Auburn on American Pickers

What interests me mostly about American Pickers is the people they buy from "say" they are so happy with the deals they made with Mike & Frank. Of course the show usually will posts what they paid for it and what it is worth. Sometimes even what they sold something for.
When Randy Ema was looking over my Cord he saw a 1915 California license plate. He looked really surprised to see it on my shop shelf and asked if I knew what it was worth. Nope so a few days after his visit with me I looked on ebay and found it will sell for around $1500.00..... I had no idea and recall it was in the garage when we purchased the home in 1975. The previous owner was a motors officer for LAPD way back in the 1960's.
I sure would not sell this plate to Mike but am more than sure he really wants it for one of his bikes... These more than 100 year old plates do not come up often anywhere.

They have checked with the ACD Museum on several occasions, but obviously not this time. They have given the Museum credit but the credits run so fast that no one can read them.
Cordially Mike

I occasional watch the Pickers, and Mike @ least is pretty knowledgeable on vintage motorcycles, but the glaring error about why Auburns are prone to overheating really frosted me. You would think they would have checked a few facts with the good folks in Broken Arrow prior to airing.

"Reality TV" Go figure.

From talking with Felix I believe it was just a thing that seemed to happen only when the car with in high gear ratio. But soon started happening in most forward gears. So that was the determining reason to open up the trans..
You bet someone probably did think that will hold till it gets sold but I'm sure the older family that sold this had nothing to do with that. The Uncle probably had the trans worked on and it started failing so that is why it got parked so many years ago and forgotten...
I'm not a fan of the show but I do like seeing the lost treasures found being brought back to the sun light. The show is surely staged. How many places have you walked up and knocked on a door and someone is right there to answer.. And has clothes on... I will not answer my door because someone on the other side ALWAYS wants something of me. Same with answering my cell phone is an unknown caller rings my number. If its that important leave a message.
A few nights ago the wifey and I were out to dinner together and a nice restaurant when I heard another diners cell phone make an odd sounding ring. Suddenly EVERY cell phone on the place was ringing including mine and my wife's. Turns out it was an Amber alert. First time I have seen this but glad to be included in this type of call.

Can someone explain to me how a dual-Ratio dif. will cause a trans. to pop out of gear? I just can't quite get my mind around how that would happen.
Cordially Mike
PS I'm sure that washer will stay in place long enough for the next guy to buy it!

Its interesting how many of us watching that program caught this. When Mike & Frank purchased this car it was sent to the pickle factory to make it safe and streetable. I was talking to Felix one day about an order for my 812 when he mentioned they had this car and it was driveable but had trans issues. I asked what was wrong. He told me the Columbia 2 speed rear end would cause the trans to slip out of gear but at first it was only in high. It then started to happen in most of the forward gears no matter if it was in high or low range. I asked asked about a shift finger slipping on the shift rods. Maybe.. maybe not. Well a few weeks later I called about more parts to order and asked what the trans issue was... Well it turns out someone had done some trans work long ago and forgot to install a shim type washer in the main shaft set. So instead of removing the gears and main shaft they cut the washer in half and installed it hoping it would be captured and held in place. I guess we find all kinds of shade tree repairs. In my 812 I found a piece of angle iron welded to both sides of the oil pan as a bolt stiffener. Well what for was my question. It was a horrible job trying to remove all those pan bolts because they were hitting the angle against the pan. So I removed them with great care. You can read about it over in the 810 812 forum.

Hi,

I caught that error also. Just shows how LITTLE fact-checking goes into a TV show.

--Tom

Last night I viewed a new episode of "American Pickers" where they were driving a 6 cyl
35 Auburn Phaeton down rte 66. At one point in the show they showed a "factoid" that
Auburns were prone to overheating because the radiator is located over the transmission.
Pretty sure they were confusing Auburn with Cord.