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You’d think a guy with almost 2.8 million miles on his car would want to stay put for a minute. But Guinness Book of World Records holder Irv Gordon, a 70-year-old retired science teacher who bought his 1966 Volvo P1800 new, is aiming to roll his speedometer over to 3 million miles in the next three years.
I should have kept my 1958 Volvo PV444. Maybe I could have topped that by now. I drove it from California to Maine in 1962, that would have been a good start.
Amazing achievment and I'll gladly let him have the record for eternity... IMO that is far too great of a sacrifice to drive that much non-professionally.
He's 70, lets assume he bought the car when he was 25. There are approximately 16425 days in 45 years. At 2.8 million miles that is on average 170 miles per day of NON-professional driving. Conservatively, that is 3 hours a day of driving for the vast majority of his life. Since most of the miles were from daily commuting all he had for the majority of that time was same straight highway every single day.
I'ld about give my eye teeth for that car. B 18 engine, 4 speed gear box, maybe OD on it, ft disk brakes ATE or Girling, rear drums, 4 fuses, pretty cushy seats, ugly gauges, Su type 4 carbs, bakealite and steel timing gears, 044 points I think. A real car...
I'ld about give my eye teeth for that car. B 18 engine, 4 speed gear box, maybe OD on it, ft disk brakes ATE or Girling, rear drums, 4 fuses, pretty cushy seats, ugly gauges, Su type 4 carbs, bakealite and steel timing gears, 044 points I think. A real car...
As much as I adore old, proven technology... bakealite toothed gears and points are something that can stay in the past.
Points I can somewhat understand but bakelite parts have no place IMO in a powertrain. ESPECIALLY timing gears! I have dealt with crumbled bakelite toothed timing gears... terrible, terrible idea. It's supposed to be a noise reducing measure but is just a nightmare waiting to happen. Cloyes rollers for me.
Yeah that gear could break, but that ended the drive right there, sort of. They would set up a clatter before the engine stopped, but even then that type engine didn't crash.
I will never own a crash engine just for that reason. I can with ease live with that gear and the 12 bolts all easy to reach to swap one out.
Last fall a mouse built a nest over that summer in my cage, a 85 240 wagon now called 245 in the after market. That engine isn't a crash engine either, or there would have been no point installing a new belt.
I don't mind adjusting rockers at bit. I am not terrible fond of shim over bucket, and just can't stand shim under... I have had no choice of course to do shim under, but the idea just bugs me.
The 1800 is like the 122 and to swap out heater motors there were 3 wires and 5 screws all easy to get at. Same thing on the 140 series.
Then in the 240's they made a SOB of a heater motor to get. At first it had metalic motor brush holders, but then some bean counter had them made over in plastic. That wasn't a very bright idea.
I could swap out that gear in under 1 hour and drive the car away. Even the belt takes me a little longer.
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