Tech tips

Canadian four amphs

Amphicar Expert
Todays tip.
installing tops.
I have always marked the holes with pencil then taken top and hole punched the area out then put back on car..
Today I used a elec. solder gun tip to melt threw and make a good round hole right on the car. save 12 steps ,as Henry Ford says..12 steps buy all his workers a day ,, means more money in his pocket.
Gord
 

Canadian four amphs

Amphicar Expert
Radials

More and more people are putting 185/70..13 tires on the Amphicars. The handling is improved alot and tire presure can be raised. Problems begin in the rear tire area for space thou, they are very close to rubbing on wide springs or scoreing on the cable tab on swing arm,I now sell Alu. or steel spacers that move the tire out 1/4 inch but they can somtimes still be close,
the next step is to take a hammer and -hit to bend -the tab away from the tire a bit, and/or grind a bit off the bottom of the tab,Check for clearances as you turn the tire. also check that it will not hit the outside fender of the car,Some people do not realize that the tire area of the body bulges out, when they put new metal in, and loose this clearance,,
Make sure you mesure this with and record before you start taking body apart,I am going to add 1/2 inch on cars I do to help with clearance here.
A car in the shop right now(I did not do metal work) has the clearance of a thin Quarter , less than a 1/8th inch. I had to move the spring in a bit and use a thinner spacer to make it work.
Gord S.
 

azpaul50

Member
This is definitely good advice as I just had a round of musical tires changing involving both my Amphis. One came with P185s and seemed okay but I didn't know that it had wheel spacers all around. When I upgraded my tires on the other Amphi to P185s (from P165s), I immediately ran into the rubbing problem on the rear wheels with actual contact only on one side and near rubbing on the other side. So, I installed the spacers. Then, for some unknown reason or maybe I didn't notice during the first evolution), the front wheels now rubbed when turned almost full throw. They hadn't done that before. So, I also installed a set of spacers on the front and all now seems well. In neither case do the tires hit the fenders but it is definitely close with only about a 1/4 inch clearance. While normally I'd say to avoid all this hassle by staying with the original smaller tires, the difference in ride and stance is substantially better. - azpaul50



To: azpaul50@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: [General Amphicar Discussion-t-20666] Re: Tech tips
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:22:26 -0500
From:




Radials

More and more people are putting 185/70..13 tires on the Amphicars. The handling is improved alot and tire presure can be raised. Problems begin in the rear tire area for space thou, they are very close to rubbing on wide springs or scoreing on the cable tab on swing arm,I now sell Alu. or steel spacers that move the tire out 1/4 inch but they can somtimes still be close,
the next step is to take a hammer and -hit to bend -the tab away from the tire a bit, and/or grind a bit off the bottom of the tab,Check for clearances as you turn the tire. also check that it will not hit the outside fender of the car,Some people do not realize that the tire area of the body bulges out, when they put new metal in, and loose this clearance,,
Make sure you mesure this with and record before you start taking body apart,I am going to add 1/2 inch on cars I do to help with clearance here.
A car in the shop right now(I did not do metal work) has the clearance of a thin Quarter , less than a 1/8th inch. I had to move the spring in a bit and use a thinner spacer to make it work.
Gord S.



_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390710/direct/01/
 

jfriese

Active Member
Difference tires of the same posted size will differ in the width of their widest areas. Some simply work better with Amphicars than others. I believe the current Firestone's work fine.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red
 

azpaul50

Member
Hey, Juanito! All I know is that I ended up putting tires of the same size from the same manufacturer (Hancook) on both cars. I would assume width differences would be due to pressures. Don't they use the same molds? - Pablo



To: azpaul50@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: [General Amphicar Discussion-t-20666] Re: Tech tips
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:09:19 -0500
From:




Difference tires of the same posted size will differ in the width of their widest areas. Some simply work better with Amphicars than others. I believe the current Firestone's work fine.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red



_________________________________________________________________
Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390709/direct/01/
 

jfriese

Active Member
No, manufacturers don't use the same molds. Very small car to car variations, sure, but I have trouble believing that the Amphicars vary much in spacing of the critical suspension and lower body parts. If they did the replacement parts wouldn't fit or there would be various versions of these parts in the parts book.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red
 

azpaul50

Member
So the cause is putting tires on that were never intended to be used at that P185 80 size. I did notice one difference between the sets (of the same size), one was the "Shadow" series and the other doesn't have that designation. So indeed the same molds weren't used. - az[aul



To: azpaul50@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: [General Amphicar Discussion-t-20666] Re: Tech tips
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:30:20 -0500
From:




No, manufacturers don't use the same molds. Very small car to car variations, sure, but I have trouble believing that the Amphicars vary much in spacing of the critical suspension and lower body parts. If they did the replacement parts wouldn't fit or there would be various versions of these parts in the parts book.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red



_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390710/direct/01/
 

jfriese

Active Member
Paul,

I checked and I'm using Firestone P185 tires that had wide whitewalls bonded on and have a half inch of clearance from the large rear springs and more from the fender well. I've had no problems with clearance on either of my late model Amphicars. One thing to note though is that bracket that holds the brake lines, in the rear, can be twisted when tightening the pinch bolt and the way it's twisted varies the clearance from the rear tires to quite a degree. Be sure you have it twisted away from the tires. Also, if you have clearance problems with the fronts, the steering gear stoppers can be adjusted to fix that, though I've never needed to do that with my cars.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red
 

Ed Price

Member
_____

From: jfriese [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 12:30 PM
To: edprice@cox.net
Subject: RE: [General Amphicar Discussion-t-20666] Re: Tech tips


(snip)

If they did the replacement parts wouldn't fit or there would be various
versions of these parts in the parts book.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red


Assuming that the car company felt they could afford the luxury of full
documentation.

Documentation on my Benz is a study in Teutonic overkill, but IWK, at the
far other end of the industrial continuum, wasn't spending money on
illustrators and manual writers. Un-documented and semi-documented
variations abound in the Amphi world (rear bumpers, rear axles, bilge plugs,
wiring, suspension, shift linkage, paint, chrome all come to mind).

Ed Price
El Cajon, CA USA
WB6WSN
1961 Amphicar
1987 MB 420SEL
 

azpaul50

Member
Hey Ed. Has it started to rain over there yet? We're expecting like 3 fronts to pass through there (coming here) starting Monday. Yeah, the documentation is a bit sparse. Another thing I notice is that John F. is referring to his late-model Amphis where both of mine are among the oldest of the oldies. Documentation usually evolves with the car.



To: azpaul50@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: [General Amphicar Discussion-t-20666] Re: Tech tips
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:24:44 -0500
From:




_____

From: jfriese [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 12:30 PM
To: edprice@cox.net
Subject: RE: [General Amphicar Discussion-t-20666] Re: Tech tips


(snip)

If they did the replacement parts wouldn't fit or there would be various
versions of these parts in the parts book.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red


Assuming that the car company felt they could afford the luxury of full
documentation.

Documentation on my Benz is a study in Teutonic overkill, but IWK, at the
far other end of the industrial continuum, wasn't spending money on
illustrators and manual writers. Un-documented and semi-documented
variations abound in the Amphi world (rear bumpers, rear axles, bilge plugs,
wiring, suspension, shift linkage, paint, chrome all come to mind).

Ed Price
El Cajon, CA USA
WB6WSN
1961 Amphicar
1987 MB 420SEL



_________________________________________________________________
Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390709/direct/01/
 
Top