Spirit Magazine SPRING 2011 - Spirit of St Louis Region - CCCA

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Getting Ready for the Summer Seasonby Dave StuckelWith the spring around the corner and thesummer just behind we need to start thinkingabout getting ready for the show and cruiseseason. Whether you have a trailer queen, a niceshow only piece or a good old summer driverthey all need some attention before they go outto brave a new season of fun.Let’s look back and reflect on our lastdrive or show just before we stored thatbeauty for the long cold winter.How old is the battery and has it beencharged recently?Charging alone is not enough. Checkthe water level and invest in a goodhydrometer. This inexpensive little device is alot like the coolant specific gravity tester weall used to use. You know the one with thefloating balls.This will allow you to check the water levelin the battery and also you can check each individualcell in the battery to get a realistic view of thebattery condition. A charger may show a goodcharge and even a load test on a battery willindicate fair to good but if each cell is down oreven one this can accelerate the deterioration ofthe battery. This will also ease the load on theold generator or that new fancy device called an“alternator” for you newfangled drivers. Both agenerator and an alternator get their initialfield energized by that battery and then they areable to return a charge. If that battery ismarginal it will hit it with a high amp chargeright at start up.Start the car and check that thelight has gone out or the gauge respondsaccordingly. You may need to raise the engineidle a little to get the generator excitedenough to produce a good field charge.Most importantly make sure thatall the battery connections are tight andclean. Corrosion is the enemy and can rob thatpower Needed. Especially in a 6 volt application.Remember paint does not conduct electricity. Somake sure that those ground cables are attachedto good bare metal! Not Paint!Take these steps and you should be wellcharged for the summer season. "Mrs. Busch's Birthday"by Don GuttingYou may know that my 1940 Packard carriesthe sobriquet of "Mrs. Busch" as its originalowner was Mrs. August A. Busch, better knownas the mother of "Gussie", the St. Louis Cardinal'sone-time owner. The car was delivered by BerryMotor Car Co. of St. Louis on October 28, 1939.I had hoped to observe it's 70th birthday butweather and other factors did not cooperate. ButOctober 28, 2010 was a much superior day andI drove the car down to what is now PackardLofts and what is the same building from whichthe car was delivered.After a brief photo session there we headedup Locust St., turned left onto Jefferson, southon Jefferson, west on Gravois and some elevenmiles later were at the entrance to Grant’sFarm. Of course it was closed, but as this wasthe sight of the Packard's "home" for somethirteen years I finished another brief photosession there. While Berry's has changed morethan a little bit, Grant’s Farm hasn't. No strongreason for doing this; just a bit of nostalgia.Needless to say the car performed flawlessly allthe way. 20 The Spirit
OO Battery Cable Installationby Don GuttingI had been advised, and rightly so, thatinstalling a heavier battery cable for a 6 volt systemthat is used only occasionally is a good idea. It isalso not quite so easy as it sounds.This cable is noticeably thicker than theoriginal #1 and as such neither twists nor bendsas readily as the original. With my battery underthe driver's seat and the ground connection veryclose to the terminal the materials were not verycooperative. The ground cable needed to be a littlelonger than the original in order to compensate forthe wider arc of the necessary bend.The same was true for the starter cable andit was necessary to route it a bit differently in orderThe Vaughn Monroe Cadillacby Fred SummersMost of us of a certain age remember VaughnMonroe. He was an American baritone singer,trumpeter, big band leader and actor, mostpopular in the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s. His two 2stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame were forrecordings and radio. Monroe was born in AkronOhio in 1911. In 1929 he graduated from highschool in Jeannette, Pennsylvania where he wassenior class president, and voted “most likely tosucceed.” His father was an industrial engineerwho moved from job site to job site with hisfamily where they would live from 3 to 5 yearsuntil a project was completed. After high schoolVaughn attended Carnegie Institute of Technology,where he was an active member of the Sigma NuFraternity. However, he did not earn his degree.He quit at the end of his junior year. The reasoncould be traced back to his introduction to thetrumpet when he was an eleven year old. Aneighbor gave him an old trumpet to play with,thus launching Monroe’s musical interest. By theage of 12 he played in the school band. Thismusical interest carried on during his high schoolyears where he refined his trumpet work, and sang inthe high school band. Before entering college, hewon the state-wide trumpet contest in Milwaukee,Wisconsin. While in college he blew and sang at nightin various professional dance bands. During hisjunior year, Austin Wylie, a band leader in Cleveland,Ohio, offered him a job paying more money than hisfather earned as a major project engineer. He decidedhis future was music, not engineering.He moved on to the Larry Funk OrchestraSpring 2011to get it through all passages. You might want toroute the cable first without terminals to determinethe necessary path. Bear in mind that if there is aconduit it may not fit. I found it helpful to attachthe battery terminal temporarily and put same onthe battery to hold it in position, bring the cable tothe starter, hang the starter terminal to coincidewith the cable (it did NOT want to go at the sameangle as the original) and then insert the cable intothe terminal. Staab Battery Co. was very helpful incutting the cable for me and in final attachment ofthe terminals. There are in a most inconvenientlocation off Pershall Road at 7201 Polson Lane(near I-270 and Lindbergh): phone: 522-6288.Generations Photographyas a vocalist and trumpet player for even moremoney. In 1936 he signed up with society bandleader Jacques Marshard who played in the NewEngland areas, which put Monroe in Boston oftenenough to continue his studies at the New EnglandConservatory of Music. In 1937 Marshard askedMonroe to be a bandleader in one of his groups.Then in 1938 Monroe commenced construction ofhis own high-end night club and restaurant. Itwas named The Meadows, and opened in 1940 inFramingham, Massachusetts just west of Boston.Starting in 1941, he hosted the national radioprogram the Camel Caravan. The program was aninstant success. Monroe was tall and handsome;this helped him both as a band leader and singeras well as in Hollywood. There he made 4movies: MEET THE PEOPLE, CARNEGIE HALL,SINGING GUNS, and THE TOUGHEST MAN INARIZONA. Although all of his films made money,Monroe, for what ever reason, never pursued anacting career. He recorded extensively for RCAVictor; with well over a million copies sold, his21
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Spirit Magazine SPRING 2011 - Spirit of St Louis Region - CCCA

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