I'm thankful for new brakes!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Labels: maintenance, My Lark, Photos, suspension
Labels: Miscellaneous
Labels: Engine, maintenance, Photos, Stude Info
To determine if you have a Ross Box, see what size wrench is needed to remove the square pipe plug at the check/fill hole on top of the box. If the pipe plug requires a 3/8" or 7/16" wrench, it is a Ross box. If the plug is near the very top of the box and requires a 1/2" or 9/16" wrench, it is a Saginaw unit (thank goodness!)
Labels: steering, Stude Info
Labels: My Lark
Cars are so much a part of American life that almost everyone has a fond memory of a favorite ride. In this case, a car sold new 50 years ago by a Studebaker salesman - to his own grandfather, no less - has come back home to the man who made the sale.Labels: Miscellaneous
In Part 1, we yanked the old heater from the car. In Part 2, we made it all pretty again. In Part 3, we'll tackle putting all the disparate parts back together and making a functioning system again.
First things first: Assemble all your bits. Here you can see all the stuff I've collected that make up the Lark's heating system: blower and core housing assembly, core gasket, newly-rebuilt heater core, refurbished heater/diverter box, molded coolant supply and return hoses, firewall hose grommets and Ranco valve + mounting bracket.
I had my core rebuilt by what I think is the last old-school full-service radiator shop in North San Diego County, S&S Radiator King in Oceanside. S&S has been at it over 30 years, and they can fix or fab just about anything. I took my old core to them for testing and they confirmed that it was dead. "We'd solder one hole, and another would open up," said Mike, the owner. They searched around for a new core, but that size isn't made anymore. They scared up one that was about a quarter inch narrower, but still fit the tanks, and my heater was back among the living.
When I disassembled the core initially, I found that the factory used a generous glob of plumber's putty in each corner to keep the core from vibrating around in its case, so I did the same. I also found a small, triangular rubber bit that was placed in a crevice in one of the tanks; I don't know why it was there, but I saved it and replaced it.
The core is a very tight fit in the dash opening, and the mounting studs affixed to the dash are at the extreme corners of their mounting positions, so the core case must go onto the studs absolutely straight in order to make it up into the hole correctly. Don't forget to place the foam sealing gasket around the core before beginning the reassembly. I didn't use any sealer or caulk to hold the gasket on; bolting it into place is all the sealing it needs.
The core is held on by four nuts with anti-shake shoulders, like the ones shown at the right. You've probably already seen that the black ground lead from the blower motor ends in a ring terminal; it needs to be placed between the core case and one of these washers to complete the blower motor power circuit. Tuck the other two leads out of the way for a moment.
Now that the core and blower are reinstalled, we can mount the Ranco water control valve back under the dash. On earlier cars, this valve was mounted in the engine room on the firewall, but ours is in much closer proximity to the core and easier to service and install. Note the capillary tube that senses the ambient temperature; this needs to be coiled and located on top of the valve. I wound mine carefully around the handle of a screwdriver. The bracket screws to the lip on the underside of the dash with two big, honkin' sheet metal screws. It's best to connect the control cable to the valve before mounting it, since the tab that the cable screws to is harder to access with the valve in place.
It's time to start connecting hoses. The factory shop manual recommends using gasket shellac to paint the nipples with; not only will this lube the metal and make it easier to get the hoses on, but it will set up quickly and seal any gaps between hose and pipe, preventing leaks. I got a bottle of ol' skool Indian Head gasket shellac from my friendly local NAPA, where they've gotten to know me on sight since Barney arrived :) It works as advertised: paint the pipe, slip on the hose and tighten the clamp - you're done.
Although the long hoses with the molded ends that run from the engine into the cabin are available from Studebaker International, the short molded elbow that connects the water valve outlet to the heater core inlet is not. I took the old elbow to my NAPA and, bless their hearts, they picked a molded hose out of their parts bin that filled the bill. (It's a lot closer in dimension to the original than the photo makes it look.) It's NAPA part #11658, in case you're in need of one.
The hoses need something to protect them from being cut apart by the firewall, so there are rubber grommets that perform that function, again available from all the usual sources.
I realized that I'd have to slide the grommets on the hoses, feed the hoses through the firewall (one at a time) and then finesse the grommets into place. As you can see, one lip of the grommet is split so that it can compress enough to fit through the sheet metal and grip the other side. Once you've got it started in the hole, you can use a wide screwdriver blade around the perimeter to ease it into position. Or, perhaps, a piece of twine in the mounting groove to install it like you would a car window. (I used the screwdriver.)
Be sure to secure the two hoses to the fender using the strap just behind the alternator. If yours is missing, you can fabricate one or get one used from Stude vendors. On V8 cars like mine, the shorter of the two hoses runs from the elbow on the top of the water manifold to the water valve inlet; the lower hose runs from the lower nipple on the manifold to the long pipe on the heater core.
The next step is to install the diverter box and connect its control cables. Installing the diverter box is pretty simple; just slip the end over the blower outlet and raise the other end, then secure it to the bracket on the dash using the big screw that held it in. Don't forget to include the wiring harness clip; tuck the wire bundle that goes to the neutral safety and directional switch into it and you're done.
Now for the control cables. Slip them onto the actuator arms for the fresh air control and defroster diverter, and secure them to the metal tabs using the little squiggly spring clips discussed previously. The tang goes into the little hole in the mounting tab, and the other end snaps over the end of the tab These clips are tough to get on by hand, especially if you bought new ones; the easiest way to do it is with a pair of pliers to snap the end, as you can see in the photo below:
A lot of my larger parts were rusty thanks to the leaky core and valve dripping antifreeze all over them for - well, probably years. I decided that this would be a good time to try using electrolytic rust removal, a process that uses electricity instead of blasting or wire-wheeling to get rid of the corrosion on steel parts. You can read about the process in detail at The Stovebolt Forum, but here's the process in a nutshell: Find a plastic container, fill it with water, and add a tablespoon of Arm & Hammer baking soda for every gallon. Stick a piece of rebar or other sacrificial iron or steel stock in the water to use as an electrode; your rusty part becomes the anode. Submerge your rusty part in the water and connect your battery charger's negative cable to it; connect the positive cable to the electrode bar and switch it on - the more amps, the better. (One SDC Forum member told me confidentially that he'd derusted an entire engine block this way using a stainless tank and a welding power supply. I do not recommend or endorse this method!) Don't submerge your clamps, or they'll get eaten away! I decided to try this on the blower fan, which had surface rust all over it. Here's how it looked just after switching on the juice:
While all this cleaning and painting was going on, I was ordering parts from SASCO and SI: hoses, a new blower motor, and other small but essential parts. Once they arrived, it was time to start reassembling the cleaned and painted parts. To attach the blower motor to the case, place the gasket over the long machine screws installed in the motor case and place the case over the threads. New locknuts on the blower side hold it all together; I put a little Loctite on the threads to make sure the blower vibration doesn't loosen the assembly. Make sure you orient the motor so that the power leads exit toward the blower case outlet.
Next, push the fan cage onto the motor shaft. Use care here; you don't want to bend the fan off-center, so don't push on the rim - push only on the hub. A socket on an extension handle can be used to get the hub down on the the shaft.
As mentioned in the previous installment, the fiberboard diverter flaps inside the box that control fresh air flow and heater/defroster mode had long ago lost the rubber sheets stapled to them. This meant I would have to disassemble the box, since there is no way to access both flaps from the outside. I also decided to use something a little more durable than rubber sheet to re-surface them.
Chances are you will need to perform this operation as well, so you'll need to remove the old-school rivets that hold the formed cardboard top onto the molded plastic bottom. It's that old-time thermo-plastic with the fibers impregnated to give it strength. But it's still soft plastic, and I didn't want to drill out the rivets because they'd spin and enlarge the rivet holes, so I used needle-nose pliers to bend up the tabs and remove them.
Once the top's off, the flappers can be removed and re-surfaced. I got two 8.5 x 11" sheets of black felt from Michael's; one with self-adhesive backing and the other plain, and laminated them together to obtain the correct thickness.
As mentioned before, the top of the box is made of pressed cardboard; mine looked a bit tatty. On the advice of a poster on the SDC Forum, I brushed it with a mixture of carpenter's glue and water. Not only did this visually rejuvenate the aged cardboard, it also stiffened it and made it water-resistant (just in case the heater ever decides to leak again). The results were really spectacular, and after the glue wash dried it was time to re-assemble the halves of the box.
Start by locating the diverter flaps in their holes in the bottom of the box. Note that the arm on the round flapper is pointing down. After the flappers are located, the top can go back on.
Barney's heater didn't work from the day I bought him. The PO had disconnected the heater hoses because the water control valve had failed, then leaked and frozen in a partly-on position; the continuous drip had also corroded the control cables and frozen one of them solid. Besides that, the heater fan would not operate; not only had the hacked wiring harness caused a power feed to the blower circuit to be disrupted, the core had leaked and let water into the fan motor itself and corroded the bearings. So nearly every part of the heater system would need to be replaced or refurbished.
The first order of business was to remove the old core and blower assembly. This isn't too hard, as it's held into the dash by four nuts and studs. the top of my core had been the nesting place for a rodent at one point, and though I'd vacuumed out as much of its bedding as I could through the filter slot in the engine room, there was still a lot of organic matter on top when it finally came out, as you can see here. The core is a tight fit in its hole, and even once the nuts are off the studs it requires some finesse to get it out, especially since clearance with the firewall is minimal.
With the core removed, I found four pieces of ossified white crud in the four corners of the case. Careful inspection revealed these to be preshistoric plumber's putty, put there by some line worker decades ago to hold the core safely in its case.
With the blower/core out of the car, the heater diverter box is held on with just one screw, a big one that also holds a clip that keeps the wiring harness from falling on the floor. It's a good idea to remove the control cables before taking out the screw; they're held on by small spring clips that clamp the cable's spring-wound sheath and keep it from moving as the actuator is moved.
If your clips are broken, bent, missing or go flying off to Never-Never land when you remove them, don't fret. Apparently AMC used these clips as well, and they are readily available from Studebaker vendors; they are part #1331825. Some models require just one; my Lark needs two and one was missing and was one of the new parts ordered from SI.
Now the that heater box was out, it was obvious that it would need refurbishing as well. Looking at the two air diverters (one to close off outside airflow, the other to select between heater and defroster mode), I could see that the rubber sheet that was originally stapled to their surfaces to facilitate sealing was long gone. Well, like I said - every part would need refurbishing!Labels: Electrical, My Lark, Photos
Also, here's a plug for some good stuff. Caig Labs in Poway, California (right up the road from me) makes a product called DeoxIT. This stuff is magic! If you spray it on old electrical connectors, it will remove oxidation within minutes; the junk just wipes right off, without harming the connectors themselves. There's also DeoxIT Gold, which is a lubricant/connection enhancer that you spray on afterward. Lest you call BS on this, let me tell you that I've measured connection resistance myself in connectors with and without DeoxiIT Gold, and it does indeed seriously lower the resistance. You can get it at almost any Radio Shack, or Frys, or like stores. I used this on every connection under the hood, and on the dash switches as well.Labels: Electrical, My Lark, Photos, Repair
So, after 7 hours, I finally got to pull the old harness free of the dash. It was a long, tiring day, but I'm really glad I did it, and I have a good feeling that with all the research and pre-planning I've done, the new harness will go in pretty easily. It'll have to wait for this coming weekend, but that gives me time to get a few odds and ends - fuses, bulbs, breakers and sundry other goodies.Labels: Electrical, My Lark, Photos, Repair
Thought I'd go out and install my new distributor today. So I pull the old Presto, drop in the new Delco, carefully transfer the plug wires from cap to cap, hook up my dwell meter, crank it and set the dwell. Then I turn the ignition on, crank it and... nothing. Labels: My Lark
"Most of the aftermarket springs have more tension than the springs originally installed in stock Studebaker Delco distributors. Studebaker engineers specified full advance at 2400 rpm where most other manufacturers specified full advance somewhere above 4000 rpm. I've found that the guys at Studebaker had the advance set at an optimum point for good engine operation without detonation. I've found that by using the stock advance and setting the base timing around 8 deg. BTDC, that a stock V8 will make plenty of power without detonating. The R series engines still use the 2400 rpm full advance, but limit the amount of centrifugal and vacuum advance to keep the high compression engines from detonating."
Labels: Engine, General Information, Parts, Repair
I've loved O'Rourke for years, since his days with the National Lampoon. I've read (almost) all of his books. He makes me laugh, think and, sometimes, get motivated.Labels: Miscellaneous
Labels: General Information, Miscellaneous
My friend Kirk Richardson came over this morning. Kirk is one of those guys who was born with a wrench in his hand. Worked on machinery all his life, from old cars to Caterpillar tractors - he's got a natural talent for it.
At this point, we'd been sweating in the sun for a couple of hours and figured we'd gone about as fur' as we could go. On the plus side: Barney ran for longer than he has since the engine went back in, oil pressure was 40 or better at hot idle the whole time, I put the transmission in DRIVE for the first time since the rebuild, and felt it snick into gear smoothly and strain against the brake. This car wants the road, baby!
100th post: Can you believe that? It's been - wow! - over 3 years since I started this adventure. Over to the right is a cell-phone pic I took the day I bought Barney and drove him home (the longest drive I've yet had in the car, by the way - 5 miles from Carlsbad to Oceanside). A long, strange trip? Sure, but fun too. Thanks for joining me on the ride. Here's to the next hundred posts!
Labels: Miscellaneous
Well, parts are coming out of the electrolyte bath now. The top half of the blower case shined up so pretty I almost wanted to shoot it with clear and keep it like that! But it received a coat of primer and a couple coats of gloss black before drying in the sun all day, as did the blower impeller. Now the back half is in the soup.
Last weekend I got something done (yay!)... I pulled the heater out of Barney. Bad news was: the core had leaked and the fan really was shot (boo!). I hooked the fan motor up to my battery charger and, on the 10 amp setting, it would not budge... took the 50 amp setting to get it spinning! And even then it sounded like the bearings were very pissed at me for making them... well, bear.
The gist is this: you take a plastic bucket, pour in a couple gallons of water, add 1 tablespoon of baking soda (or washing soda) and stir. Then, you connect the positive side of a power source (like a battery charger) to a steel or iron object immersed in the bucket, and the negative side to the object you wish to de-rust. Switch on, let it bubble for a few hours, and voila! clean metal. Well, un-rusty metal - you still have to scrub off the black coating left behind by the process.
So, last night, in went the squirrel cage. And this morning, out it came, with nearly all of the rust banished.Labels: General Information, Photos, Repair
Just saw this post from Nate Nagel over at the SDC Forum:...the arms and blades from a 56-64 Hawk or 56-62 passenger car [use the same] blades and rubber as a '62 Corvette and repros are available.Good to know!
Labels: maintenance, Parts, Stude Info
One of the hazards of working around old cars is the constant exposure to evil substances. Things that will rot your internal organs, turn your skin different colors or even kill you. It's no laughing matter; the chemicals involved with cleaning, painting, assembling and restoring vehicles can be nasty things. And we've got warning labels on so many things these days (coffee cups: "Caution: Contents Hot") that we tend to ignore them now simply because of overload.Labels: General Information
Labels: Miscellaneous, video
Well, springs, actually.
It was hot today but I got an important bit done - the plug wires are finally in the correct holes in the distributor cap.Labels: Engine, My Lark, Stude Info
A while back I noticed a lot of rust on the outside surfaces of my backup lights. These lights are a one-year design (1963) and so the bits are a little hard to come by. However, I found a pair on eBay.
People often forget to put new gaskets in when replacing lenses and such, and the original die-cut material was a gray rubbery composition that deteriorated badly. It would often dry up and crack, leaving the interior vulnerable to moisture.
There's one other gasket too - the one between the lamp body and the car body. Amateurs often leave these off, which allows vibration to rub the two parts together and wear off paint and metal, allowing rust to start unseen between surfaces. These gaskets are also available from your favorite friendly Studebaker vendor. Again, the older gaskets are usually a rubber compound that deteriorates; the new ones are modern foam. This does not need adhesive; it simply is sandwiched between the lamp and body.Labels: General Information, Photos, Repair
I'd solicited the SDC Tech Forum about how to get them on, and various suggestions were proffered, such as using a floor jack to hold the brackets in place, but none of them worked. Finally, I tried a variation on Dick Steinkamp's suggestion: if pushing UP didn't work, maybe pulling DOWN would. So I pulled the brackets into alignment using a drift (OK, it was a small Craftsman screwdriver!) and used my biggest Channellocks to pull down, holding the bracket in place long enough to get the bolt in.
Look what the UPS man dropped off today - a beautiful "new" Carter WCFB carburetor, courtesy of Bob Stone, the Carb Doctor. It's so beautiful I almost feel bad bolting it to the car!Next time, when disassembling, try drilling a lil' 1/8" alignment hole and stick the drill bit in there to use as an alignment pin on reassembly. Dab of filler in the hole and a touch up and no one will ever know...
Labels: General Information, My Lark
One of the Studebakers that people remember most is the Hawk, specifically the Golden Hawk. Goldens were produced only for 3 short years, as 1956-57-58 models, yet they made such an impression that when you say "Studebaker", that's what comes to most folks' minds.Labels: Stude Info, video
Well, not me, but fellow Studebloggers John & Tracy Smith of Arizona recently traveled out to the Left Coast to pick up a beautiful "new" 1957 President sedan. It's their first President, so they've named him George (first president... george.. get it? get it?). Here's a peek at Tracy's first drive:Labels: Miscellaneous, video
Labels: Miscellaneous
Labels: General Information, maintenance, Miscellaneous

Labels: My Lark