1955 Pontiac coolant leak

I dropped the '55 Pontiac Hydra-Matic four-speed automatic transmission that works great.....just for a rusted out steel freeze plug in the rear of the engine block. Steel freeze plugs should be illegal.....brass freeze plugs installed. Replaced the transmission mounts while I was at it, so that's good. And got things cleaned up a bit. This is my daughter's car, and while I was at it, I also restored her air cleaner, and washed her air filter IAW factory instructions. You think the factory knew that this air filter would last 69 or 70 years? Because it's doing it. When you look back to the 1950s, you realize what a disposable world we live in today. Back then, milk was delivered in glass bottles to your front door. You drank the milk, and they picked up the empties, washed them, and filled them with new milk for delivery. Soda came in glass bottles that you could return to the store for the deposit money so they could be cleaned and re-filled. We'd collect them in the 70s, and get a nickle per empty glass soda bottle, I think, something like that. I'm not sure what it was in the 50s? A penny maybe? Whatever it was, it was enough for kids to gather a bunch and have candy money, we did that all the time, it was fun. What's an empty plastic coke bottle worth today? No one even recycles them, we just tell ourselves we do, we put them in the recycle bin but they still end up in a landfill or the ocean, because there's no money in recycling it. And you can't recycle plastic bags at all, but there were no plastic bags in the 1950s, and way less fast food related garbage as well. Even phones are disposable today, and phones used to last for decades. We had the same wall mounted phone in our kitchen for at least 20 years. I'm sure I'm missing some good examples, but those are a few big ones......and you didn't throw away your car's disposable air filter in the 50s, because your 1950s car had an oil bath air cleaner, with a reusable filter, that simply needed to be washed in kerosene every spring and fall, or 10,000 miles......not that difficult really, just a bit messy.
More on air filters here, to include the oil bath air cleaner, with it's filter that seems to last forever:
en.wikipedia.o...