Still using the Push Button Start?
Senior User
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 251
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From: Kentucky
I've been pretty busy, Abe. I got laid off two years ago this month, and dcided to go back to school and finish getting my English degree. Turns out that the gubbimint had a program for "displaced workers" that would pay for two years of school and unemployment. I had two years left to graduate, soooooo....... I graduate May 8 with an English BA and a Linguistics minor.
I think it goes without saying that I've not had much time to work on Grover.
In fact, I need to get to a homework assignment as soon as I get off-line.
My latest project is conversion to 12 volt electric wipers for Grover, using a motor graciously donated by a '78 Ford F-100. That has turned out to be a bit of a challenge!
I'm still casually looking for a later model Dana 60 rear for my truck. That project may get more than casual with gas prices like they are. Even a 239 Y gets lousy gas mileage with a 4.86 rear.
Oh, and just to stay on topic, I definitely like the push-button starter switch.
I think it goes without saying that I've not had much time to work on Grover.
In fact, I need to get to a homework assignment as soon as I get off-line.My latest project is conversion to 12 volt electric wipers for Grover, using a motor graciously donated by a '78 Ford F-100. That has turned out to be a bit of a challenge!
I'm still casually looking for a later model Dana 60 rear for my truck. That project may get more than casual with gas prices like they are. Even a 239 Y gets lousy gas mileage with a 4.86 rear.
Oh, and just to stay on topic, I definitely like the push-button starter switch.
Senior User
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 344
Likes: 0
From: Lancaster, So Carolina
Add me as one that converted BACK after some jaboney wired up a more modern ignition switch. One of about 5 things on the dash that had to put back right. But I did put a 'warp drive' switch next to the starter
Senior User
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 231
Likes: 0
From: MOYOCK NC
still got my button also i ran it so it is only hot with the key on and it is also run thru the neutral start switch on my lokar shifter so it will only start the truck with the key on and in park or neutral
Hotshot
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 13,555
Likes: 80
From: Manhattan, KS
I also am using the button and plan on keeping it. Don, it was good to see you post again and read Grover's name. Congrats on the English degree. That was my major way back in the dark ages. Unfortunately, my grammer and spelling doesn't usually show it any more.
Del
Del
Elder User
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 587
Likes: 0
From: Augusta, ME
We're talking about the push button starters in our old rides (I'm still push button too!), but have any of you seen the Lexus commercials showing now that look like they have push button starters? I'm too poor to drive one so I don't know the setup exactly, but my impression from the commercial is that it's similar. I wonder how many of the new Lexus owners are thinking how cool it is and only that car has them?
Scott
Scott
Senior User
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 251
Likes: 0
From: Kentucky
This is a reply to a couple of you: 
GMan: No, Paul, I won't make it to Knoxville this year. Not enough money in the account, and with the price of gas, I sure as heck can't afford to drive Grover down there!!!!
Scott123: Yeah, I've seen those Lexus commercials. Somehow, I find it very amusing that someone has returned to the push button switch. It makes sense, somehow, when you consider all the circuits that run off the ignition switch nowadays. It's not like our old trucks, with maybe three or four wires sticking out of the back.
My great-grandfather had a Lincoln or something like it back in the '50s and on into the early '60s. My mom told me that he never did much like people who'd beep at him if he didn't get off the line fast enough when the light turned green. When that happened, he'd reach up and turn the key off, coast into the middle of the intersection, and grind on the starter by pushing on the button. The car would always magically start just as the light turned red, and the guy with the overactive horn button would have to wait for the next green light.
He would drive away chuckling, of course.
GMan: No, Paul, I won't make it to Knoxville this year. Not enough money in the account, and with the price of gas, I sure as heck can't afford to drive Grover down there!!!!
Scott123: Yeah, I've seen those Lexus commercials. Somehow, I find it very amusing that someone has returned to the push button switch. It makes sense, somehow, when you consider all the circuits that run off the ignition switch nowadays. It's not like our old trucks, with maybe three or four wires sticking out of the back.
My great-grandfather had a Lincoln or something like it back in the '50s and on into the early '60s. My mom told me that he never did much like people who'd beep at him if he didn't get off the line fast enough when the light turned green. When that happened, he'd reach up and turn the key off, coast into the middle of the intersection, and grind on the starter by pushing on the button. The car would always magically start just as the light turned red, and the guy with the overactive horn button would have to wait for the next green light.
He would drive away chuckling, of course.
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Fleet Owner
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 25,405
Likes: 5,411
From: Central PA
[QUOTE=grover]
My great-grandfather had a Lincoln or something like it back in the '50s and on into the early '60s. My mom told me that he never did much like people who'd beep at him if he didn't get off the line fast enough when the light turned green. When that happened, he'd reach up and turn the key off, coast into the middle of the intersection, and grind on the starter by pushing on the button. The car would always magically start just as the light turned red, and the guy with the overactive horn button would have to wait for the next green light.
That story reminds me of the year before I bought my '54 F-100. It was 1976 and I was driving my brother's circa '46 Chevy pickup at college, you know the art deco kind. We were returning to campus from our off campus soccer practice field. As I was crossing the RR tracks near campus, I saw a freight train way down the tracks, turned off the key and pretended I stalled the truck and was cranking away, Chevy's had the starter on the floor board next to the gas pedal. I waited till most of the guys in the back jumped off like rats on a sinking ship and then I turned on the key and promptly started it, me and the guys up front drove off laughing like mad!!! Stupid but fun!
abe
My great-grandfather had a Lincoln or something like it back in the '50s and on into the early '60s. My mom told me that he never did much like people who'd beep at him if he didn't get off the line fast enough when the light turned green. When that happened, he'd reach up and turn the key off, coast into the middle of the intersection, and grind on the starter by pushing on the button. The car would always magically start just as the light turned red, and the guy with the overactive horn button would have to wait for the next green light.
That story reminds me of the year before I bought my '54 F-100. It was 1976 and I was driving my brother's circa '46 Chevy pickup at college, you know the art deco kind. We were returning to campus from our off campus soccer practice field. As I was crossing the RR tracks near campus, I saw a freight train way down the tracks, turned off the key and pretended I stalled the truck and was cranking away, Chevy's had the starter on the floor board next to the gas pedal. I waited till most of the guys in the back jumped off like rats on a sinking ship and then I turned on the key and promptly started it, me and the guys up front drove off laughing like mad!!! Stupid but fun!
abe
Elder User
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 561
Likes: 0
From: Minneapolis
Besides that starter button, the feature I remember about my dad's 40 Ford 1-1/2 ton truck was the locking steering column. The key switch was in the column near the bottom of the dash. It released the switch, which could be then pushed from one side to the other. Most of you guys have seen these, I'm sure. I remember in the late 60's when GM came out with their theft resistant locking steering columns, they touted them in their advertising like they had invented something. I knew better, having seen it in a Ford truck built nearly 30 years earlier.
Senior User
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 251
Likes: 0
From: Kentucky
I remember reading once, in on of the many car history boks I have scattered around the house, that one of the first anti-theft devices was a key-locked differential (Not to be confused with a Detroit locker!). The problem was, you had to crawl under the car to lock it. It turned out to be a poor seller. 
No, I am NOT making this up!
No, I am NOT making this up!
Fleet Owner
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 25,405
Likes: 5,411
From: Central PA
Just the opposite of this of course was the keyless ignition start on the '57 Chevy. After you started the '57 with the key, you could then turn off and restart the car anytime you wanted. I sure did amaze my college buddies with that back then, but would not want to do it today with crime and lack of respect for other's property the way it is.
abe
abe
Freshman User
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 33
Likes: 0
From: Roanoke Va.
I have the button on my 51 and 52 changed my 50 to modern switch.My frind and I were putting a raditor on the 52 when his 5 year old hit the little button playing in truck almost got our hands not to think what it almost did to the raditor.needls to say he was put out of the truck.
Senior User
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 370
Likes: 0
From: Auburndale, Florida
I'd like to keep it but still up in the air about it. It could become a horn button pretty quick if I have problems with a horn in whatever steering column I end up going with. Right now the starter button is in service and I like it. Makes me smile!
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