Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2007-06-06, Page 2Page 2 June 6, 2007 • The Huron Expositor News Huron's Big Bike totals increase to $11,991 Four Seaforth teams . ride 29 -seater bike to -raise money for Heart and Stroke From Page 1 The event is part of the Huron - Perth -Oxford Heart and Stroke Foundation's Big Bike for Stroke campaign. Maloney said the bike had already been to Stratford, Listowel and St. Marys. They went to Woodstock last Tuesday and in Clinton the fol- lowing day. Between the CarStc with Bill Sheik. the Oki Cal t TO You BY HEARTLAND BBouutiT CREDIT UNION PETER GRANTS 1919 GRANT SIX By Bill Sherk ""i'he ()Id Car Detective" Not many people have the same name as their car, but Peter Grant of Brampton, Ont., did. He reads CarStory in the Brampton Guardian and here is the story of his 1919 Grant Six: "I bought this car in 1975 from an old farmer who had bought it new in 1920. The car was in substantially original condition and, except for excessive oil consumption, ran well after a few minor repairs to hoses, etc. "The Grant Company was started in Findlay, Ohio, in 1913 by two brothers, Charles A. Grant and George W. Grant. They bought the Findlay Furniture Co. and were typically an 'assembly' maker of cars, buying the engines from one company, the axles from another, three - speed gear boxes from another and so on, and they built the bodies at the Findlay works. "I decided to tackle the oil consumption problem and removed the engine. The oil level was displayed on a dial gauge on the side of the engine operated by a float in the crankcase. The problem was that the arm of the float was bent and it was taking ten quarts of oil to fill it to full instead of the correct amount of four quarts. "Also, the pistons had no scraper rings, so I honed the bores and fit- ted new rings, corrected the float, and all was well. It might interest the mechanically minded to hear that the rockers, valves, and springs of the six cylinder engine were not enclosed. "The car had two -wheel brakes with the foot brake connected to a band on the outside of the rear brake drum and a hand brake working shoes on the inside of the drum. The car had no mirror and no wind- shield wiper, and the fuel gauge was in the fuel tank alongside the filler cap. "An interesting accessory was an air compressor on the side of the gear box engaged as needed by a small lever. The tire pressure was 8o psi and the car would cruise comfortably at 55 mph." Peter Grant's 1919 Grant Six was an open car (known as a touring model, meaning four doors with a folding top and side curtains). it's interesting to note that ninety percent of all cars built in North America in 1919 were open cars because no one had yet learned how to mass pro- duce closed cars at low cost. Ten years later, in 1929, ninety percent of all cars built in North America were closed cars because people were wanting more protection from the weather. No Grant Sixes were built in 1929 because the company ceased pro- duction seven years earlier - in 1922. Peter Grant says there are thought to be about sixteen of these cars still in existence, mostly in museums. He sold his several years ago and its current location is unknown. You can visit CarStory online at www.CarStory.com. Entail: bill@carstory.com or write Bill Sherk, 33 Oak St. E., P.O. Box 10012, Leamington, ON N8H 2C3. 1 Aaron Jacklin photo The Holy Rollers, made up of employees of the Huron -Perth Catholic District School Board, wave as they ride down Seaforth's Main Street during the Big Bike for Stroke event last Monday. Seaforth and Clinton events last week, Maloney said they've received $11,991 so far from Huron County and they expect more to come in. That's up from $9,300 last year. One of the Clinton teams was from the Goderich Wal Mart, which will match the $468 they raised dol- lar for dollar. There were three other teams rid- ing the big bike in Clinton last week, one from the Clinton Raceway, / another from Heartland Credit Union and a third team made up of peo- ple from Huronview, Huronlea and a weight loss group called STOP. Maloney said they've received $61,000 from all the locations so far and she expects about $5,000 more to come. This will lave them short of their $80,000 goal. They raised $75,000 last year. Maloney said part of the drop this year can be traced back to how some of the factories in Stratford that had raised $3,000 in past years have closed. Bad luck also fac- tored in, with `It looks hard but once you get peddling, it's easy,'— Basil Ho, of the Huron -Perth Catholic District School Board Campbells Soup in Listowel having their week of shutdown and employees being on holidays. "We had more new teams this year and they were really pro- ductive. If we can keep them around and they can keep doing what they've been doing } we'll go back up," she said, noting that they've raised $100,000 before and that it could go up to that again. SmokersHelpline.ca 1 X17 513-5333 Smoke-free, because of you.