Anyone remember??

[cros]

Just reminded me, I need to reconnect the choke!

 

 

 

My 1954 Pop had a different type of heater to that; it was a matrix mounted in the top hose and the engine fan blew through it straight into the car. It was REALLY effective! I put a 12V alternator on mine though, for all the 6V reasons, and it never let me down.

I bet that heater was 59/6d from the Exchange and Mart. I honestly wouldn't have known what an alternator was back then. The 6v dynamo was the "3rd brush" type, (no regulator) and I remember vainly prodding it with a screwdriver trying to get a higher charge out of it. Not knowing anything about charging systems I also remember wondering what sort of masochist would set the brush at anything less than maximum and commit themselves to always having to start it by hand.

Eventually the crankshaft snapped on the one occasion that I coaxed more than 60 out of it, and that was the end. The 30 quid I paid had run out.

[Squire_Dawson]

Some Soviet cars had petrol heaters, I understand.

 

I remember rusty cars, real rusty cars with bad corrosion. This is not seen anymore.

 

I also remember the ominpresent stink on main roads of exhaust fumes when many cars ran on leaded petrol, and diesel engines in cars were a relative rarity!

 

And sometimes travelling without a seatbelt because there weren't any.

[Junkman]

The annual cardboard in front of the radiator routine will soon commence for the Northwest P6 Massive, I'm afraid.

Miraculously the clothespin choke isn't necessary on the haunted Rover, but the 2000 WBoD I had required three of them, which had to be removed one by one as warmup progressed.

I have never fitted seat covers to a car, but removed many.

 

Other memories available on demand, like repairing heated backlights with repair paste that didn't conduct, Wackeldackel on parcel shelf and preparing a C-Rekord Caravan WBoD for ski season duty by mounting knobbly Winter crossplies on the back, while leaving the Summer radials up front (try this, Ari Vatanen!), putting on the grille jacket (or whatever the correct English term is), switching a flap in the air filter from Summer to Winter, putting an ice scraper (a freebie from the bank) into the door pocket, two door mats into the boot and a tin of Start Ya Bassa into the engine bay.

[New POD]

I remember putting a fan heater in my wife's car, and turning it on as I went to work, so that her 850 mini would be toasty warm in side when she went off to work half an hour later.

[mercrocker]

^^I still do that!

[Asimo]

....the smell of cold-car exhaust in the morning when everyone was driving with the choke set for a few miles. Fords always smelled different to enything else.

[I_am_Diesel]

I remember an old ERF with a Gardner that my Dad used to have that used to billow a massive quantity of white smoke when it first started in a morning. These days you don't know if a truck is running or not when you look at the exhaust.

[D Spares & Tyres]

Dad used to carry a brick in the floorwell of his 1500 wolsley as the handbrake was u/s. I remember him stopping, opening the door and leaning out to put the brick under the wheel all while keeping his foot on the brake....

I know someone who did that but with the addition of some baling twine attached so it could be retrieved from the comfort of the drivers seat ☺

[taxi paul]

I remember having to use the handbrake only in order to keep the revs up on my MG metro. Usually for first ten minutes till it warmed up.

[Lankytim]

I remember an old ERF with a Gardner that my Dad used to have that used to billow a massive quantity of white smoke when it first started in a morning. These days you don't know if a truck is running or not when you look at the exhaust.

 

I'm happy to say those days are back! In cold weather many trucks produce clouds of white steam from the AdBlu when first started, just like the red arrows!

[Timewaster]

The hot oily stench throughout the house of spark plugs under the grill first thing on a cold morning.

 

Bloody mk 2 Escort.

[mercrocker]

When I had the leaky Oxford I used to dry the wet carpets and insulation out on the house radiators.  Original BMC gear - it smelt lovely and once I actually saw them steam.   Mrs Rocker loved the smell.  No, really, she actually did!

[captain_70s]

I was rocking cardboard grill covers this time last year.

 

 

Also had the joys of the car chugging away to itself on the choke, the 1300 in particular wouldn't drive in cold weather until it was up to temp so it'd sit outside my house every morning running on the choke for 10 mins smogging the street out while I had a cup of tea inside where it was warm... Also cranking, lots and lots of cranking with the car half heartedly coughing and spluttering as I mutter "come on, come on, start you bitch" under my breath while praying the battery doesn't go flat.

 

The choke didn't need a peg as it was way too stiff, to the point where I pulled it out one morning and the whole centre console heater vent thing came off with it...

 

Also the noticeable drops in performance and engine refinement in rainy/damp weather, the heated rear screen that couldn't be used if it was cold because it used so much power the car would stall at idle, lugging around a full tool kit + oil/petrol/etc in the boot all the time and it being frequently used...

[mercrocker]

Love that picture, Cap! Muffled 70s car in a lake on an industrial estate. Just about sums up my entire working life....

[privatewire]

I remember, as an apprentice with the "Post Office Telecommunications Board" a couple of the old timers lighting a wee fire underneath the Diesel engines of the gang trucks of a winters morning because they were bastards to start in the cold, that and running a gas ring in the cab as they had no heaters! Kids nowadays, they don't believe you etc,etc.

[Parky]

Painting tiny silver paint lines on broken rear window elements. Admiring the tidy job before looking outside at a mass of silver blobs. And the elements STILL didn't work.

 

Dads swapping tools back on the day when Men were men and owned tools rather than an 0800 number to some homecare company. I dunno, kids today, etc

[Parky]

And in the absence of Internet forums you would have Dads arguing over Castrol vs Duckhams vs Esso Uniflo as that's all there was!

[Dick Cheeseburger]

I remember the vinyl seats in my mother's '73 mk1 Escort used to pretty much burn legs when we were short-wearing primary age kids. I guess it must have been the height of summer* to reach such heady temperatures. She swiftly bought a stylish set of grey and maroon polyester seat covers, which stopped the burning, unless they had 'ridden up' the seat base, which was frequent iirc. They then led to itchy legs, which was a comparable p.i.t.a.

[MrBiscuits]

And in the absence of Internet forums you would have Dads arguing over Castrol vs Duckhams vs Esso Uniflo as that's all there was!

 

That brings back memories - Dad would never touch Castrol because it apparently once made his Hillman Hunter smoke a bit. He was a Duckhams man through and through. He even had the free overalls that came with it in the 80's. By the time I started driving I was conditioned to use only Duckhams Hypergrade until you could no longer get the stuff. I'm still a little dissapointed to this day that fresh oil isn't bright green anymore

[mercrocker]

I used to flog Castrol and Duckhams at the filling station in my first job. Forecourt dude went barmy because it was supposed to be under the counter and only ever offered if it was asked for. Otherwise you had to only supply Shell oil, there was no helpy-selfy back then. There were a couple of people who were convinced their cars burnt Castrol but were fine on anything else - maybe they were confused with "R"...

[drum]

Having winter and summer thermostats.

 

I never used a clothes peg on the choke. One hand on the choke was part of the skill of driving along with tap dancing on the pedals to keep it from conking out while braking for a junction. In fact I still have to do this with the allegro...

[Parky]

My Dad was a Uniflo man. As his was father, and his fathers father, and his fathers fathers father...

 

Still got a rusty old tin of it in his Garage! Must be worth £££££ to some hipster and his pop up shop somewhere

[Asimo]

.........if you had the dosh you could go out and choose from a real variety of interesting new cars, air cooled, water cooled, rear engine, front engine, rear drive, big or small , import or Ford, BMC or Rootes, Clan or Ginetta.........

[I_am_Diesel]

A tin of Easy Start and if that didn't work, a paraffin soaked rag on the fire poker set alight and held over the intake whilst someone else cranked the engine over.

[FakeConcern]

My dad used to put newspaper under the bonnet in cold weather.

I remember my dad doing this on his Anglia Estate & dicovering it starting to get charred a few weeks later!

[brownnova]

Coming out in the morning, and seeing that there was thick condensation and thinking "Oh Bugger, the MG won't start this morning"

 

But I'm thinking I might stick tin foil over the rad of my modern, just for shits and giggles! For some bizarre reason it doesn't have an engine temp gauge - so I've no idea if its cold or hot!!

[dave21478]

Living at the top of a steep hill had a few advantages, namely being able to bump start cars.

Whatever the shite_du_jour was at the time invariably needed bumped every day from November until spring time.

 

A chammy leather coated sponge to wipe the inside of the windows.

 

Heel-toeing to prevent cutting out at junctions.

 

Drilling a drain hole in various footwells and boot floors if there wasnt already a rust hole.

 

Messing about cutting the finger tips off a rubber glove to make a distributer boot to keep the rain off it.

[FakeConcern]

Anyone mention the vacuum wipers that almost stopped under acceleration then did a couple of rally fast wipes as the gears were changed up?

[brickwall]

I remember the vinyl seats in my mother's '73 mk1 Escort used to pretty much burn legs when we were short-wearing primary age kids. I guess it must have been the height of summer* to reach such heady temperatures. She swiftly bought a stylish set of grey and maroon polyester seat covers, which stopped the burning, unless they had 'ridden up' the seat base, which was frequent iirc. They then led to itchy legs, which was a comparable p.i.t.a.

 

 

Me too, either burnt legs or bloody freezing legs on the vinyl. Also, driving around in the coldest frosty days with the windows down so you could see and a small area the size of a plate on the windscreen to see ahead.

[cros]

A tin of Easy Start and if that didn't work, a paraffin soaked rag on the fire poker set alight and held over the intake whilst someone else cranked the engine over.

Starting old diesels involved many rituals. A JCB 3c I had when new (DRY365T) had a built in canister which you filled with some sort of volatile liquid and then pumped into the manifold via a handle on the dashboard. The 3.8 leyland engine never needed it during the 3 winters I drove it. Some Caterpillars had a small petrol 'donkey' engine to start the main one, what fun it was pulling away on a cord (not even a recoil system), but at least the main engine was warmed by the exhaust from the small once it was running.

  International employed the unusual method of starting their early diesel on petrol thus enabling them to be hand cranked. When running the petrol and sparks were dispensed with, compression raised, and you switched to diesel. All of the above would produce huge amounts of smoke which was a feature of any lorry or plant depot first thing in the morning.