On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:28:49 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

AZ Nomad wrote:
On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:29:50 -0600, The Daring Dufas wrote:
Jules wrote:
On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:56:37 -0600, AZ Nomad wrote:
It's a little weird with today's cars. Except for spark plugs, there
really is nothing to tune up any more. Cars don't have points or
carbs. With unleaded gas, spark plugs last at least 50K miles. I've
replaced plugs after 50K miles that looked like they could have gone
another 50K miles.
There's still brakes and timing belts and clutches and coolant pumps and
other stuff to worry about once the mileage gets high enough, though - and
I suspect lots of folk out there believe that if it's a modern vehicle
it therefore needs no care at all...




Remember back when the service manual recommended removing the
head/heads to clean the carbon buildup every xx thousand miles?
GEEZ! I seem to recall having to do a lot of fiddling with my
50's, 60's and 70's vehicles just to keep them running reasonably
well. When I was younger, I loved tinkering with engines, now I
just want to get in the darn thing and go.

It used to be a miracle if a car went to 100K miles. Now, something
is really wrong if a car can't get past 150K miles.

I don't miss the days of when I owned a VW bug. The thing didn't
accelerate, didn't handle, got lousy gas mileage, was unreliable, and was
uncomfortable as hell. The POS only looked like a dreamcar when
compared to american cars of the 70's. 21mpg was wonderful compared to
the 7-10 mpg gas guzzlers coming from detroit.

Back in the 70's I owned 3 Renault cars, I had two R-10's a 67 and
a 73, the other a 71 R-16. I had so much fun with those wonderfully
weird conveyances. They were so funky. I found some videos of the
10's, all three of my cars were blue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMQ359twQv4

The 16 looked a lot like this one except the USA versions had quad
round sealed beam headlights. A funky 4 speed on the column worked
smoothly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VybCpvyRtFU

Darn! I wish I had those funky cars now. The 67 model 10 had an 1108cc
engine an got incredible gas mileage.

TDD

I rallied a '67 R12 with the "little" engine for 3 years. Tough cars
with INCREDIBLE suspension, but a royal pain to work on WHEN something
broke. Never broke on a rallye, if you don't count tearing the muffler
off the second or third time out.