I think the best one I know of, is a 1972 Zenith with the 25DC56 chassis... I had a customer with this set, and I had done some minor work on it, and about 2 years later I got a service call from the lady; from a new address. Sadly, her apartment had burned down due to rainwater getting into the electrical panel of the building, and it started inside the wall of her apartment. She said she had been watching TV on the Zenith when she noticed the fire, and she grabbed her purse and dogs, and got out (didn't turn the TV off). After the fire was out, the fire dept rushed back into her unit because they saw flickering where they thought the fire was out, and indeed the fire WAS out. The flickering was the Zenith 25DC56 proudly displaying the evening news! The cabinet was shot; knobs gone, but the chassis and CRT survived unharmed... It seemed that the outlet into which the TV was connected, was miswired to the the panel of a different unit.

And of course I have several of my vintage TVs which I rescued after my house burned down in 1988. One of them is still-to-be cleaned up; a 1951 Kaye-Halbert Normandy. It's in a hardrock maple cabinet, and is blackened, but not too deep to refinish it "when I get 'round to it" (LOL 25 years and counting)...

Charles

Believe it or not, the 58 Plymouth, especially something like a Fury, had a 350 cu.in. engine if it was an 8 cylinder. I have argued this point to many a Mopar fan and they think I don't know what I am talking about. All I can say is look it up. I think the engine was only used a few years though. As far as the old Flathead engines go, I am not surprised that they kept them for industrial or heavy duty applications. They were fairly bullet proof and reliable. Of course the real reason for their continued use was probably more of a surplus thing than anything.

Got my owner's manual right here :)

The 350 was an available option. Standard in the Fury was a 318 with dual 4 barrels, 9.25:1 compression, and a performance cam.

Standard equipment in the '58 Plymouth was the 318 Polysphere V8 with a 2 bbl carb, not to be confused with the later 318. That's what my Savoy has.

The "Powerflow" flat head six was a 230, and it was optional....

Slant six came out in 1960 primarilly for the Valiant but was used in all models and replaced the flatty.

Hemis (until they stopped building them for a while) and Wedges had a bunch of different displacements in the late 50's. All Chrysler brands had their own displacements for a while. The wedge engines finally settled into the 318, 361, 383, and 413, for a little while from around 1959 on. Then the small block 273 came out and they all changed again. This is why there are "wide" 318's and "regular" 318's depending on the year.

Uncle Tom McCahill ! Boy, I miss him.. He oughta be required reading in EVERY journalism school, or anywhere else they teach you how to write for a living.

I owned Plymouths almost exclusively from '35 thru '55 (plus a '47 Dodge), all flathead 6's. Serviced them religiously, but never could keeps rods in 'em beyond about 50K miles. The big end of the rod (around the crank journal), would 'stretch' over time, increasing the clearance. All the rods would rattle like heck when you let off the gas going over the crest of a hill at 50 mph. It wasn't a knock either, just that signature "rattle" of every Chrysler product 6 i ever owned.

Shouldn't this thread be divided into two different ones? There are two completely different topics being discussed here.

His writing style was like he was talking directly to the reader. His off the cuff remarks were great, too.

EDIT: I'm sitting here trying to think of a couple of other fire/water damaged sets that I remember. This engine talk is helping unlock my brain.

If you can figger out how, let me know :yes:

Even with the thread drift, it's still a fun thread :music:

Exactly ! Talkin' Old Cars 'n' TVs-WHAT could be more fun ?!?

Regarding tv fires the 1948 Temple TV drove the Templeton radio company which had been in business since the 1920s into bankruptsy due to their underated transformers burning up. I think of the about 14 surviving sets half have a new transformer. It would be interesting to know the complete story of their demise.

That is absolutely amazing !A true testament to zeniths quality! I wonder what the firefighters said? I don't think any set made after the mid 70s would survive. Too juch plastic!

Couldn't agree with Steve K. more. Sandy, if you want to talk old cars then go to a vintage car site and quit hi-jacking people's threads. This is the 2nd time you've done this in a couple of weeks. Last time was in the roundie color forum. And Kamakiri, if you want to change this forum to "Auto-VideoKarma" that's your privledge.

-Steve D.

Rather than take this thread in now a third direction (since it seems to be back on track with the first direction), here's my take on it, real quick...

Don't blame Sandy for this thread drift, blame me. Regardless of who picked up the ball, I'm not going to yell at anyone for taking any thread in another direction. And so what? Besides which, that would be over-moderation, and I don't police discussions to keep them topical. The best way to steer a thread to a topic is to create topic-related posts within the thread.

Back to the thread topic....

The very first TV that I ever had in my bedroom was back around 1978 or so. One of my friends down the street was playing with matches in his bedroom (we had to be about 7 or 8 at the time), and set the whole place on fire. Luckily, most of the damage was contained to his bedroom, in which he had a brand new Panasonic 12" black and white TV, with a warped and melted case, that was put out to trash the next garbage night. Of course, seeing a TV like that in the garbage was too much for me to resist, so I brought it home.

I've never seen a set like that before or since....rather than having an on/off switch, it had a silver touch pad on the upper right of the set, that was an instant on. Very cool. Replaced the melted line cord, and a burned wire going to that pad, and the set worked fine for a REALLY long time. My parents used the set for quite a long time at their cabin after it got replaced in my room by another trash find....a GE 14" metal portable from the mid 50s. Still have the metal portable, but can't remember what happened to the Panasonic.

Well, excuse the Hell outta me....Guess I'll just take my ball & bat & slink off to home...And, actually, you're WRONG...This is at least the 3rd or 4th time I've wandered "Off Message" lately. So there.