTBE. Believe me when I say you don't want MTBE, and that's nothing to do with your car's health. It took way too long to get that banned.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.

Howdy George,

Older cars certainly have a problem with ethanol. I believe the mechanical and chemical problems associated with ethanol can be engineered out or around so that even a '66 122S can run on the stuff.

But the source of the ethanol is stupid: corn. Let's see, take a food and fodder and turn it into alcohol at a net loss of energy. Who is responsible for that brilliant idea? The EPA, that's who. Once they were (finally) convinced that MTBE was polluting every waterway in the country and were forced to stop using it, they had to come up with another oxygenate. With the growing "green" movement blessing the idea, the decision was taken to use ethanol to oxygenate gasoline. Corn to the rescue.

I've got a better idea. Let's use hemp. It is a weed. It will grow pretty much anywhere on its own. In fact, farmers in the Midwest have to spend money to kill it where it volunteers. Plant it and pull it. It doesn't get any easier than that. No fertilizers, no cultivation, no energy sink. The oils can be used to make biodiesel. The fibers can be fermented to make ethanol. Alcohol doesn't care what plant you ferment to make it. The remainders can be used to make fertilizers and biodegradeable plastics. It is damned near a perfect solution.

The hard part would be getting past the well-meaning do-gooders who think that hemp is evil. Do you know where they got that idea? From William Randolph Hearst and the Dupont family. Hurst had financial interest in timber pulp production for his newspapers. He demonized the hemp plant as the source of marijuana (which is actually another genus of the species) in his papers. The Duponts had just patented Nylon and needed a ready market for the manmade fiber. With influencial friends in high places, they applied money and pressure to congress and soon enough the cultivation of hemp was outlawed.

It is time to start using our heads and our natural resources properly. Stop the use of food and fodder crops for fuel. Weeds are a much more intelligent choice.

My two cents.

--
Mr. Shannon DeWolfe -- I've taken to using mister because my name misleads folks on the WWW. I am a 52 year old fat man.

Why do we want or need "pre-oxygenated" fuel? Is that not what the engine does
in the process of combustion to get power from the fuel? It is like mixing
your gas with water or CO2! REAL fuel is NOT oxygenated!
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!

George, if you ever find some website that has these issues in it. Or if you have any "write your congressmen" type stuff, pass it along.

Our gas in New York all contain 10% ethanol. ridiculous! You have to hear the horror stories from my mechanic friends. Not only does it go stale in very short order but it plays havoc with carbureted cars. Proof of that is two of my 'seasonal ' vehicles. I have owned my boat for 24 years, I have always Winterized it the same way. This is the first year I had to take the three carbs off to clean the crap that formed in the bottom of the Bowls. I always drain the carbs but the slightest residue grew green slime this year. Same thing happened this year to my Jeep.
It takes 4 gallons of fuel to make 3 gallons of Ethanol, the gas is not as volatile, not to mention that the corn that can be feeding livestock as well as us is now being funneled to make ethanol. So now the demand and price is up on Corn. Just another Gov't knee-jerk reaction. " Let's make ethanol to stretch a gallon of gas" dumb.
--
'75 Jeep CJ5 345Hp ChevyPwrd, two motorcycles, '85 Pickup: The '89 Volvo is the newest vehicle I own. it wasn't Volvos safety , it was Longevity that sold me http://home.no.net/ebrox/Tony's%20cars.htm