Start Your Old VW WhenThe Battery is Dead
- Thread starter Barnyard
- Start date
Steve Butram
501 Club
We used the bump start method when I had mine in High School
Rick Spivey
501 Club
I made my date push start mine one time, because she didn't know how to dump the clutch and get it started. Could be part of why we didn't date very long after that,,,,
I remember seeing that thing back in the day in the JC Whitney catalog. I always wondered how it got a grip on the pulley and if anybody could actually get a VW started that way. I never thought it was worth $3.58 to find out.
D.H. Kundert
Well-known member
Barnyard":31d1wh6w said:
I did the same when I was younger, all kinds of neat stuff in the J.C. Whitney catalogs. I also browsed the Radio Shack catalogs too before they disappeared. Later on in life, I ordered some body panels for an old Ford I had. It seemed that I was getting J.C. Whitney catalogs once a month afterwards.
Are you sure it wasn't more like once a week? I heard when they eventually went bankrupt their biggest creditor was the printing company.Tired_Iron":xt72lztv said:
D.H. Kundert
Well-known member
It might have been. They were everywhere! Started using them to mask small parts for paint. No surprise they were in debt to the printing company.Jim Becker":3tsk6d3e said:
Gary Dotson
501 Club
Before the internet, J.C. Whitney was what we had. Over the years, I bought a lot of parts from them, some good, some less so. There was a lot of junk in their catalog to sort past but I always enjoyed browsing them. A couple catalogs per year would have been quite sufficient but they wanted to be the first one you thought about. There was also Warshawski catalogs. I had always heard that Whitney was one end of the building, Warshawski, the other end. The catalogs were the same.
I remember JC Whitney before I was driving, after I started driving I do not have much memory of them.
We had some local speed shops, and Summit Racing was only a half hour or so away!
"JC Whitney began in 1915 as The Warshawsky Company, a scrap metal yard on the South Side of Chicago. The company's founder was Lithuanian immigrant Israel Warshawsky. Throughout World War I, Warshawsky bought failed auto manufacturers and added new parts to his inventory. The Warshawky Company continued to grow, even during the Great Depression. The company closed its Chicago location and opened a new location in LaSalle, Illinois, in 1997."
Read more here!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JC_Whitney
We had some local speed shops, and Summit Racing was only a half hour or so away!
"JC Whitney began in 1915 as The Warshawsky Company, a scrap metal yard on the South Side of Chicago. The company's founder was Lithuanian immigrant Israel Warshawsky. Throughout World War I, Warshawsky bought failed auto manufacturers and added new parts to his inventory. The Warshawky Company continued to grow, even during the Great Depression. The company closed its Chicago location and opened a new location in LaSalle, Illinois, in 1997."
Read more here!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JC_Whitney
This is a pretty interesting article, written by someone with firsthand experience:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/nostalgia/jc-whitney-the-rise-and-fall-of-an-automotive-icon/
The JC Whitney name has been eliminated by the parent company since this article was written.
Whitney and Warshawsky each had their own address. In the early days of the Whitney name, it was treated more as a retail mail order company. Warshawsky was more of a wholesale supplier to repair shops. Thus there was a price difference between the two. This gave rise to the folklore that the same items were less expensive when ordered from Warshawsky long after it was no longer true.
Whitney's street address was on Archer Avenue while Warshawsky's was on State Street. Their building was at the intersection of those streets and had separate entrances on each street.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/nostalgia/jc-whitney-the-rise-and-fall-of-an-automotive-icon/
The JC Whitney name has been eliminated by the parent company since this article was written.
Whitney and Warshawsky each had their own address. In the early days of the Whitney name, it was treated more as a retail mail order company. Warshawsky was more of a wholesale supplier to repair shops. Thus there was a price difference between the two. This gave rise to the folklore that the same items were less expensive when ordered from Warshawsky long after it was no longer true.
Whitney's street address was on Archer Avenue while Warshawsky's was on State Street. Their building was at the intersection of those streets and had separate entrances on each street.
John *.?-!.* cub owner
501 Club
You guys needed better cars. My 59 Renault 4CV had a multi purpose tool that was the hub cap remover, lug wrench, jack handle, and crank.
Starter went out, and it took a few days for local auto parts to get another one.
Killed the motor at the 4way stop right in middle of town one day.
Jumped out, stuck the tool in through rear bumper and gave it a quick spin, then got back in and drove away.
Neighbor was behind me and later asked what I was doing at the stop. I told her my rubber band ran down and I had to wind it back up to get through town. :lol:
Starter went out, and it took a few days for local auto parts to get another one.
Killed the motor at the 4way stop right in middle of town one day.
Jumped out, stuck the tool in through rear bumper and gave it a quick spin, then got back in and drove away.
Neighbor was behind me and later asked what I was doing at the stop. I told her my rubber band ran down and I had to wind it back up to get through town. :lol:
Use to order hard to find parts from J. C. Whitney. My last attempt at a purchase was a sun visor for my Dodge pickup. Sun visor, that's the thing old pickups had that fit in front of and over the windshield to block the sun's rays.
Stationed with the US Army in Panama. Sun visor arrived, didn't fit. Repackaged in available cardboard, send back, asking for one that fit. Couple weeks later the sun visor arrived in the same packaging I returned it.
Stationed with the US Army in Panama. Sun visor arrived, didn't fit. Repackaged in available cardboard, send back, asking for one that fit. Couple weeks later the sun visor arrived in the same packaging I returned it.
Donegal Cub
501 Club
Maybe you got lucky, might have been always pushing you around :lol:Rick Spivey":d751hh0h said:
The battery on my 66 Beatle started to lay down on me while in High School. It was a 6V, so in 1973 there weren't many vehicles to even jump it. So, I would park with a back tire on the curb. When I was ready to leave, would just let her roll down and pop the clutch.. Worked until I saved enough for a battery..