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Starting Phaeton restoration.
- 1748 S
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Gary Parsons
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- uconn_1965
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- johnmereness
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Answer Possibly: In an Auburn it tends to be that the bulk of the cars were driven hard and put away wet to begin with and prove challenging to properly restore matched to few cars finding "that level of restoration" and/or owners truly committed to them or even owners with a driveability mindset.
Every time I spoke to Don Wholend about an S/C car his reply was an ARGH and a beat yourself senseless in another way. The flip side of the coin was he also said I was perfectly capable and when I get it right I would be rewarded with a lovely driving car (and if ever sold a great price upon sale). My opinion is most people are not up to what I see the successful driving people have in skill sets and ....
Supercharging is just a lot of really expensive parts and a lot of really expensive extra parts spinning around at great rates of speed matched to most people not properly spending the money to get it right the first time, sort it thereafter, and then maintain it.
So, the first time I asked to drive a Cord I found a few key people at ACD Festival and they huddled and arranged for X car - said I would not find a more fine one on globe. We drove and it was impressive. The owner apologized the whole way for all its current faults and said they had spent weeks on it prior to ACD Festival and just ran out of time so they trailered it instead of driving and .... My opinion is that this is fairly normal (by the way, we drove around for 2 years without first gear in the Auburn - stuff happens, we were busy, and I apologize for my cars faults too). I am doing a low mileage well enough kept 852 Phaeton now and I can tell you that no matter how much time, thought, money, and ... has been spent on it I expect 2 years of sorting it out to reach the level of the 851 Phaeton you see us with all the time (which by the way probably has about 80K invested in its drive-train dependability over the last 45 years).
And, I can take you to see plenty of Cords here in Cincinnati that look really pretty in the garage.
I am still sticking to "finest cars made for driving pre-1953." It is just a level of commitment, dedication, skill set(s), wallets, and ....
JMM
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- 1748 S
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Gary Parsons
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- alsancle
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What exactly is the issue with an SC car over a regular one? I asked my dad if he had all the components in his blower and he got mad at me like it was a stupid question. His car has about 7k miles on it since it was restored in the mid 60s, most of those miles in the first 10 years, but it never broke down. Two trips from Boston to Auburn down I80.
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- johnmereness
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JMM
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JMM
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- johnmereness
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As to 851/852 cars, there are only a "slim" handful that have 10K, 20K, 30K, 40K, or 40K plus miles on the clock post restoration and that are always continually worked on to keep them roadworthy to basically do any sort of driving and at any time (Mike has one of those cars, we have one of those cars, and ....).
Don Wholend restored my Auburn and put almost 40K miles on it touring and Don also had a Supercharged Sportsman (which he drove the same way) and I do not recall him saying many kind words about supercharging other than he was happy with the sale price. Every time I looked at an S/C car he was quick to say to gut it out and restore it for the bench to reinstall everything when it comes time to sell.
I do give Brad credit for driving his Sportsman, though in 2019, it came to ACD Festival on a trailer for whatever reason.
JMM
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- mikespeed35
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CORDiallyMike
Mike Huffman
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- rhauser
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Robert Hauser
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- JIM.OBRIEN
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I have to agree with Jack, a S/C Cord can be a good tour car. It has to be restored and sorted out properly (like any other Cord). Brad has driven his S/C Cabriolet from OK to Auburn many times as well as many others.
John is right that many owners don't drive them any more on the open road and as a result they don't work as well as they should. For many the supercharger is just a very expensive "pretty" item on the Cord. It is expensive to rebuild, expensive when something goes wrong and is one more thing to deal with, all for the sake of outside exhaust pipes. There are a lot of Cords out there that have superchargers that haven't given the owners any problems.
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- Jonathan Richards
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- 1748 S
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Restoring these cars can be such an interesting adventure
Gary Parsons
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- johnmereness
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There are good reason why a supercharge rebuild are 20K +
And, I see very few S/C cars successfully toured with (like in really driven any distance for any time). There are great people that tell you at ACD meets that their cars are runners - well ,they trailer them to and from Auburn and put 75 miles on them once a week each year - that is not really a great tour car. I for example drive to and from Auburn and clock in at just over 700 miles for a week of driving (and we put on another 500 to 1000 per year - just depends). I do not mind S/C cars but realize they give people fits in restoration and driveability. The fellow who restored my car drove his Sportman from Washington to Auburn - he just really never mentioned his guts of his S/C were empty - he reinstalled everything to sell (and it set a record price).
JMM
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- Terry Cockerell
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One advantage to having the supercharged exhaust system on a standard engine is that it helps to keep things cooler under the hood as the hot air can pass through the screens.
A fan shroud is also desirable for heavy traffic conditions ........... good insurance on the investment.
T cockerell
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- rhauser
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Now reliability is something that I am interested in. I do plan to drive this car and not just Sunday drives or as a daily driver but I do plan to enjoy it and put some miles on it. I would even drive it to Auburn for the meet when it gets done, which is just over 300 miles for me. I would hope that if done correctly this car will preform as good as any car its age and be able to travel reasonable distance without major hiccups every time. I have been flat bedded home a few times even when it was running. LOL Sometimes the journey is better than the trip. I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.
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- johnmereness
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Opinion = Possibly really bad advice !!!
JMM
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- johnmereness
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The aforementioned said: If you like the external pipes then install the pipes (that still seems to be an acceptable compromise).
JMM
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- rhauser
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After Auburn I drove to Hershey for the AACA meet and on the trip I noticed a tick in the engine so when I got home I decided to start a restoration on the car. A piston towards the fire wall had cracked and scored the wall so I knew I needed to redo the engine at that time I figured I would do a complete restoration. I tore into it but at the time with 3 kids and other matters it stalled and just sat. I now have the time and money to get back to it.
Particulars about the car: It was converted to 12 volt at some point. I think it was done when the engine was rebuilt. The car has the cut out for the emergency brake cable in the rear and not the notch but it has benedict's brakes. This indicates that it is a 36 body but it has a lot of 37 parts on it. It has the outside exhaust and the 150 MPH speedo. At the time it was checked out in Auburn the gentlemen checking said it would be easy to convert this car to a SC car because of the items I mentioned. Also at the time he verified it as an original Cord.
Side Note: when my father past he had 6 Conv that were divided between my 2 brothers and myself. 37 Cord Phaeton, 49 Cadi Conv, 60 Eldorado Conv, 61 T-Bird Conv, 68 Imperial Conv, and 77 Mercedes 450SL conv. I have the Cord and the Imperial. Also if any body is interested the 61 T-bird is for sale. It is all original and a real nice survivor, it is listed in Hemmings and the AACA web site.
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- 1748 S
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Many times if you post the car serial numbers and the rest of the identification tag information this forum can tell you all kinds of history on your car.Its amazing to learn things too about who owned you r car in the distant past.
One final note. Do not throw anything away during restoration. Just a simple radiator cap is about $300.00 today.... If you can find one. And most owners have no idea our caps seal internally unlike modern day caps seal on the outside of the neck. Personally I like to take pictures of everything before and as I'm restoring anything on my Cord. I'm a retired machinist and learned to document everything as found and as left when done.
As for value of parts or complete engines usually its much more profitable selling by piece. I would be interested in the lot of parts you purchased in Detroit. If you want we can email each other as to what I need or what you might be willing to sell or trade for some of my extra parts. Hopefully you have the original Autolite generator GCO4804-A. If not you looking at around $2700.00 and up from there.... I have a huge shop book of every Autolite generator from nearly every car from the teens to about the late 1950s.... So If I have the numbers I can at least tell you what it came from.
Gary Parsons
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- rhauser
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