Remembering the "satrt-ups," Terry Oberer wrote the following shortly before his death in 2012:
7th Start Up Party: (2000)
"Cream-Puff" was Grant MacLaren's 1931 Fordor which hadn't run for 36 years. The odometer showed 79,000 miles -- which gave Grant a good candidate to provide the basics
of a "nostalgia rod" which was his reason for buying it. The car started very easily.
(10/8/12) Grant writes, "Terry seemed to have forgotten "Cream-Puff" sat in his upper driveway for at least a week prior to the day of the "start up." And every day of that week Terry and I would turn the engine over with its hand crank -- and notice that although the valves would open, they would not close.
So, for a few minutes every day, we would turn the engine over, then reach through its four spark plug holes with a "bent-end" cold chisel and hammer on each valve until it closed. We'd turn the engine, the valves would open, but not close. After a week of banging them closed, and pouring liberal amounts of penetrating oil on their stems and guides, the valves began to cooperate. They would stick open sometimes -- sometimes close. Would they function on the big day?
It was the seventh time an old car had been successfully started at annual parties at Terry's place. This time it took the crew about one hour and twenty minutes to get "Cream Puff" running. Because of all the oil used to loosen the valves, there was a tremendous cloud of smoke when it started. After the smoke cleared, the Fordor was driven around the neighborhood a few times and, like the owners of the past few "start-ups," Grant was awarded a trophy. (A garage sale cup decorated first with a hand crank, later with a monkey wrench -- each painted silver.)
The next step was to
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builds a 'NOSTALGIA' hot rod.