My goodness!
Well, I don't have a '57 Chrysler, but I have had the radios in and out of both my 1955 and my 1956 Imperials several different times over the years without any significant issues. The same also goes for the Imperials that I have which were all built between 1960 and 1968. I also have worked on a 1960 Chrysler under the dash with out difficulty. Radios on cars built after 1977 seemed to usually be accessed through the front of the dash, probably due to the fact that by then most people were ripping out (or having them ripped out) the original radio and replacing it with a high quality stereo. Having to deal with them from the back is more difficult, but definately do-able, especially if following the FSM.
Cars in the '60s may not have had odometers that go past 100,000 miles, but that doesn't mean with care that they wouldn't, in fact many of them did. Our throw away society discouraged folks from having their cars repaired by causing them to go out of style in five years or less and have NO value. The cost of a transmission rebuild is/was usually close to the amount of a down payment on a new car. In fact, I can remember seeing perfectly nice ten year old cars sitting in wrecking yards because the cost of a brake job was more than the car was worth.
Electronic ignition, cleaner burning engines, and longer lasting tires are big improvements that eliminated many high maintenance issues, but newer cars still seem to require frequent maintenance and repair if they are going to be still running good upon reaching high mileage. Since cars are now a bigger investment and financed longer than they used to be, even when adjusted for inflation, people need to make them last longer than they used to be able to pay for them. Cars are driven more often and further than they used to be by more people, so they need to be able go longer distances between maintenance items, but most also benefit from servicing somewhat more often than they demand. Our Imperials would run badly for years with no maintenance until they virtually fell apart. I might go so far as to say that many of todays cars wouldn't match our old Imperials on that score, as once they begin to fail, things tend to deteriorate much more rapidly.
Finally, I have always believed that cars were over built back in those days because there was no accurate scientific way to precisely calculate how good they needed to be to last within a certain time frame. Computers have really helped (??) in that area, which cuts cost. Over building cars that people were disposing of prematurely was a waste of resources, at least it was finanically for the auto makers.
Just a few more thoughts on the topic.
Paul W.
-----Original Message-----
From: 50scars@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 19:01:39 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: RE: IML: As my first question to the sage advisors on the IML- would the '64Imperial on ebay now be a good buy?
Also be aware that the engineers and manufacturers have learned a thing or
two over the last 40 years about designing and building transportation
modules. Fantastic machines our old Imperials certainly are, however, as
just dumb dependable cheap transportation modules, modern cars are far
superior. I see no passion or magic in the cars of the last 30 or more
years, but you will notice that cars now have the odomeeter digit that
actually shows 100,000 miles, not going back to 0 as Imperials and their
comtemporaries did. The cars of the 60s may have been easier to work on
than today's transportation modules are, but that was because they
required work on a far more routine basis than we want to admit. True,
they were repairable, where much of today's cars are remove and replace,
if you can get at it.
Which brings up another thing. I am currently taking apart a 57
Chryler for parts. It is clear that the car was designed to be
manufactured, not repaired. Now I know why back when they were $50
refugees from the junkyard, I never saw one with a functioning radio.
Possibly there was a special tool the Chrysler Dealer service dept had
to get those screws above the radio on the back of the dash, but I
guarrantee you that Joe Ling's Pizzaria and Radio repair never
succeeded in getting one out. For as large a car as the 57 Chrysler is,
working on it is nearly impossible. I have a hard time believing that
it was possible toremove and replace the heater core/air conditioning
evaporator with the engine in place. I find it dufficult to determine
how you got the engine out of there without damageing the fiber glass
cover on the heater core/air conditioning evaporator. The factory
dropped the completed body onto the completed chassis, so they didn't
care about how to get that assembly in and out of there with the engine
in the way. I have the cowl cut out from the engine side, Not only is
the front seat out, but the floor is gone, too, but it is still
requiring funny little tools I have acquired over the last 50 years to
take things out of the dash. I cannot fathom what it was like if you
had to avoid damage to the car, and try to make a living from the flat
rate manual pay rate, but get the repair done. Maybe the engineers
were a little more cognizant of repair needs in the 60s, but I kind of
doubt it.
While we may thing working on old cars is easier than on new ones, it
isn't all that easy.
John
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