1951 Pontiac Chieftain

[PhilA]

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Removed the lower heater bezel. Grubby.

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Cleaned it up, came up ok.

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Upper heater bezel was similarly dirty.

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Gently scrubbed years of dirt and metal polish away. Found some black paint in the grooves, which is a nice touch.

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Came up looking better.

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Wired up a little light.

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Someone had drilled a hole years ago and it is almost the right size. Put the bulb holder into the hole.

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Doesn't look too much out of place, can't really see it unless you're looking for it but it's visible from the driving position.

Need to wire up the fan switch and get that all put back in, then hook up the windshield washer jets, probably put the heater box back in- that's gonna have to come back out again because the valve needs doing- don't need heat anyway.

I was looking at the assembly that holds the ignition switch and I think if I remove that I may be able to put the Chevy car switch in place just for now to at least give it an ignition switch.

Phil

[mercrocker]

I love this car.....Every part of the dash seems to have come from a Wurlitzer 1400.

[PhilA]

A lot of styling cues from commonplace items or machinery of the age, be it record players or food mixers, very true. Jet age!

Phil

[PhilA]

Removed brackets behind the dash for the truck style ignition switch.

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Added in the car style switch I bought a while back. Fits well enough and the connections on the back are the same.

In worse news my drum fan died. Right when it's really hot.

Phil

[PhilA]

Resurrected!

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Filed(!) the shaft down a little then flattened it with 220 grit then 1500 and then greased the hell out of it and threw it all back together

Sounds like crap but that's cheaper than buying a new one


Phil

[LynehamHerc]

Every time I look at the thread I see the quality of the switches and instruments etc. and compare them to the cheap, unless you have to buy one, crap we have now.
There's too much 'mass' in mass production, we could do with better made and longer lasting stuff rather than something made as cheaply as possible although whether people would pay for it is a different issue.

[PhilA]

The quality of the design and manufacture here come from a couple of things.

First, wartime technological advancement in mass manufacture of casting metals. This spilled over into vehicle manufacture. Labor was cheap, raw materials were still relatively inexpensive and the machinery and factories were there to make them.
Second, customer expectation- for those who could afford to buy a car hadn't seen that much in the way of rationing or unavailability with exception of luxury items such as cars that stopped production during the war.
Third, a heavily bolstered economy post-war that allowed a good portion of the middle class to be able to afford a well engineered vehicle.
Fourth, reliant upon the third, people with enough free money after having purchased a vehicle to actually go use it and travel to see places, of which there are many but also very spread apart in this country. Tourism became a big thing.

It was all a little put on- by the late fifties the recession was beginning to hit. Vehicle design became more outlandish partly because the space race was beginning and the whole Buck Rogers/nobody can stop us now going on in middle-class America at the time. Overheads went up, perceived quality remained but underneath the glitz the same late fifties designs were dragged on. Junkman would be able to elaborate. Things picked up a bit as consumer markets picked up in the middle of the sixties and then crashed again through the seventies as Cuba started to get unsettled.
There was still the perceived glamour but it was only surface deep. America was running on the dreams and memories it built in the sixties which all came undone by about 1976. Civil rights and heavy recession and unemployment all came to a head, cost overheads rising as it all started to unravel and the malaise shows in the design and build of late seventies and eighties vehicles. Yes, the economy farted itself into a boom in the eighties but that only benefitted a few get-rich-quick schemes. That all fell apart again and only now, thirty years on are similar improvements being made to consumer goods that were seen in the fifties and sixties in terms of genuine quality of manufacture.

Where I'm going with this is the modem stuff is good but expensive- same as this car would have been well out of the reach of its target audience when it was new had it not been for a faux boost given to manufacturing and consumerism in an attempt by the government to create work. That's why it exists in the way it does, rather than cost-cut designs seen elsewhere (granted, the frame under my car is a pre-war design dusted off, as was the engine but it's well made from good materials) with an intention of longevity.

Phil

[LynehamHerc]

Thanks for the explanation Phil.

The cost of the Vietnam War probably hit pretty hard as well, in terms of both finance and 'optimism'.

[PhilA]

Yes, see "1976".

[PhilA]

Pretty much everything is wired in now. Temp hooked up the fan blower as a proof of concept.

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Took the driver's door switch to bits, cleaned and adjusted it. Now the dome light comes on when you open the door. Nice touch.

Barring a few wires for alternator, temperature sensor and the offside lights it's good enough to use now.

Phil