Category Archives: Vintage Vehicles

My trials and tribulations with my “new” 1950 Studebaker pickup.

More about trains

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been working with JMRI which has really nice graphics, but so far I haven’t been able to figure out how to set up a schedule and let the trains run automatically.

So I thought I’d look at Rocrail, which is supposed to be good at that.  The graphics are not quite as nice as JMRI’s and the GUI interface can be awkward.  For one thing, the fonts are too big to fit into the boxes on the screen.  Another thing that I find annoying is that clicking on OK after updating the info on a locomotive takes you right out of the locomotive section.  One thing that I do like is having pictures of the locomotives in the GUI.  Being able to pick “that one” instead of having to remember whether it’s the Rugen or Waldenburg locomotive is great.

Here are the pictures that I took for Rocrail.

Continue reading →

Catch up

Posted on by
Reply

As you can see from my previous posts, I have been having a lot of fun with my truck and the Sunshine chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club. I am now managing the Sunshine Chapter’s website.

In the mean time, I replaced the Davis Vantage Pro with an Oregon Scientific WMR200A station. It lasted about 3 months before the rain gauge failed. I now have a Davis VantageVUE connected to a MeteoBridge. That’s a neat gadget from Ambient Weather which is a linux (naturally) computer measuring about 3″ square and less than 1″ thick. It talks to the weather station via a small radio a little larger than a thumb drive. It is also connected via ethernet (or wifi) to my local network and the internet. It periodically sends data to Weather Underground and a MySQL database on my server. The server then updates this web site.

Continue reading →

VFW Breakfast in Stuart

Posted on by
Reply

We were told that there would be about 60 cars at a breakfast at the VFW lodge in Stuart.  It was about 70 miles from Boca, so I started early. I kept to the back roads.  I’m not brave enough to try I-95.  I went up Military Trail, cut over to Jog, then the Bee-Line highway.  Eventually I got on the Kanner Highway (FL 76).

When I got there, only 6 cars showed up.  Three were Studebaker trucks.

3 count them 3 Studebaker trucks out of 6 entries

3 count them 3 Studebaker trucks out of 6 entries

On the way back I went  down Dixie for a while looking for a gas station that had pure gas.  The alcohol in regular pump gas is not good for old cars.  Fortunately I have a PureGas app on my cell phone.  It found a station for me.  I probably could have made it back without stopping.

During the trip back, my oil pressure dropped.  I wound up putting in 2 quarts.  By the end of the trip I figured that my truck get 500 mpg

 

of oil.

 

2013 Florida State Studebaker Meet

Posted on by
Reply

In November I went to the Florida State Studebaker Meet in Port St. Lucie.  I couldn’t take my truck, because the brakes still needed work.  Had a grand time and met a lot of interesting people.  I joined the local chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club.  There were a lot of interesting Studebakers and a Packard or two.  There were even a few 1950 1/2 ton pickups like mine.

Studebaker going in style

Studebaker going in style

Yes, the one on the right is a Studebaker

Yes, the one on the right is a Studebaker

Continue reading →