Wool felt front wheel seal

Today Peter created new bearing seals for the 1934 Lagonda M45 Rapide. The seals of the day did much the same job as today’s plastic over steel equivalent. The main sealing surface is wool felt that, soaked in oil, does a good job holding most of the oil and grease in place. The tools of the trade are pretty simple ones: a spoon, a ball-peen hammer, scissors and a razor blade. The thick wool felt is traced and cut via razor blade.

To make the wool a bit “proud” – to stick out like the chin of a duke – paper gasket material can be cut and built up behind the wool. A spoon and a ball-peen hammer are all that is needed to make an imprint to cut out.

This twenties automotive seal technology was used in agricultural equipment for decades such as wheel seals on an Oliver or Cockshut tractor.

Using the ball-peen hammer to trace the inner lip on the gasket

A spoon has a nice radius for tracing the outer edge of the seal

Lagonda M45 Rapide front brake shoes and axle with hub removed

A group of three approaches the top of the pass.

We have a very close relationship with Rich and Jean Taylor at Vintage Rallies, and I wanted to create a video to promote and build their events. So, earlier this summer we gathered some favorite customers and friends together for a spectacular day of enthusiastic driving on wonderful back roads. We closed down the shop, and Nate, Casey, Peter and I were actually able to enjoy the cars we work so hard on.

We made sure that every car had a camera and a co-driver to run it. The result, a brief, but fun piece that shows just beginning of some of the capabilities that these cars possess. Video after the jump (click here). » Continue reading “Vintage Rallies Close to Cannonball”

Over the weekend Steve and I (Bill) headed with one of our customers to the Fairfield County Concours and Bonham’s Auction. We drove from the New Paltz area early Sunday morning, the Ferraris (250 GTE and 250 PF Coupe) caravanned to the event together, with the Steve and the Freightliner in tow, figuratively of course.

Stephan was a Concours Judge, which was as I found quite an honor. He worked to rate countless beautiful cars alongside the likes of Rupert “The Hawk” Banner, Bonham’s esteemed auctioneer, McKeel Hagerty, Dave Kinney, Wayne Carini, etc. Nice work Stephan. You can now find Stephan at the shop under his Fairfield County Concours “Judge” ballcap - commemorative gift with service.

On Facebook we’ve put up a gallery of pictures that I took when I either remembered to get the camera out or when my iPhone actually had battery life. The gallery is here – and a little teaser below. Make sure to “Like” us on Facebook so that our updates show up in your feed.

Bugatti Type 57

Wayne Carini's Leyland Bus

Dial-a-boost on the RUF CTR 1. This knob actually only varies boost from 1 bar to about 1.2 - not a huge performance increase but good to adjusting to the quality of different gasoline.

BMW 2002 Turbo

Me with the diminutive Fiat 600 that we bought.

Partial line-up outside Middlebury's Breadloaf Campus - p: D. Adolphous

A few weeks ago a few customers gathered at the shop for some coffee, a couple of donuts, and a good chat before heading out onto some beautiful Vermont roads. We headed westward with 15 cars toward Chimney Point and then east over McCullough Turnpike (App. Gap as we call it). We had lunch in Waitsfield, met with some additional drivers and their cars, and headed down Rt. 100 and over Middlebury gap and back to the shop. On the road we had a 512BB, XK-120, XK-150, XK-E, a pair of 330′s, a pair of 250′s, a 308, and Porsches from 356 through a few generations of 911′s – and a few others I am surely forgetting. The drive however was unforgettable.

David Adolphous from Hemmings came up, enjoyed the drive, and left with some great images in his camera. Now those images are available to see on his flickr account, here.

We are working on a little experiment here at RPM. I have the Ferraricraft blog linked to the Restoration & Performance Motorcars Facebook page. Now when we post to the blog, it should appear in your news feed on Facebook. You guessed it, this is a blog post to test out the system. Thanks for being our guineapig.

The owner’s handbook for an Alfa Romeo. Typically, these pages are missing or damaged. This is a 1986 handbook but the earlier ones feature a different model – even more lovely!

Hand Book for Alfa Spyder

For a Porsche 911T in 1972. The radio was 3% of the cost of the car, do radios still cost that much? I heard that the reason sunroofs are so rare on these Porsches is because they were something like an $800 option or 10% of the cost of the car – something few people would pony up for.

Invoice for a 1972 Porsche 911T