The Guide To Famous Classic Cars & Their Care
The first cars appeared on American roads very early in the 20th century. For years, the Model T was the best-selling car of all time, later to be overtaken by the Volkswagen Beetle. As we move further away from the advent of the automotive industry, the classic car industry continues to grow.
What Makes A Classic Car?
What defines a classic car? In a general sense, the term can be loosely applied by anyone who wants to use it, like with my mother-in-law’s “classic” 1996 Camry. At many classic car shows, the age cutoff for classic cars stops at the 1970s. Some states, like Maryland and West Virginia, use a twenty or twenty-five-year-old minimum age to have a historic or classic designation, along with a requirement that the car not have been substantially changed from its original design.
Other classes of old-time vehicles include vehicles built before 1916 (called “Brass Era” cars) and 19th-century vehicles that qualify as “horseless carriages”. Brass Era cars were built between 1896 and 1915, and are dubbed so because of the brass fittings that were used in key areas like lights and radiators. The horseless carriages of the 19th century drew their names from looking similar to the horse-drawn carriages common to the day, but with some kind of motor, typically a steam motor. Many people don’t realize that steam-powered vehicles like these were being built and used in Europe even as early as the 1820s; the first one on record debuted in London in 1806.
Just how many classic cars are there? Using the loosest definition – 25 years or older – there are at least 14 million of those still around just in the US of A. And that number has almost doubled just in the last 15 years. There aren’t any official figures on the number of cars 50 or 70 or 100 years old that are still around.
Annual Classic Car Shows
For those of you mad about classic cars, there are classic car shows all over the country if you want to get your fix. Two of the most popular are the Barrett-Jackson Show and the Concours d’Elegance.
The Concours D’Elegance
Now in its second decade (started by car collector Bill Warner in 1996), the Concours d'Elegance is among the top automotive show events in the world. It’s held in multiple locations throughout the year, with one of the most popular being the one in March at Amelia Island, South Carolina. Each year, “The Amelia” brings together over 300 rare vehicles from collections around the world, while raising donations for a variety of charities along Florida’s coast. Since 1996, the show’s Foundation has donated $2 million to Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, Inc. and other deserving charities.
A Concours d'Elegance, in a sense, is a beauty pageant for rare and elegant cars.
Each entry is rated for authenticity, function, history, style, and quality of restoration by a team of judges that includes specialists for each car type. A perfect score is 100, but any imperfection, no matter how slight, requires a fractional point deduction. Awards are given to first, second, and third place finishers for each class (classes are arranged by type, marque, coachbuilder, country of origin, or time period) in the event, and the judges confer the "Best of Show" award to one car from the group of first place winners.
In addition, a group of honorary judges — typically individuals who have made significant contributions to the automotive industry or motorsports — give subjective awards to recognize standout vehicles regardless of class ribbons, as well as memorial awards created to honor automotive industry personages.
The Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction
The Barrett-Jackson classic car auction takes place at multiple locations across the country, from Florida to Arizona. Dubbed "the world's greatest collector car auction", the event's popularity has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching heights not seen in the event's 44-year history. The 2014 event in Scottsdale, Arizona, saw over 1,600 classic cars sold for more than $130 million. Seven vehicles sold for more than $1 million each - the top dog being a 1966 Shelby Cobra 42,7, fetching more than $5 million.
The Barrett-Jackson auction has reached such heights that it is televised by the Discovery Channel. In that regard, it helps that the auction attracts a star-studded gallery of famous faces every year. The 2014 auction in Arizona had an audience packed with Hollywood movie stars and prominent figures from across the world of sports and entertainment. Reggie Jackson. Tim Allen. Alice Cooper, Steven Seagal. And female celebrities like Sharon Stone show that it's not just the guys who like classic cars. The Barrett Jackson also plays a prominent fundraising function for charities like The United Way and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, with past events having rasied almost $5 million per event for these worthwhile causes. Some of this fundraising is fueled by celebrity auto donations - NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon donated his 1999 champion stock car model, which raised $500,000 at auction. Masters champion Bubba Watson donated his 1939 Cadillac LaSalle Roadster, which raised $410,000 for the charity Birdies For The Brave. Not to be left out, automakers like Ford and BMW donated cars that each raised well in excess of six figures.
Famous Classic Cars: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
When you survey people and industry groups about the best classic or most popular classic cars of all time, those names pop up on many of the lists.
And as time has passed, even the bad lemon cars have a special place in the heart of the enthusiast. Some of them were so bad, their very names are synonymous with bad-car-itude. Few cars made in the last 10-20 years would make this list since mass production methods have improved automobile quality considerably. Neither would (or should) cars made before WWII, because most of those would be considered lemons today, based on our expectations for auto reliability and performance. Remember some of these?
1955 Dodge La Femme
Ah, the 1950s. A nostalgic time when men were men and automakers came up with outdated ideas like “hey, what women really need is their very own car because the ones we design for men just won’t work for them!”
Thus was born the Dodge La Femme – a true pink and white painted gem that was basically a Dodge Royal Lancer (another spectacular vehicle!). The funny thing about this one was that it was marketed as being a car designed especially for women. It had pink seats and you could get a matching purse filled with sorts of “girly stuff”. The back seat had a compartment that stored an umbrella, rain coat and rain hood, all made from material that coordinated with the interior of the car.
Amazingly this vehicle just didn’t sell that well, with less than 3,000 units sold overall. The La Femme was discontinued in 1957 after someone probably realized, “hey, maybe women really can drive these other cars we’ve been selling after all?”
1974 Ford Mustang II
This was Lee Iacocca’s idea when he took over Ford in 1970. They basically took a Pinto and tweaked it to create this Mustang model, which has been a black mark on an otherwise well-regarded model in American muscle car history. They must have thought it would be a great idea because it was smaller in size to compete against the Toyota Celica, and it was more fuel efficient to respond to the oil crisis of the early 70s. But it turned out to be heavier than the even larger Mustang models of the past because of new emissions control equipment that had to be installed around that time.
1958 Edsel Corsair
Edsel is one of the names most associated with lemonhood. The 1958 Edsel Corsair proved to be a giant millstone around Ford Motor Company’s neck. They spent $300 million (!) designing a car that ……. everyone hated! The front end was terrible, and Ford shipped cars to dealers with missing parts. The fact that Ford had to send instructions to the dealers on how to fix those “broken new” cars is beside the point, of course. And don’t get us started on the push-button gear shifters on the steering wheel that would accidentally shift the transmission into a different gear when you honked the horn.
1981 Delorean DMC-12
What?!? Marty McFly’s time machine? I bet if John DeLorean had access to said time machine, he’d go back and scrap this lemon. Actually, he’d probably use that time machine to stop himself from getting involved in the drug trade that sent him to jail and bankrupted his namesake company. But then, either of those would set up some kind of circular problem of past-present existence that might threaten to tear a hole in the fabric of the universe…..anyways, the problems with this one were myriad. You can probably start with the problem that, to make their upcoming 1981 model, the DeLorean Company chose a group of people who had never actually built cars before. If that sounds like the potential for extreme lemonhood, well, yes.
What else? The car actually leaked in the rain. You’re not supposed to get wet if you’re inside your car in a rainstorm. Remember those cool fly-wing-looking doors? If your battery was dead while you were inside the car, you couldn’t get out because the doors required power to operate.
And last but not least, it was notoriously underpowered, so much so that for the Back To The Future movie, they swapped the original engine out for a Porsche engine because the car couldn’t actually get up to 88 mph fast enough. And you need to hit 88 mph or the flux capacitor wouldn’t work.
1971 Chevy Vega
Speaking of John DeLorean, this car went out on his watch as head of General Motors in 1971. But you can’t blame him for this lemon because he had already inherited this problem and couldn’t do anything about it.
The 71 Vega was prone to rust, with reports of front ends falling off during test drives and bumpers rusting out after only one year of ownership. And the engine itself really took the cake. It didn’t hold oil, and it got so hot that it warped the heads and head gaskets. Technically, that’s not supposed to happen.
One has to wonder if any of these problems were a result of employee sabotage during the manufacturing lines, given GM’s prominent worker-management disputes around that time.
But let’s look on the bright side. For the auto industry as a whole, the 71 Vega does have a little bit of significance. It was so bad, it made foreign imports actually look good. We don’t know if this Vega was THE tipping point for the “perception balance” between domestic and foreign cars starting to shift, but it certainly was a big contributor.
1985-1987 Yugo GV
Ohhhh yeah! No lemon list could possibly be complete without the car that, arguably, most embodies the reputation for extreme lemonhood crappiness.
To make the Yugo, they took the Fiat car design and turned it over to the Yugoslav company Zastava Koral. The Yugo was small, the electrical system was bad, it just embodied cheap in every automotive sense of the word. It’s hilarious to think now that, at the time, people thought it was going to be the real successor to the Volkswagen Beetle, the highest-selling car in history up to that point.
And, of course, the big thing about the Yugo was that it WAS cheap. MSRP came in at $3990 for a new model (about $4400 after dealer prep and delivery). That’s barely $10,000 in today’s money.
It did have a rear-window defroster, though. To keep your hands warm while you’re pushing it.
Famous Classic Cars In The Movies
James Bond’s Aston Martin and Lotus Esprit. The Trans Am of Smokey & the Bandit. There are some cars that influenced entire generations, changed car culture around the world, and became the stuff of dreams for kids and adults alike. They are the cars that eclipsed the flesh-and-blood actors of the movies they were in.
1977 Pontiac Trans Am – Smokey And The Bandit
Having Burt Reynolds sliding around curves and leaping over broken bridges was fantastic for Pontiac sales. After-movie sales of the “T/A” doubled over the next two years as people fell in love with the idea of a Trans Am in their garage. They especially loved the t-top roof and the Starlight Black Special Edition paint job. Burt Reynolds was eventually given the 1977 promotional car from the film as a gift. Years later, he put it up for auction and got a cool $450,000 for it. Not a bad little gift.
Did You Know……
The movie’s director, Hal Needham (who was originally one of Hollywood’s top stuntmen during the 1960s) only originally wanted to make a low-budget B movie, envisioning Jerry Reed as The Bandit. But he was also friends with Burt Reynolds, who read the script and claimed the lead part for himself, leaving Reed to play his sidekick, Snowman. Seeing as Reynolds was the biggest box office star in the world at the time, Universal Studios greenlighted a budget of $5.3 million for the film. But just a couple of days before production started, Universal informed them that their budget was being trimmed by $1 million. Since Burt was already making $1 million in salary, that left them with just $3.3 million to make the rest of the film.
1981 DeLorean DMC12 – Back To The Future
No list of great 80s movies is complete without Back To The Future, the movie that spawned two highly successful sequels and became the highest-grossing movie of 1985 (ahead of Rambo II and Rocky IV). Michael J. Fox was the star catalyst for the film, but a close second was Doc Brown’s DeLorean time machine with the flux capacitor that kicked in once the car got up to 88 mph.
The DeLorean’s futuristic good looks (with the doors that opened up in the air like wings) made it a perfect choice for the film. Yet, under the hood, it was less spectacular, with just a 2.9L V6 engine running 130 hp – about the same as a 2015 Toyota Corolla. Director Robert Zemeckis and the production team decided this would not do and swapped out the sluggish V6 engine with a V8 from a Porsche 928. Now that’s more like it.
Did You Know……
Despite the high-profile movie boost, DeLorean car sales did not take off after the movie came out. The 1981 model was actually the only year model made, and when the movie came out, the car company was in the throes of bankruptcy due to John DeLorean’s arrest on drug trafficking charges. Back To The Future did not save the company. All the parts were sold off, and some of the car line’s body casting dies may even be found in use as anchors for nets at a fish farm in Ireland.
1968 Mustang GT – Bullitt
It’s an immutable fact that anything associated with Steve McQueen is automatically cool. McQueen’s ‘68 Mustang from the movie Bullitt had (probably) the greatest car chase in movie history, and won editor Frank Keller the Oscar for Best Editing. The association with McQueen and the movie has so elevated the Mustang in pop culture lore that it is one of the few cars that have had two limited editions produced.
Unlike the DeLorean, the Mustang has endured long after the film it starred in.
Did You Know……
The iconic car chase in Bullitt featured the ‘68 Mustang GT chasing a ‘68 Dodge Charger. The chase starts in Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, and ends in Brisbane, California. It’s notable that the chase route in the movie is geographically impossible if attempted in real time.
The Dodge Charger (the one McQueen was chasing) in the movie was originally supposed to be a Ford Galaxy sedan, but that was determined to be too heavy to execute the needed jumps over the hills of San Francisco. So they did a little upgrading to the Charger’s suspension to help it better cope with the demands of the stunt work.
The entire scene lasted 10 minutes and 53 seconds and took three weeks to film. The screenplay called for speeds of 80 mph for the chase, but the cars actually got up to 110 mph. For those that care, if you pay attention to the continuity of the shots, you can notice some out-of-order scenes where damage on one or more of the cars in certain areas appears in a different area in different shots.
The film’s editor, Frank Keller, did groundbreaking work on cutting and forming three weeks of film into a masterpiece that not only put the Mustang GT square into the nation’s imagination, but also made the streets of San Francisco another character in the film.
Maintenance ideas for classic cars
Now, let’s switch gears and talk about proper and best care of your classic car. Given how many different classic cars there are, it’s hard to make blanket recommendations for maintenance that apply equally to all of them. Taking care of a 1915 Model A is going to be different than taking care of a 1967 Ford Mustang. Classic car owners usually know some of the specific recommendations for their particular model.
Motor Oil – Choosing The Best One For Your Classic Car
Over the past decade, owners of classic cars have watched as the nation’s gasoline supply has changed substantially. Motor oils have also been changing over the years. Today’s advanced motor oils have ingredients that older classic car engines never anticipated using.
Today’s Oil is Rich in Additives, Not So Rich in ZDDP
Most finished motor oils sold today have highly specialized additives in them. These include oil stabilizers and viscosity modifiers. These additives increase the ability of the oil to protect the engines from damaging contaminants. They also help the motor oil to work well over a variety of temperatures. At the same time, they have been phasing out ZDDP (zinc dialkyldithiophosphate) from many formulations of engine oil. A compound used in motor oil for over 70 years, it has proven highly effective for protecting parts in an engine from “metal on metal” wear. For many decades, ZDDP was the go-to extreme-pressure protection additive added to motor oil. It’s especially good with problems associated with flat tappets, buckets, and followers, as well as the associated lifters operating under high pressure, where metal meets metal and rapid wear is a known problem. It is also useful for lubricating overhead cam lifters.
Research studies have repeatedly shown that ZDDP is effective in moderating engine wear. So, why remove it? The EPA encouraged the reduction of ZDDP in oil because the phosphorus component of the ZDDP causes damage to catalytic converters, deactivating the emissions-cleaning catalyst over time. Since the EPA’s prime mission is protecting the environment, they saw that as a potential problem.
Dealing with the Lack of ZDDP in Motor Oil
Classic cars, in particular, seem to suffer heavily when ZDDP is not present in motor oil. Several years ago, reports circulated of rapid wear and near complete destruction of the camshaft and lifters in overhauled classic car engines. The classic car community is a tight-knit one. They talk about what works and what doesn’t. Classic car owners bemoan this reduction of ZDDP content in today’s motor oils. They remember how well it protected their engines in the past. For these classic car owners, what are the options for getting around this problem today?
Aftermarket ZDDP Treatments
Some classic car enthusiasts swear by ZDDP-rich aftermarket oil additives. These can be especially important when rebuilding engines. Use ZDDP additives as an added treatment to motor oil during the engine’s break-in period. But use caution when adding ZDDP additives. Follow the manufacturer’s specifications and measure with care. Too much is just as bad as too little or none.
Add a ZDDP additive to your regular engine oil when you change oil, or many manufacturers offer motor oils especially made for classic cars. Motor oils specifically blended for vintage cars often will contain a ZDDP additive.
Some manufacturers now offer synthetic oil that includes high amounts of zinc as an additive. Generally, synthetic oils with high zinc packages exceed the standards needed for classic car and vintage cars, no matter how you use the car.
Other Extreme Wear Additives in Classic Cars
Some aftermarket oil additives advertise themselves as being excellent for extreme wear protection. In essence, they set themselves up as alternatives to ZDDP additives. Many of them use chlorinated paraffins as their primary protective ingredient. Makers hype chlorinated paraffins as making oil more slippery. The jury is out on whether the claim is true or not. And it’s also known that chlorinated paraffins break down in the engine environment to produce damaging acidic substances. Not something you want to have going on in your expensive classic car.
Classic car oils need changing every 3,000 miles. Choose an oil containing a ZDDP additive for your classic car. Normal oil, with additives already in it should work just fine if they also contain ZDDP, or use your regular oil and add a ZDDP supplement or another anti-wear protective supplement that does not contain chlorinated paraffins, like X-tra Lube Concentrate.
Classic Cars & Using Synthetic Oil
Using the right kind of oil is an essential issue in the care of classic cars. The oils of today are very different from the oils a classic car would have used back in its first life. They have advanced additive packages that protect the engine and prevent harmful sludge formation in ways that old-time oils never had the ability to do. And they’re only going to keep getting better.
Ask the average person about the most significant advances in motor oil, and they’ll probably say something about synthetic oils. That’s certainly one of them. The first synthetics were used as aircraft oils during World War I,I while Mobil 1 in the 1970s is generally considered the first large-scale commercial synthetic oil for the automotive market (although some vehicles have been using certain kinds of synthetics as early as right after WWII).
Synthetic motor oils are great – they resist oxidation and sludge formation better than conventional oils (largely due to their highly refined base stocks), cope better with temperature changes, and lubricate some parts of the engine better than conventional oils. Because they are created in the lab instead of “pulled out of the ground”, their formulators have the ability to tightly control the composition of the oil – the kind and ratios of the different molecules in it. Which makes the oils better able to do what they’re supposed to.
So it would seem that synthetic oils offer the perfect solution to the wants of classic car owners. Synthetic oils offer high-quality, state-of-the-art protection for the engines they’re used in. Owners of classic cars want the best for their automotive babies. The natural question that follows is…..
Can You Use Synthetic Oil In A Classic Car?
There’s a lot of debate in the classic car community about whether or not it’s a good idea to switch from conventional to synthetic oil in an older, classic car. And since synthetic oils are higher quality, you might be tempted to switch over. But there are some caveats for switching that have to do with the additives in the oil.
It used to be that the experts would recommend, for any older vehicle, not to switch from conventional to synthetic. This advice was based on concerns about synthetic oils containing ester compounds that might interact adversely with engine seals in cars that were higher mileage, causing oil leaks.
Today, these concerns aren’t really valid anymore. Automotive experts now recommend that you can seamlessly switch from conventional to synthetic without worrying about oil seal wear.
That’s what they recommend for “older” cars. What about classic cars? Classic car owners need to be sure they’re making the right decision when it comes to their classic car’s oil.
Indeed, these experts have different recommendations for classic cars. Classic cars may still have potential issues handling the modern additives load that all synthetic oils come with. The detergent package is a key part of this. Modern oils are really good at keeping engine surfaces clean and clear of sludge buildup, in part because of their advanced detergent and dispersant packages. Classic car engines, with their old-school lubricating systems, never had to account for the cleaning effects of their motor oils.
Older cars made before 1990 actually want some formation and buildup of engine sludge. Their oil seals and gaskets may not be as tight as in newer cars. Sludge will form over time in the engine environment and collect along these areas, effectively functioning as a sealing mechanism. That’s a good thing for that vehicle.
If the synthetic oil, with its advanced detergent package, is introduced into such a system, it will seek to clean out sludge from the engine, meaning there’s a chance it could remove some of this sludge that was acting as a seal. Now you have a potential oil leak.
This possibility should not, however, stop you from considering a change from conventional to synthetic in your classic or older car. You just need to be prepared to keep an eye on your car’s oil usage after the switch. It may require you to change your oil more often. And no matter what, always change your oil filter during your oil change.
Classic Cars & Fuel Problems
Classic car owners know their engines inside and out - fuel tank, fuel line, carburetor, spark plugs, ignition. Today’s modern fuels contain ingredients - detergents and additives such as ethanol- that classic cars didn’t encounter during their prime days. If a classic car isn’t ready for running on today’s ethanol blend fuels, problems can quickly show up.
Today’s on-road gasolines contain at least 10% ethanol content. Within the last 5-6 years, the government has approved a rise of the upper limit to 15%, but that is not yet widely available. And, while still rare in the marketplace, E15 causes even more problems for cars and engines not designed to run it.
The push to ethanol addition in gasoline comes from the Renewable Fuels Standard passed by Congress, seeking higher volumes of renewable fuels (like ethanol) usage across the country. No matter your political or scientific persuasion, ethanol is here, and classic car owners must protect their cars from ethanol damage.
Classic Cars and Octane Rating: What You Need To Understand
Most people think that higher octane in gasoline supercharges the combustion in an engine cylinder, which results in additional power and performance. It is this misunderstanding of what octane actually does that leads people to spend more on gasoline than they really need to. This is important for every car owner to know. Regular drivers go back and forth to work and need to know the best fuel to buy in order to get the most from their fuel budgets. Classic car owners who want to get the best out of their vintage vehicles really need to understand this issue as well.
The Job of Octane Rating
The octane rating of gasoline gives you an indication of how much the air-fuel mixture can be compressed before it will spontaneously ignite.
It’s important to remember, when we’re considering this, that engines are carefully designed to work best when everything happens at just the right moment. For the engine to get its best power and performance, the fuel has to ignite precisely when the piston is in the right position near top dead center. But when the air-fuel mixture ignites by the heat of compression rather than by the spark from the spark plug, it causes knocking in the engine and a loss of power. The knocking sound is caused by two exploding flame fronts generating pressure waves that meet in the combustion chamber, one from the compression ignition and one from the spark ignition. This is bad for your engine.
Lower octane gasoline, like "regular" 87 octane gasoline, can handle the least amount of compression before igniting. And this gives these fuels the highest risk of pre-ignition (igniting too soon relative to the position of the piston).
What Octane Does Your Car Need?
What determines the octane rating that works best in an engine, classic car or otherwise? The compression ratio of your engine determines the octane rating of the gas you must use in the car. A "high-performance engine" has a higher compression ratio and requires higher-octane fuel to prevent it from prematurely igniting fuel before the spark plug does it. The higher the compression, the higher the heat generated by compression will be.
Fuel having a higher octane value does not “enhance” the explosion in the cylinder like most people think, if they’re even clear to themselves on what they think this means. It just prevents the air-fuel mixture from igniting too quickly before the spark plug does it. Firing the air-fuel mixture at the proper time gives you the maximum power your engine was designed to get.
Why Ethanol Is Bad For Classic Car Engines
You may find this hard to believe, but the Model T Ford, back in 1909, was designed and able to run on straight ethanol fuel. The Model T’s fuel system was very simple on these early vehicles, consisting of a galvanized fuel tank, a fuel bowl, a short copper fuel line, and a very simple cast-iron carburetor. There was no fuel pump because the fuel was gravity-fed to the carburetor, which was positioned lower than the fuel tank.
As time went on, carburetors were manufactured out of different metals or aluminum. These metals are more affected by the corrosivity of ethanol, and substantial damage has resulted from their use. Today’s ethanol fuels also damage rubber and plastic parts in older cars. Gaskets, accelerator pumps, rubber fuel lines, seals and diaphragms in fuel pumps have all suffered from the destructive effects of ethanol.
If you wanted to narrow it down, there are three big reasons why today’s ethanol-blend gasolines are bad for classic car engines.
Reason #1 - Less Power and Poor Mileage
The most immediate fuel problems that classic car owners see when using ethanol gasoline are poor performance in their classic cars. Ethanol is a simple alcohol that burns at about two-thirds of the power of gasoline. Less energy per molecule also means lower gas mileage, though classic car owners may not be as concerned about that particular thing. While the EPA reports that 10% ethanol content decreases gas mileage by three percent, many owners report decreases of up to ten percent.
Reason #2 - Water in Ethanol Fuel
Ethanol attracts water as if it were a sponge, even extracting water (humidity) from the air. This can be bad news for classic cars, as ethanol and water can be highly damaging and corrosive to metal, plastic, and rubber parts that may be present in older classic cars. Metal parts of the fuel system rust, while plastic and rubber parts disintegrate.
Correcting this problem means some cost and work. Remove all rubber and plastic parts of the fuel system and replace them with fiberglass and other materials that resist the effects of ethanol destruction. Many owners even replace their gas tanks with fiberglass tanks. There are also fuel treatments additives that protect surfaces from corrosion and that make E10 better able to hold water when added to the fuel tank.
Reason #3 - Ethanol Gas Has a Shorter Shelf Life
Ethanol shortens the shelf life of gasoline to about 90 days. This is another potential fuel problem for classic car owners who often leave their cars garaged for long periods of time. The gas can undergo fuel phase separation as it absorbs water over time. Within your fuel tank, the gasoline separates into layers; the top layer is gas, while the bottom layer is a mixture of ethanol and water. If your fuel pump inlet is at the water layer, your engine floods with a water-alcohol mixture, and serious damage results.
Ethanol Gas and Lean Air Mixtures
Another area of concern for older classic cars is a condition where the air-fuel mixture is lean. Ethanol itself has 25% less energy than gasoline, and most carburetors are calibrated with their jets based on the energy level of gasoline. Because ethanol has less energy, more of it is required to maintain the same air-fuel ratio. Therefore, a classic car will end up not having enough fuel in the fixed-air mixture, creating a lean mixture.
A lean mixture is one where there’s not enough fuel in the air-fuel mixture; this is in contrast to a rich mixture, which contains too much fuel relative to the amount of air being supplied. This lean condition results in a very hot combustion mixture, which can burn valves, spark plug electrodes, take the tension out of piston rings (causing compression and oil consumption problems), and damage the tops of pistons. Lean mixtures run considerably hotter than correct fuel-air mixtures.
Protecting Your Classic Car from Modern Ethanol Fuel Problems
Running vintage cars on contemporary gasolines containing ethanol can create problems for classic car owners. Most of these cars run best on pure gasoline, not gasoline treated with ethanol. Thanks to regulations from the federal government and the economics of the farming and fuel industries, finding pure 100 percent gasoline is nearly impossible.
Lots of documentation exists about damage to all kinds of engines running on E10 gas. The United States Environmental Protection Agency also allows the sale of E85 fuel to join E10 at the pumps. As bad as E10 is for today’s cars, ethanol fuel problems are worse for collector cars. Fortunately, there are ways to keep classic cars safe from the danger of ethanol gasoline.
Seven Steps to Avoid Ethanol Fuel Problems in Your Classic Car
- Use ethanol-resistant hoses or nylon tubing to replace any plastic or rubber fuel lines.
- Replace fiberglass fuel tanks with a stainless steel tank.
- Use a water separator filter in the fuel line leading to the carburetor. Since water collects in the filter, you can easily remove it.
- Change out any O-rings in the fuel system to ethanol-compatible rings.
- A carburetor fogging solution prevents condensation from filling fuel bowls.
- Use a flex-fuel-compatible fuel filter, as it stops degradation of the fuel filter media.
- Use a non-alcohol-based fuel treatment to prevent excessive water collection in your fuel. Ethanol-based fuel treatments worsen problems caused by E10 gas.
Following these steps adds to your short-term costs, but will protect your classic car from the problems associated with E10 fuel.
Protecting Your Classic Car from Fuel System Ethanol Damage
There are a number of things that can be done to reduce the chances of having fuel system damage with your classic car. If you plan to store your vehicle for a period of time and have the ability to turn off the fuel supply, run the engine until it quits, to consume any fuel in the carburetor. If your vehicle is stored in an air-conditioned building, draining the carburetor may not be a good thing because the air conditioning dries out the gaskets and seals, causing leaks when taking it out of storage.
It’s also advisable to protect the fuel system with an ethanol fuel treatment. Bell Performance formulated a very good one called Ethanol Defense, but there are a number of other products out there in the marketplace. They all claim to do great things in ethanol fuel, but there are certain important things you want to look for in selecting something like this for your classic car.
First and foremost, a good ethanol fuel treatment should absorb and remove water from the fuel, delaying phase separation and enabling longer storage of ethanol blends, and it should do these things without using alcohol in the formulation. It should protect the fuel system components against the corrosive effects of ethanol, and stabilize the fuel so it does not deteriorate when the vehicle is in storage. It is important to use a product like this whenever a vehicle is going to be stored for a length of time.
Again, there are many products on the market today that claim to do all of these things, but most do not or only do one thing. Many of them contain alcohol under different names, and you have to remember that you cannot fix an ethanol problem by adding more (alcohol) of it. Bell Performance products are guaranteed to work, and they do not contain alcohol. Ethanol Defense can ease your mind when you must use ethanol-blended gasoline or when storing your vehicle for an extended period of time.
Electrical Maintenance For Your Classic Car
Classic Car Batteries and Electrical Problems
The use of lead-acid batteries goes back over 100 years, and the chemical principle used to store energy is basically the same as it was 100 years ago. For car batteries, the life span of a battery depends on how it is used. You can expect anywhere from a year to 48 months, but only about 30% of the batteries will reach the 48-month mark. Most classic cars are not driven 365 days a year, and in most cases, they sit in storage more than they are driven. This has a negative effect on battery life.
You can extend the life of your battery with some good common-sense maintenance practices. Battery and electrical problems were the second most common problem during the yearly classic car Glidden Tour that I used to work with. So let’s talk about some of these common problems, their causes, and the solutions.
Battery Sulfating – Their Biggest Problem
Batteries that sit for long periods of time and are not recharged will experience sulfating of the internal plates. The most common situation where you find sulfating is in a battery that has not been charged for an extended period of time. The sulfur molecules in the battery acid become so deeply discharged that they begin to coat the battery plates. In time, the plates in the battery will become so heavily coated that the battery dies. In most cases, the battery will not recover from this condition and will need to be replaced.
What battery to select
When replacing a battery, you should select one with the highest reserve capacity or the highest amp-hour rating. Batteries come in two types, wet cell and gel cell. The wet cell also comes in two different types: serviceable and maintenance-free. Gel cell batteries usually cost twice as much as a wet cell, but the advantage of a gel cell battery comes when storing your classic car for a period of time. These do not sulfate or degrade as easily as a wet cell battery, which makes them more desirable for use in sporadic-use vehicles like classic cars.
Most batteries have a date code on them indicating when they were manufactured. The letter (A) is for January, and the letter (M) is for December. The letter (I for Indigo) is not used because it can be confused with the number (1). So if you see a code B5, that means the battery was manufactured in February 2005. To avoid a battery that has begun to sulfate, be sure to select the newest battery available.
Practices to extend battery life
Good maintenance practices can extend the life of your battery. The battery should be kept clean by using a baking soda and water solution. Battery acid that settles on the top of a battery will create a minor short between the positive and negative terminals and shorten the life of the battery. You can check this with a digital volt meter by touching the positive terminal of the meter with one lead and touching the top of the battery in different places with the other. If you get a voltage reading, the battery should be cleaned. The battery terminals should be cleaned and tightened because starting problems can commonly be traced to bad connections at the battery.
The type of terminals also affects the starting power of the battery. Inexpensive lead battery terminals do not work very well because they tend to loosen over time and corrode at the connection points. Brass terminals are far more desirable because they maintain a tight connection to the battery terminal. Battery terminals should be coated with grease or petroleum jelly to prevent oxygen from coming in contact with the terminal and contributing to corrosion. When adding water to a serviceable wet cell battery, you need to use distilled water that is free of minerals.
Electrical system advice
When working on your vehicle’s electrical system, including the battery, a few safety precautions should be observed.
Safety glasses should always be worn when working on or around the battery.
All jewelry should be removed to prevent severe burns if a ring or watch makes a connection between a hot wire and a ground. Many mechanics have lost fingers or suffered severe burns because their ring turned red hot instantly when they touched a hot lead.
Although it is rare, explosions have occurred when batteries are shorted, igniting the hydrogen gas. Eye injury or blindness can occur if sulfuric acid from the battery gets into your eyes.
When removing battery cables, always remove the negative cable first and reinstall it last. This will prevent the chances of electrical arcing if you are removing the positive cable first and your wrench touches a ground, which is the entire body.
Reading the Vehicle Charging System
The charging system voltage of the vehicle is also very important. On a six-volt system, when the engine is running, you should see around 7 volts at the battery. On a twelve volt system, you should see a voltage between 13.2 and 14.2 volts. Any reading higher than these usually indicates a voltage regulator problem. Overcharging will overheat the battery, shortening its life and generating excess amounts of explosive hydrogen gas.
Other electrical problems for classic cars
A couple of other problems that regularly cropped up during the Glidden Tour were electrical shorts and batteries that would go stone dead overnight.
It is important that all wires or wire looms that go through the metal firewall have rubber grommets in the holes before wires are installed. A number of cars experienced electrical shorts in this area and resulting in burned wires and, in some cases, fires that erupted at the point of a short. All wires should be kept away from exhaust manifolds and should be secured in place with wire ties. If you have an electrical short that is blowing fuses, a good indicator of where it is can be determined by finding something in the vehicle that is not working.
If the battery is going dead overnight, you may have a parasitic electrical draw by a component that is on when the ignition is in the off position. A quick way of determining if you have a draw is to remove the negative battery cable from the battery. With everything turned off in the vehicle including under hood or trunk lights, put a test light between the battery post and the cable terminal. If it lights, there is a draw. You can now remove one fuse at a time until the test light goes out to determine which component or system is at fault.
Finally, you have probably heard that if you set a battery on a concrete floor, it will discharge the battery. That was true years ago when battery cases were made of tar paper. This does not happen with today’s modern batteries.
How to Improve the Efficiency of Your Classic Car
Classic cars are a labor of love for auto enthusiasts. And while there are some big benefits to owning a classic car, there can be a few notable drawbacks as well - notably, how inefficient they run.
Yes, classic cars are gas-guzzlers compared to the fuel-efficient models that are rolling off the assembly line today.
And while it's next to impossible to modify your classic so that it gets 40 mpg, there are certain things you can do to improve its efficiency. Here's a look:
Fuel Treatments
Fuel additives can help keep the engine cleaner and thereby run better for the life of the car. And to boot, they aren’t too expensive.
Lower Suspension
Another costly upgrade, but many classic cars have a tendency to ride high. Replacing the original suspension with one that helps your car ride lower to the ground will translate to more mpgs. That's because it will displace less air, increasing cruising efficiency.
Attention to Detail
Unquestionably, one of the best ways to maintain - and increase - the efficiency of your classic car is to ensure that it's properly maintained.
Stick to a maintenance schedule and consider making improvements (i.e., ignition system, new spark plugs, etc.) when need be. Sometimes it's the little things that make the big difference. You love your classic car. Just because you own a car that was built decades ago doesn't mean it has to run like it was originally built to. Adding things like fuel additives to the gas tank, new fuel injectors, or even a new overdrive transmission – these can significantly improve the running of your classic car.
