Re: [AMC-list] over built old school, new used and etc, / mythbusters eagle vs snowplow

[wrambler242@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Trunions....
Everybody, cept the few that have read Tom's page or rebuilt a set, well, the non believers abound!
   The only place they pose danger is in the lower position and then only when downright abused!  

   As an example, my 65 ambo convs are tight and turn freely in all directions at 103K. The 990H showed 60 some K and when I took that suspension out all I discovered that had any play at all is one outer tie rod. ONE. This is the car that was flooded so thoroughly in the Ohio river some 3-4 years ago that the unibody rails have 2-3 inches of river mud packed into them!  Yet the trunions are free and turn nicely. 
    My American probably has about 80K on the body. It still has the original upright and horizontal trunion bushings in place! They were in such good condition I just lubed them and left them in place. 
   Seems to me with minimal care the trunions last forever, the bushings are what dry rots and fails. 
   You can bet the conv will not be getting some multi thousand dollar ft suspension!  I am seriously considering bagging it for tow purposed, but may just do bags in the coils. Air shocks would do fine too. I see why most people did not have air shock issues with the Ambo. The 65-66 have massive plates that cover the entire area between the rails. I'm not kidding one great big stamping at least 16 gauge. Both the shocks and coils go through it. It's at least 18" by 36" or so.  I'd be surprised to see an air shock punch through that plate!  

Yep, over built monstrosities Gotta love'em!

In dealing with constant renovation/upgrade work in a 40 year old building I constantly see designs that have little respect for the end user. Over built,under bid,strange,wrong and pointless, all rolled up together. 
   Engineers, designers, architects get caught up in the grandeur of their project. When cost over runs occur it is often the stuff we users want the most that goes away first!  
    I suspect that in the auto industry it is the "look" ever see a "cube"? Or the status "prius" ever hear what an out of warranty battery pack costs? 
    It seems the reliability factor is approaching matching numbers so close as to be meaningless. 
    It is now only a matter of what a person perceives as a "good" car/truck for their purpose. 

    I found my DD game plan 3 years ago. I bought a 36k mile Grand Cherokee off its 3 year lease, still had 2 yrs of drive train warranty, all new fluids, brakes and tires. It was $18-20K less than the matching "new" one. When I am ready for another that is what I will be looking for. That won't be for a long time. 
    Oh yeah, even though I knew I was going to tow I bought one WITHOUT the tow package! Simple reason. Less chance it had been used hard. The factory hitch and bezel cost me $75 off a total. Harness was $30. Biggest trans cooler could get in place was another $60. 
  Whopping $165 total to make tow worthy. 
  It already had the 3:73's and 4.7L. 
  While I'm wramblerring on I put a set of those over hyped E3 plugs in it before vacation. It gained over 1mpg on the trip and so far is staying at almost 2mpg improvement in mixed driving. So far I am impressed with 4k on them, time will tell. 

As for the hotchkiss/live axle. It has so far remained the choice for just about all "muscle" and rears drives due to cost and the simple fact that straight line racers don't like breaking all the extra parts of an IRS. The GTO was a dismal failure. Drag racers that bought IRS Cobra mustangs often pull them out too. 
   
    Like it or not the mix of IRS and hotchkiss/live axles will be around for a while I suspect...


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-----Original Message-----
From: tom jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>
Sender: amc-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:39:17 
To: AMC, Rambler, Nash, Jeep and family<amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: "AMC, Rambler, Nash, Jeep and family" <amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [AMC-list] mythbusters eagle vs snowplow

On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 6:46 AM, Peter Marano <pmarano@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


> Japanese cars of the 70's and 80's sucked as well.  People were drawn to
> them by the price, and the fact that you got less car which resulted in more
> miles to the gallon.

What, you didn't like Honda's special 3-barrel carb that required a
special propane enrichment device to tune it?!


> There are those of us that don't mind the Hotchkiss rear design, and I dare
> say we are in the majority.  Sure I give up some ride and handling, but what
> I give up I probably never used.
> I don't mind simple.

Oh it's a fine thing -- and since they were all so grossly overbuilt
they last forever, interchange is a snap, the gear set is not trivial
to set up but rarely needs any attention at all.

But it was a poor DESIGN choice to stick with. It utterly limited the
body style, assembly techniques, the interior shape capacity and mass
of the rear half of the car. Half laziness and half HP -- I'm
guessing, but for large V8 cars it's probably cheaper to make one
handle high power -- fewest torque-handling rotary joints.

By designing V8 cars and sticking sixes in them they invited the world
in to walk all over them -- for the vast majority of people not
interested in V8s. Like it or not, non-8's have been the bread and
butter of the auto world market. Most people most of the time don't
care that much what's under the hood and operating cost really does
matter.

I realize that's not where us car nuts interests lie though! I'm not
criticizing anyone here, 'cept maybe Detroit (and Kenosha) lack of
foresight. The old rear axle design we have makes keeping an old car
running that much easier!

It's kinda funny of you think about just how GROSSLY overbuilt they
are -- assuming stock power levels, the only thing that ever wears out
is outer axle bearings and grease seals. I'm not complaining about
that!!! But for manu's that's wasted money in a product with a limited
life.
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