Butch Schultz 61' Fleetmaster 409 4-speed
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Wow. You know right now I just cannot say. My wife Debbie says yes, I say Hummm??? But I do have a phone call into Glenn and an E-mail to Alan who are the first and 3rd owners. Do you know where this picture was taken? Ours did not run any east or central races that I know of just here on the west coast. But race is about the only thing this ole girl has ever done so that number might come up. At the Winters of 62 it was 643. He also raced there in 1964 but did not win and what number he had then is a ??? We do have that same sticker in the window this one has and in the same place. I also cannot tell if there is a stainless strip on the bottom of the back window. Another indication of a Fleetmaster VS a regular Biscayne. If the hot rod was just a few more inches up further I could maybe tell too Now I can tell you in the magazine Hot Rod Deluxe the Best of the Best our car is in that. It was a Dec 2012 issue I believe. I have it at home to look for sure of the date but our car is in that on page 81 I believe. They had a 1962 center fold page of cars sitting at the 1962 Winter Nationals. Well we will do more digging. Thank you very much.
I see you on the bottom of your post you are running extremely fast times. That is very impressive. How are you doing that? I would sure like to hear and see that one run. What part of the country do you live.
I see you on the bottom of your post you are running extremely fast times. That is very impressive. How are you doing that? I would sure like to hear and see that one run. What part of the country do you live.
Been doing more research and the this pix is from the 1964 Winters in Pomona we believe. Our car did race there that year but lost somewhere along the way. But srutinizing the picture it appears there is a stainless rim around the front window which indicates it as a Biscayne not the Fleetmaster. But Glenn thinks that number rings a bell and is going to look when he gets home and if he is still unsure he is going to call Al. This is something we have been investigating on for years. Is there another Fleetmaster that raced or were they all Biscaynes like Grumpy's. And if there was another was it a 409 or a 348? If there was one, who raced it, and is it still around. Thanks again for the picture. We will try to post a couple pix of ours at the 64 Winters when we get home tonight. 3 hours difference in time where we are at to west coast time so you might not be able to see it till tomorrow if we figure out how to post. Also we could not tell if that was a F/S or E/S. When Alan blew the 409 up I think he raced E/S with a 348. Not sure if he ever raced F/S. Need just a hair more of the picture. Butch
Yes it did have an antenna. Kind of wierd how the car came for being ordered for a race car only. Look at page one on this site about 2 or 3 items down. You will see Alan beside the car with his 1962 Winters trophy. It has an antenna on it. The car came with a back seat contrary to what some maybe thought that they did not. When I got it it in 1976 it still had the back seat in it as well. But Glenn told me they had to have a back seat to be legal for NHRA in that class. It came radio, heater,cigarette lighter, arm rest ,tacometer and one sunvisor deleted but did come with a antenna.
Glenn looked at the picture today and thinks it is our car. Seems like 622 rings a bell because he was there and Alan ran F/S in 1964. He called Alan but Alan cannot remember. Glenn thinks it is just the way the sun is hitting the window trim. There is no stainless on a Fleetmaster, only on the bottom of the front window only. Pressed card board inside door panels as well. Very good find. And I think the Hot Rod Deluxe Best of the Best was Dec of 2011 not 12. It just so happened to be in one of the center fold pictures in the back ground. Sounds like we might get Glenn going on here. Hope so. Super memory and a real 409'er for sure. Thanks, Butch
Glenn looked at the picture today and thinks it is our car. Seems like 622 rings a bell because he was there and Alan ran F/S in 1964. He called Alan but Alan cannot remember. Glenn thinks it is just the way the sun is hitting the window trim. There is no stainless on a Fleetmaster, only on the bottom of the front window only. Pressed card board inside door panels as well. Very good find. And I think the Hot Rod Deluxe Best of the Best was Dec of 2011 not 12. It just so happened to be in one of the center fold pictures in the back ground. Sounds like we might get Glenn going on here. Hope so. Super memory and a real 409'er for sure. Thanks, Butch
Trying to figure out how to load pictures. But this is where either Glenn Larson or Buck Burton is racing the car. Not sure what year. Maybe Glenn will come on line one of these days. The headlights were out for they ran airtubes from the headlights to the aircleaner like the 64 Thunder Bolts but I think Alan had done that maybe in 61. Found out he could not run it that way so they patched the inner fenders. The patches are stll there. Did not want to destroy the history through the rstore. .Butch
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Very cool Butch. I see you running an M/T cross ram
. What times was the old girl running back then?
Well this might seem wierd to some of you that read this because I kind of went my own way on things but this was almost 30 years ago. After getting it sorted out we ran 12 o's all day long and broke into the high 11's sometimes. All stock motor, like bore, pistons, crank, pointed distributor. But I read in a 60's article on 409's for NASCAR and what they did was take the pistons which were very heavy on one side because of the 78 degrees on the block and chunk out on the bottom side of the thick part of the piston. It did two things. It lightened the piston and eliminated the piston rock at higher RPM's. Then we balanced the motor. The cam was all Iskadarian roller along with roller rockers. Cannot rmember the grind.When installing the cam we set the bearings to where it closed off half of the oil port to give us a little more pressure at the top of the motor. We also used a small block oil pump.The M/T had a couple Holly's #4777 double pumpers and used a 110 gal/hr pump. The M/T is isolated so we had to watch the jetting. The right carb ran the left bank and the left carb ran the right bank. So jetting with the a two speed auto was tricky for not loading up. The picture you see above was at the World Centerline Championships at woodburn Or. We just got the motor together and stuck in a (cannot remember torque converter) and it fell flat on its face. Went out first round. But Cal Method came by and he gave me an 8" A-1. Instantly went in the 12's I think 12'8. Then we took the Warner headers and cut the 3" collectors off and put on 4" 28" long We used a MSD 7a for more spark. Built my own linkage for the cross ram. We ran 4:88 gears with 10.5 wrinkles and a 4200 stall. I ran the car with my feet and tried to leave around 3500 RPM's Kept tuning and trying things and it kept getting quicker and faster but it was running around 6800 to 7,000 at the end. We used a electric fan for cooling. The car weighed 3740 at the World Finals in Spokane. If there were better parts out there 25 to 30 years ago I cannot remember now. If there was I probably could not afford them anyhow back then. Still have my old slicks and front tires. Always used used ones from Waldo. I will see if I can load a picture of the motor. Butch
Thank you for sharing some of your race info Butch. Young guys and gals of today can learn allot from people like yourself who have been there and done it before 
WHat rearend was used in the car in those photos?
Well right or wrong that is what we did. Have not kept up on all the new stuff for a long time so I imagine they make pistons like we were trying to make in a drill press.
The rear-end was just an 899 case but with a posi unit. Contrary to popular belief it lasted. Well kind of. I bust the arms clear off the rear-end housing in Spokane and through the years busted U-joints, twisted the screws out of the rims to the tires, twisted axles and when we went to restore the car we seen the whole rear- end tube was bowed- but we never busted a gear. I was going to restore the car like I had it with the cross ram motor and name on the side but went with the early 60's like Alan, Glenn and the other early owners had it. My kids and my wife did not think much of that. I did destroy the car I had. It does not look right to me anymore. It had my name on the side, big tires and a couple velocity stacks coming out of the hood for a long long time. But I am glad I did what I did I guess. That is the way it was born as an early racer. Butch
The rear-end was just an 899 case but with a posi unit. Contrary to popular belief it lasted. Well kind of. I bust the arms clear off the rear-end housing in Spokane and through the years busted U-joints, twisted the screws out of the rims to the tires, twisted axles and when we went to restore the car we seen the whole rear- end tube was bowed- but we never busted a gear. I was going to restore the car like I had it with the cross ram motor and name on the side but went with the early 60's like Alan, Glenn and the other early owners had it. My kids and my wife did not think much of that. I did destroy the car I had. It does not look right to me anymore. It had my name on the side, big tires and a couple velocity stacks coming out of the hood for a long long time. But I am glad I did what I did I guess. That is the way it was born as an early racer. Butch
Glenn called this morning and wanted me to post this 1964 Winternational picture on so he could see it. I think double clicking will make it bigger but I am sure everyone knows that. Also he called me to staighten a thing out. One of the above pictures with aparent inner headlights out I stated they did that for air tubes from headlight to air cleaner. Partially true. Alan did do that and that is why the inner fenders are patched but Glenn does not know why he did but painted the inside lights black and the picture you see is with either him or Buck running it with them painted. Also as I understand it when Alan did put the air tubes in he had to take them out for NHRA would not let him run it that way so he then patched them. The same patches are in it today. Hope to get Glenn in here. He would be great over in the old racing days. He remembers alot and I think he use to run the Blaboa dragstrip.
Also we are still trying to figure out if that picture that BLS409 posted is of the 61. Glenn told a funny story this morning that he skipped school and towed with Alan the 61 down to California behind his 52 Chevy pu for a division meet. His dad never found out till they got back but they did win ever race. More to the story I believe but let Glenn tell if we can get him on. Anyway good day to everyone. Butch
Also we are still trying to figure out if that picture that BLS409 posted is of the 61. Glenn told a funny story this morning that he skipped school and towed with Alan the 61 down to California behind his 52 Chevy pu for a division meet. His dad never found out till they got back but they did win ever race. More to the story I believe but let Glenn tell if we can get him on. Anyway good day to everyone. Butch
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Mister409
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Pretty excited today for I received a phone call I been waiting months for. His name is Jim Livingston. He was the owner of the Madras and Woodburn drag strip where the 61 raced when May first bought the car. I was surprised to hear that Jim not only remembered the car but even remembered what headers Alan raced with. He not only remembered the car racing at his facility but remembers it racing and seeing it race all up and down the west coast back in the days. Jim said he was at the Salem Speed shop (pictured above) and him and Glen Volz owner of the shop were talking about the 61 just the other day and talked about the letter Volz had to write for May to give to General Motors so Alan could order the car. Volz is around 86 years & old still runs this shop. It has 3 stories, basement, main floor and attic full and is full of nostalgic race parts. He still does the lathing of parts also. The shop looks as if it was built in the 50's and never touched since but there are new buildings plus a new condo that went up right beside it. When my wife Debbie and I went to meet him 6 or so years ago he still had a 50 year old advertising poster on his wall that he used to promote his business a half century ago with Alan May, winner of the 62 Winter nationals. This picture of the shop is the way it looks as of today. Hot Rod magazine wrote about this shop in or around the winter of 2008 called the "The Lost Speed Shop."
I found one more picture but Livingston corrected me on it today. I thought this black and white flag start was in Woodburn but Jim thought it was at Madras Oregon in 1961.. Jim ran both tracks as I understand but Glenn Larson know a whole bunch more than I do on it. He was there and a brother-in law to Alan.
Excuse me. It says file is too large. Going to have to do some work to see if I can post it. Hope to be back later. Butch
Excuse me. It says file is too large. Going to have to do some work to see if I can post it. Hope to be back later. Butch
Not for sure Butch but this looks like Madras to me, I raced there in 1970 and the background looks familiar, in 1970 it had a tower and a few other things. One race day in july a perfect day a large cloud came in from the west and snowed for a couple minutes then went on its way, the rest of the day was back in the 70's, thats central Oregon! Pat