Kaiser Frazer Owners Club Forum
General Category => Cars For Sale & Wanted => Topic started by: billmod12 on October 17, 2013, 04:35:09 PM
-
With sadness, the time has come to part with my Kaiser. It has been associated in some way or another with my family as well as my younger years since it was new. It was a short feature in the KFOC quarterly, I believe Vol 43, early 2007, and is also mentioned here http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/Kaiser/ ( scroll down a little till you see "Home again II"). I no longer have the drive or health to properly maintain it. It is a very good car with low mileage 42300 and runs very well. It is a very solid car with only light surface rust on some flat surfaces. Everything is good run of the mill Kaiser. Would make a good driver with just paint or a great total restore. I do not want to go the ebay route unless I have to. I want 3500 for everything I have Kaiser. I will provide any info you need, conversation, email, pictures,what ever. It deserves a good home. If you have ANY questions please feel free to give me a call 910 313 1809 or 910 233 1154(cell). The pictures here are about 6 years old. Paint has continued to deteriorate.
-
Where is the car located?
-
Location as mentioned. Maybe take some additional current photos and add here, then advertise in the monthly. Only a few members check in on the website.
Nice interior. It would be nice to see more of the interior. This is a Special, correct guys?
-
Sorry bout that guys!!, the car is in Wilmington N.C. I am working on a detail sheet now and hope to get current pics of the car today if it doesn't rain. It does have an Over drive that works great! It is a special and to Big Dave, it is about as far as it can get from you and still be in the US. 2700 miles right straight across the country! Cheers! Bill
-
Bill
Gas isn't getting any cheaper, so with overdrive I have heard these cars can get 23-25 mpg highway.
-
My 50 Traveler with OD gets 24 mpg on the road. I cannot complain!
-
Amen!! In 1969/71 I would drive it to Chapel Hill for the NC State/ UNC football game. I was 19 at the time. With the OD I got 22MPG going and 24MPG coming back. I never got less than 21 with the OD. Used to go to Charleston, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill. I never worried about breakdowns. You could take 2 pieces of 16GA wire and drive it anywhere, call a friend at the closest antique car club, buy parts at the local auto parts store. Now I am to old for that $#!T. I am truly going to miss this car. I am 62 now and just can't justify maintaining the vehicles I have. I am going to keep our Model A and a couple of my easy crank Cushman scooters. My Dad is 85 and in damn good shape and we fly RC airplanes every day together that it doesn't rain or blow. He was the parts manager at the local Kaiser Frazer dealership ( Howell Motor Company)when this car was sold and his best friend who is now 86 and worked at the Kaiser place put the heater on it. That was his job. When a new Kaiser came in he serviced it. If it called for a heater he would take the box out of the backseat and install it. If not he would put it on the parts shelf. To sentimental to continue! More details to come. Cheers! Bill PICTURE is 1971
-
Now that's the kind of stuff new folks to KF need to know...the fact that heaters were not factory installed but instead, done at the dealer. I'd like to hear some of his service horror stories! I'll bet they're the stuff of legend!
-
JoeF and Others, My Dad was the parts manager at Howell Motor Company in Wilmington NC from 1949-1951. He said most of the nightmares were leaks especially in the open back models, Traveler etc. Another interesting point is that KF was not popular in the southeast and it was hard to get dealers. He said that once they got a dealer they would establish a group of assoc. dealers under the umbrella of the main dealer. In his case there were 7 assoc. dealers that received their cars and parts through him. He said his biggest nightmare was that every day the dealers would wait till the last minute to call in their orders and he would have to fill them and take them to the bus station before he went home that night. Another thing was that there was no going to the shelf and getting a starter, generator, fuel pump, dist, carb, starter drive etc. The mechanic would come to him and get the parts to REBUILD the unit thus the details in the shop manuals explaining the rebuild sequence. Things that used to baffle the mechanics: Keep in mind that all the other established dealers in our town, Ford, Chev, Pont, Chry, Ply, Hudson, Packard,etc had the best mechanics. Can you imagine telling a newbie that he had to get a tool and spread the opening of the rear end carrier in order to get the guts out? Can you imagine telling a new body man that he had to sign out a tool to spread or pull together the hood so it would fit in the space between the fenders. I will be glad to ask him and his friend any questions about the going on's at the KF dealership including the practical jokes. Just let me know. Cheers! Bill
-
Some pics! Ask any questions
-
More Pics!
-
More pics, again ask any questions!!
-
I see it is powered by the mighty COX .049 engine .
-
I see an overdrive relay but no cable/handle. How do you engage/disengage the OD?
-
When I was driving this car in the early seventies at a ripe old age of 20 it was out of town to shows or college affairs so I just left it in OD with a safety wire on the tranny lever. When I got the car back about 6 years ago and made it a driver I just wired it out. When I decided to sell it I put it back in OD so people could see that it works. I do have a new cable and was hoping to find a matching OD handle and mounting bracket from an old Kaiser. but just never did. It did not come with an OD but back In the day we had acquired a partially burnt low mileage 51 Manhattan and changed it out.
-
The 1951-53 Kaisers were lighter in weight than the older cars yet still had the road handling of heaver vehicles like the DeSoto. With overdrive the range for MPG seems to be around 20-24 mpg. Best repeatable MPG for the cars was the 1953 Kaisers with Hydra-Matic (dual range, the early version of overdrive in automatics) and the 3.31:1 rear axle ratio. MOTOR TREND turned 25.7 mpg officially in their 1953 Kaiser Manhattan test car on an average speed (city country driving) of around 45 mph. Fuel economy will drop notably after 55-65 mpg but this continues to be normal today.
-
CAR HISTORY I will try to make this short and sweet: Car bought new by Walter Yopp a prominent local funeral director for his sister to drive their 80 yr old mother around. The car was traded to Joe Craig, who owned the Sinclair station next to the funeral home, for a 48 Buick after the mother left the right rear door open and backed into a fire hydrant.(some say telephone pole) I being the one that fixed the damage say fire hydrant because the damage was confined to the lower hinge area. I feel that if it had been a tele pole the damage would have been up the entire door. However the door was sprung useless so Mr Yopp traded it to Joe for the Buick. The Kaiser had only 37000 on it at that time and was stored till 1967. Paint was good and sound at the time with several small bumps and bruises from the mothers driving(she did not like the daughters driving so she took over). Joe, My Dad, and I were restoring model As and Ts at the time and decided to fix it up as a nice driver. I did the body work and paint, Dad did a plain simple interior, and Joe went through the brakes and anything mechanical that had to be done and we went to ride. It came new with no clock, or radio, and had small hubcaps. We sold the car to a club member who in turn sold it to my Dads cousins husband who's Dad use to own a KF associate dealership. About six years ago the husband called me and wanted to sell the Kaiser. It had been stored in a garage since 1990. I bought it and you can see the recovery of it here. What a mess!! http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/Kaiser/ ( scroll down a little till you see "Home again II") or see the feature in the KFOC quarterly vol 43 2007. First thing my Dad and I did was replaced all the tires, brakes with new lines, cylinders, master cylinder, shoes, fuel pump, and repaired the gas tank. About 3 years ago I lost my mom to the big C, and my wife has lost her Mom and Dad over the last 2 years of long illness and our priority's have changed towards our own health and not so much the Kaiser's. In fact during the last 2 years I have gained so much weight that I can't even enjoy it because every time I turn a corner the horn ring hits my belly and scares the hell of everybody in the intersection. Got one hell of a horn!!
-
CAR CONDITION I ain't even gonna try to make this short and sweet! Since I got the car back I have driven it about 300 miles, never been more than 20 miles round trip mostly to the auto parts store, breakfast house, local pub, hardware store, events etc. During this time We have replaced tires (new but cheap), brake lines, master cylinder, wheel cylinders, shoes, fuel pump, plugs, tank sending unit and repaired gas tank. The engine, drive train and suspension are smooth and quiet. Steering is OK as far as Kaiser steering goes. All lights, horn, and gauges work, temp gauge needs new sending unit, you can ground the wire to the block and gauge works. The new tank sending unit is on the fritz right now I am going to look at it next week, think it is a bad ground. It came new with no clock or radio which it has now. The clock does not work. The radio comes on and did work but the vibrator has gone bad. The heater is by-passed, the blower works but makes a fluttering sound, Windows work and are good, rear vent window rubbers are questionable, fronts are bad. I have an extra rear windshield that comes with it. I have the run of the mill extra parts for carb, dist, points & cond etc. I have an extra Studebaker OD trans that goes with it cause a lot of the parts were the same. The seats, headliner, carpets, look good but all material is 40 years old and fragile. You can sit on it fine but it will never withstand the type of punishment it got when I was 20 and no I am not ashamed and if I weighed 75 lbs less I would go for it. The door panels are water stained not from rust but the brown cardboard underneath. The body and underneath are solid and the underneath is in great shape. The top and hood have light surface rust spattered about nothing deep. The only rust outs are in the bottom left of the deck lid area in the rubber channel about 1/2 inch in diameter and the back edge of the front of the hood along the area of the hood safety catch. I will get pictures of this and entire exterior this week, and get them posted. I also have the 51 shop manual and 52 supplement. I am going to stop now and let you ask the questions! Cheers! Bill
-
RUST! Very small rust out in bottom left corner of deck lid and rubber channel. Light surface rust on top and hood, Very minor rusty edges under front of hood in latch area. See pics and feel free to ask any questions you will not hurt my feelings.
-
Kaiser Goodies!! Gotta have da manuals!!
-
AND NOW THE REST OF THE STORY!! As Paul Harvey would say! And, yes that is my lovely wife driving the little car and if you listen carefully you may hear the engine running or her saying "Can I cut this damn thing off now?" She does like the car and is not scared to drive the wheels off it. Oh! and that is her Fairlane fun car and it is for sale also. Model A is not for sale. Cheers Bill