What would be a minor problem with a car fixable by a guy with knowhow?

Try the muffler fell off (almost all the way) and was hanging down and scraping against the road. Someone could either pull it all the way off for them or maybe use a coat hanger to tie it up in place until they could find a more permanent fix.

If it was raining, the spark plug wires could get wet. If they're old, they tend to leak electricity and short out. The car would just stop running and wouldn't start. A guy might check for spark, and after seeing that it had spark tell them to sit and let it dry (and cool) for a few minutes before starting again.

A REALLY old car might have a rusted gas tank. The rust drops down and gets in the fuel lines, clogging the fuel filter. The guy could take it out, blow on it, and shoot all the gunk out. It would run for a little while after that, but would probably happen again (maybe in a day, maybe in a month) until they replaced the gas tank.

Or you could just use the good old flat tire. Maybe if the guy is used to a dirt road, he'd have a tire repair kit handy (like the kind you plug up a hole with...except the hole can't be on the side of the tire). Once he plugs the tire, he could use one of those cigarette lighter pumps to fill it back up (a lot of people carry those nowadays).

Dirty fuel - change fuel filter and/or drain the tank; electrical - distributor cap cracked, spark plug wires undone, dirty points, bad coil; fan belt broke; radiator leak - will that do for starters? Puma

If its 1930 you have a whole different set of problems that can go wrong with a car but one that i'm pretty sure about would be a bad condenser. Used in the oldies, part of the ignition system. They had 2 wires on top and could come loose and prevent the car from starting. Google it for more info but I think that may fit the bill for you.

Don Allen said:

If its 1930 you have a whole different set of problems that can go wrong with a car but one that i'm pretty sure about would be a bad condenser. Used in the oldies, part of the ignition system. They had 2 wires on top and could come loose and prevent the car from starting. Google it for more info but I think that may fit the bill for you.

Click to expand...

Duh, after all that, I absolutely refused to read before posting (1930s). I listed a bunch of problems they wouldn't have had.

Half of the things in those old cars (if I remember) ran on vacuum lines. Even things like windshield wipers. If one of them broke loose, a guy could tape it together to fix it.

In-line fuel filter could be removed with a crescent wrench and cleaned very easily.

Stuck fuel float. Tap on the side of the carb with a wrench to free it up.

Coil wire becomes disconnected.

Tri

Radiator problem. Sleazy car lot pinched of leaking tubes in the radiator and now it overheats whenever it goes slower then 35mph. Helpful guy at campsite with a stash of solder and fire heated tools spends most of the night teasing the tubes back into round and patching the leaks.

Or old fuel pumps ran on vacuum were tempermental, resisted fixing but a gas can on the roof and gravity could get the fuel flowing again. You could also take a hand pump for inflating tires provided it had an inlet valve and add suction.

A wheel that is bent and badly out of balance will go through tires like crazy and in those days cars went through tires fast anyway. You can improvise a pivot, use a bubble level to find the light spot and even it up with fishing weights and solder.

Spark plugs? What do I know about cars, I'm a woman.

Being the 1930s and immigrants, I assume these people are pretty poor.
Back then cars were pretty simple to work on with a few basic tools. A 10 inch crescent wrench and hefty screw driver and a pair of pliers were essential to have on hand. A common problem back then were barrings and bushings would wear out. The result of this wearing out would be friction from metal on metal rubbing, causing heat, and smoke to bellow out from the worn out part, and some times a fire would ignite. The surrounding grease would catch fire.


If a wheel barring wore out, an ignorant mechanic wouldn't know what the warning signs were, and would keep driving until smoke or fire were visible. He would hear the metal on metal grinding, but not what to do about it..


A quick fix for this sort of thing was to remove the wheel and hub, scrap off the bits and pieces of old barring. The they would use a piece of animal hide to wrap around the spindle, in place of the metallic barring. Most often this was pork rind from the salt pork barrel. It was important to wash every bit of salt from the rind before use.


This quick fix would last for 100 to 150 miles before you needed to repack the spindle.




Also, back then, an improved road was a gravel road. The tires would throw the gravel up to the under carriage of the car. Puncture holes in the gas tanks were very common due to this. A quick fix was to rub bar soap over the hole until the hole was plugged with soap. You had to do this morning and night to save your gas, until you got the tank fixed.

Sulong is right, but the correct spelling is "wheel bearing" in case you want to google it. The housing for the bearing is called a bushing. The wheel would lock up and not turn, or make a gosh-awful noise on turning, although the engine would run fine. In the mid stages, it sounds like a cricket is trapped in the hubcap (although I'm not sure a 1930s car would have a hub cap.) From there, it gets a lot worse.

Tri, would cars in the 1930s have had a fuel filter? I know in the 1960s some cars did not.

Some more suggestions with symptoms: A distributer (spark plug) wire could come loose, which would cause the car to sputter to a stop and not start again. Once it's reconnected, it's like magic. Car runs fine.

The fuel line could become plugged. This can be from any little bit of rust or dirt in the fuel or gas tank, or a tank full of "bad gas." The car sputters and essentially "runs out of gas" although the tank may be full. Remove the fuel line, blow it out and reattach.

A battery terminal is loose or coroded, which means the car will run but once turned off, cannot be restarted. It doesn't even turn over. This is a recurring problem -- even if the kind stranger reconnected the terminal, he would have to show them how to do it before starting the car each time. (This is a problem the dealer should have caught.)

The timing may be off. This would cause the car to jerk, going forward and stuttering to a stop erratically. Pressing on the accellerator would make the engine run faster, but not make the car go faster. The kind stranger could adjust the timing, so the car would run, but advise them to have it done by a professional as soon as possible. (It takes a pretty fair "shade tree mechanic" to get the car running by adjusting the timing, outside of a garage.) It might still run rough and jerk a bit, since he likely didn't get the timing perfect.

BTW, all of the problems we've listed could probably occur with any car of the era, even a well-maintained one. But, if you want to establish that the car salesman was unethical and took advantage of these people, you might need a different type of problem, in addition. Like: a car that burns or leaks oil, a front main seal that leaks just a little (bad news), a car with a warped frame, a car that runs loudly and roughly, or sounds like a typewriter's under the hood while it's running (rings are starting to go.) All of those problems, if not addressed in time, will likely result in losing the engine.

And Mum, I'm female, too. Knowledge of cars is not necessarily sex-linked.

If a wheel barring wore out, an ignorant mechanic wouldn't know what the warning signs were, and would keep driving until smoke or fire were visible. He would hear the metal on metal grinding, but not what to do about it..


We've had a couple of wheel bearings slowly go on us. They made a distinctive high-pitched whine from the back of the car (our car is front wheel drive and the offending bearing was one of the back wheels). You may need to check if 1930's cars were front or rear-wheel drive. Don't quote me, but I think they were rear wheel. As it got worse it made a whomp whomp sound.

The other wheel bearing that went broke completely and sounded like a steam train as the car drove. I wouldn't recommend using that one in your work as I don't think this is fixable on the side of the road!

Did anyone mention a leaky radiator? Water pours out, vehicle overheats... mechanic just needs to check it and weld it... (more or less, depending).
This happened to my hell-car due to a cheap weld job (to fix the first time or 10 it had leaked)
Or, even simpler, it's hot out and the radiator ran outta fluid. Mechanic checks it, fills it, finds no leaks, it's all good...

I've heard that women's hose could be made do for a fan belt wayyyy back when though would your migrants be in possession of such?

I recall our old AMC Rambler needing water in the radiator one time and we got it from a ditch.

How about points? Surfaces get rough but can be fixed with nail file or even emery board. Car might run but would be difficult to start until "points were filed," and preferably "set."