Wickersham Humble

News Flash! Okay, while I'm damning Car Tech Books with faint praise, I get a call from 'my guy' there: my "Z-Car" book is coming out in revised edition after all! After CA Bill's Automotive Handbooks ceded all their car titles to CT, I got the impression that it was dead, and they'd only be selling out the remaining stock, or at best doing an exact (obsolete) reprint, but not so! I get the proof mss. in a week or so, and get to 'red-pencil' it for imminent publication. Whew! Am I relieved! New life for an old manual -- but then it's still the only game in town for early (1970-78) Z restoration, as far as I know. Never actually out of print for 35 years! Yay! Wick

I had a bestie in the Army who (another draftee) who was a professional industrial model-maker, eg. he made wooden -- and soft-metal, other materials -- machinists models for shops; amazing skill! Read the blueprints, and created a dimensionally-perfect 3-D prototype that the machinists and so forth could refer to for size/shape. He was assigned (typical Army, but... ) to their Medical Museum and making displays; besides hanging around together and riding dirt bikes, I worked a rotating one-day-per-week shift with Mike, otherwise I was doing drafting, lettering, and R.Crumb-style cartoons for the Medical Field Service School at Ft. Sam Houston, TX. While most draftees went straight to 'Nam (home-town bestie was killed there two-weeks in country!) we were both left to our MOS jobs, and ETS'ed from Ft. Sam. I bought my new 1970 240Z there. Ex-SP5 Humble 81E20

Okay; makes sense. I never use water-based paints; no use starting a new system at my age and stage of development, tho. My B-B pack might be old enough to be lead; I'll check. But, think I'm off B-B's. now. Thanks a lot! Wick

John, nice look! Source...? Wick

I believe that putting B-B's into a jar of paint as agitators affects the composition of the liquid; after having to toss a plethora (Jefe!) of Testors jars with B-B's, I stopped the practice, especially when the Daisy pellets emerged without their copper plating! Wick

I only have the old Ala Kart Red Ram hemi version, but don't forget, the original 1/1 engine wasn't as big as the Chrysler/DeSoto version, so the original Dodge from '54 was smaller, right?* I had one for a while in the '80s, dumb 4-door, but a torquey little monster even with stock 2/bbl. Moreso than my pet Power-Pak 265 Chevy Nomad at low rpms, anyhow. Great match for it's 3-sp./OD trans! Too bad so few were built/sold. Chevys got rpm's a lot quicker, oc. Like my '61 Tempest (Buick) 215 V-8, light but not small; it's the same dimensions side-to-side/top-to-bottom as the SBC, but actually longer due to front distributor! The original 221-260-289 Ford resembles it. Only 3,600-ish Tempest/LeMans V-8's total in 1961-62. Few survive in Pontiacs. Ever see a Diamler 'hemi' V-8, or the little Siata/Fiat V-8? Or, the Toyota?! Wick *It didn't use the same castings as the upper-priced cars, did it? Sure looked smaller, and cuter.

One of the big selling features of my "How to Restore Your Datsun Z-Car" manual was the set of Datsun parts-book exploded drawings and call-outs we were able include as an appendix. NISSAN USA wouldn't supply me with the material, but said if a dealer let me have them, it was okay -- no joke! Datsun dealers who were established in the early Katayama era (late '50s) got a lot of concessions from them for taking on the new-to-USA Datsun line. I also borrowed the entire 'recall bulletin' collection from 1970-78, and culled it for pertinent info on Z's, plus some other technical drawings from their shop manuals. Basically, stuff I'd like to see if doing a good, accurate restoration of their cars. My text far outshone my photos -- it was a learning curve! Aside: Datsun recruited dealerships so assiduously before 1960 that a local outfit that was established to sell McCulloch chainsaws was recruited, Norbergs Motor Center, Redding CA. The dealer I bought my new 1970 240Z from operated under a huge Renault sign; Calmbach Motors in San Antone, TX. Wick

MoToR's went way back to when that was a car mag, I think! A 'friend' swiped the one I got for Xmas in '63, darn it! Loved the 'faces' of each year of auto, used for reference when drawing frontal views when I should have been doing my mechanical drawing projects. I have a number of older ones, too. I like the manufacturer's shop books, but they vary a lot in usefulness. The GM ones were used, because of their good grammar, I guess, to teach English in some of the Arab countries, it is said. They truly are meant for factory mechanics, though, and gloss over many, many needful details -- for my money, after 60 years of screwing around with Chevy's and Pontiacs, mostly. I like the 1949-51 Ford book (reprint) I have, esp for readability, but it has some of the same faults. Great illustrations. I had Datsun books for all the first-gen Z-Cars; great in some ways, hilarious in others. They never had a native-speaking English/American beta reader or editor, obviously, and got some nomenclature badly, humorously wrong! A brake-adjusting spur was called a 'claw.' When they suggested something be shaken, they said 'give it a vibration.' And so forth!! And imported motorcycle manuals -- don't ask! Wick (now writing 'stream of conscious' style.)

John: Thanks! As mentioned, I tried Indycals resin sets, and liked them okay, but they seem smallish for my needs. I'd like to have the real old skool tall Firestones (etc) with a fairly hunky profile. I have 3 project that need them, including a Strombecker Scarab (1960) that has really bitchin' bean-hole Halibrands (which I have been trying to recast in resin) and came with real rubber tires. OC, for authenticity, they should have had wider rims and taller tires on the rear, but the kit was one of those pre-slot car tryouts, with a slot-steerer front end, and battery powered motor. Also, a Comet Panther (sort of a Bonneville racer, set up for Jet-X (not Musk-X) power as an option) of which I still have one tire/wheel, and a decal sheet. They had real rubber because of expected use as 'racers'. As one of my Bonneville phantoms is going to be powered by twin-Caddie V-16s, I'll probably just use the tall wire wheels and hard plastic tires from the kit, as it's a throw-back piece to the 'thirties. I need to try to cast that one Comet tire, I guess. You didn't say what site had the tires you show? Indycals? The grommet trick looks okay after running tires through old glass-beads (for salt); big issue was they were a tad too big for my BulletBird chassis! The Challenger wheels/tires are indeed smallish; both that kit and the Ivo Buick Showboat kid were barely 1/25 scale, I thought. Provided lots of hot Buick and Pontiac mills, tho, if like me in 1962 you didn't finish them!! Old Wick

I had a friend who used do photos for Haynes; he wanted to impress me, but I got the impression he wasn't impressed, overall. The modern manual has a lot of info on teardowns, etc. which private owners haven't done for decades! Plus, in my experience they leave out a lot of pertinent stuff. My last Haynes under air conditioning just said 'go to an a/c shop.' I didn't need to overhaul my pickup, just troubleshoot the a/c electronics. OC, they come in shrink wrap so you don't know what a clinker you have until you've rung it up! Ahh; give me the old blue MoToR's Manuals -- and simple cars like my '51 Ford or '55 Chevy that were simple enough that a high-schooler could do really competent repairs on 'em! Ole' Wick '

I have a 3-ring binder stuffed with manufacturers release flyers and catalogs (interesting reading!) and I'd still like to see more of the really old kits located, restored and reproduced*. There are some very fascinating kits from almost unknown makers, some of which I had once upon a time; often still have a few bits turn up or decals. Living in a small, isolated town kept me pretty dependent on whatever maverick kits the local five-and-dime store put on the shelves;( glad when they concentrated on AMT/SMP promo-based 1/25 kits!) and there were some strange scales: 1/34, 1/20, etc. most of which were multipiece glue-up bodies. Sor hard for a ten year old! Aurora, Pyro, Palmer, Renwal, Hawk, and a few others made interesting auto kits, be fun to see them again. Wick *However unlikely!!

Tim, Hear ya! Pettersen's Motorsports, our local speed shop, has a rack well stocked with print paperback how-to's, but sadly they all show signs of wear; meaning that some have been there for literally years! He sold a half-dozen of mine, mostly as a courtesy -- a friend. Manuals are not too expensive, versus what inflation has done to the old buck, but they don't seem to be the format folks are buying -- alas! My book usually costs $25 retail, but sells for about $13 wholesale (of which I get ten to fifteen percent, or as little as $1.30 per copy!) and that hasn't changed much since 1990! Eg, if i wanted to give you one, it would have to sell ten copies just to break even in handing one out gratis for a review or some publicity. I have donated two to the local library (one lost it's cover) which also precluded a certain number of sales...! Magazines too; I'd gotten my toe in the door at STREET RODDER about 2015, but then the mag was folded up by the pubisher (after several changes of ownership) not even transferring to an online format! I began with Mike Lamm's Special Interest Autos in 1978, then Old Cars Weekly/Car Exchange, some regional tabloid types, and was Restoration Editor of Z CAR Magazine unil it also folded. Just club mags, now. And, then S____ A____, MCM's competitor... Less places for Tim to sell his good articles! As a former teacher, I can testify to the power of the 'mobile personal electronics communication device' and it's deeply spooky connection to the human brain... and it's lack of attraction to old me. "The times, they are a'changin'" for sure. I'd hoped my Z book would be published anew by CT, but maybe in vain. Funny, I've haunted 1/1 car swap meets since it was debuted, and only once found a single used one for sale -- and I've looked! It's a phenomenon, certainly. Like most of you, I love books; I collect books of many kinds, and have so many shelved that my heirs will undoubtedly curse my name when I croak, in sorting them. Oh, and a shelf of about twenty feet just of car mags, too, mostly from the '50s-60s! And, I've already given some away. Print speaks to me -- now where's that Spotlite book on car models I had? Wick

Reissue, or true replica kit, of Reventlow's late-fifties Scarab kit; I have the Strombecker 'slot car' kit, mostly intact, and am rebuilding it as a replica racer (without the M. Mouse slot-steering stuff. Slow process! Or, the other Scarab cars, even. RAI cars were knock-offs of Scagliatti (?) Ferrari bodies, but then so were the AC cars that evolved into Cobras, right? Early Kurtis or derived Muntz Jet sports roadsters. Tom Carstens HWM-Chevy racer. Ole' Yeller? Even some of the old Aurora or Monogram sports cars, or specials like the Panther, etc.. Wick

My publisher, California Bill's Automotive Handbooks, Tucson AZ (formerly HP Books, Fisher Books, etc.) suffered badly during Covid, and Bill's son Harold sold all his automotive titles to Car Tech; my title is/was "How to Restore Your Datsun Z-Car", c. 1990. It's the only Z resto book ever published, and has been 'in print' (not printed on demand) since '90, selling fairly well. Now, I don't know; we'd done a complete revision of the text (and photos) to update it before 2020, but now that's in doubt; Bob Wilson, my contact guy at CT is very dubious about bringing out the planned revised edition now, and I think is just selling out the stock he acquired last year. Publishers: they rule the roost for authors, unless you go to self-publishing, the original 'print on demand' source, and all my fiction stuff is struggling along with Kindle now. It's the best compromise I can get, at age 79-1/2! Car Tech doesn't like the b&w photos* in my manual, but who's going to do another ground-up restoration project just to get color digital photos? If NISSAN USA hadn't bought my original owner/restored '70 240Z back for a display car, I'd never really have earned back my investment in the darn thing, written about a car that sold like crazy; highest selling sports car of it's times, etc. I spent time and bucks gettin a portfolio of new color shots of a friends original 240Z for the cover, and CT is only lukewarm about using them at all. Bill's put up a dummy cover on Amazon for a few months with the red car, but... It's a strange world, publishing; take it from me! It was a learning experience, anyhow. Ole' Wick Humble *I admit that my b&w photography was on a learning curve, but we redid them digitally; all the info is there, anyhow. I used a s-pot of Nissan drawings (almost the whole parts manual for the early Z is included, with call outs) and did a number of ink illustrations myself, where needed. Also, I got permission from Yoshihiro Inomoto, the Japanese techical drawing genius, to use his X-ray rendering done for Datsun on the frontspiece. Crazy; he asked me to be his North American editor for two pretty coffee-table books he wrote/illustrated (in Japanese) but in the early '90's I could not sell them to any publishers in the US! Sad!

I bought the multi-piece kit back when it was reissued; it was very cheap, as I recall. I took off the roof, and made the b-pillar into a Targa bar. Also long hood scoop, 289-style V-8, and very '90s turquoise paint -- bumpers, etc. -- with orange seat trims, plus a surfboard. I noticed the '59 bumper right away; wierd. Recalled the Revell multipiece '56 Ford Skyliner ragtop I struggled to build, c. 1957, a real glue-disaster! Still have parts from it crop up in my stash, plus most of the flame decals. A few parts from their '56 Buick kit, too. The taste in custom junk was sooo tasteless in the '50s, reflected on the Rev kits bigtime! OC, not much worse than the Barris 'custom tips' on the AMT cars, a bit later. Barris should have stuck to old Mercs! No taste at all! The promo-style one-piece bodies that came out in the late '50s were a Godsend; I might have given up on the hobby... I noticed that I was using the Revell box for another car just recently. They also released a '60 Corvette multipiece that I built two of, for my two kids; red for the boy, and orchid for the girl. Wick

Dave, life sure gets complicated, huh? Very Old Wick

Mike, I looked in this box again; it's complete except for engine, trans, wheels & tires. It's a decent glue-bomb mostly, and almost stripped to white plastic. BUT, the rear-roof pillar is missing; the ELO turned it to mush, tho the rest seems solid. The glass is there, interior tub, bumpers, etc. I'd used Testor's ELO before, but never realized it could 'go to far' with styrene; the forum guys set me straight! It's so much like DOT 1 brake fluid, which I'm used to using and seems to never really attack the plastic. I'm happy to give it to you (cost me $10, but...), as I don't need any more projects, etc. if you'll send me some postage money after you get it!? Shoot me your address on PM, and give me a few days? I've repaired roof-pillars that were missing, but it was an ordeal! Wick Humble (79 - modelling since 1953!)

I have one to spare, but it's damaged: one c-pillar broke when I was stripping it in ELO. How bad do you need it? Some other parts available, too. Wick

Need some crazy miscellenous stuff: one AMT 1/25 chrome valve cover (from the '40 Ford kit, c. 1960 (finally have a kit project for it, and one is gone!), the 'Green Hornet' logo decals from the Monogram bucket-T kit of that name, and some old skool lakes pipes -- shorties, of approximately 2-3/4 in. long, for a '49 Ford custom roadster I began back in '63. Really be nice to score these for ongoing projects! Please if you have any of these small, esoteric items, let me give you a trade for them? My stuff is mostly sixty-years old or more, but you never know until you ask! I feel like a bum begging for stuff without sending something in return! Ole' Wick, in N CA

Sorry; I did look; maybe wrong forum topic? Still, frustrating. Call me "Wick" :-<)

Beginning yesterday, I've had some posts and message replies not 'go through' but rather 'can't find this page' notifications under MCM heading. Usually, this site is a model of efficiency and reliability. Frustrating to make a comment or send info, and have it disappear into the ether, as it were. I don't see anything like this appearing under this heading... I can't tell if mine are too long (family says so, but I'm almost 80!) or have some other glitch that is preventing them posting. Help? Wick

michelle, I have the Tamiya big-scale 240ZG kit, and I'm going to section the instrument cluster out of the dash and swap it to make a LHD North-American car. I'll have to modify the headlight buckets to the production spec, and make a new front bumper from aluminum, among other things. It's good, i suppose, that the 1/1 cars were made driving from either side so the kits at least have some of the features needed. The steering r&p box will have to be fab/swapped, pedals, etc. I wouldn't want to perform all that on a 1/24 or 1//25 sized kit, though. Wick Humble, author of "How to Restore Your Datsun Z-Car" 1990, and owner of a brand new 1970 Z (HLS 3547) which was bought back by NISSAN USA in 1995. I have a great restomod '71 now, with less than 500 miles (never been driven through a puddle!) that I no longer need, if anyone is interested...

Looks like AI is plaguing us: Hewlett/Packard duns us for printer ink that they don't send, yet won't allow us to pay our bill! AI, the very stable genius in the room? Their website won't accept any of our valid charge cards, so they don't send ink (which can't be sourced elsewhere) so we don't print, though we're in a contract with H/P. And no, live phone conversations don't help, take forever (elevator Muzak!), and leave on feeling "I'm as mad as hell, and am not going to take it anymore!" But, you all know the feeling! My first experience with PayPal: I got an acceptance of a product I had for sale, boxed it up and sent it, and then P/P notified me that the order had been cancelled insofar as my payment was concerned -- and 'talk to the hand' nothing could be done! Luckily, when the buyer received the stuff (car parts) he was nice enough to send me a personal check -- that cleared! But, failing that; I was out of luck. It's worked okay since then... fingers X-ed! No personal contact, though. Wick

I've been slowing 'restoring' my old kit that deserve it, so time consuming. Among the hot rods, it amazing how many of the frames have become toast, whereas the rest is often fixable, or good to go. I save nice looking sprue material, so that and Evergreen/Plastruct let me make replacements. Also, any old kit that struggled by with plastic axles/spindles is usually responsive to conversion to metal (so old skool!) axles, which are stronger -- and harder to glue solid to the wheel. I often replace the front hub with short pieces of plastic tubing, and make short axles of brads that have the same diameter. Sometimes the old rims, like 1/24 Monogram (or whatever scale some of their OLD cars were: 1/20 is sometimes noted in magazines) the tubing can reduce the size of the axle/spindle to be compatible without being obvious. At my age, I've made a hierarchy list of kits to finish, based on degree of completion and desirability; sad to note ones that I may never live to finish, especially when I've 'been working on them' for 60+ years. Had two '62 Styline kits that I began that year in the IPMS Dragonlady (YC, CA) Show last month! Ole' Wick BTW: anybody having trouble getting these posted "Can't find that page" msg comes up under MCM heading page?!

Craig, Began my paper route in 1956 at age 11, but my bro was a full partner, and only 9 years old! The Klamath Falls OR 'Herald & News' delivered every evening M-S, than early morning on Sunday. We had half a mountain/desert town of three-thousand, two other bros had all the other side of Hwy 395, or Main St. Sounds not too bad, but consider we had frost seven months of the year, and the burg was spread out over about six square miles; bad streets, often deep snow, and very short days, it seemed! After school, I typically had to practice my trombone one-half hour, do homework, often Little League or elementary basketball practice, and help with dinner. Oh, and ride my bike a mile to the bus station, get my bundle of papers, roll them, and take my route. Saturdays once a month we included the dreaded 'collecting' from the subscribers, some of whom wouldn't answer their doors to us! Lumbering town, men usually laid-off on UI all winter. If they didn't pay, the paper still charged us for their product; our profits making up the deficit. Admittedly, some nights Dad would take us on both route loops in the '56 Dodge Sierra two-door wagon. And yep, we were capitalists among our crowd; but Dad made us put a high percentage into our savings accounts; 'College; you don't want to dig ditches for a living, do you?' Nor be involved with the newspaper game, either! Besides, we both got very strong leg muscles, pedaling 24-in. American bikes all those incredible miles per week, and eventually new 3-speed 'racing' bikes -- though those big, thin tires sure didn't have any traction or flotation on snow! When I graduated to become a city employee at age 15 in '60, our youngest bro took over my territory. He was savvier than we; he paid out sister to do his collections, and she was hard to refuse! I worked for the manager of the local airport on weekends as line-boy, fuelling airplanes, cutting weeds, washing window (plane and office) and reading 'Flying Magazine' instead of doing my algebra work. Occasionally on stormy winter days, we had no business at all, so I made model cars at his desk, and kept the old oil stove going so as not to freeze up entirely. It enabled me to buy a '55 Chevy Delray 'post' with hot 265/floor stick/4.11 gears, and dual pipes. It was dechromed, lowered, pinstriped, and had red rims with 'Hollywood Moon' wheelcovers over red stock rims -- oh yeah, and full lakes pipes! Lovely money pit! I used to baby-sit, and parked the rod blocks away from my jobs so pals wouldn't catch on! But, it got me another job; one dad was local Forest District Ranger, and in '64 I got on a fire crew, and worked my way through college for five fire seasons! That, and playing bass in our family band. 'Louie-Louie' all the way! But that's another story... Check out my nostalgia adventure books on Kindle (search Wick Humble, or A Place on Mars series) for a slice of teen life, 1959-64! Ole' Wick