Story Notes: Drive · 9:25pm Jan 28th, 2018
First off, a huge thanks to my pre-readers: metallusionismagic, MSPiper, theRedBrony, ROBCakeran53,
and AShadowOfCygnus.
Because there's just something about an open road, and driving just for the fun of it.
One of my favorite driving songs is Drive by R.E.M. I specifically remember listening to that song with the volume cranked while I was cruising down dirt roads in my dad's 84 Camaro one rainy afternoon when there was nothing better to do.
I'm honestly not sure if there are any stories on FimFiction about ponies just driving cars for the fun of it. If there aren't, I'm proud to be the first.
Y'all might remember Poppy Mallow from Highway 502, or Solo. This story is chronologically tucked neatly between the two, so I'm going to tag Highway 502 as a sequel, although of course it wasn't originally intended as such.
Also (and I almost forgot!): the car at the beginning of this blog post, and on the coverart for the story, is a Cord model 810/812 [the two are virtually identical]. Besides just looking really cool, it was a car thirty years ahead of its time: one of the major features was that it was front wheel drive. It also had a hidden radio antenna, a gas filler cap, a pre-selector transmission (you chose the next gear, and when you pushed the clutch, it would shift to that gear), clutch start (when you flipped a switch and pushed the clutch, the car would start). It had what we would think of as a conventional hood (as opposed to one that was hinged along the centerline, as was common back then), hidden door hinges, and even hidden headlights.
All in all, it was a really cool car. Sadly, it was also the last Cord produced. The body was briefly revived before WWII; Hupmobile and Graham-Page bought the body dies and produced the Hupmobile Skylark and the Graham Hollywood using them, although they used a more conventional (for the time) drivetrain.
The innovative transmission also lived on in another project; the Tucker originally used the Cord transmission for the Tucker 48, although it had to be strengthened to work behind the Tucker's engine.
A bubble [tire] balancer is a simple tool to balance tires. Tires need to be balanced, because slight variations in the tire and/or rim cause vibrations at speed. These days, balancers are much more advanced, and to be honest, I have no idea how to even use a bubble balancer.
There are two common configurations of engines for cars.* There are V engines, where there are two banks of cylinders, and there are inline engines, where the cylinders are all in a row. Both different designs have their own advantages and disadvantages (which I won't get into here). Back in the early days of auto manufacturing, inline eight engines were somewhat common, although they pretty much fell out of favor as the V8 was developed.
Source
__________________________
*There are of course many other configurations, such as opposed piston.
Speedwell Ironworks was a real company.
Back in the days of carburetors and mechanical timing, a lot of cars didn't run all that well on startup. My old 78 Chevy wouldn't idle when it was cold, and also liked to stall on off-ramps on the highway (although it would restart immediately). ROBCakeran53 said: "I remember a man telling me when he got his car new in the 30's (he was like, 14 at the time) he would open a hood flap and disconnect a couple cylinders, so upon start up it used less gas since he knew which cylinders wouldn't fire until it got warm. "
The Sandia Mountains in New Mexico were so named because sandia means watermelon in spanish. The early Spaniards apparently thought that the gourds growing there were watermelons. The gourd's scientific name is cucurbita foetidissima, hence the name in-story of Cucurbita Mountains.
Meadows-Frisky was a real car company in England. The name sounded so pony I just had to use it. They made small cars, what we would call microcars.
One of their models was called the Friskysport.
Although it's obvious from the picture above that I was taking a different inspiration for what kind of car Poppy was driving, I think it's worth mentioning that the actual Friskysport looks very pony.
Source
I should mention that the Friskysport is the blue car in the foreground.
Anybody who tells you about how much better cars were back in the good old days probably has never driving a car with bias ply tires. I'm sure they were an improvement over wooden wheels with steel tread, but they were prone to getting flat spots if the car sat for a while, and those would stay until the tire warmed up.
Y'all remember me mentioning in a blog post a while back about how the speedometer needle on my minivan spazzed out and wound around the bottom of the gauge (and then got stuck on the pin)? Well, back in the days of cable-driven speedometers, they could also wrap around the gauge.
From sometime in the 70s until some time in the 90s, cars generally didn't have speedometers that went over 85 mph.* Obviously, a lot of cars were capable of going faster, and when they did, one of two things would happen—either the speedometer would hit a little pin on the bottom of the gauge, or it would just keep going around the bottom and then back up the other side. I've gotten an older car back up to 15, once [trained professional on a closed course, etc.]. I suspect that the same thing might happen on my minivan; however, the speedometer goes all the way to 120 for some reason, so I doubt I could exceed the limitations of the gauge (and to be honest, the PCM probably also limits the top speed of that van).
__________________________________
*Or else it was just my family that didn't have cars with speedometers that went over 85mph.
A lot of vehicles that aren't designed for high speeds (and some that are) have a tendency to get air underneath them, which lifts the body slightly, causing reduced stability. There's a lot of geometry and aerodynamics that goes into this, and even the pros don't always get it right—anyone who watches NASCAR has seen how when the cars get turned around backwards, sometimes they go flying, even with the roof flaps that they put on these days.
Source
Admittedly, this is from a video game and not real life, but I do remember when I was a kid seeing lots of NASCAR crashes where the car went airborne after a spin. This is a good representative image, though
Back in the day—into the 80s, at least—motor oil came in metal or cardboard cans. Most people owned a spout that clipped along the rim and opened the can, to make it easier to pour into the car. You could also presumably use a conventional bottle opener, although you probably shouldn't use the one that you used to open your cans of V8 juice.
Aircraft oil still comes this way.
Poppy's minor coolant leak is actually based on a real-life experience of mine. A radiator has a pressure cap, since we all know as liquids heat up, they expand. Once the cooling system reaches its designed pressure, a spring opens, and (depending on the vintage of the car), the excess coolant either dumps on the ground or into a catch can, where (on most cars) it gets sucked back in when the engine cools.
My s-10 always had a little coolant leak, and the radiator would often be low, even though the overflow bottle wasn't. I could never figure it out; I'd fix a gasket and then later, I'd find a slight leak at a hose.
You can actually see spots of coolant under the truck in this photo
It turned out that the hose between the overflow bottle and the radiator was plugged, so the cooling system dumped the coolant out of the weakest spot in the cooling system. Once I cleaned the hose out, I never had a leak again.
Hollows and Fentimans is a real brand of Ginger Beer. It's worth noting that the real brand is alcoholic, but . . .
Here in the US we really don't distinguish between ginger ale and ginger beer (or if we do, we don't in Michigan). At least when I was younger, the kind that you'd normally get (Vernors or Canadian Dry) was 'ginger ale,' and if it was 'fancy' (like Stewart's) it would be called ginger beer. So Poppy's being responsible, and drinking non-alcoholic ginger ale.
It's also worth noting that way back when, green beers were a common drink. What that meant was that they were only partially fermented, which gave them just a little bit of carbonation, and a low alcohol content. The downside was that they didn't keep as long as actual beers.
Back before there were plastic body fillers, there was lead. Here's one technique:
Aside from being radioactive (which, admittedly, is a drawback), radium is the best material to make glowy watch faces, airplane gauges, and so forth. Unlike most modern methods, you don't have to expose it to light for a while to get it to glow, nor are there any chemical reactions to wear out over time (like glow sticks). It just glows, and will keep doing it for the life of the vehicle.
I was unable to find out if any automaker actually put radium gauges in a production vehicle; however, I did find a link on Google to a 1922 book which discussed the idea.
Honestly, as a consumer, as long as you're not disassembling and playing with the radium paint on the gauges, odds are that you're not likely to be exposed to any dangerous amount of radiation.
Back in the day, lots of vehicles had windshields that opened along the bottom for extra ventilation. The Cord did (it had little cranks to open the windshield). This is hearkening back to a complaint you'll hear from lots of older drivers and ROB about the loss of vent windows on cars and pickup trucks. They were great for customizing airflow across the cabin, giving you a little bit of fresh air even in conjunction with the heater, and helping to defrost the windshield even if the defroster didn't work.
Caldwell Vale was a manufacturer of trucks way back in the day. As Poppy observed, they looked like the unholy union between a tractor and a farm wagon (although to be perfectly fair, that's what a lot of trucks looked like back then.
I found it funny that not only did Tucker's monster of an engine break the 810 transaxle in half, but so did the much more conventional helicopter engine. A small testament to just how much more powerful engines in general had become over only a short period of time. (Helped somewhat because of the war.)
Well they were definitely an improvement over the solid rubber tire.
First off... that's kinda dumb, it inhales the gas anyway. Second, it's only now that I think of it... you should've had Poppy clean her points when she stopped halfway through the drive. My old neighbor said he had an old Ford Bronco, he used to drive 100 miles to work and back every day, and halfway either way, he would stop and clean the points... so twice a day every day. But you know, there are still people that think points are better than electronic ignition...
You'd be surprised just how resistant human skin is to radiation. Radium is completely harmless... unless you ingest it. Because like many poisons, your body mistakes it for something else and uses it. In this case, calcium. Also, I don't think radium would produce a bright enough instrument for an automobile (I'll grant horses probably have magic radium or something lol). Though I highly suspect there were some early cars with mechanical clocks that had radium dials.
Chrysler used electroluminescent dials in the 50s...
Today I finally learned what the V in V8 stands for.
Clearly the 85 mph limit on speedometers was to prevent time travel accidents.
Ginger Ale and Ginger Beer taste different. The only reason to drink the latter is when it's mixed with lime juice and vodka.
4783985
Yeah, there were lots of improvements because of the war. What always amuses me is the low horsepower of some of the monster engines back in the day. Just at a quick look, Mercedes' D.IV engine (for airplanes) made 217 hp with 19.7L displacement (granted, that's a WWI engine, but still . . . )
I'll give you that.
I wouldn't think that points were that unreliable. Although maybe if you cleaned them with something too abrasive (like sandpaper), they'd get dirty from arcing more quickly. That's a problem for model railroads, anyways.
I'd like to know who thinks that points are better than electronic ignition. They're simpler, sure. But not better.
From what I gather (from reading a few sources), you'd have a mix of radium and something else that would glow when the escaping radiation from the radium excited it (hence the somewhat nonspecific 'radium phosphor' mentioned in the story). When I was looking for an illustration, I came across one YouTube link that showed a radium watch that didn't glow anymore because the material that the radium was supposed to excite had stopped working. The guy in the video showed with a Geiger counter that the radium was still working just fine.
The Cord had edge lighting on its dials.
I'm not sure when they actually started illuminating the gauge panel, but I'd assume it was fairly early on. Probably about the same time that someone thought of putting headlights on a car, to be honest.
Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder how they did it on steam locomotives back in the early days? I suppose a lantern in the cab would get the job done. . . .
4783993
I think that's a reasonable assumption.
4784051
Are we talking proper (alcoholic) ginger beer, or the 'fancier' kinds that are more gingery?
4784075
No, I'm referring to the gingerier (Silver Glow would think that's a word, but spellcheck doesn't) nonalcoholic ginger beers used as mixers.
I don't think I've seen alcoholic ginger beer before.
4784133
Ah, gotcha. Like that one brand with the seal on it, and the other one with the horse (for the life of me, I can't remember either brand name).
I can't say that I've ever had an alcoholic ginger beer, although they do exist. I think that Henry's makes one (although I have no idea if it's traditional or not).
4784152
Be wary of any alcoholic beverage in the U.S. It could be one of those "hard" drinks that's just flavored malt beverage.
4784189
I actually read an article about a plant in Maryland (IIRC) that sells liquor for that very purpose. Some 'craft' breweries simply buy basic alcohol, add a little bit of flavoring or aging, and then sell their product.
Then again, is that any worse than Budweiser?
4784073
Eh, I don't exactly know the physics of it, but HP is largely dependent on speed. That's why you get a buzzy little Honda 4-banger that can do 400hp at 10,000rpm, but a much bigger slow-spinning v8 only makes 150hp at 2,000rpm, but has like 5 times the torque. So a giant engine usually doesn't have much hp.
Yeah, they last a while, but they arc no matter what, and eventually it melts away the plating of the contacts, and then you've no choice but to sandpaper them, or get new points.
You'd be surprised. A lot of old car guys, who probably got soured on early electronic ignition systems *cough* Chrysler *cough* that weren't particularly reliable. Eh, it was the 70s, solid state stuff didn't really git gud until the 80s. But yeah, when somebody tells me how much better points are, I just smile and nod.
If I recall correctly, radium doesn't actually glow. Could be wrong, but I think it's always mixed with phosphors. In fact, I think I watched a youtube vid about it not long ago, talking about a watch face that didn't glow anymore because the radium had over-radiated the phosphors and destroyed them, over so many decades.
Maddeningly, I cannot find any info on which carmaker had lighted gauges first. I'll bet you had the same problem. I'm with you, probably as soon as cars started getting that new-fangled electricity. I can tell you that instrument illumination is pretty old, ships have had lantern-illuminated compasses for a long time before electricity. I have no idea about trains though
Damn good question, I almost feel like firing up Train Simulator and finding out.
4784238
I'm not entirely sure of the physics of that, either, and there are also a lot of factors that go into engine design that probably affect it.
Or put an electronic ignition on it, because we're not living in the stone age any more.
Don't get me wrong, early electronic ignitions weren't all that great. Early PCMs weren't, either. But in my mind, if someone's still basing their understanding of how computerized cars work on some AMC product from the early 80s . . . well, they're probably also not using a cell phone, since the old bag phones weren't all that great.
No, you're right (mostly; it does sometimes give off visible sparks, apparently, but you've got to have your face right against it, and they're not too bright). But then again, radium isn't alone in that; old CRTs were phosphor-coated, and florescent tubes are, as well (IIRC).
Thinking about it, there's a good possibility that it wasn't put on trains until after it had already been put on automobiles or other things that needed an illuminated gauge. Although I don't know how much of a thing night driving was back in the day.
Fun fact: Every tire I've ever hand mounted, I've never balanced it. At all. And you know what? I've never had issues with vibrations or wear. Weird...
4793547
It could be because none of your vehicles that you've hand mounted tires on have had good enough suspensions that you'd notice a vibration.
4793547>>4794749
I've never had any issues with vibration after changing my tires either. Maybe bicycles just work differently.
4951373
Yeah, bicycles do work differently. Get it up to sixty or seventy and then see if you can feel anything from the tires.
4951379
I think the fastest I've ever got going was about 30 down a very steep hill.
4951384
That’s probably fast enough to start wondering what’s gonna happen if you fall off.
The fastest I’ve gotten (that I knew) was about 20, and given my history with falling off bikes, it was kind of worrying.
4951398
I would have lost so much skin. And then probably been run over by a car.
I also have a history of crashing my bike, luckly I stayed upright that time.
4951404
I can tell you for a fact that friction burns on your face suck.
EDIT: also, the only car I’ve been run over by was one I was driving.
4951436
Thankfully I have yet to be run over by a car. I was hit broadside by one once, luckily they were turning at the time and thus going very slowly.