1969 Rambler American
Blue and White
6-cylinder
Three speed manual transmission
Shifter on the steering column.
"three on the tree" as the were known in the day.
Early on it became obvious that the car's heater didn't work well. During the second winter I was inspired to increase the insulation value of the doors by taking off the door panels,.. filling the space with styrofoam peanuts,.. and replacing the door panels. Honestly I think it helped. Unfortunately,.. the place I filled with peanuts was the very same place that the windows rolled down into during the summer... No AC in a 69 American. So,.. as the weather got warmed I progressively crushed the peanuts to the point that the windows would go the whole way down. this left a whole sh*t load of tiny peanut pieces in the doors that were constantly being sucked out of the doors and littering the road behind me. It was like a blizzard in the rear view mirror well into summer.
Another interesting thing about the car was that the windshied wipers were powered by the vacuum produced by the engine. (Note: this was not nearly as stupid as the early VW's that used pressure from the spare tire to power the winshield washer fliud onto the windshield). Anyway,.. the wiper motor got old and weak. It was strong enough to pull the wipers back to starting posiiton from the fully extented position. but not strong enough to push the wipers to the extended... Solution. Tie a long shoe string to the wiper arm,.. use the string to pull the wipers up and then let the vacuum pull it back.
Toward the end of it's life all the inside handles (door and window) where broken off. So I had a pair of vice grips that I moved around to whatever shaft need to be turned. Usually it was on the driver's side door release so I could open the door. The car was in this start for so long that I (and all my friends) ceased to think there was anything unusual about the situation,... Unfortunately,.. I am afraid I scared the living crap out of some poor guy I stopped to pick up hitchiking. (Hitchiking was still pretty common at the time) When the guy opened the door and realized that there were no handles on the inside of the passenger door,.. he erm,.. shall we say,.. turned white and developed a sudden fondness for walking. Felt bad about that one.
