Christmas Story

drivergo2
drivergo2 Expert Adviser
edited January 2013 in HUDSON
From the movie christmas story, He comes back in to get a bucket of water ans say that olds would freeze up in july. Where was the water giong to used.? What did it do. Thanks John Happy New Year

Comments

  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    Thaw out the door locks so he could get into the car??

    Hudsonly,
    Alex Burr
    Memphis, TN
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    To pour warm water over the engine to get it to turn over. My dad had to do that several times with the 50 Plymouth. That was before they invented the electric dipstick.

    Kevin C.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    I recall my dad saying his dad used to drain the oil out in extramly cold weather. Bring it in the house and set it next to the wood stove to heep it hot. Then poor it back in in the morning ,must have done the job,
    Roger
  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    Down in Maine, back in the day, farmers used to build ramps and a platform over the manure pile on cold winter nights. Park the truck on the platform and you had a warm, if slightly malodorous, truck in the morning.

    Hudsonly,
    Alex Burr
    Memphis, TN
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    I can remember my Dad starting a fire on a steel pan letting it burn low then pushing the pan under the car... The best story I have of my dad wAs later in life our electrical blanket wrap around the motor...They don't build them like that any more ....
  • Uncle Josh
    Uncle Josh Senior Contributor
    Yas, Alex, the manure pile did steam all winter. Then in the spring, I participated in pitching it on the old truck (35 Ford 1 1/2 ton) to put a fork-full in each corn hill. Dad said the smell helped the corn get up out of the ground. Maybe that's why they called it a 'dump truck'.

    100 W bulbs under the hood all night near the 'battry' was a common thing. Dad was a lumberjack (at a wiry 142 lbs yet) and regularly had to go to the woods about daylight, gather sticks and build a fire under the Garret Skidder (Ford Industrial) engine to warm it up before trying to start it. Wonder the grease didn't catch and burn it up. Still running...and he's been gone over 20 yrs now.

    If this is global warming, bring it on. Back then, and when Grandpa lived in the shanties in the Adirondack logging camps there was a lot more snow, and a lot colder. I can remember as a kid, seeing the merc sitting on -30 for a week. Maybe that's why he drove an Essex.

  • SamJ
    SamJ Senior Contributor
    My father trained for the RCAF at the beginning of WWII near Loydminster, Alberta. When the temperature dropped below 0-F they drained the oil out of the planes in the evening and returned it heated in the morning. Then there was a very narrow window to get the engine fired up.
  • Fred
    Fred Expert Adviser
    Alex, for us in the "lower " 47 Maine is "up".
    Fred
    PS: I know you used to be in Maine and the common reference is "up"
  • J Spencer
    J Spencer Expert Adviser
    I remember back in the early fifty's my dad would throw a heavy blanket over the engine and put a 150 watt lamp under the oil pan of our 1934 Ford right after he shut it down for the night. the car was parked outside and as I remember it always started.

    Jim Spencer
  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    Sam J, when I was in the Navy I was stationed in Hutchinson, KC, during the winter of 57-58. Yes, the Navy had an air station there - a training station teaching young daredevils how to properly fly (not running into clouds with rocks in them for example) P2V Neptune twin-engine propeller planes. I remember more than one night standing 6-hour run-up duty. We would usually be assigned 15 planes or so (we had 75) and would spend 6 hours walking up and down the flight line running up each of our assigned planes to warm them up so the intrepid bird-men would have aircraft that would start in the morning. Finish the 15 and start all over again. Lots of fun in December in the middle of a blizzard!!!! Only place in the world I was ever stationed where it snowed horizontally!!!!!!
    Still, fun days.
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