The Studeblogger

The wheels keep on a-turnin.

2011-10-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, a longtime SDC Forum member from Riverside, California offered some items from his shed. Among these items were about 10 years worth of Turning Wheels magazines, dating back as far as 1979. I won't use his name, because I'm sure he'd be embarrassed by the attention, but here's the story. He and his wife had neighbors who were Studebaker lovers too. They collected cars, parts and whatnot for years, and then the old fella passed on. His widow held on to all the Stude stuff for a long time, but finally it was too much for her, and when Alzheimer's set in, his wife helped the widow while he volunteered to help match the cars and parts with new homes.

Most of the pieces went to new homes pretty quickly, but after another year or so, he found that he still had some things left to clear out - sheet metal, engines, glass and the Turning Wheels. I can't read enough about Studebakers, so Reed and I went up to claim the magazines over the weekend. I got the nickel tour of his place, full of parts and cool machinery, as well as a lovely '62 Lark Deluxe 2-door sedan with just over 50,000 miles!

Meeting this Forum member just drove home the point of how kind and caring StudeFolks are. Truly, I haven't met one yet that wasn't, but this guy is truly a prince. It was my pleasure to meet him, and I hope we get to hang out again sometime. And now, I have a trunk full of magazines to read :)

I got to drive a Hawk!

2011-09-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

Last month at the Vista Village Rod Run, I found a '62 Gran Turismo Hawk for sale. I took a couple of shots, got the seller's name and number, and posted it on the SDC Forum

Last week, Joe from Kentucky sent me a PM. Seems he'd been talking with the seller and was interested in the car; would I go get more pictures and drive the car and report back? Hmm. Let's see... go take pictures of a beautiful Studebaker and get to drive it? Nahh.... Of course I'll go!

The battery was dead, as the owner hadn't driven it since the Rod Run. He inherited the car from his uncle, and it really isn't his thing, which is why he's selling the car. We jumped it from his Crown Vic, and after a few moments of throat clearing and warming up, we toodled off down the road.

The car has been re-engined with a Chevy small-block, and it's a pretty clean installation. No firewall hacks, no frame modifications - they even connected up the power steering.

The owner lived in an area of town with some pretty twisty roads. We joke that someone dumped spaghetti on a map and drew the streets in that area of town! The Hawk took the roads really nicely, although it was a little nose-heavy (as these cars are known to be). The owner said that the front end had been rebuilt and brakes gone through, and even though the brakes were not powered, the car stopped smoothly and quickly.

The car had a full gauge package, and everything worked - oil, amps, temp, gas, tach, clock. The Studebaker Delco radio in the dash was the finishing touch. Very straight body all around, too.

Not everything was roses, of course. The car was built in South Bend but came out of Canada, so there was some rust in the trunk and rockers, but not as much as you'd figure a Canadian car might have, and the frame was very sound. And the power steering was over-boosted and the steering gear needed adjustment; the net effect was that wheels continued turning after you'd quit turning the steering wheel! That took a little getting used to.

I can see why people love these cars. If you have the opportunity to drive (or acquire) one, do so! I'd really enjoy owning one myself, some day.

Transmission & Engine mount replacement technique

2011-06-19T20:44:00.000-07:00

While searching out some transmission information on the SDC Forum, I came across this great bit of advice from one of the Forum stalwarts, Gord Richmond, on how best to replace Studebaker engine and transmission mounts, something that will eventually need to be done on every Stude. Even low-mileage cars can require replacement of these parts, as age and oil will break down rubber, causing mounts to sag or shear. This condition can be downright dangerous, as an out-of-position drivetrain can cause critical linkages to bind at the worst possible times, possibly leading to loss of control and even runaway engine operation.

So, from Gord's post:

With the car securely supported on jackstands, remove the nuts from the lower studs on both tranny mounts. Then "crack" the bolts holding the mount brackets to the bellhousing. Use a floor jack with a plywood pad to raise the tranny by carefully jacking under the pan. It'll only go up a bit less than 2 inches; don't force anything. With the tranny supported, back out the bolts holding the mounts to the bellhousing, and remove the old mounts. Real bad ones will come out in 2 pieces.

Note: when installing rear mounts, I suggest you install both together; drop the studs into the crossmember, installing the spacer where required, lower the tranny to slightly above its rest position, then start the capscrews that hold the mounts to the bellhousing, and get them in a few turns, then put nuts on the mount lower studs, and spin them on a few turns. The you can gradually lower the tranny the rest of the way, and tighten the fasteners as you go. Once the tranny weight is fully borne by the mounts, you can torque the bolts up good. The reason for this procedure is as follows: with the mounts bolted tight to the bellhousing, the lower studs project out and down at about a 45° angle. The span between their tips will exceed the span between the holes provided for them in the crossmember, and you will be stuck. By installing them in a "gradual" fashion, you get around the geometry bottleneck, and also ensure that the mounts aren't installed with some built-in stress that will hasten their failure.

With the rear mounts done, a similar procedure will work on the front mounts. Be careful not to jack the motor so high that the distributor get damaged by interfering with the firewall. Sometimes, I've had to cut a little excess length off the front mount studs to enable myself to winkle 'em in.

While you're down there (if you have an automatic transmission), don't forget to check for the presence of the dreaded transmission spacer on the driver's side mount, as detailed in this earlier post.

Happy Studebakering!

Valve Adjustment for the Studebaker V8

2011-06-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally set aside the time to adjust Barney's valves, and got it done today. I should have done this right after the rebuilt engine was brought back to life, but I was hesitant because the job intimidated me, and after all, the car was running, right?

But solid-lifter valves need to be properly adjusted in order to maximize efficiency and power. And Barney's gas economy has been, shall we say, less than stellar. I knew it was needed and overdue. Actually "valve adjustment" is a misnomer -- you're not adjusting the valves themselves, but the valvetrain "lash," or the air gap between the rockers and valve stems when the valves are closed.

Of all the maintenance operations in Studebakerdom, I think this one may be the source of the largest amount of questions, concerns and fear. But I learned that it's much easier to actually do the adjustment than it is to read about it! You just gotta get your hands dirty, and it all makes sense. Part of the problem, I think, is that the process is often described, but never illustrated. You'd think that a common operation like this would be thoroughly documented on the Web, but it isn't - so I hope the following illustrated tutorial will help future Studebaker seekers.

The Studebaker V8 in its natural habitat

It'll take about 2 hours to do the job in your garage, if you work like I do. You'll need a spark plug socket, a good set of feeler gauges, a socket set, a 1/2" wrench and a test light. A remote starter switch is useful too. A tube of anti-seize and silicone grease will come in handy for reinstalling the spark plugs, but they're not necessary.

First, you need to know the firing order of the Studebaker V8, because you have to adjust the valves in that order.

Firing Order:
1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2

As the illustration shows, the left bank of cylinders (driver's side) has the "odd" numbered cylinders (1,2,5 & 7), while the right bank has the "even" cylinders 2,4,6 & 8), so you'll be moving back and forth from side to side during the adjustment process.

After much reading of various folks' recommendations for adjusting the valve lash, I decided to stick with the factory method outlined in the Studebaker shop manual. Studebaker gives a proceedure for adjusting the valves either with the engine hot and running, or stone cold. I chose to do it cold, since I don't like the idea of working on a hot running engine, especially one that's flinging oil around like a congressman spends cash!

To start, I numbered the spark plug wires prior to removal so that I'd get them right upon reinstallation, and pulled them off.

Then, I removed the valve covers. This is accomplished by removing the nuts from each of the two studs that exit each cover. I laid them across the air cleaner so that I wouldn't have to remove the wires from the built-in clips on the covers. On the left-hand valve cover, there's a spring that provides return tension to the throttle bellcrank; I unhooked this from the bellcrank and kept it with the valve cover.

After the valve covers were off, I removed the spark plugs. I like doing this with the valve covers off, as it provides more room to work. The #6 plug is a little fishy to work around due to the close proximity of the oil dipstick tube; #7 is also a bit tricky because of the master cylinder plumbing. Just work gently to avoid cracking the spark plug insulators during removal and reinstallation.

All my plugs looked good - normal deposits and nice and clean, except for the plug from #5 cylinder (3rd from left, above), which had some crusty ash deposits on it. The spark plug guide chart says this is due to a bit too much oil in the cylinder during combustion; I'll have to watch this - could be a leaky valve guide seal.

By the way, I'm a big believer in an orderly workspace :)

Now to perform the first valve adjustment. This is done by finding the Top Dead Center of cylinder #1. Top Dead Center is also called "firing position;" it's the point in the engine's rotation just after the compression stroke, during which the spark plug ignites the fuel charge in the cylinder. It's also the point at which both exhaust and intake valves are completely closed.

To find TDC for #1, I connected a remote starter switch to rotate the engine easily. The Studebaker vibration damper has several marks stamped into it; one reads "UDC 1". (UDC stands for Upper Dead Center - Studebaker stuck with this older terminology to the end.) When this mark is exactly under the timing pointer, #1 is at TDC.

BUT there's a caveat: in a 4-stroke engine, the cylinder is at the top of the bore on both the compression AND the exhaust stroke. You need to make sure the TDC you're finding is the one just after the compression stroke.The easiest way to do this is to put your thumb over the #1 plug hole and rotate the engine with the remote switch. When your thumb gets blown off the hole, that's the compression stroke! Stop spinning the engine. You'll rotate the engine the rest of the way to TDC by hand - it turns pretty easily with all the plugs out.

If you have a fixed radiator fan, you can grab the fan blades and turn in order to ease the engine to TDC. But this won't work on engines with clutch-type fans. SDC Tech maven Dwain Grindinger wrote in one of his how-to pieces that you can use a socket wrench on the alternator (or generator) pulley to turn the engine, and it works! I also grabbed the crankshaft damper with my right hand and gave it a turn while using the wrench with my left. This provides the leverage and control needed to move the engine a small amount at a time.

Once you've found TDC for #1, it's time to adjust the valve train. Studebaker mandates a clearance of between 0.025" and 0.027" for cold engine adjustment; I split the difference and adjusted to 0.026". to do this, you simply slip the blade of the feeler guage between the valve stem and the surface of the rocker arm; the adjusting nut is on the opposite arm of the rocker. These are pretty stiff; they're self-locking adjusting nuts so there's no locking nut to loosen - just put your 1/2" wrench around it and go!

If the feeler slips right into the gap, great. If not, you'll need to loosen the adjusting nut - turn it counter-clockwise to open the gap. You want to feel a bit of resistance as you pull the gauge through the gap, but not too much -- "the feeling should be about the same as putting a table knife through a stick of cold butter," according to an excellent article on valvetrains I found on the Century Performance website. All my valves were tight, and had to be opened up in order to get the gauge in. once it's there, though, small adjustments to the adjuster nut achieve the proper resistance very quickly.

Finding TDC is easy with cylinder #1, since its position is marked right on the vibration damper. How do you find TDC for the other cylinders? That where the test light comes in. Look at your ignition coil and find the wire that leads from the coil to inside the distributor - NOT the high-tension wire that leads from the center of the coil to the center of the distributor; the wire you're looking for is a thin (likely black) one that is screwed to one of the two small terminals on the coil. It leads inside the distributor to the points. Connect one of the leads from your test lamp to the post this wire is screwed to; connect the other end of your test lamp to a clean ground.

Now put your key in the car's ignition and turn it on -- No, not to "START"! Just the first click, to the ignition "ON" position. Now, as you rotate the engine (by hand), the test lamp will illuminate when the distributor's points close. When that happens, you've found Top Dead Center for the cylinder you're going to adjust.

Remember the firing order? You've just adjusted cylinder #1. Next in the firing sequence is #8, so rotate the engine by hand until the test lamp just lights, and adjust both valves for cylinder #8. Continue to hand-turn the engine and set the valve lash for cylinders 4,3,6,5,7 and 2.

After the first couple of valve sets, the process gets incredibly easy. Before you know it, you're done! Now it's time to put it all back together.

If your spark plugs are all in good shape, clean them and inspect the gap. I like to smear a little silver anti-seize on the threads to ease removal and protect the threads in the head; I also put a bit of silicone lube inside the spark plug wire boot to make sure they seal well and come off easily later.

Put the valve covers back on, reconnect the plug wires and fire it up - you're ready to go!

After adjusting the valves, Barney came to life immediately and ran like a top. The difference was amazing - not only did he idle smoother, he warmed up faster. ON the road, there was less engine vibration, and he revved quicker. Also, the usual smell of fuel was missing during my test drive. (I knew Barney was blowing fuel out the back because the exhaust tips are sooty...) My son and I took him for a full-throttle blast through a nearby industrial park (empty on the weekends), and the difference in performance is dramatic -- I actually got rubber in 2nd gear.

After doing a valve lash adjustment, be sure to check your timing afterward, as valve adjustment affects timing. I will actually need to lower my idle, since the engine is running so much more efficiently now that the idle speed is noticeably increased.

I hope this brings some clarity to a mysterious procedure, and helps other newcomers to the Studebaker hobby!

Yeah, I'm still here :)

2011-06-11T16:28:00.000-07:00

Lots of stuff going on around here, very little of it Stude-related - except for me driving the car all over North County! I really do love the Studebaker, and things are slowly getting dialed in. I got a new set of spark plugs from Chuck Collins Studebaker today (Champion H14Y, stock #91, if you're in need), since I plan on adjusting the valves tomorrow. Why does this require that I lay in new plugs? Well, the last time I removed plugs, I wound up cracking one off - so I figure, better safe than sorry!

I have gotten a couple of small (emphasis: small) projects done, though. One involved rehabbing the fresh-air intake on Barney. In '63, Larks got a new Climatizer system that placed the heater core and valve horizontally under the dashboard (instead of mounted vertically on the firewall as in years past). This made use of the Lark's cowl-mounted fresh air grille for heating and cooling. The heater core is mounted on the passenger's side of the car, with ductwork carrying fresh or heated air to the other side of the car. But on the driver's side of the car, there was a fresh-air vent under the dash that was just an updated version of the old fender-flap air scoops that the earlier models had; the difference was that the Lark's air flap also let in air from the cowl vent (rather than the fender).

In my car, the driver's vent wouldn't close. There's a latch, meant to hold the duct shut tightly when you don't want air forced in, and no matter how hard I pushed the knob in, I couldn't get that duct to shut and latch. Close examination revealed that the actuating rod was bent and misadjusted.

This photo shows the driver's vent from the perspective of the carpet, a position I've become accustomed to from all the changing of dash switches, rewiring, replacing of ignition switches, etc. The actuating rod in the foreground attaches to the vent door. See the little latch mechanism? See how the vent is not shut all the way? See the kink in the rod? Yup... that was my problem. The rod was so bent that it prevented the vent from being shut properly.

After removing the rod I hammered it straight using my bench vise. There! Much better! But hold on there - not so fast. There's a bracket on the dash that the rod rides in, and it's lined with a rubber grommet. Mine was rather perished - old, dry and cracked. May as well not have had a grommet there at all.

Determined to fix this, I pried out the rubber (came out in 3 pieces, natch) and headed down to my local Tru-Value, who often have oddball parts that fit my Stude. But not this time, and the Studebaker International catalog showed no stock for this bit, either. What to do, especially now that I'd crumbled my old piece into fine black bits?

Tru-Value and Yankee ingenuity to the rescue. If I couldn't find the right size, I'd fabricate a suitable replacement! Heading to the hardware store, I grabbed a rubber grommet with a suitable outside diameter, and a pair of Delrin shoulders that press-fit into each other, and assembled them into a Delrin-lined grommet that would fit into the bracket.

The bits, unassembled.

The Delrin/rubber sandwich.

The installed bushing.

Success! It may not be original, but it works great - quiet, no rattles, easy slide. After reinstalling the actuating rod, I found that the vent door still wouldn't latch all the way, but that the bracket itself could be loosened and slid backward - which I did, and now feel the door close with a satisfying *snick* when I push the knob all the way forward.

Adjusting screws.

Success!

I smeared some white lithium grease on the latch after polishing the rust off it with some 200-grit paper, and it works smoothly and quietly.

Oh, and that rubber seal around the vent flap? It turned out I didn't need one but I ordered it anyway from Studebaker International - part # 1338907.

Just kickin'

2011-04-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

Not much to talk about lately, sorry - my job is all-consuming this time of year, but in the next few weeks will ease up. Then I'll have time to tackle (and document!) some things that need attention on Barney... driver's door rebuild being chief among them. New regulator, vent window, glass run channel and door panel fuzzies are all in the offing, as that door is really messed up. I'll also be tackling a radio installation and valve adjustment. Stay tuned!

A really good Stude week! New springs and more.

2011-02-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

It's really been a great couple of weeks, Studebaker-wise. I've gotten a lot of little (and not so little!) things done, all of which added up to a lot of things that make the car more livable.

First, last weekend, I fixed the leaky fuel filler hose that had been venting fumes into the passenger compartment from the trunk. I also got the new ignition switch into the dash, replacing the old one with the weak return spring and bad accessory contacts, and put in a brand-new headlight switch that doesn't leak smoke and melt connectors - so now the headlights work properly. The new relay turn-signal indicator finally works the blinkers loudly and regularly.

If you've been following my blog for a while, you might notice a difference in Barney while looking at the photo above. That's right - I finally got the rear springs installed.

The smiling man above is Tony Elkins, owner of North County Spring in Escondido, California. Tony is the ultimate California surfer dude, blonde hair, beach accent, easy-going good nature and all. Tony used to run E&C Spring, the shop that his dad owned for over 30 years. About 5 years ago, Tony's dad died, and a family rift developed about how the business should be run. Tony was on the side that wanted to run an honest shop, so he left to start his own. Let me say that there is no one in this county that I would trust more to do the job than Tony and his crew. Need springs? They repair, replace, rebuilt, re-arch - they even bend their own U-bolts. While you wait. I recommend them highly:

North County Spring

446 Enterprise St.
Escondido, CA. 92029

760-738-7020

www.northcountyspring.com

Luckily, I was able to secure a set of brand-new OEM springs from SASCO before they went out of business and their inventory transferred to Studebaker International. I got these factory springs at a ridiculously low price - Eaton Detroit wants $400 a pair plus shipping; I secured these factory NOS parts for a quarter of that.

They did have 40 years of warehouse rust on them, though, so my son stripped them and I painted them and they were ready to install.

The problem, however, lies in removing and replacing the spring bushings that are pressed into the car's frame itself. Much has been written on the SDC Forum regarding the process of replacing these bushings, with instructions on how to fabricate a tool to pull the old ones out and slide the new ones in. But those steel-shelled bushings have been in the frame for 40+ years; they're not coming out easily. Tony originally thought it would take 4 hours of shop time to R&R the springs... that turned into nearly 10 hours which included having to torch out the old bushing shells, necessitating removal of the fuel tank as well... yeah.

They also replaced the rubber hose that connects the gas tank to the fuel pipe. It was so old and brittle it literally crumbled in my hand when Tony showed me the old bits. Like a dry biscuit. Glad that one got fixed before it came apart on its own.

But oh, what a difference those new springs make! The top photo above shows the rear wheel prior to spring replacement. You can see that the tire is partially within the wheelwell; the tread is well above the lip of the fender. In the lower photo, you can easily see the different the new springs make - the top of the tire is plainly visible now within the fender. There's at least 3 - 4" difference in rear-end height.

Here are some before-and-after shots of the entire car, and you can see the difference in the stance of the car. The top shot is before, the bottom after:

Where the difference really shines is in the driving, though. The car handles much better without the rear end wiggling all over the place; I don't have to slow down to 10 MPH around corners just for fear of the car falling off its suspension. It tracks truer as well - goes where I point it. Chuckholes that threatened to break the rear end loose and send it sideways are now nothing more than a minor annoyance.

Finally, an order from SI arrived yesterday, with some long-awaited goodies inside: a reproduction Strato-Line mirror for the right side of the car, and a set of new rear seat belts to replace the scuzzy MoPar belts that the PO installed.

I took Barney out for an after-dark drive tonight. Lights on bright, gauges all indicating a happy engine. Heater pumping out welcome warmth, while the 259 burbled through the dual pipes. The car's really starting to be fun to drive now. I've loved this Stude for a while - now I'm beginning to really like it, too.

Me and the boy

2011-01-30T12:19:00.000-08:00

My wife took some shots of me and Reed next to the Stude this week. I love these pics!

And here's one from a church fund-raiser we did yesterday. I designed the team shirts :)

Scotsman Stickers reproduced

2011-01-27T10:14:00.000-08:00

If you're a Stude geek, you probably already know about the Scotsman, Studebaker's bare-bones line of cars and trucks that were probably the brightest light in the stable during the dark years of 1957-1958, and the success of which was the impetus for the cut-down Lark of 1959. Scotsmans were notable for their lack of frills of any kind - no trim, no patterned upholstery, no carpet, little chrome - so austere that they came with only a driver's arm rest and sun visor! But they also came with an almost absurdly low price and as a result were a sales success, helping keep the doors of S-P open until Harold Churchill's Lark could breathe new life into the company. Scotsman cars were produced in '57 & '58; Scotsman pickup trucks from '57 to '59.

Scotsman pickups were so stripped down, in fact, that even the Studebaker nameplate that usually adorned the hood of the truck was deleted in favor of a decal, possibly the first such use of adhesive graphics on production automobiles. These decals were, given the limits of 1950s technology, understandably fragile and have not weathered the years well on surviving trucks - especially given the harsh use and environments trucks are generally subjected to. The decals have been unavailable for years.

Henry Votel, a Studebaker Drivers Club member, took it upon himself to research and reproduce these decals, both for the hood and the cab sides. They've been lovingly re-created using the best surviving originals as guides, even down to the slightly non-symmetrical shapes and hand-drawn nature of the graphics.

Henry has put a post on the SDC Forum detailing all the information he uncovered during the project - you can read it all here. If you have a Scotsman pickup and are interested in obtaining a set of these decals, you can contact Henry at:

Henry Votel
6015 190th Street N
Forest Lake, MN 55025
651-426-1610

Cost at the time of this posting is $45 per set plus shipping in the US. The SDC Forum post referenced above also contains Henry's email address if you'd like to shoot him a note. As the folks on Hee-Haw used to say, "Saaaaa-LUTE!"

Nobody wants to smell your gas. Or: where's that coming from?

2011-01-23T21:04:00.000-08:00

For a while now, the smell of gasoline has been pretty strong inside the car, and even stronger in the trunk, after sitting for a little while. I suspected that the problem was in the area of the fuel filler, since the smell was strongest there. In '63 Larks, Studebaker used a rubber hose to link the fuel tank inlet neck and the filler pipe.

The hose on my car was pretty soft, way more than I thought it should be. And every time I bent down to sniff, the gas was strong there. Studebaker International has all the hoses and gaskets needed to renew this connection, so I sent off for everything and a couple of days later came the little box that meant I had bits to install.

The first thing to do when you're working on anything in the vicinity of the gas tank is, of course, to disconnect the battery to avoid any unplanned combustion. Having done that, the first step is to remove the collar that screws to the trunk floor. Hey look - Rose Mist paint! That's Barney's original color. I don't know if he'll ever return to that color! But it is interesting to look at. The other interesting thing here is the obvious Merdework of a PO - see the expanded foam around the gasket?

At this point I realized that I would have to remove the filler neck from the car in order to get the rubber hose out of its location, as it was holding on to the two steel pipes like a Chinese finger trap. The pipe is easy to remove, being held in by four hex-head sheet-metal screws on the trunk filler panel. After these came out, the filler could be pushed inward a bit and, once the tower clamps on the hose were released, rotated free of its rubber receptacle.

There is also a vent tube that attaches to the extreme end of the filler neck. A short length of rubber hose connects to a loop of fuel line which exits the trunk through the floor. This allows for expansion of the gas in the tank on hot days. You can see the nipple exiting the filler pipe in the photo at left. The rubber hose that led off this nipple was original, and in fact it was held on by the factory spring clamps - another potential source of vapor leaks.

The hose freed, I could see part of the problem. It bore a NAPA legend, but it was not fuel-grade hose - it was thin, flexible and made of multiple layers of corded rubber material - almost like the construction of an old bias-ply tire. I don't know what this stuff was, but it surely was not appropriate for the job it had been doing.

In fact, upon close inspection, I could see that the old hose was permeated with several small but significant cracks, like this 1/4" example. In this photo you can see the fabric construction of the hose, too. Between being the wrong product for the use it was put to and the cracks that had developed in the material, it was pretty obvious that this was a significant source of the fuel vapor we'd been smelling.

I slid on the new rubber hose to keep any dirt from falling into the neck of the fuel tank, and spent a few minutes cleaning up the sealing collar. The PO had tried to seal the torn original factory rubber sheet gasket by shoving weatherstripping foam in the cracks and covering it all with what appeared to be roofing tar or tar-based caulk, probably straight out of the Henry's can. It took a while to clean off.

Nice rubber, eh?

After tightening up the lower tower clamp, I slid the new foam-rubber gasket around the hose and neck. The lead to the gas gauge sender enters the trunk through this point as well, so I had to take care to thread the wire between the hose and the gasket and make sure it didn't contact any metal edges it could vibrate against. Then it was time to put the filler neck back in; I had ordered a new rubber seal for this from SI. The old one peeled off like an F-18, and with the new one slipped on, I slid the neck into the new rubber filler hose (remembering to put the tower clamp and hold-down ring around it before doing so) and screwed it back to the car's filler panel.

From there, it was just a matter of tightening down both tower clamps, adjusting the new floor gasket so its holes lined up with the screw holes in the trunk floor, and then screwing the collar back down to the floor. Done!

Well, almost :) There's that vent hose to install. I deep-sixed the factory spring clamps and found a couple 1/2" towers in my toolbox, along with a length of fuel injection hose. 60 seconds later, the last bit of the puzzle is in place.

Ahhh... much better.

Oh, and don't forget to reconnect the fuel sender wire!

Although I had also obtained a new cork gasket for the fuel level sender, intending to re-seal that as well, since it could also have been a potential place for vapor leaks. But, applying my Durante-quality schnozz to the area, I found no trace of odor. And besides, I had no wish to disturb a good seal, although the gas gauge has a tendency to read empty with half a tank left, so I may need to tackle it one day. But that day was not today ;)

The real test, of course, is whether this repair and renew takes care of the fuel smell in the cabin. Leaving the car locked up over night, I waited until about 10AM, after the sun had ample opportunity to warm the tank, and opened up the door... success! There was a faint odor, but that was obviously just the remnants of months worth of gas vapor permeating the upholstery. Opening the trunk, I found no smell of gas at all. One more project checked off the list!

Woot! That was easy!

2011-01-23T16:13:00.000-08:00

Followup to yesterday's post regarding the headlights not working: Fixed that! After studying the wiring schematic last night, I determined that the only place in which the problem could reside lay in the vicinity of the headlamp circuit breaker. So, this morning, I lay down in the floor (again) with the flashlight in my mouth (again) and, within 30 seconds, found a loose feed wire to the breaker! Apparently, all my rooting around with the ignition switch yesterday had caused the (already somewhat loose) barrel connector to slip free of the breaker stud. 2 minutes later, the wire was reconnected, the switch mounted in the dash, and Barney was idling placidly in the driveway.

Ah... one in the "win" column :)

Dang it!

2011-01-23T07:11:00.000-08:00

Had some time yesterday so got to do a little work on Barney. First up was changing out the old gas filler hose in the trunk, which was letting fumes into the passenger compartment. That went well, so I tackled another project: putting in a new headlamp switch and ignition switch.

I changed out the headlamp switch first and tested it; headlamps worked! Awesome! Then I swapped out the old ignition switch for a new replacement from SI. Put it all back into the dash, turned the key - car fired right up. Yay! Tested the headlights - no lights. Boo.

I had to go to church so didn't have time to figure out what was wrong, and just disconnected the battery for the night. Looking at the wiring diagram, I think either the headlamp breaker opened or... well, that's really the only thing I can figure. I'll have some time this AM, so it's back to laying on my back in the floor again :)

Nate Vonada's '41 Champion

2011-01-18T18:49:00.000-08:00

If you enjoy reading stories about how to repair old cars, check out another Studeblogger: Nathan Vonada. He hosts a wonderful website that shows all the repair work he's done on his Grandfather's beautiful '41 Champion coupe; one of my favorite pre-war Studebakers. Its snazzy two-tone beltline trim gave it a class and dash far above that of its contemporaries, in my opinion. He takes on the brakes, front suspension, brakes again, interior, engine seals, brakes again... It's some great storytelling and a large amount of photos to boot.

Check Nathan's car and stories out at http://stude.vonadatech.com .

Oil Change.

2011-01-17T21:28:00.000-08:00

OK, really? A how-to post on changing your oil? Who doesn't know how to do that? Well, maybe. But stick with me; this tale has a surprise ending.

With 500 miles on the clock since commissioning his rebuilt engine, it was time to change Barney's break-in oil. For break-in, I had run a load of precious Service-CI4 formula Shell Rotella T (with a full load of ZDDP to protect the solid lifters in the Stude's engine), accompanied by a pint of GM Assembly Lubricant for extra break-in lubricity (ooh! $5.00 word!).

Oil changes, the traditional way, are messy, dirty jobs. You pull the drain plug from the pan, get splashed with hot, dirty oil, lose the plug in the bucket of hot, dirty oil, realize you forgot to pick up a new package of plug gaskets... So a while back, I purchased a Pela oil vacuum specifically to avoid all of this.

The Pela is great. All you have to do is push its pickup tube down your dipstick, attach the pump and give it about 10 strokes. In seconds, you see the tube fill with black gold and it begins to flow into the vacuum canister. OK, it takes a little time... the 5 liters in Barney's sump took about an hour to pump out. But that's about the same time you'd take to make certain everything finished dripping out of the oil pan -- and with a lot less mess.

After cooling it, the deed was done and the engine had given up its filthy load of black lube. Nasty stuff for only 500 miles! But break-in is where all the rough edges inside a rebuilt engine get smoothed over, so the break-in oil is necessarily ugly.

So we're ready to pour in the new oil -- uh, no. Gotta change the filter first.

The oil filter on the car is a Purolator Premium Plus 30005. It's a full-quart unit that is rated very highly. Unfortunately, I couldn't find another in the area. But my NAPA supplied a Mobil 1 M1-203; it's a 3/4 quart filter, but has an upgraded element to handle the nasties.

Some guys just use the old screwdriver-jammed-through-the-can tool to remove old oil filters. I've tried that - once - and didn't like it. Too messy. Plus, the cans tend to tear; bad scene there.

I found this genuine ChannelLock oil filter pliers in the discount bin at NAPA for $5.00. You can't beat that deal with a stick! I like these better than the strap wrench because they "bite" the can but don't destroy it. The adjustable slip joint makes it easy to get a good grip. A little loosening and the filter spins right off.

Remember, that thing's full of dirty dino juice, so be sure you have a tub under the filter when you loosen it. A goodly amount of greasy goop will spill out once you undo it, too, since the system is under pressure.

You can probably get the filter off without raising the car (if you're skinny enough), but I like a little more elbow room. I chocked the rear wheels, lifted the front, and rolled under with my creeper in comfort.

Notice in the photo above that the oil filter can is located directly over the passenger's side exhaust pipe. This is significant, because it means that --

Right. Studebaker engineers routed the exhaust pipe directly beneath the oil filter mount, virtually guaranteeing that I'll be smelling smoke for 20 miles until the oil burns off the pipe.

The good news is that, while I was down there, I found the two nuts that hold the flywheel inspection cover to the bellhousing were a bit loose, so I tightened them up. Don't forget to put a few drops of oil on the gasket of the new filter, and remember to spin it on hand-tight (not finger-tight!), or you'll wind up with a big grease spot on your driveway in pretty short order.

Now, here's the surprise I promised: if you go by the capacity chart in the Owner's manual, you'll be shy a quart of the honey gold. Yep, the Studebaker manual for 1963 lists the capacity of the engine (both 6 and 8) as 5 quarts. But if you put only 5 quarts in the engine, the dipstick will tell you you're a quart low. I know, because I measure out my oil before pouring it in.

The guys on the SDC Forum have confirmed this quirk. Perhaps it was a misprint, or a holdover from the old days when oil filters were accessories. Whatever the case, if you're doing a full oil and filter change, you'll need 6 quarts.

I always get a little knot in my stomach when I first fire up the engine after an oil change. There's always that little bit of apprehensiveness; the engine is spinning but the pressure gauge shows zero... and then, after a couple seconds, the needle shoots to its accustomed 60 pounds and stays there, the relief valve open and engine purring. Ahh... success :) Time for a drive!

Better turn signal indications.

2011-01-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

When I gave Barney his new wiring harness, I installed a full complement of brand-new instrument-panel bulbs of the type called out in the Owner's manual, #1445 bulbs in most locations. It quickly became apparent that at least two of them, the turn signal indicator and the Flight-O-Matic indicator lamp, were too dim to be seen in the daylight.

A Forum search turned up several threads on the subject, one of which is here. Folks in that thread recommended some other bulbs that would fit the space and provide more candlepower, so I tried those out and found them still wanting - I can barely see Barney's turn indicator when the signals are on.

So my Jameco catalog came and as I was leafing through it, I found LED replacements for bayonet-mount panel lamps - 12 volts at .30 milliamps. Unfortunately, searching their site turned up availability in only red or yellow LED colors, but a Google search found the white-light versions at Grainger. Grainger shows the LM-1012MB as a direct replacement for the 1445 bulb - for only $20 per item! I may not be a genuine CASO, but that's a little stiff for me.

Finally, another web search on the part number turned up a place called Bulb Town, whose site lists the LED "bulbs" for $13, a much more amenable price. So I ordered a couple, which arrived in my mailbox last Thursday.

You'll notice that the package size of the LED is longer than the 1415 bulb that the factory used, but for in-dash lighting this is not a problem, as there is plenty of room in the gauge cases. I popped the LED bulb into the socket for the turn-signal telltale, and it was indeed notably brighter than the 1415, and very similar in brightness to the 1816 incandescent bulb that others have used. OK, one problem solved!

That left me with only one other issue: the flasher unit and its audible indication, of which there is barely any. Studebaker specified a 552 flasher can for this application. These are of the standard, bi-metallic strip design: A strip of metal inside the can, made of a laminate of brass and steel, is fastened at one end and makes contact with a stud on the other end. As electrical current passes through the metal strip, the steel side heats up faster than the brass, and the strip flexes, breaking the circuit. It cools, and contact is re-established. The cycle continues, and this is the way the blinking of the turn signal is accomplished. It's really a dirt-simple mechanism. I can only imagine, however, that the construction of these units has changed greatly since these cars were made, because the 552 unit I purchased new was 1) inaudible - no "tick tock" blinker indication, and 2) too fast - the first flash would be 1 second long, until the bimetal strip heated up, and then the flash cycle settled into a rapid blink of about 4 per second.

The Forum post on the issue had the solution: a "long life" flasher with an actual electrical relay inside, a much more robust mechanism than the bimetal strip. I was able to get this from my NAPA for a shade less than $9.00. It differs in appearance from the original style, but the package is virtually identical in size, and it plugged right in.

Woo hoo! Complete success! I now have an audible turn signal indication with a visible dash tell-tale, and turn signals that flash at a steady, noticeable rate. What a difference this makes! My son was a bit nonplussed by my enthusiasm for this improvement (maybe I did get a little too excited), but it sure is cool to have something that once again operates the way it was designed to.

As to the Flight-O-Matic indicator: the LED bulb package (and that of the 1816 bulb) is too large to fit into the lamp cover housing, so the solution to that problem eludes me for now.

Head Bolt Torque, Revisited.

2011-01-02T09:35:00.000-08:00

A while back I posted about checking and re-torquing head bolts on Studebaker V-8 engines. The Shop Manual contains all the torque specifications and the bolt tightening sequence (which I documented in my earlier post), but recently a thread on the Studebaker Drivers Club Forum made mention of an additional procedure worth noting. It's probably one that experienced mechanics take for granted, but I certainly don't fall into that category (and I know some of my readers don't either).

Specifically, the heads should be re-torqued when the engine is cold, and should be loosened slightly before tightening. Says Forum member Mike Van Veghten:

Always cold...at least 4 hours since the engine was run, cold.

This is important because the Shop Manual gives conflicting instructions, saying that one should warm up the engine "to stabilise the temperature" before checking head bolt torque. Mike explains that this is outdated thinking, and the reason to torque when cold is simple: the first few bolts torqued after running the engine will be to spec, but the engine immediately starts to cool, causing the metal to begin contracting. Bolts torqued after this process begins will be tightened to a different value than the first bolts you worked on!

Therefore, all bolts should be torqued to spec only when the fastened assemblies are cold. This includes valve adjusters.

Furthermore, Mike says:

Back each fastener out about 1/2 turn (one at a time), then re-tighten to the proper torque value. If you do not back the fastener out, you will not get the proper final torque put into the new tightening operation.

Now (as the saying goes), you know... the rest of the story!

Happy Stude Year!

2011-01-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

Been pretty quiet here on the blog, as Winter in California has kept me from doing anything but driving the car lately - not that that's a bad thing! It's been a lot of fun driving Barney around; the looks he gets are priceless. Some know what he is and will shout something appreciative. Others have no clue and just kind of gawk as we growl past.

But the rain has let up and now I'm starting to think about things I need to accomplish this year. My son, Reed, will be driving in June, so the car has to be ready for him. So here's what's got to get done in 2011:

Rear springs and frame bushings installed
Replace old tapered axle shafts with new splined
R&R windshield and backlight and install new gaskets
Adjust valves
Install new exhaust system
Track down and eliminate gasoline fumes in trunk
Install new steering wheel and connect horn circuit
Swap old ignition switch for new

Hey, this reads a lot like last year's to-do list! Geez, you'd figure I'd be farther ahead with 4 years of working on this car under my belt :)

By the way, these past few chilly weeks have given me ample opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of my heater rebuild (chronicled here). I'm pleased to say that the heater works beautifully now, providing ample warmth; in fact, I can usually just open the air intake and slide the heat control down a little bit to keep my feet toasty - don't even need to run the blower! Well, that's one thing checked off the list, at least.

Roger Ebert in praise of the Golden Hawk.

2010-11-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

I remember reading this excellent post by movie critic Roger Ebert a couple of years ago, but thanks to Bob Palma on the SDC Forum, it's come back to my attention.

Roger is an excellent writer, of course, and in this article for the Chicago Sun-Times, he postulates quite convincingly that the Golden Hawk of 1957-1958 was truly the iconic American car of the time. "In my opinion, the mourner of Miss American Pie drove a Studebaker. It's simply that "Chevy" was an easier rhyme," he writes, and I quite concur.

It's a great read - take a few moments and check it out here.

Freeway flyer.

2010-11-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

I had Barney out today for the longest trip away from home since his return to operation last Thanksgiving! My wife was working and my son had the day off from school. A few of his buds invited him to go bowling, so I hopped on the freeway and made the trip.

OK, I know that a 25-mile round trip is not too exciting, but really - this was Barney's first extended freeway time, and he performed admirably. I stayed in the slow lane and kept it pegged on 65; he did what was expected and we made it there and back with no fuss at all.

The transmission is still maladjusted, however, and needs attention. SDC transmission expert John Metzker has told me that the governor valve needs to be removed and cleaned - Barney doesn't like to downshift when the trans is cold, and when he's hot and shifting properly, you can hear the servos buzzing loudly during the shift. I really need to get over to my trans guy, Kurt, and have the stuff done... along with all the other things I have to do.

But it was a gorgeous day, the driving was great, and I couldn't have wished for a better trip.

Marking time

2010-11-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

Not a lot going on lately with Barney. With Winter here, he's undercover at night, so taking him out for a drive means removing the bungees (10 attachment points on 3 cords), rolling up the cover and stowing it. Not a lot of trouble I guess, but it takes time, and even though I work from home, it's still work :)

I did get him out on the road yesterday for a fast out-and-back, but all the stuff I need to do - get the new rear springs in, get the windshield seal replaced, get the trans serviced, adjust the valves, mount the new steering wheel - wow, that's a lot! is still waiting to happen. Just need time and money, and this time of year both of those are in short supply.

The Truth About Larks.

2010-09-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

There's a really great car blog I read called The Truth About Cars. It's full of insider observations and commentary on the auto industry, as well as contributions about things mechanical and older autos.

One of TTAC's regular columns is called "Curbside Classics", wherein contributor Paul Niedermeyer finds and photographs older rides in and around his home in Eugene, Oregon. A couple of weeks back, Paul turned his attention to one of our beloved Larks, specifically a Pepto-Bismol-pink '60 Lark VI 4-door sedan. It's a great little car, and a great review too, with plenty of history and some hilarious personal anecdotes as well. Check it out!

Oil Breather Caps for late Studebaker engines

2010-09-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

When you're detailing an engine, it's the little stuff that makes the difference. Decals are one thing that contribute, as are correct engine accessories. In my case, the oil breather/filler caps were one of the last things to need touching.

Studebaker converted to full-flow engines (that is, an engine where 100% of the lubricating oil is filtered) in late 1962. Prior to that, Stude V-8s were partial flow engines, meaning that not all the oil was filtered as it passed through the oiling system. The two engine types can be immediately identified by the location of the oil filler tubes and the valve cover design: partial flow engines have a filler standpipe front-and-center, forward of the valley cover, and the valve covers have no filler openings. Full-flow engines have oil fillers in the valve covers and no standpipe on the block.

Compare the two photos below to see the difference: On the left is a V-8 installed in a '62 Lark; its central oil fill and solid valve covers mark it as a partial flow engine, while the '63 engine compartment on the left has the dual valve-cover-mounted fillers of a full-flow engine.

Regardless of the type of engine installed, notice that the oil filler cap is the same in each photo: a low-profile orange cap with a blue and white label. This cap, painted orange, was used on all standard '62 - '64 Studebaker engines. A chromed version was used on Jet Thrust engines installed in all Avantis, or on Larks and Hawks that had an optional JT engine. In fact, I believe the basic design of this cap dates back to the very beginnings of the Studebaker V-8; the photo below shows a cap of similar (if not identical) design installed atop the oil filler of a pristine 7,400-mile 1951 Commander State sedan.

Nevertheless, if your cap is missing, it is available as a reproduction from Studebaker vendors - but only with the chromed finish. I don't know why they don't offer a painted version, since there were far more non-JT engines produced over the years, but there it is. So if you have a pair, re-use them! Or get a used pair cheap, wash them up and refurb. Here's the quick-and-dirty makeover.

When I acquired Barney, his OEM Stude breathers were already long gone, ditched in favor of a set of Mr. Gasket chromies. These work find and look OK, but they sit high; the Stude breathers snuggle down over the filler pipe and sit close to the valve covers. So I procured a used set from an SDC Forum user and proceeded to strip off the old paint. The photo here shows an original breather alongside its twin, paint removed using a nylon abrasive wheel.

After the old paint's gone, the new goes on. The secret here is to use Dupli-Color DE1620, better known as Chevy Orange. It's a perfect match for the orange paint Studebaker used in several places under the hood on late V-8s. I always use a base-coat of Rust-Oleum red primer just to even things out; after that, the Orange goes on.

Not a bad result! This is after a coat of primer and two coats of Orange. Now the finishing touch: the decals. These are correct for 1961-1964 caps; older ones were painted only solid colors. The decals are basically STP advertisements (Studebaker acquired STP in '61 as the Corporation began to diversify). These labels are reproduced and can be gotten from Studebaker vendors.

There was some discussion on the Forum a while back as to which direction these labels were applied; some maintained that they went on so that the lettering could be read correctly with the cap installed; others swore that the labels were put on upside-down at the factory. I prefer mine right-side-up, so that's the way I put them on. It just makes sense that way, to me! The labels are self-adhesive, so no wetting and sliding of decals is needed. Here are the completed caps, ready to go.

Above are before-and-after shots of Barney's engine. On the left, the Mr. Gasket breathers. As I said, they're not bad. On the right, the newly-refurbed Studebaker caps. Notice how they hug the valve covers. Also, you can see in the photo below, the Dupli-Color orange really is a perfect match for the OEM paint: the Viscous Drive fan in the photo has factory-original paint and the difference, to my eye, is nil.

Happy Studebakering!

Happy International Drive Your Studebaker Day (2010)

2010-09-04T16:31:00.000-07:00

The first Saturday in September is International Drive Your Studebaker Day! Last year, Barney was unable to make it to the road owing to his lack of brakes, but today -- well, we were all over! My lovely wife took a shot of The Old Man (that's the car, not me, wiseguy) in Buddy Todd Park in the afternoon - a beautiful day for driving a Stude. But then, any day is a great day to drive your Stude!

If you didn't make it this year, no worries - there's 365 to get your car ready! Now, get out there and pound some pavement!

A few random notes...

2010-09-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

Haven't been doing a lot of work on Barney lately - just driving him a lot! It's been nice to get out on the road this summer and just bomb around. It amazes me that nearly every time I pull into a parking lot somewhere, someone comes up to me and starts a conversation! Every Starbucks visit, every trip to the bank... it's like clockwork.

Most recently, I pulled up for coffee and a lady in her late 50s in a Honda Element parked next to me shouted over "Studebaker?" I affirmed, and congratulated her on the ID, saying most folks don't know quite what it is. She responded by saying "Most folks aren't as old as me!" Then she proceeded to ask where SHE could get a Lark of her own :) She seemed very earnest, and I gave her a copy of the Studebaker Story brochure and pointed her to the Forum. I have no doubt we'll see her at chapter meeting sooner or later.

A couple of weeks back I came across a lovely red and black '62 Rambler Classic wagon. Okay, it's a little rough, but hey - it's on the road! The body was pretty rust-free, and the paint showed signs of having been patched in a few places, so someone's taking care of this Rammer. Naturally, I couldn't resist taking a photo with Barney (hiding in the back). I've since seen it around town in several places; hope to meet the owner one day.

Here's another sweet Lark I found in the Home Depot parking lot, a '59 F-body. I did meet this owner coming out of the store; he's a contractor and this Lark is his daily driver since he burned up the engine on his Powerstroke Ford truck. Says it costs him a lot less to get around (although he can't haul lumber it in ;) ) It's a Custom with the vinyl interior and plain-Jane door panels, but it's a very nice dark green over tan with chrome steelies. Love it!

Finally, this Saturday (tomorrow!) is the 2nd Annual International Drive Your Studebaker Day. If you've got one, get it on the road tomorrow! If not - be on the lookout for random Stude sightings. Barney and I will definitely be out and about.

Modern cooling fan replacement for Studebakers.

2010-07-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

OK, first off, Barney's back and running fine, even in the 85+ degree weather we've been having. The new heater installation works great, doesn't drip anti-freeze on the carpet, doesn't fog the windows. Supreme!

But cooling is always an issue for older cars. Most were not equipped with over-capacity cooling systems like modern cars have. My '67 Pontiac (and all Ponchos with the original PMD-designed engine) are notorious for running hot; problems include vapor lock, heat-soaking the starter and solenoid, and simple boil-out - shut the car off and hear the relief valve hiss open after a couple of minutes. Owning an old car means always having to check your radiator!

Some makes can be easily retrofitted with either RPM-dependent clutch fans or thermostatic fans that decouple the cooling fan from the water pump shaft at a certain velocity or temperature, in order to permit better cooling at cruising speeds. GM cars can be easily equipped with OEM-style aftermarket or reproduction clutches. You can put a declutching fan on a Studebaker as well, but the repro clutches are pretty pricey and are not thermostatically-operated, as the original (optional) equipment was.

Luckily, I scored a factory Viscous Drive thermostatic clutch and fan for Barney, which bolted right onto the water pump drive hub after removing the original fixed 4-blade fan and spacer, but not everyone is so lucky.

With that in mind, I wanted to post a tech tip found on the Studebaker Drivers Club Forums last night. Member "HammondA100" from Sioux Falls, SD., found that Flex-A-Lite makes a modern flex-fan that will mount to the Studebaker hub with very little modification, helping make sure your car runs cool in hot weather. He wrote:

I've seen here on the difficulty of finding the right adapters and most efficient cooling fans for bolt on ease. I just got around to inspect what my 57 Silver Hawk had on it from the Nevada desert which turns out to be a early fiberglass fan and an aluminum hub adapter S-008 made by Flex-A-Lite 25 years ago.

[After a] quick phone call to their tech help and a search at http://www.flex-a-lite.com/ I was recommended to trash the old fiberglass unit for safety. I gave him all the measurements and turns out they have all the solutions.

The hub part #876 allows for a 1" hub so on a stude you would need to turn it out to 1-1/16" - an easy fix.. This hub already had that treatment so I don't have to do anything there. As for the proper flex-fan - perfect match. The FlexALite 1818. 18-1/4 diamater, 2-1/2" projected width creates a constant high static pressure, low noise movement of air as it's 7 blades. I found it for only $48 at Summit Racing.

http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/html/belt-driven-fans.html

Well one less thing to worry about and I hope I could help someone find the right fan. They have a huge selection of electric fan set-ups too as they claim to be the pioneer of these.

They also sell a easy to mount heater unit to simplify the stock set-up.

Keep 'em cool and enjoy the summer!

Back in the saddle (well, driveway actually)..

2010-07-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

Barney's back in the driveway, after spending the last two weeks at S&S having the heater core repaired. I can't remember if I posted it or not, but the Climatizer core I had rebuilt, which installation is covered in older posts here, began leaking upon its first use. Nothing worse than seeing that telltale fog appear on the windshield and seeing the yellow liquid dripping onto the carpet -- especially when you've just replaced the failed part.

But leak it did, and for a few weeks I got away with driving it by closing the heater valve, but eventually the pinhole grew to the point that even the backpressure off the water manifold was causing a constant drip.

This time, I went the lazy route - instead of disassembling the Climatizer and taking the core to the shop, I drove it to the shop with a printout of the heating system schematic from the Shop Manual and said "fix it, please." Unfortunately, it took nearly 3 weeks for them to obtain the right core (their supplier kept sending the wrong size), so I missed having Barney on the road on Independence Day, which I really wanted to do.

But, I got him back Tuesday and have been happily tooling around since then. This morning I went to Ace Hardware for some garden soil and the shopping center's maintenance man stopped me to ask questions about him. I'm no attention hound, but I have to admit it's nice when people notice. Barney may not be the most beautiful car in the world, but he does attract people's notice!

Next up on the list is getting the long-delayed rear springs installed. Details coming soon!

What's up?

2010-06-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

Life's been full! Not much time to do anything to Barney except take him out for a drive. I try to get out at least 4 days a week to keep him exercised and the battery up (as the electric clock will run the battery flat in about 2 weeks if left unattended). But I still have work to do: the steering wheel replacement, reinstall the radio, hook up the horn, chase down the cause of my awful gas mileage, change the rear springs, re-fix the heater core (long story)... hopefully I'll be able to get going on some of this soon.

In the meantime, I took a drive to the park at twilight tonight and snapped off a couple of quick shots:

He may not be pretty, but he is fun to drive!

Eye candy

2010-05-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

Just a little something I snapped last night :)

Barney's Motor Service, CA, 1957, Studebaker-Packard, Escondido

2010-04-29T18:15:00.001-07:00

Barney's Motor Service, CA, 1957, Studebaker-Packard, Escondido
Originally uploaded by aldenjewell

Finally - I get to see one of Barney's dealership homes, Barney's Studebaker service in Escondido, California. This color photo from 1957 was posted by Alden Jewel over on Flickr, and it's the first pic I've ever seen of the location.

Barney wasn't sold here (he was originally delivered to Bob Waters Studebaker in San Francisco, now the site of a Toyota dealer), but the fact that he wears those plate frames means he was probably either serviced there or, more likely, traded in by whomever brought him down South.

It's great to finally have a view of this dealer!

Check your doors!

2010-04-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

Ever have a car door swing shut on your shin? Foot? Hand? You thought you had it held open by the door check (that friction device that keeps the door from swinging shut while you're fiddling with something inside), but the check was broken and didn't work right. If you've got an old car, chances are it's happened to you. With GM cars, it's usually a broken or missing spring in the hinge assembly itself, but with Studebakers, the door check is a separate piece that's easy to change out in about 10 minutes.

Here's a Studebaker door check. It's a steel strap that is held to the door hinge pillar with a soft metal pin. The way it works is that two spring-steel "fingers" on the top and bottom of the strap pinch the center bar, preventing the door from slipping closed on its own when it's fully opened.

On Barney, however, the driver's side check was broken: the lower "finger" had long ago broken off, exerting no friction on the strap, which let the door slam my shin (and forearm, and head) many times as I worked inside the car. This part is not reproduced, but is used on many years of Studes from the Fifties through 1966. Finally, I found a good used check assembly for sale on eBay and proceeded to fix the problem.

Besides the new door check, you'll also need one small part from Studebaker International: the soft metal pin that holds the check to the hinge pillar. This is Studebaker part number 1327195, and will cost you a big $2.00. One is all you'll need.

Start by pulling the interior door panel off. To do this you'll need to remove the arm rest (if equipped), and the window and door lock handles. (See my prior post here for more on removing the door panel, if needed.) Once the panel is off, you'll be able to look into the door and easily see the back end of the door check, with its rubber bumper.

To remove the old door check, you must drive out the old door check pin. The factory secured these pins by flaring them at the bottom, so grab the bottom of the pin with a pair of pliers and squeeze the soft metal inward. Rotate the pin and do this several times, until you can push the pin upward with your fingers.

Then, use a drift to drive the pin the rest of the way up through the check assembly. A couple of raps with a small hammer should do the trick. Once the pin is out, the check assembly can simply be pulled out through the interior of the door.

Installing the new check is even simpler than getting the old one out. You just feed the check strap through the slot in the door that the old one came out of. Mate the check with the hardware mounted in the hinge pillar, and slide the new check pin downward through the assembly. Hold it in with a pair of pliers and flare the bottom of the pin using a Philips screwdriver or some other appropriate tool.

You're done! The new check is in and ready to stand sentinel against unfettered door closure. Finally, after three years, my driver's door opens and secures with a satisfying "snick." The only thing left to do is shoot the check strap with a bit of lithium grease and put a drop of oil on the pin.

I wish they were all this easy!

Reinventing the wheel - Part 1.

2010-04-03T11:12:00.000-07:00

Since the day I bought Barney, one thing that's really bothered me was the Stupid Grant Steering Wheel™ installed by the former owner. OK, it looks '60s cool, but has several drawbacks:

It doesn't cancel the turn signals.
The horn button doesn't work.
The spokes obscure the speedometer.
My car has standard steering, so the small diameter of the wheel makes parking and other low-speed maneuvers a real chore.

So I decided early on to get the parts together for an OEM steering wheel, and spent about 2 years gathering them all; including an all-black wheel from a '62 GT Hawk, a proper horn button, and all the switches, wipers and contacts that make up the rotating electrical assembly for the horn button.

Last Sunday, I decided, was the day. I'd read up on how to run wires down the column jacket (via Bob Johnstone's tech archive), so was well-prepared, I thought, to get the job done quickly.

I pulled the wheel off the Grant adapter and easily removed the adapter from the column using a 3-jaw gear puller. No problem! The PO had nipped the horn wire off the old switch and crimped on a lead to go to the Grant horn button. This had failed, which was why there was no horn action; he'd also removed the original spring-loaded switch contact. No problem; I had a new one, so I used the old wire to feed a pilot wire up the column per Bob's explanation. That's where my problems began.

The wire channel through the column jacket exits the column just under the shifter collar; the wires must then make a 50-degree turn to get into the hub. No matter how I tried, the bullet connector molded onto the end of the old wire would not make that turn. I see-sawed the wires back and forth and pulled mightily... a little too mightily, as the pilot wire released itself from the old horn wire, leaving me with the wire pulled nearly all the way out, yet stuck - with no way to feed it back down. Arrgh.

I unbent a coat hanger and was able to get it through the channel just fine, so though perhaps I could snag the offending wire and pull it back down... no dice. All told, I managed to spend nearly 3 fruitless hours on the project, winding up reinstalling the Grant wheel so I could drive the car and putting off the project for another day.

What's going to have to happen is this: In order to free the old horn wire and feed in the new, I will need to remove the shifter jacket. Problem with this is, the jacket is held onto the column by two "T-nuts" whose heads are inside the column. They will be very hard to get re-installed... but it's either that, or live with this awful wheel and no horn or turn signal canceling forever. I guess while I'm doing it, I'll install a new turn signal switch as well just to make sure there are no problems down the road.

In the meantime: Happy Easter, everyone, and happy Studebakering!

Safety first... or, at last.

2010-03-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

Today I finally got a few minutes to do something I should have done a long time ago - install a proper set of seat belts in Barney.

There was already a set in there, but they may as well have been absent. They were installed in such a way as to be pretty much useless, had there been any sort of accident. Seat Belts should always be anchored directly to the floor, with precautions to make certain they can't pull loose when stressed.

As you can see, mine were worthless - one side fastened under the seat-to-floor attaching bolt, the other even worse: screwed to the seat frame itself using a skinny little 1/2" #6 screw. Like I said, worthless. Luckily, adding proper seat belts to a Studebaker model year 1962 or newer is pretty easy, as the Federal government mandated that automakers include provisions for seat belt installation on all cars, whether they were optioned with belts or not. This makes installing belts simple.

So let's get to work! First slide the front seat as far forward as it will go, then flip up the back seat and pull the carpet forward. See those two small rubber plugs about the middle of the photo? Those are the Lark's built-in seat belt anchors. The plugs protect the cage nuts on the other side of the floor; once they're pulled, we can screw in the belt anchor hardware.

I used a flat bladed scraper to pull up the plugs (which came out in two pieces), revealing virgin 50-year-old machine threads ready for use. Sweet! Don't worry if the plugs come out in two pieces (mine did); you won't be using them again. Although I couldn't bring myself to throw out the intact ones; I doubt if even the SASCO inventory included any of these.

If your car is undercoated, however, you may have to do a little spelunking underneath before you can proceed. Here's what mine looked like: covered with undercoat and barely visible. Looks tougher than it is, though; a little scraping and it was ready for use.

One more thing, though - gotta cut the carpet. First slice the jute underlay, then make a discreet slit in the carpet. Not too much - just feel for the bolt hole with your fingers, then put a little "x" right in it. That'll be plenty for our purposes.

My seat belts (a Christmas gift from my lovely wife, purchased from Studebaker International) came with all the hardware needed to attach them to the Stude mounting lugs.

The big eye bolt threads into the floor mounting point. Once it's tightened down, the big hardened washer is placed on the threads between the floor and the lock washer and nut. In the event of a sudden shock on the belts, the washer will spread the force against the floor pan, preventing the anchor from tearing out of the floor.

You can see that there's a lot of thread visible underneath once the eye bolt is threaded in. I used a 12" adjustable wrench to tighten the bolts down. Once they're tight, you can put the bottom hardware on, but you may need an assistant to keep the eye bolts from rotating while you tighten the nut from below.

Do the same for the other 3 eye bolts (assuming you're installing a pair of belts), and you're ready to attach the belts. There is no torque value given in the Shop Manual for these anchor nuts, so just tighten them down as tight as they'll go. A little bit of Loctite Blue wouldn't be a bad idea either.

At this point, my installation took a little bit of a side trip. The outboard anchor on the passenger's side was located closer to the frame rail than the one on the driver's side, and the big washer would not clear it -- there was a quarter-inch too much washer.

So I improvised a little and stuck the washer in a vise, and used my Dremel and a cutoff disc to remove enough material to let the washer fit. After this was done, it slipped over the eye bolt and snugged up against the frame like it was born that way. The inboard cage nut in the floor was a little recalcitrant too - I needed to chase the threads with a tap, and even then it took a lot of grunting and sweating, a half-turn at a time, to get the eye bolt home.

After all the hardware is snugly attached, you can install the belts. Generally, the belts with the buckle assembly are mounted inboard; the bayonets are outboard. Thread them through the gap between the seatback and lower bolster. Each belt end has an opposing set of J-hooks that clamp to an eye-bolt, and are then held together with a cotter pin. It doesn't matter which way the cotter pin goes in, but I recommend orienting it so that the spread ends face the carpet, for cosmetic reasons.

You're done! Put the seat back to driving position, adjust those slick new belts, and head for the road! You're about 100 times safer now than you were an hour ago.

Adjusting your Studebaker's steering gear.

2010-03-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

There's nothing worse than going down the road sawing at your steering wheel, trying to keep your car in its lane. Hey, it's a 47-year old car -- it's bound to have a little play in the steering gear, right? Even with a newly-rebuilt suspension, new tie rods, springs, bushings and everything, you've got to expect a little slop.

Except that you don't. There's a simple adjustment you can make that will bring your steering gear back to proper working order.

Barney's steering gear had about 4" of slop in it. That's right - four inches of "I'm doing NOTHING!!!" before any change of direction occurred. So, after scouring the Tech board at the SDC Forum, I found the secret to fixing it.

In this post, Tom Bredehoft posted the procedure, which is really simple. Let's dive in! My Lark has a Saginaw recirculating-ball steering box, but the procedure is similar for the Ross cam-and-lever box as well.

The adjustment for the steering box is on the driver's side of the car, just above the frame rail, and has to be accessed from the wheelwell. So we'll get started by jacking up the front end and removing the driver's front wheel and tire.

Once the wheel is off, you can see the heavy composite dirt guard stapled to the inner fender to keep dirt, mud and water from entering the engine compartment. Grab this from the bottom and lift it up to expose the steering gear adjustment screw.

There's a lock nut holding the adjustment screw that must be loosened before you can turn the screw. This area has a lot of grit and grime and oil in it, and likely your steering box will be just as grimy as mine. I used a steel brush to clean the crud out of the threads, then backed off the lock nut with a 5/8" box wrench. Once the nut is loose, turn the screw clockwise until you feel resistance, then back it off a bit and snug up the lock nut. Turn the steering wheel lock to lock and make sure that there are no points where it binds; if it does, you've tightened the screw too far. Undo the lock nut, back the screw off, and try it again. Make sure the steering moves smoothly through its entire range without any tightness. Be sure the lock nut is tight, put the wheel back on, and lower the car.

Ready for a drive? No you're not. One more thing to do before you hit the road: check the lubricant in the steering box.

Pop the hood and locate the steering gear filler plug. It's the big, square plug just above the Pitman arm. Unfortunately, it's in a slightly unhelpful location, down at frame level, slightly obscured by the brake lines and parking brake cable.

I put together something with a little reach; a 1/2" crowfoot wrench on a 16" extension. This allowed me to snake down amongst the cables and wires without trying to muck around down there with a spanner in the limited space available.

Once the plug is out, shine a light into the gearbox and see if you need to top off the lubricant inside. Chances are, you will. In fact, my gearbox was so empty I could see the worm gear. To fill the box, you'll need a special lubricant.

Originally, Kendall 999 gear lube was the specified lubricant for the Saginaw box, but Kendall is long gone, unfortunately, and Brad Penn, their successor, has no modern equivalent. Fortunately, Studebaker International has a re-creation: Semi-fluid Steering box grease. it's part No. 801651. This stuff comes in a caulk-type tube that's got enough in it to refill an empty box. A good thing, because mine took nearly everything in the tube! Just one more thing that makes me wonder why this car didn't drive into the ditch years ago... Who knows when anyone last checked it?

Once the box is full, stick the plug back in. But before you go for a drive to test the steering gear adjustment, make sure your lug nuts are torqued properly - the Studebaker shop manual specifies 74 - 85 lbs.-ft. I mention this because I had neglected to re-torque my lugs after I brought the car home from the brake shop, and they came off far too easily when I went to remove the wheel. (Could account for the front-end shimmy on my last freeway outing.) I usually split the difference, so I set the wrench for 78 lbs.-ft.

Having done this, I took Barney on the road. You would not believe the difference in the steering! The slop is now completely gone, and the car tracks straight and true down the road with no wandering. Bonus: it was a beautiful day in San Diego today. Great day for a photo in the park!

Just killin' time...

2010-03-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

Not much going on here lately. This time of the year is very busy for me, as my job takes a lot of preparation for a major trade show that happens each spring. Also, it's been raining every weekend, so every time I plan to take a Saturday to go out and futz with the car... you guessed it.

But I did get some Studebaker time today. Had a lot of errands to run and since it was sunny, I took Barney out for a bunch of round-town stops. He ran really well, kept his cool in the stop-n-go, and all in all everything was great. Got some attention and quite a few smiles at Costco when I stopped in to fill up (gas mileage up, from 9.5 to 10.59! I really wonder if the engine wouldn't be happier with a 2bbl carb; the WCFB may just be too much for it).

Part of the trip had him on the freeway for a good 5 miles. I hadn't logged more than a mile on the freeway before this, and I was surprised at how quiet the car was cruising at 65, even with the driver's window halfway down! There was a little bit of shimmy in the steering at 65 mph, though, which (since the front end has been totally rebuilt and aligned) I think may be attributable to the steering gearbox I haven't yet had time to adjust.

Later, I went down to Ace Hardware after dinner for a couple of repair items for the house, and the headlights managed to stay on both ways, regardless of the wonky switch.

All in all, a fun day on the road!

Gremlin hunting.

2010-02-14T15:58:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that there are some little things that need to be hunted down and fixed on Barney. One of them cropped up a couple of days ago.

I fired up Barney with the intention of heading out to do some errands; got to the corner up the street and hit the windshield wiper switch to clear some dew off the glass -- nothing happened. So I hit the heater fan switch, and nothing. Ditto the turn signals. One U-turn later, I was back in my driveway trying to figure out the trouble.

What one thing do all these items have in common? They all run off the car's Accessory bus, the electrical circuit that is energized only when the car is running.

I fired the car back up and... everything worked. Shut it off, turned it on again and... no accessories. Wiggled the key and they came on! That put the point on it: tired ignition switch, which will have to be replaced.

Luckily, Stude vendors like Studebaker International and Chuck Collins' Studebakerpartsonline.com have reproduction switches that will slide right in. One more project for the list!

Out on a Mission.

2010-02-13T17:13:00.000-08:00

It was a beautiful day today in SoCal, so I took Barney out for a few minutes in the sunshine. We live a few miles from the Mission San Luis Rey, so we tooled down the road and parked out front for a few iPhotos. San Luis Rey will be familiar to fans of Disney's old Zorro TV show, as many scenes were shot at the church.

Barney is running really well right now. There are a few things that need attention, of course - the ignition switch wants replaced (it doesn't send current to the Accessory bus when the car is running unless you jiggle the key), the heater still isn't hooked up, and the factory-style steering wheel awaits installation... but it's sure fun to drive.

Even with all the little stuff, it's sure fun to be out on the road with him, and every now and then to get a double-take from a car guy who knows what he's looking at :)

Here's hoping the weather clears up this nicely wherever you are reading this from!

Quick catch up...

2010-02-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

Well, it's still raining here, but at least we're not under two feet of snow :) Richer rebuilt my alternator (Jim told me that the inside parts "fell out in his hand"), and after reinstallation, is working perfectly. I've had Barney on the road a couple of times since then, and the charging system is working perfectly.

Next project is getting the NOS springs refurbed with new bushings and paint so I can stop the car sliding back and forth on the old worn-out ones when I turn corners (it's a helluva bang! when it happens).

Rain Delay! and alternator woes.

2010-01-19T18:57:00.000-08:00

Well, Southern California is finally getting some rainfall after several years of record drought, and I'm not complaining - we surely need it and thanks be to God! Downside of this is that there's no Studebakering until the wet stuff stops. Poor Barney sits under the cover that's glued to him like a prom dress on a cheerleader until after the rain is done.

In the meantime, the rain was delayed long enough that on Sunday I was able to pull the alternator for service. About a week ago, I took Barney for his first twilight drive with lights blazing, and saw the ammeter doing a weird little dance afterward - after powering up a nearby hill at 50 MPH, I came off the throttle and saw the dash and headlights dim dramatically as the Amp needle fell halfway to the "D"ischarge mark.

At first I thought perhaps the drive belt was slipping during the high-speed (!) run, so I tightened it up the next day and saw the ammeter behaving like it should. But the problem reoccurred, so I asked around and found that Richer Auto Electric (official electric shop for the Little Guys street rod club)was located literally around the corner from me.

So off I went on Monday and dropped Barney's alternator on the counter at Richer, where Jim took it to the back, strapped it to the test machine and came back pronouncing it non-operational. Glad I found that out before it quit on the car! I guess it pays to have these items tested when you don't know for sure the condition they're in. Jim told me he'll have the rebuild done by the end of the week.

By the way, I found that Wilson Auto Electric makes a direct, bolt-in replacement for the Prestolite ALK-5001 that Studebaker used in many late-model Larks. It's p/n 90-06-1001, and you can get one online here, should you need to.

New coil, better spark.

2010-01-12T14:02:00.000-08:00

Driving Barney around, I've been trying to figure out why there's such a strong fuel smell at times; I've gone through the whole fuel system and ruled out leaks, from the carb to the tank. Also, I've noticed hard starting, even after just a day of not being driven - much harder starting than fuel bowl evaporation could account for. Starting often required a loooong 10-second crank (to prime the carb, I'd assumed), followed by a second crank during which the engine would catch, crank a little more, then fire. Starting idle wasn't too smooth, either.

After thinking about it a bit, I started to focus on the coil. It's one of the few parts of the electrical system I hadn't touched. Looking at it, I found that it was a very old Delco-Remy. Was it OE? Who knows? At the very least, it wore two coats of black paint; one original and one from the engine bay repaint. There was rust showing on the case, and some corrosion in the tower. So I decided to replace it.

NAPA shows Echlin #IC12 as the OEM application for a '63 Lark, so I footed it down to my local store and picked one up last night. At lunch I went out and replaced the old Delco, and when I turned the key -- presto! Barney fired right up. This is noteworthy because my last drive was on Saturday, 3 days ago - plenty long enough for fuel to evaporate from the bowl and cause a hard-start condition if that's what the trouble was.

But with only one pump of the go pedal to set the choke, the engine caught with a healthy roar after only 3 turns of the crank, and ran smoothly at fast idle, just like it ought to. I think that the old coil, while still operative, was probably not putting out enough spark to economically run the engine, a problem the new coil solved.

Goes to show how sensitive gas engines are to good spark output, I guess.

Reed's first drive.

2010-01-04T21:31:00.000-08:00

Remember your first time driving? For me, it was behind the wheel of my mom's '70 Impala. (I loved that car... wish I still had it. Along with the teeth I lost when I crashed it into a light pole.) Well, I wanted my son's first time at the helm to be memorable, too, so yesterday, on the last day of our Christmas vacation, we hopped in Barney and drove to El Camino High School, where a big, empty parking lot beckoned!

After some instruction on how to use the various controls ("don't press too hard on the gas", "keep your foot on either the brake or the gas - never away from the pedals", "always put the transmission in 'park' before you set the parking brake"), we swapped positions and I navigated Reed through several roundabouts of the parking lot, being careful to give a wide berth to the single light pole in our vicinity :) We talked about how steering while the car was in motion, no matter how slight, was so much easier than trying to muscle the wheel around while parked. I explained what the gauges' normal range was, and what to do if they left that range. I told him that small control inputs were much better than large ones; a warning he found to be true through slightly over-anxious applications of gas and throttle. And when we were done, we swapped seats and drove home, but not before I got the picture below. The smile says it all :)

Happy New Year from Barney and all the rest of us!

2009-12-31T16:27:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to let you know how things have been going and give a hearty "Happy New Year" to my online friends!

Barney is doing very well and I've had him on the road nearly every day, at least for a short trip. There are some things that will need attention in the coming year, such as:

The turn-signal switch. It's defective, and while it signals properly, it doesn't pass signal to both brake lights as it should - the right side lights up with the brake pedal, but the left does not. New switch needed.
Replacing the steering wheel. The stupid aftermarket Grant wheel not only makes it hard to turn at low speeds, but does not operate the turn signal cancel cam or the horn. I've collected the parts and will do this when I replace the turn-signal switch.
The rear springs. They're worn out and nearly flat, even when the car is on the lift. And the frame bushings are so worn out that the rear end "clunks" as it moves from side to side whilst turning corners - there's no rubber left in them. I have a new pair of springs, obtained from SASCO just before they shut down, and those will be going in as soon as possible.
Post-break-in valve adjustment. I've never adjusted valves before, so this will be a learning experience!
Reconnecting the heater. The whole heating system has been rebuilt; I just need to reconnect the hoses and fill the system.
The doors. Both doors need new rubber and window seals, as well as interior hardware. I replaced the driver's side window regulator last year with a used part from eBay, but the gearbox clutch is weak and the window vibrates down as you drive. I have a new vent window for the driver's side to replace the munged one that's there, as well as new cat-whiskers, NOS door handles and door locks that've been re-keyed, all waiting to go in. I'll probably need a new set of side-view mirrors as well.
Headliner & windscreen seals. My headliner is a homebrew thing that droops horribly, and I've found that the windshield seal is leaky in one place - a small dribble of water has made its way down the inside from the header. The backlight rubber seal is cracking badly in the corners as well. These two things will have to be addressed together, since replacing the headliner requires pulling both windscreens.

So don't think that just because Barney's back on the road, there'll be any end to this blog - I've still got plenty to do, and I'll be writing about every bit of it!

Now, as to the photo that heads this post: today I packed my wife and son into Barney for the first time, and we tripped on down to the 101 Cafe, a classic diner / drive-in on Highway 101 in downtown Oceanside, California. We had lunch and came back home, but it was fun parking the Lark in front of this iconic location and watching folks stare and point as we ate :) There were plenty of classics on the road today, and while at the 101 we saw a '69 Cougar convertible, a '63 Bel Air convertible, a '67 Fairlane 4-door, a '65 Austin-Healey and several nice old Harleys. It was a good Studebaker day! Unfortunately, I forgot to get a pic of Barney in front of the restaurant, but we'll get it next time.

Thanks to all of you who've written and commented on my posts this year - I appreciate each of your questions and encouragements. Happy 2010 - see you next year!

Don't forget the headlight wires.

2009-12-18T11:10:00.000-08:00

Now that Barney's home, I've got a few loose ends to clean up. I decided to begin yesterday by replacing some of the only remaining original wiring in the car - the cables that lead to the headlamp and front parking lamp assemblies.

I've mentioned before that one of the joys of owning a Studebaker is
the availability of factory-fresh original parts. In this case, I was able to order NOS parking lamp and headlamp cable assemblies (still in their factory parts envelopes!) from Studebaker International. This is cool! The headlamp cables have all the correct molded plugs and such that aftermarket pieces (if they were available) would never include.

Nobody ever thinks of headlight cables as needing replacement, but they are some of the most exposed wiring on the car. They're right out in front, where the rushing air and moisture is rammed at them; they corrode, they vibrate, and generally deteriorate until, one night in the dark, you find yourself with a circuit-breaker tripping and no light to drive home by. Not a great situation to be in.

Since my car is a '63, this will be a rather specific tutorial, but generally you'll find things similar on any car. The first thing I did was to remove the aluminum trim that surrounds the headlamp and turn signals; these are held on with 4 #8 screws; two at the very top and two adjacent to the parking lights. You might find these screws to be pretty rusty (I did), so have some spares on hand to replace them with.

Once the trim is off, you'll be able to remove the parking light lens and headlamps. The lamps are held into their buckets with chrome-plated steel rings that are attached to the buckets with 3 small machine screws. The rings are spot-welded together, and often over time these welds come loose (mine had). You can still use them; just be careful not to bend them out of shape while you're removing them.

With the retaining rings off, the headlights just fall out into your hand! You can unplug them and, assuming they're still good, set them aside.

At this point you can see the old wiring - 46 years old, in my case. And there's no doubt they needed to be replaced: as you can see in the shot to the left, several of the wires' insulation had cracked and was pulling apart to expose the wiring. This is a short or fire in the making! Not to mention the corrosion on the old sockets which can make for dim lighting and more stress on the wiring system and alternator.

The headlight wires are fed into a hole between the buckets, with a conical molded rubber plug that fits in the hole to keep them from rubbing against the metal. This means that the cable must be fed up from the front of the car, not from the engine compartment down. Also, the headlamp harness's ground wire was riveted to the headlight support at the factory; I bent the connector back and forth to break off the wire, figuring I would use this hole for a screw that would hold the new ground wire.

Interestingly, there is no provision for the wires to get into the headlamp buckets except by running between the inner and outer buckets, pinching them in place. So I had to remove the outer buckets. These are the adjustable, backless cones that the headlight bulbs sit in. They are held on by two adjuster screws and 1 spring, located at the bottom of the assembly. Loosen the screws and the buckets slide out; disconnect them from the spring and set them aside.

Now you can take out the inner bucket from the inboard headlight - they just sit in their holes - and reach through to feed the new cable's harness connector up through the hole in the radiator brace. The cable's new plug fit neatly in the hole provided; a wide flat-bladed screwdriver is useful in coaxing it into its new home.

I knew I'd need to feed the wire for the new turn signal up to the engine compartment too, so while the inner bucket was out I removed the very rusty screws that held in the very rusty parking lamp assembly and pulled it out.

The new parking lamp holder has the weatherstripping for the lens pre-installed, so the only things to do are to pull the wire through and put the two screws back in. All done!

After that, installation (as they say) is the reverse of removal. Put the inner and outer buckets back in. Take care when routing the new cables behind the outer buckets, so as not to pinch the insulation - space is limited here. Remember to squeeze some dielectric grease into the connectors before attaching the headlamp bulbs - this will seal the connections against water and prevent corrosion. Screw the headlamp rings back in, taking care to locate the molded bar on the bulbs into the notch in the bucket - this ensures that the bulbs are pointing in the correct direction.

Finally, I used a sheet-metal screw with a shouldered head to hold the headlight harness' ground wire to the headlamp support. I found a good-sized one in my bin - looks like a #14 thread. You can see the fruits of my labors above, with one headlight re-installed. You can see how the cables are routed behind the outer buckets, and can also see the ground wire held to the support with its new sheet-metal screw.

Put on the trim and screw in the turn-signal lens and you're done, baby! Time to go cruise :)

Home at last, home at last!

2009-12-16T15:53:00.000-08:00

Woo hoo! After a couple days of clock-watching, today was the day - Barney came home about 20 minutes ago!

Yesterday I picked him up from the brake shop and ran him a couple of miles cross-town to Tri-City Transmission in Vista for a throttle-pressure adjustment, but he wasn't ready by afternoon so I made arrangements with Kurt to get him today after picking my son Reed up from school.

We got to Kurt's around 3PM. He said he'd had Barney out on the road and he was driving really well; the only problem was that the kickdown valve seemed a little sticky (after all, it's been nearly a year-and-a-half since he finished the transmission for me) but that it would work itself out with use.

While at the shop, Kurt introduced me to Ken, who was in with his cherry-red 1929 Model A roadster, and said that Ken was a fellow Stude owner. Turns out he has a '64 Daytona hardtop with a 289. We chatted for a while and I told him about the local chapter and website - hopefully he'll check us out.

So I fired Barney up and proceeded out onto Santa Fe Avenue, northbound. I took the long way home to avoid as many stoplights as possible - click on the map above to get a good view of our route. It took about 30 minutes for the 11-mile trip, but it was a breeze the whole way! The temp gage was working (maybe it just needs to be used, too) and never registered over halfway on the range, and the engine and trans were working together like Rowan and Martin.

The only worry I had on the way home was about fuel - there wasn't a lot of gas in the tank to begin with; only about 3 gallons, and the two shops had been out road-testing the car a few times. But we made it home with no problems, with my wife and son serving as a "chase" vehicle, behind me the whole way.

There's still a bug or two to work out - one stop light isn't lighting, and I really have to get the new rear springs in (the rebuilt front end is very quiet, but the worn out rear slams like a WWF wrestler). But he's on the road, and running well, and the hardest part of the battle is over (I hope). Now to have some fun!

Barney on the road!

2009-12-15T16:06:00.000-08:00

I picked up Barney from Vista Brake today and took him cross-town to Tri-City Transmission to get the throttle pressure rod adjusted. It was only a 2-mile drive, but he did great! The new brakes feel fantastic, and everything's running great.

Still a few kinks to iron out - it feels like the vacuum advance isn't advancing correctly when I come on the throttle, and he still smells rich - and my temp gage still isn't registering - but overall it went well.

Sorry, no pics - it was a rushed day - but I'll get some tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Bellhousing dial-in procedure,

2009-12-13T19:20:00.000-08:00

One of the most mystery-cloaked operations in all of Stude-dom is the bellhousing dial-in. Known to make grown men shiver and quake with just the thought of doing it, this must-do strikes fear into the heart of even the bravest.

Well, maybe it's not that bad. But it certainly is something no one looks forward to, no matter how steeped in Studebakers they may be. And it's something that's unique to Studebakers - you don't have to do this with an old Ford or Chevy, so if you're new to Studes it's essential that you know about this.

So what is a bellhousing dial-in, and why is it needed? Long and short of it is that Studebaker's bolt-on bellhousings need to be aligned to the crankshaft center-line so that the crank and transmission input shafts are on the same plane. This keeps the torque converter (or flex plate, or clutch) from self-destructing as it revolves. Instructions are given in the shop manual, but nobody seems to really understand 'em.

SDC member Allan Anderson recently photographed and described this procedure. Bob Johnstone has archived it on his website for all posterity (or at least until the Chinese take over the Internet and outlaw all things Studebaker). Check it out and make a bookmark - if you ever have to change out a bellhousing, this is an invaluable reference.

Another reason I love Studebakers.

2009-12-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

One comment you always seem to get when people find out you own a Studebaker is "Boy! I bet parts are hard to get!" But reality is exactly the opposite -- Studes have one of the best supplies of NOS and reproduced parts of any American carmaker. Sure, there are soft trim items and model-specific bits that can be hard to come by (I'm still looking for an NOS right backup light lens for Barney, in case you have one!), but by-and-large, it's less hassle getting parts for my Lark than for, say, a '62 Grand Prix, a '64 Falcon or a '66 Ambassador Classic.

Case in point: after my recent re-wiring job, it dawned on me that the only bits of wire in the car that were still original were the headlight and front turn signal leads. So I opened my trusty Studebaker International catalog and found both headlight leads and front indicator assemblies (the entire lamp bucket with attached leads). Popped in my credit card and 7 days later, the mailman delivered, fresh in the factory parts envelopes, NOS parts for everything I'd ordered.

This isn't an isolated occurrence, either - I've ordered and received many NOS parts from Stude vendors in the last three years. Now, I ask you, what other marque has that kind of original parts availability? By contrast, the last OEM part I was able to get for my '67 Pontiac LeMans was the driver's door mirror, which I ordered through my local Pontiac dealer's parts department. And it was crappy - the molds were so old and degraded that I couldn't drive the car over 30 MPH without the mirror flopping over to point at the pavement.

So if questions about parts availability is keeping you from buying a Studebaker - don't worry. Somewhere, what you need is out there, and more than likely still in a factory package.

If you're looking for parts you can't find from one of the vendors at StudebakerVendors.com, try the following:

Studebaker Swap, a forum-based place to post wants and items for sale.
The Studebaker Parts Swap Page, a bulletin-board swap spot that's been up for a long while.
The parts swap boards of Sonny's Racing Studebakers! forum, a cool site dedicated to Studebaker performance.
If you've got another place you like, let me know and I'll add it here!

Good 'n Greasy.

2009-12-02T10:23:00.000-08:00

What's better than a woman who likes Studebakers? A woman who isn't afraid to get under the hood and wrench on a Studebaker! Meet Los Angeles' Kristin Martin, who goes by the moniker "Grease Girl". She's filled her blog with all sorts of photos, stories and "how-tos" centered around her 1955 Studebaker Commander, pictured above. It's a fun read, and there are plenty of pics and videos as she gets in, around and under her car, and also visits various classic car-related venues and activities around SoCal.

Remember, the future of our hobby is out there - we just have to figure out a way to recruit them! Grease Girl and others like her go a long way toward showing the young'uns that an old car can be a lot of fun. Check out her site and drop her a note of thanks if you like what you see.

Heater Valve Rebuild Service.

2009-11-30T22:07:00.000-08:00

Got a leaky heater valve in your car, dripping water down the firewall and soaking the carpet? Stuck using a "replacement" valve that operates backward from normal? Or is your valve just frozen, unable to open or, worse, halfway open and heating the passenger compartment to uncomfortable levels?

Either way, something needs to be done. It so happens that your old Harrison or Ranco valves are rebuildable, if they're not too far gone, and Jim Tucker provides that service.Studebaker's Climatizer heating system used Ranco valves, which up until recently were not available new, and even now the repros are not cheap. Check out his website at www.heatercontrolvalve.com - fix the valve and save your floorboards!

Parts delivered.

2009-11-30T16:32:00.000-08:00

I took a load of parts over to Vista Brake this AM - the two new front hub/drum assemblies from Studebaker International, the good used rear hub/drums from Bob Peterson, and a complete new set of inner and outer front wheel bearings and oil seals (parts I'd snagged off eBay sometime during the past 3 years).

Bryan miked the used finned rear drums and proclaimed them "perfect" (only turned .020" - nearly new!), and I managed to snap a couple of quick pics before heading to my next appointment.

Here's Barney on the lift, with all four wheels and brakes disassembled. You can't see it in this pic, but in person it's obvious how badly the rear springs have flattened; some leaves refuse to regain their arch when lifted and their plastic anti-squeak liners have fallen out! I have an NOS set of springs from SASCO, but they need to be disassembled and re-painted before they go on the car.

In this shot you can see the right rear wheel; this is the one whose wheel cylinder had blown out and contaminated the pads with brake fluid. Bryan's stripped all the parts from the backing plate and mounted the new cylinder. I hope all that rust doesn't mean a hard time pulling the old hubs from the tapered axle! But then, he's the one doing it - not me .

Rears are here.

2009-11-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

Got the rear brake drums from Bob Peterson this afternoon in the UPS. Solid, finned rear drums - will be a nice upgrade, since my original rear drums are non-finned.

With that final delivery, I'm all set for parts. I'll take all four drums plus front wheel bearings and oil seals to Bryan on Monday morning, and with any luck Barney should be on the road next week!

I'm thankful for new brakes!

2009-11-25T15:03:00.000-08:00

It's Thanksgiving, and I have much to be grateful for - my beautiful wife of 22 years, my son Reed who isn't too much of a wiseacre too much of the time, my job, and good friends and family. And I thank God for all these things.

But today I'm thankful for one more thing - brand new front brake drums and hubs from Chuck Collins, which came with the FedEx man around lunchtime. Along with the new wheel bearings and oil seals I'd squirreled away, these will go to Vista Brake next week -- hopefully, along with the set of used rear drums that are en route from Bob Peterson. Once Bryan gets these, Barney will be on the road again. Hmmm, I can hear Willie Nelson in my head...!

You can find Chuck Collins' Studebaker Parts Online at:

StudebakerParts.Com
2410 W. Freeway Ln.
Phoenix AZ 85021

602-995-5311

And if you're looking for parts from Bob Peterson:

C & B Studebakers

Castro Valley, CA

510-266-2522

Happy Thanksgiving!

And off we go.

2009-11-16T13:17:00.000-08:00

This morning Barney moved under his own power... up the ramp of a flat-bed tow truck :) It was a planned excursion, though - the brakes have to be gone through before I'll consider taking him onto the open road..

So, for the first time since August of 2006, he's out of our driveway. With the help of my wife, I made a three-point turn in our driveway and faced him out to the world, then called for a tow using my Hagerty Plus membership. Hagerty Plus is like AAA for collector cars; you get up to three free 10-mile flatbed tows per year.

So I called, and in about 45 minutes S&R was at the door, and we loaded Barney onto his truck. I actually drove it onto the flatbed, which was a bit tense because I had to really get on the gas to move him up the ramp - the first time I've really put power to the rear wheels in gear. Because he hasn't been driven so long, the tires are pretty shiny and I spun 'em a little at the very end, which caused the car to slide sideways a bit. The driver decided at that point to call it good and chained her down for the ride.

We took kind of the long way 'round getting there, but arrived at Vista Brake without incident about half-an-hour later (me keeping a respectful distance behind the truck in case anything unpleasant should occur).

I can't recommend Vista Brake highly enough. If you're in North San Diego County and need brakes, alignment, suspension or other work done, they are the place to go. I've known owner Brian Dornan for years; he's worked on all my cars (and his dad before him) since the 1980s - my '67 Pontiac, my long-lost Dodge Rampage, my wife's Honda Pilot, etc. etc. He and his crew are excellent mechanics who can take care of just about everything; while I was there he showed me a fat-fendered black '51 Mercury 4-door sedan that they're finishing up full brake and suspension work on - very smooth car with a big-block Chevy under the hood ;)

Brian will take care of stuff I can't do at home - pulling and packing the rear axle and wheel bearings, front-end alignment, new brake lines and hoses front to rear, and a conversion from single-circuit master cylinder to dual-circuit (which most '63 Studebakers already had, except for the bare bones cheapo Standard model, which is what Barney is.

Oh, and he'll also fix one of my boo-boos - installing the A-arm jounce bumpers in the front suspension, which I inadvertently left off during the rebuild. Stand by for details!

Adventures in shock-land.

2009-11-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow Barney goes to the brake shop for new binders and an alignment, so I wanted to do a job I'd put off for over a year - changing out the rear shock absorbers. I wanted this done before the alignment, since the angle of the front wheels will change along with the angle of the rear end.

The reason I'd put it off so long is that, to be perfectly blunt, changing the rears is a royal bitch. The upper shock mounts are located in a frame cross-member that lies in the highest part of the floor pan, the kickup over the rear axle.

I took the photo above laying underneath the rear axle, looking up at the left upper shock mount. There wasn't really enough clearance to get a good angle for the photo - so you can imagine the working space! The through-bolt's head goes in from the front of the car; the self-locking nut is in behind the flange on the rear, in a tiny recessed space between the cross-member flange and the trunk floor - just enough space for a box-end wrench, but not for a socket+ratchet combo. With the exhaust pipe in the exact center of the working area, getting your arms in there to hold the nut and turn the bolt is kind of like driving a '75 Buick through a slalom course after a night of heavy drinking,

Caution: to do this at home, you need to jack up the rear wheels for clearance. This means that the parking brake is rendered useless. Be safe - use wheel chocks before and after both front wheels, and jack stands under the rear axle under the springs. I also leave the floor jack under the pumpkin as well for good measure - better safe than sorry. Don't take short cuts with your life!

It took me about an hour and a half of sweating, spitting and being drowned in a shower of rust flakes from the exhaust pipes to get the left shock off. In the process, I managed to run over my own shoulder with my creeper and raise a bruise the size of Catalina Island (ouch).

The old shocks were still operable, but obviously tired. The replacements were the same exact Gabriels that came off the car!

The new shock went in without much effort, since I now knew where everything was. I chased the threads on the mounting bolt just to clean them up, then proceeded to install the shock. The only hang-up was with my torque wrench: the bolt had to be torqued to 45 foot-pounds, and my 3/8" wrench with the 12" handle doesn't go that high. So I had to use the 1/2" drive, with the two-foot handle... which meant that I had just enough angle to turn the bolt one click with each swing. Getting it to torque was an interminable process, but I did it.

The right shock went much more smoothly, taking only a half-hour to R&R (albeit with another gallon of rust-flakes dislodged).

Once the shocks are in and the nut on the bottom stud is tightened up, be sure to add the locking nut. These are not included in the shock absorber hardware package, and the Shop Manual decrees the use of PAL nuts. Luckily I had some left from the front shock installation, which I'd gotten online from Aircraft Spruce.

Just snug the flat side up against the stud nut and they're locked in place, yet still easy to remove! Pretty smooth.

After all was said and done, it wasn't that bad, but would certainly be a lot better using a hoist :) And, even with the tired old leaf springs in the back end, the car sits about 2" higher!

Thank you!

2009-11-15T10:39:00.000-08:00

The guys over at Amazon.com's Car Lust blog listed The Studeblogger as one of their favorite car blogs! Aw shucks... I'm blushin' :)

Thanks guys!

Hey... your head is loose!

2009-11-15T09:35:00.000-08:00

While I've been occasionally accused of not having my head screwed on tight enough ;) I'm talking about the bolts on your engine's heads in this case.

StudeKen (Ken Pyle, who rebuilt my 259) reminded me that the head bolts needed to be re-torqued after the engine had been restarted and run a bit, which mine now has. So, yesterday being a beautiful 72 degrees here in SoCal, I decided on a little StudeWrenching in preparation for road-worthiness.

First step is pulling the valve covers. If you're a GM guy like I was, you're probably used to a lot of hold-down bolts around the base of the covers, as seen below on my '67 Pontiac. Some other brands have quite a lot more bolts!

In contrast, Studebaker valve covers are easily removed without fumbling around by just unscrewing the two bolts in the center of the valve covers (4 bolts on older models):

The studs protrude through the valve cover through rubber seals, easily available from SI and other vendors. Just undo them, and pull the valve cover off (after removing the spark plug wires, of course). The valve covers seal to the heads using re-usable, soft neoprene rubber gaskets, and they take a little pulling to get loose; don't be shy, just grab the oil filler tube and give it a gentle yank.

With the valve train exposed, you'll have easy access to all the head bolts. There are 18 of them, as shown in the figure below, taken from the factory Shop Manual:

The manual specifies 55-65 lbs.-ft. of torque for each bolt. I usually split the difference, and so set my wrench right in the middle at 60 pounds for this operation. Note that the diagram shows a specific sequence for tightening the bolts; although this is specified for head installation, I used it for the re-torqueing operation as well (better safe than sorry!) Note that the 5 center bolts under the valve cover get torqued twice.

I was surprised at how loose a few of these bolts had gotten with just some running-in-place in my driveway! They all broke loose with the first pull of the wrench, on average took a quarter turn before the wrench clicked to indicate torque. A couple of them took nearly a full turn, specifically the two furthest forward adjacent to the water manifold.

I used a 12" extension to get the proper leverage on the torque wrench for most of the bolts, but a couple - those furthest toward the firewall - needed a shorter extension to clear certain obstacles. On the passenger side, the flange for the heater plenum interfered; on the driver's side, the steering column forced using the 6" extension. I also had to shift the transmission's column shifter from Park to Reverse in order to drop the shifter linkage out of the way.

After you're done, the valve covers go back on easily. In the photo above, you can see the rubber seal iin its channel around the rim of the valve cover; make sure it's seated properly and not dropping loose, otherwise it could be cut by the interior flange and seal improperly - and there's nothing worse than engine oil dribbling onto your hot exhaust manifold while you drive!

The Stude shop manual calls for 14-20 inch-lbs. (!) of torque for the valve cover nuts. Now, maybe back in the day everyone had tools calibrated in inch-lbs. just lying all over the place, but here in the 21st century you're more likely to find a dinosaur bone in your backyard than such a device at your local Sears.

14 inch-lbs. is not a lot of torque, so I just used a nut driver to tighten the nuts hand-tight, which is all the neoprene seals really need.

All done! Put the spark plug wires back where they belong and DON'T forget to reattach the throttle return spring to the wire clip welded to the driver's side valve cover.

Update, January, 2011: There's a little additional information about proper torquing procedure. Check out this post.

Studebaker Steering Box Info.

2009-11-13T18:32:00.000-08:00

Studebakers used a few different models of steering gearbox over the years, from primarily two sources: Ross and Saginaw.The Ross boxes were cam-and-lever gears that were used throughout the 1950s and into the 60s on almost all Studebaker cars and trucks.Saginaw boxes were more modern recirculating-ball types used on some 50's Studes and post-63 Lark-types. Most people agree that the Saginaw boxes have less steering effort and are easier to repair.

Anyway, there's an easy way to tell which kind of steering gear your Studebaker has, as explained by SDC Technical Editor Bob Palma on the SDC Forum:

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!)

Why does it matter? Primarily because the two different types of manual units take two different types of lubrication.

Left: Ross steering box. Right: Saginaw box.

The Saginaw boxes are easy to lube: they take standard chassis grease. You can literally pull the plug and pump in a few squeezes of chassis lube from your grease gun to top them off. The Ross boxes, however, take an 80w or 90w gear oil with EP (ex/treme pressure) additives; Kendall 999 was the preferred grease, but Kendall is no longer around. So, what to use?

Studebaker International to the rescue, with p/n 801651 Semi-Fluid Steering Grease. This is heavy stuff that can also be used as assembly lubricant when you're repairing a Ross or Saginaw box, or to refill a Saginaw after service in lieu of the special S-P steering lube that's long out of production.

Oh, and Jeff Tangemann of Lincoln, Nebraska writes that "a steering shaft out of a circa 68 Chevy truck will fit in a Lark Saginaw steering box." Good to know!

Stop and go, or go and stop?

2009-11-09T16:58:00.000-08:00

Good news: Barney might be back on the road by the end of this week! I've made an appointment with my buddy Brian at Vista Brake to bring him in for a new master cylinder, brake lines and hoses and a front-end alignment. Once that's done, he'll be back on the road again.

I don't mind telling you, I can hardly wait! My goal is to drive him to the November meeting of the San Diego SDC Chapter, which will be held just down the road from me at the Antique Steam Engine Museum in Vista. Wish us luck!

Love that Lark! A family friend comes home.

2009-11-09T16:54:00.000-08:00

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.

Check out this great article from the November 7th Wichita Eagle and just try not to think of your favorite automobile...

Lark Heater rebuild, Part 3: Installation

2009-10-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

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.

As the diagram shows, there are quite a few parts that have to go together - more little bitty ones than you'd generally expect. Luckily, as mentioned in an earlier post, most everything essential is available new from Studebaker vendors, even previously hard-to-find things like the Ranco water control valves that invariably wear out and leak.

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.

Before beginning installation, take a moment to lubricate your heater control cables. There are three; one that goes to the water control valve, one to the defroster mode flapper in the heater box, and a third to the air control flapper, also in the heater box. Studebaker used coil-wrapped control cables, so they are easily lubricated. I drenched mine liberally using a spray silicone lube.

The first item to go back in is the core/blower assembly, but first we have to reunite the core with its case.

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.

Once the core was seated back in its case and the two mounting screws secured it to the flange, it was ready to re-mount under the dash.

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.

Here you can see the relationship of the inlet and outlet nipples on the core and water valve, now that both have been mounted in the car:

What you can't see in the photo above are the holes in the firewall through which the heater hoses enter the cabin. That's right -- they're behind the blower case. There's enough room to get them by the case and onto their respective nipples, but only just.

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.

The factory used spring wire hose clamps, by the way, but I hate those things, so I use tower clamps instead, available at any auto parts store.

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.

As the Body Manual diagram shows, the straight outlet on the water valve connects to the short pipe on the heater core, using the molded elbow shown above. Once that's connected, it's time to connect the two long hoses from the engine.

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 spent a while figuring out how to get the grommets and hoses mounted in the car, and on my first attempt, I tried putting them in their firewall holes and feeding the hoses through them. Wrong move; I should have known that the friction between the rubber parts would prevent this from working. And once installed, the grommets contract a bit too - there was no way this method would work.

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.

If you have a 6-cylinder car, the top hose runs to the elbow at the rear of the head and the bottom hose goes to the nipple near the water pump.

When the connections are complete, the core and valve look like this:

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:

After the cables are on, you can connect the defroster ducts to the outlets on the diverter box. As I did with the other end, I used Zip ties to make sure the hoses don't blow off or come loose. I also used a Zip tie to secure the longest hose to the edge of the dash using one of the convenient factory holes. The factory used a metal strap of some kind to do this, but it's no longer available and the Zip tie is just as good.

There's just one thing wrong with this picture: after I connected the blower leads to the dash harness, there was a lot of extra wire. There was no way I was going to leave it like that. More modern tech to the rescue: these spiffy little self-adhesive cable locks I found in the automotive department at Wal-Mart. A couple of these stuck to the bottom of the diverter box and the mess was tidied.

Only one thing left to do: install the screen filter that keeps leaves and other debris from getting into and plugging the heater core. This is a woven metal mesh that slips into the firewall from the engine compartment, and has a rubber seal on the edge that keeps fumes and moisture out. These are available from Studebaker International. My original was shredded thanks to the rodent tenant, so I got a new one.

Congratulations! The heater is now functional again, ready to make your Stude comfy on those winter outings. It's one of the few times when plenty of hot air is a good thing :)

Lark Heater rebuild, Part 2: Refurbishment

2009-10-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

With the heater system removed from the car and disassembled, you can start refurbishing the parts that are salvageable and hunting down the replaceable parts (hoses, clips, cables, etc.).

Here's yet another great reason to get a copy of your Shop and Parts manuals on CD-ROM: you can print out individual pages. The one above shows all the bits that go into the '62 - '63 Climatizer system. Almost all of the larger parts (fan case, diverter box) are available used if yours are missing or damaged beyond repair; almost all of the small parts (cables and cable clips, fan cage, molded hoses, water valve, heater core, defroster duct hoses) are available new from Studebaker International or other Stude vendors.

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:

And here's how it looked about four hours later:

This nasty muck is all the rust that's been electrically removed from your part! Don't worry, it's not toxic, just fugly. After about a day, here's what came out of the soup:

It may not look very pretty, but it's no longer rusty :) That black coating is what's left behind by the process in place of the rust; a swipe with a kitchen Scotchbrite pad removes it and exposes shiny metal that can be primed and painted. I used this method on all of the blower case parts. The top of the case that holds the core started out like this:

...and came out like this. One of the side benefits of the process is that it loosens most paint, so it comes right off. I buffed the clean metal with a Nyalox wheel from Divine Brothers.

After the buff, the pieces were so pretty I was almost tempted to clearcoat them and leave them this way :) But everything got a nice coat of Rustoleum primer and gloss black and were set aside to cure.

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.

Leave about 3/16" of shaft exposed for the spring clip that goes on top to keep the fan from leaving the shaft at speed. New ones are round versus rectangular originals, but functionally they're the same. Use the socket to slide it tight against the fan hub.

After the blower fan is reinstalled, you can reassemble the blower case. Since a previous owner had used the wrong screws, I re-tapped the holes and installed the correct screws to hold the case together. Set the assembly aside; it's time to work on the air diverter box.

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.

The residue left on the rectangular piece indicated that the original covering wrapped around the end of the piece opposite the hinge rod. After cutting the felt sheet to the proper size, I glued it to the hardboard using a liberal coating of E-6000 cement. I did the same to the round flapper, applying the felt to both sides.

Note that there is a small washer at the top of the shaft on the rectangular flapper. Don't lose this! It needs to be on the shaft when you reinstall it so that the flapper will move smoothly and stay at the correct height.

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.

I tried a couple of things to fasten the top back on; at first I used plastic pop-rivets but they didn't grip - they loosened right up. Then I tried an aluminum rivet, but it took too much force to tighten and I was afraid of cracking the plastic. I wound up using #6 machine screws with lock-nuts to secure the unit; not correct, but not damaging. And, if I ever need to open it up again, it'll be easy to do.

Now that the blower and diverter box are refurbed and reassembled, we're ready to re-install them in the car. Stay tuned for Part 3!

Lark Heater rebuild, Part 1: Disassembly

2009-10-18T19:49:00.000-07:00

Here we begin a three-part series on how to R&R your non-functional Studebaker Lark Climatizer (Studebaker's term for their temperature-maintaining heating system). There are of course variances between years, but your Shop and Parts manuals (you do own them, right? If not, get them from Studebaker International or one of the other Stude vendors, either printed or on CD-ROM) have year-specific exploded diagrams and parts lists. Since I have a '63, this series will be specific to '62 - '63 Larks, but the procedures are pretty much the same for all years.

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 pic above shows the blower case and core assembly, which is located in the cabin underneath the passenger's side of the dashboard. On earlier Lark models, the core and blower are located in the engine compartment, on the passenger's side fender, and fresh air is fed through a hose connected to the vents inboard of the headlights. With the advent of the four-lamp system in 1961, the core and blower were relocated inside the cabin, but the water valve was still in the engine compartment on the firewall. In 1962, the valve was mounted under the dash as well, which means when they leak (not if, when), you'll know it immediately. Ranco valves can now be obtained again after a long time out of production; I obtained a used one from eBay and had it ready to go in.

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.

In my Lark, the old core was sealed to the dash opening with some sort of dum-dum or black caulk; either that or the original rubber seal had simply turned into goo after 45 years. Either way, it was sticky and reluctant to let go, but once it was broken, the assembly came down the studs and was sitting in the floor of the car. Since the motor was seized and the wiring harness about to come out, I nipped the motor's power leads and the core was free.

As you can see, there are three major three major pieces to the heater/blower assembly: the heater core itself, the blower motor, and the fan case. The core is the first piece to remove; it's held onto the blower case with a sheet-metal screw on each side. Once removed, the core comes right out.

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.

I then disassembled the blower case by removing the short #6-22 machine screws that ring the clamshell's flange. Well, actually I had only one #6 screw - the rest had been replaced at some point by a motley assortment of wood screws and coarse sheet metal screws. Opening the case exposes the "squirrel cage" blower fan, which has to be removed before the screws that secure the motor to the case can be accessed.

With the fan exposed, I couldn't resist trying to make it spin, so I hooked the leads up to a 12-volt drill battery. At first, nothing happened, but after freeing it up by hand, the fan took off with a loud squealing of dry, seized bearings and I knew for sure that a new motor was needed. Luckily, they're easily available; I got mine from SASCO.

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.

After removing the heater box, the defroster ducts are usually hanging free from the outlets. These hoses were originally made of black paper wrapped with a spring-coil substrate; mine deteriorated long ago and the inventive Previous Owner had fixed the problem by wrapping what was left with duct tape. The black paper then crumbled away entirely, leaving the ducts a sort of automotive fossil part. I discarded these archaeological objects and bought the new rubber ducting with nylon inner-spring sold by SI. The outlets themselves are pressed steel and are held on with a nut on each end, which (with the heater out of the car) were easily accessed with a socket and extension.

Working on the kitchen table, I cut the new hoses to fit using the old ones as templates, and secured them to the outlets using a method not available to Studebaker line-workers back in the day: Zip ties. Slipping the hose as far over the outlet necks as possible and tightening down the Zip ties secures them beyond any loosening, yet enables me to remove them down the road if needed. Since I had the instrument cluster out for the re-wiring project, it was even simpler to reinstall the re-hosed ducts, but it's not bad even with the cluster in as long as you have a good flashlight.

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!

The next installation will cover rebuilding and refurbing the various heater sub-systems. Stand by!

Wiring Harness Replacement, Day 4 - the finale!

2009-09-27T21:35:00.000-07:00

This weekend I finished the wiring harness project, pulling out the old taillight harness and installing the new one. Everything is brand-new wire, from headlights to taillights.

As with the front harness, the rear wiring came from Studebakers West in Redwood City, California. Nice stuff, with OEM wire colors; a drop-in replacement for the original.

The factory harness was routed under the carpet next to the driver's side of the front seat, up under the rear quarter panel trim, over the rear wheel well and past the trunk divider, where it then clips to the driver's side of the trunk, near the trunk opening, and then to the left taillight, across to the gas gauge sender and finally the right taillight. It's really easy routing; all you have to do is follow the clips spot-welded to the body.

First thing was to pull up the carpet a little, which necessitated removing the driver's kick panel and door sill plate. That's where I found the first rust hole in the floor, right at the base of the A-pillar, where the floor meets the front wheelwell. Just a little hole, about 3/8", but I was sure hoping there wouldn't be any. Guess it's a Stude trademark though, so we'll deal with it.

I also had to pull the rear seat to route the wires into the trunk. The seat bottom lifts right out; the seat back hangs on two little hooks on the package-shelf cross brace, and is then secured to the floor with sheet-metal screws through two oblong loops on the bottom of the seatback. Undo those screws and the whole back lifts right out.

As long as I was in there, I pulled off the quarter panel trim and shot as much WD-40 into the window regulator as I could, freeing up the window, which had only been able to roll down about 4 inches.

In the trunk, the only thing that required cleaning up was the connection to the two license plate lamps, which had been butt-crimped to the harness connector. I nipped them off and crimped on some bullet connectors to plug into the new harness. Everything else was easy as pie.

I vacuumed up the detritus under the rear seat, which is when I found the other little hole in the floor - this one under a pile of dried dum-dum at the front corner of the rear wheel-well. This one was larger than the first; about the size of a quarter - I could easily see daylight and pavement through the hole. Some 200-MPH tape for the time being, but we'll have to address this, too.

That completed the job, and after reinstalling the seat and door trim, I bolted the Stupid Grant Steering Wheel ™ back to the column. She's really ready for the road now - all that really needs doing is the brakes - stand by for the next installment!

Wiring Harness Replacement, Days 2 & 3.

2009-09-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it took me a week to get back to it, but last weekend I got the time to finish installing the new wiring in Barney.

Since I'd already ripped out the half of the harness that formerly occupied the dashboard, I began installing the new harness by threading it through the firewall to the engine compartment from inside the car. The engine side of the harness is much smaller on the engine side than the dash-side bundle, which is why it makes sense to do it like this.

It was actually a little bit of work to get it through there by myself. I had uncoiled the new harness and stretched it out as far as I could, and the different circuit branches kept getting hung up on things (the seatback, the turn signal stalk, the steering column Z-bar) as I pulled it through. Finally, though, I got it all the way through and began changing connections, starting with the alternator wires (farthest point of the harness) and being careful to bend the bundle the same as the old ones to fit into the wire clips around the radiator support. Notice in the pics below that there are several clips at strategic locations to guide the wire bundle around the radiator, under the horn mounting positions, and elsewhere in the engine compartment.

Notice also that there are a few leads in the harness that are not connected. There are usually a few of these in any car; in my case, the low-tone horn and the overdrive relay. Loose wire leads are a big peeve of mine. They can get in moving parts, or arc to ground unexpectedly, so I always tie-wrap them to the main bundle, as you can see above.

I had left the engine half of the old harness in place and simply substituted the new connectors for the old at each connection along the way. Sure, you could use the wiring diagram, but why not make it easy?

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.

Also, just to make sure that the underhood connections stay moisture-free, I used a dab of dielectric grease on every connection point. This is the stuff the factory uses in all the booted connectors to keep connectors from corroding or absorbing water.

After finishing the engine compartment, Iwent into the cabin. First thing I figured I'd do was to bolt the new fuse/flasher block to the dash, since it really locates the rest of the harness bundle. In my Lark, the flasher panel shares a mounting position with the driver's side air vent control - the vent rod bracket bolts to the bottom of the dash frame, and the same screws hold the flasher bracket to the top of the frame. I had previously installed all the connections and fuses that live in it, so I began to screw it on -- and ran into my first bit of trouble. The flasher can was too big; it interfered with the vent rod. I had read the number off the old flasher and gotten a direct replacement from my NAPA, but a check of the manual revealed that it was, in fact, the wrong flasher. How did the old one fit in there without banging on the vent control? Well, my old flasher block was busted - one fuse connection was actually broken off and was being held in place by the fuse! I think that a PO probably put in a flasher they had on hand, and when it didn't fit, he just bent the bracket forward, breaking the board! Luckily, SASCO had NOS parts in stock, and I got one before they closed down.

NEVER TRUST THE P.O.! After a hasty trip to NAPA, I installed the correct flasher and proceeded. In the pic above, you can see the difference between what was on the car, and the correct (short) can.

After that, things went pretty well. I routed the new wire bundle over the steering column support and into the clip that holds it down, and separated the pigtails for the various switches and instruments into their approximate locations.

Let me point out that while most fuses in a Studebaker dashboard are inline in their respective circuits, there are two circuit breakers as well; one 20A breaker for the headlights and a 5A for the wipers. They are located at opposite ends of the instrument nacelle. The headlamp breaker is in a holder at the lower forward left corner of the panel (think: just above the hood release, but inside the dash structure) and the wiper breaker is in a like holder on the right side, attached to the steering column Z-bar. While they are situated in such a way that you wouldn't know where to look for them if you didn't know where to look for them (figure that out!), once you know where they are, you can get to them pretty easily from below.

While the instruments were out, I took the opportunity to remove my defogger vent heads and attach new flexible ducting obtained from Studebaker International. It was nearly impossible to get the new ducts mounted properly while the vents were in the dash, but they're held on with just two small screws each. I snugged the new hose on the inlets and secured them with Zip ties, then bolted them back up to the dash.

Next step was to start hooking up the gauges and switches. I set the new guage bezel on top of the steering column and started hooking up switch wires according to the wiring chart. This is a bit tricky; first, the shift lever interferes with the bezel's direct entry to the dash; even in the "Reverse" position, you have the heater/defogger control cables attached to their levers, which must be guided through the dash structure. While these are flexible, the OEM cables are spiral-wound metal, not plastic-sheathed, and can be bent if you're careless. In fact, I managed to bend the rightmost cable but was lucky enough to try the controls while the cables were still accessible through the gauge holes, and I straightened it so that it could slide without hanging up. Also, the metal bezel can scrape up the top of the steering column pretty good; I wound blue painter's tape around the column to protect it during this operation.

After the switch and the Fuel/Temp/Oil/Charge gauge connections were made, I pushed the bezel into the dash and started installing the six #10-24 3/8" self-tapping screws that hold it in. How do I know what size they are? Because I lost one, somehow, in the dash structure. One minute it was in the socket, the next it was nowhere to be found - nowhere! This prompted a trip to Ace hardware, since I had also found a screw missing in the bracket that holds the parking brake to the dash. Ace only had 1/2" screws, so I had to shorten one to 3/8" using my Dremel.

The hardest connection to make to the left-most gauge is the oil pressure line. The gauge is a direct-reading mechanical type, so the line is a hard copper tube that attaches to the engine with a flexible coupkling, then comes through the dash and ends in a miniature double-flare that screws into a fitting on the back of the gauge. Try as I might, working through the clock and speedo holes, that danged line did not want to screw into its fitting. At this point, I'd been at it for 6 hours and decided to call it a day.

On Sunday afternoon, after a good lunch, I decided to try it again. I got into a better position ("better" being a relative term) with the help of a pillow and Mini-Mag and succeeded in getting the oil line installed, working from below. Let me tell you, it was about as comfortable as flying coach on a Delta flight!

After that, it took about 5 minutes to set the speedo in place and hook up its drive cable and the leads for the directional and high-beam indicators. Time to hook up the battery!

I crossed my fingers and put the battery cables on. Nothing sparked or leaked smoke, so I said a quick "thank you" prayer and put the key in the ignition, at which my first mistake became apparent -- the windshield wipers came on with the key; I'd installed the leads to the switch backward.

But that was no big deal. Now for the high-wattage stuff: the headlights, taillights, beam selector switch, turn signals, instrument lights. Success! All worked nicely.

I turned the key to "start" and the engine fired up after a couple of cranks - Success! But the key was turned right off as I saw, through the open hood, smoke coming from the new coil resistor I'd installed. (Studebakers West can't get the resistance wire the factory used to supply power to the coil when the key is in the "run" position, so they give you an old-style external resistor that mounts to the coil bracket.) I quickly went and pulled the cables off the battery, then checked the resistor. But the wires were cool; the smoke was coming from the resistor coil itself. I guess brand new ones just smoke a little when the current first hits them. I put the cables back on the battery and fired the engine again - sweet!

There were only a couple of small errors to fix, such as the connections to the wiper switch and the ammeter, which I apparently wired in reverse - the needle went to the "Charge" side of center when I turned the headlights on, and swung to "Discharge" when I revved the engine! But those were easy fixes, and I corrected them after work yesterday.

The one thing left to figure out is the behavior of the headlight/parking light switch. The parking lamp position of the switch doesn't seem to work - no lights on the corners in the center position, but they come on with the headlights like they're supposed to. It's possible that the switch is work out and not working right - we'll see.

The only part of the harness left to install is the back half that feeds the tail and reverse lights, but there's no hurry for this, as all those wires are in relatively good shape. At least I don't have to worry about nightmares like the scene at left anymore!

Next project is getting the new master cylinder and brake lines installed, and she's on the road!

Click here for the final part of the wiring installation series >>

Wiring Harness Replacement, Day 1.

2009-09-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I hadn't really planned on this job, but some things just demand to get done all on their own.

After putting the new distributor in Barney and getting him going, I was futzing around inside and was, once again, taken by the rat's nest of messed-up wiring under the dashboard. I knew that the wiring harness was going to need replacement soon after buying him; there was a bundle of wires hanging out from beneath the ignition switch that had bare ends with tape over them! And there were other things, like the fact that the heater blower circuit was open... the headlight beam selector was bypassed... the horn circuit had shorted out and melted the harness for about a foot... and the fuse block was literally broken in half.

And the thought hit me: why wait? Why not do it now, before the car's back on the road? Because once I'm driving it, I'm not going to want to take it down to do this job. Also, I don't want to be standing next to a smoldering heap of metal on the side of the road somewhere because I didn't do it!

Luckily, I'd ordered a new OEM-style harness from Studebakers West in Redwood City. Mr. Biggs on the SDC Forum had told me early on that SW were the ones to go to, since they make their own harnesses from factory loom charts. And let me say, it's a beautiful piece of work!

So, after talking it over with my wife, I plunged in last Sunday. I'd sought advice on the Forum about how best to do the job; some told me I should drop the steering column and remove the entire dashboard. But a couple of guys told me I could do it by removing just the steering wheel and the gauge cluster, and working through the gauge pod opening. Since I already had all of the gauge pods removed, I decided on this course of action.

One of the guys on the Forum told me that no matter how long I thought the job would take - it would take about double that! All I can say is, was he ever right :)

So, Saturday night I laid out my new harness on the living room floor. I'd already gone through it with a continuity tester and identified the wires, tagging them with P-Touch labels. (Yes, that's anal-retentive. I believe in being prepared.)

Just to make sure, I went through with the wiring diagram again and was glad I had - I found a couple of mis-labeled wires (one, meant for the overdrive solenoid, was labelled "To coil positive"! That would not have worked.)

By the way, if you need a wiring diagram for your car, you'll find the ones in the Shop Manual fairly useless. Go to Chuck Collins' archive instead and find the one for your car. Trust me, you need this!

You'll find a thick rubber grommet where the harness passes through the firewall. This is installed by slipping it over the engine-compartment wires and fitting into the firewall hole. The wires must be fed through the firewall from the passenger compartment; the grommet is then installed from the engine side. This means you cannot pre-install the grommet before the wires go in -- something I had to learn the hard way.

I've been collecting parts for a while, so doing the harness also means replacing the nasty old painted gauge surround with the nice chromed one I've had waiting. Seems that, along with other austerity measures, Standard gauge pods were painted silver instead of chromed! My new one won't be "correct", but it will look much nicer. I also unearthed the new headlight switch, instrument light dimmer, heater control cables and other bits and pieces I'd assembled to replace what was broken, worn or just plain old.

Before diving in, I went around the car with the digital camera and took still photos of every wiring connection, plus video of everything with narration - just in case I mess up somewhere (cross your fingers!).

Finally it was time to get into the dash, starting with removal of the crappy Grant GT steering wheel. Why is it every two-bit hot-rodder wannabe has to put one of these things on? Getting the wheel and mounting hub off instantly revealed one reason the horn never worked: about a foot of thin wire wrapped around the turn signal's cancel switch, accompanied by two crimp-on butt connectors. Hopefully, the real horn wire is still in the column and can be retrieved, but I won't know until I pull the Grant adapter and switch collar.

With the wheel out of the way, I could get into the gauge pod and access the six screws that hold the bezel to the dashboard. There are four across the top and two on the bottom. Working through the mounting holes for the instruments, they were easy to get to using a mini-ratchet and 1/4" socket. Once these are out, the bezel is loose - almost. I found two trim screws on the bottom of the dash pad, adjacent to the steering column, that must come out. Then, the bezel is free to pull forward. I put some painter's tape on top of the steering column to avoid morking the paint up. I also unscrewed the ignition switch and four rocker switches and let them remain with the harness so I could photograph their connections.

Woo hoo! I could finally get to the interior of the dash. And boy, what a mess! Wires that went nowhere. Pulled-apart butt crimps with bare ends. More melted wires and electrical tape. Unprotected power taps coming off the main battery feed. Made me really glad I decided to do this project now rather than waiting!

Studebakers have no fuse panel per se; inline fuses are scattered throughout the harness along with two circuit breakers (one for the headlights, one for the windshield wipers). You'll find the breakers at either side of the pod, clipped to the backside of the dashboard frame in little holders. Headlight breaker is 20 amps, wiper is 5 amps. Mine were both 15 amps (go figure).

At this point, I took time to document the connections to the fuse panel. Okay, flasher panel would be more accurate, since there are only two fuses on the board and the directional flasher can is mounted here too. Naturally, there were also some accessory power leads screwed on, none of which powered anything. One lead, a big white one with a black tracer, was so obscure that I took my knife and cut open the remaining plastic tape so I could find out exactly where it went!

I'd started working in the car at 11AM; it was now 6PM and I'd finally reached the place where I was ready to cut the old harness at the firewall. The plan, put forth by Mr. Biggs, was to cut the harness and leave the engine side attached, so I could thread the new harness through the hole and just swap the connectors, using the old ones as a guide.

So I went and got my wire nippers and began snicking through the bundle on the engine side of the firewall, one wire at a time. And AGAIN I became very glad I'd decided not to put this job off! It seems that the pesky horn wire meltdown, in addition to burning through the harness wrap, had also managed to scorch the thick main power lead that goes from the alternator to the ammeter.

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.

In addition, I've sent my clock off to get rebuilt by a pro, so when it comes back next week it'll be ready to go in that hole in the middle of the dash where the blanking plate was!

Click here to read the second post on the wiring installation >>

New distributor in and working!

2009-09-08T19:37:00.000-07:00

It's in! And working beautifully. I dropped by NAPA this morning and picked up their one (1) Champion H14Y spark plug to replace the one that cracked yesterday, and after work I popped it in, hooked up the battery and hit the switch. Presto! Or should I say Delco. A few minutes fiddling with the idle speed, dwell setting, and getting the timing set and Barney was ticking over with a nice, steady rumble. Terry said it sounded so good she thought it was my Pontiac!

Next step: Get it over to Vista Brake to have the binders gone through.

Well... fine, then.

2009-09-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

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.

I pull the coil wire, check for spark - got it. I move the distributor around while cranking, get a backfire through the carb. I double-check the plug wires and guess what? They're one off by one hole, clockwise. So I move everything over one hole and try it again. More backfires.

So I think "I must have put the distributor in 180 out." I pull the dist, turn the rotor to the other side, drop it in, crank it and get a BIG backfire through the tailpipe - sounded like a gun going off.

This time, I decide, let's really be SURE where the engine is. I pull #1 plug, put my thumb over it, bump the starter until my thumb gets blown off. Look at the crank pulley; the pointer is dead on the IGN mark. Great; I check the distributor and find that I had it right the first time. Pull, move the rotor back around, drop it in.

So I go to put the spark plug back in and... the insulator is missing. That's right... cracked off in the spark plug socket. Call NAPA - they have ONE Champion H14Y in stock. I'll be down, I say. Sorry, they say - closed in 5 minutes.

Guess it'll wait until tomorrow...sigh.

How-To: Studebaker Delco Distributor Rebuild

2009-09-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

If you've been following the past few posts, you've read of the self-destruction of Barney's Prestolite distributor, and my being gifted with a Delco distributor core (see A Drive To Perris). At first I thought maybe I'd send it off for a professional rebuild, but decided on doing it myself, mostly because I got antsy and didn't want to wait, but also because I was told what an easy job it was.

Amazingly, my searches of the Web turned up absolutely NO tutorials on how to go through a Delco distributor, so hopefully this will help others seeking this information. It's actually pretty simple. And here's a plug for the necessity of having the Studebaker shop manuals: the disassembly and reassembly instructions Studebaker provided are better documented and photographed than the procedure I found in my '67 Pontiac shop manual! If you are embarking on a Studebaker project, I strongly urge getting a set of Shop, Chassis and Body manuals for your car - they are absolutely invaulable.

Many folk associate Prestolite distributors with Studebakers, but in fact Delco spark-slingers were used on Stude V-8s through most of the 1950s and into the 60s. The advantage of the Delco is that parts are easier to come by; additionally, two model years (1960 and 1961) used the common Delco "window-type" unit that any GM fan is intimately familiar with. It's called a "window type" because the cap has a small metal "window" that can be slid up to facilitate setting the point dwell while the engine is running - a massively convenient perk. Another perk of running the Delco is that you don't have to get "the look" from the counter guy at your FLAPS* when you ask for Studebaker parts; you just tell 'em you need distributor parts for a '61 Impala and you're golden.

Bob Johnstone, the keeper of all Stude technical knowledge (check his tech site at www.studebaker-info.org, if you haven't already) posted the following numbers for Delco-Remy distributors with Studebaker applications. This number can be found on a stamped aluminum collar in a machined groove just below the distributor head:

1110839 - All 1953, '54 and '55 V8
1110864 - All 1958 & '59 V8, 1960 289 cu. in. V8 only
1110869 - 1960 259 cu. in. V8 only
1110969 - all 1960 cars w/V8 (except Hawk) & all 1960-61 trucks
1110969 - 1961 259 cu. in. V8 only
1110864 - 1961 289 cu. in. V8 only
1110981- 1960 & '61 V-8 Larks, all (this is the "window-type" unit)

My Delco is a 1110981 - the desirable "window" unit. Although this is only correct for the two model years shown above, it will fit any 259 or 289 Studebaker engine. So, off we go!

My first step was to clean the sucker off. As you can see, the sucker had acquired a nice suntan of surface rust; Warren showed me a junk V8 engine he'd pulled it from. It looked like it had been outside without a cap for a while. But mechanically it was fine; the rotor shaft had no side play and runout between the drive gear and adjacent brass bushing was within the spec called for in the Studebaker shop manual (.036" - .068").

I pulled off the old points, condenser and vacuum advance, as well as the homebrew primary lead. With a little exercise and the application of some trombone slide oil, the breaker plate began to move freely, so I elected not to fully disassemble the unit by driving out the pins that hold the drive gear and oil pump drive shaft to the rotor shaft. The advance weights were hard to get off due to the light rust on their pins, but the trombone oil freed those up as well, and I stowed all the removed parts in Ziploc bags.

Since I'm the kind of guy that likes to make things look good as well as work well, I set to work with a Nyalox abrasive wheel. This is a "wire" wheel that's made of impregnated Nylon - it strips paint and rust quickly without harming the metal underneath or leaving that telltale "brushed" look on metal surfaces. I think I got mine at Home Depot, but you can buy them direct from the manufacturer, Divine Brothers.

I carefully unlocked the irreplaceable aluminum Delco tag from the machined channel and proceeded to buff off the surface rust. The Nylox wheels work with amazingly little effort, and in no time the distributor head casting was nice and shiny. The next step was to shine up the advance weight mounts, breaker plate and breaker cam.

On the advice of Jeff Rice, I used my Dremel tool with a small steel brush to clean the rust from the interior parts. The breaker plate appears to be chrome plated, so it was rust-free; the breaker cam and advance cam were another story. I cleaned up the advance parts first, getting all the rust off the surfaces that the centrifugal advance weights slide on. The advance pins had a little bit of wear on them. but not enough to render the distributor shaft useless.

I didn't want to touch the breaker cam with the Dremel wire wheel, so I used some 2,000-grit emery film to polish the rust off of it. Then, my favorite non-abrasive metal polish, Nevr-Dull, was used to further polish the cam and breaker plate. I love this stuff; it's basically a chemically-impregnated cotton wadding that removes rust and other staining from metal parts, depositing a thin layer of lubricant protectant as it works. Soon, the delicate bits were spic 'n span.

After that, I took the Nyalox brush to the two advance weights. They had sustained some pitting, but cleaned up well. Mr. Gasket and other speed-parts suppliers make replacement weights for these distributors, but I'd rather re-use than replace when possible :) With the upper bits clean, I put a small brass cup brush in the Dremel and cleaned the light rust out of the interior of the base casting using the large access hole in the breaker plate.

At this point, with everything cleaned up, it was time for paint. Using painter's tape, I masked off the moving parts and the section of the shaft housing that must remain plain metal. Note that there is a large hole in the bottom of the casting that allows the distributor primary lead to exit; you'll need to cover this from the inside to keep paint from getting into the mechanicals.

I like Rustoleum red primer because it's specifically formulated for rusty metal, and even though I'd cleaned all the rust off, there's no sense taking chances! After a couple of coats of primer, I shot it with black engine paint and let it dry overnight, followed by a second coat of engine black the next morning. By midday, the paint was hard and the tape came off. Things looked great!

I used a little dielectric grease to lubricate the advance weight pins and re-installed the weights. Note that the mounting holes in the weights are tapered; if you turn them over you can discern that the hole diameter is slightly larger on one side than the other. Slide them onto the pins with the large side down, toward the advance cam baseplate. Note that there is a small, button-like raised area in the baseplate that the weighs rest directly over and must slide upon; a little grease in this area is a good idea as well to keep them moving smoothly.

You can get replacement advance springs from a number of manufacturers; just ask for the kit for a '61 Chevy. I chose Mr. Gasket, although Moroso, Accel and others make them. I suppose your friendly GM dealer might have springs too (if he's still in business). The Mr. Gasket kit includes three different spring weights to customize your advance curve; on the advice of SDC member and distributor guru Harry "Bud" Alenik, I installed the gold OEM-weight set. Harry explains:

"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."

Should you choose to play with your advance curve, I've documented the spring weights and the timing advance each set provides on this post.

The next thing I did was to install the new vacuum advance unit (or "spark modifier", as the shop manual refers to it). I got this from NAPA, it's Echlin part #VC680. It's held on with two screws, one at the edge of the base and the other just under the edge of the breaker plate. To install it, you must rotate the breaker plate so that you can get the vacuum can's actuator rod into the hole in the plate. It takes a little maneuvering to get it in there, but once you get the rod at the right angle, it slides into the hole easily. I put in the screw that holds the unit to the rim to hold the unit in.

There is a black wire crimped to the breaker plate; this is what supplies ground to the points. I slid it under the head of the second vacuum advance attaching screw as shown in the pic to the right. If your ground wire has gone missing, you can get a replacement from NAPA; it's Echlin # LW42. It comes with two spade-lug ends; you can attach the other end under the nearby pointset hold-down screw instead of trying to crimp it to the breaker plate.

I installed a rubber grommet in the hole for the primary wire; this is just a standard 3/8" wire grommet that you can get from the bins at any hardware store.

With the advance unit in place, I installed the pointset. I opted for a "Uniset" combo unit; this is an all-in-one part that combines the breaker points and the condenser into one unit and eliminates fiddling with a separate condenser and lead. You'd think this would be an inexpensive part, but I found that as the use of points has decreased, the cost of pointsets has increased. NAPA wanted $35.00 (!) for the Uniset points; I opted instead to order them for half that price from Studebaker vendor Chuck Collins. They are Borg-Warner #A2120, although I'm sure other manufacturers have them as well. Chuck, as always, got the goods to me immediately; I ordered on Thursday and they arrived on Saturday. I also ordered two new distributor mounting gaskets.

Now that the points are installed, you've got to lube the breaker cam. This is also known as the "rubbing block", for obvious reasons: the points rub on the octagonal cam as it rotates; each time it rubs over one of the cam's corners, the electrical connection between the points is broken. Even though the bit of the pointset that contacts the rubbing block is plastic, without lubrication the block will wear. If you've never had a car with points before, you may not realize that there is a specific kind of lube for this, a silicone grease that is smeared onto the cam to protect it. This has to be renewed periodically, too, so it's good to have a tube around. My old tube of Lubricam has seen duty since the mid-'80s and still has plenty left. Bosch still makes it, as well as some other manufacturers, but you may have to go to a real speed shop to get it - the NAPA and Pep Boys near me have none in stock.

With lubrication taken care of, it was time to put on the rotor. Again, NAPA had the part, Echlin #RR1670. I opted for the Heavy Duty part, since the contact is constructed from heavier brass than the standard-duty part. In Delco distributors, the rotor fits right over the advance weights, covering them completely, and screws to the advance cam. On the bottom of the rotor are two lugs; one round, one square. They fit into corresponding holes in the cam so you can't install it 180º reversed. Once the rotor is screwed down, hold the shaft and twist the rotor counter-clockwise; you should feel some spring resistance as it rotates; release it and it should snap back. This verifies that the molded webbing on the bottom of the rotor is not interfering with the operation of the advance weights and springs.

The last bit inside the distributor is the primary lead. I threaded this through the newly-installed grommet in the base and attached the spade lug to the screw provided on the front of the pointset.If you're missing the lead or yours is boogered up, go to NAPA and get Echlin part #LW67.

After that, it's time to install the cap. Unlike the Prestolite cap, which attaches with a pair of spring clips mounted to the base, the Delco cap has a spring-loaded hold-down on each side. A notch machined in the base of the distributor body accepts the tab molded into the bottom of the cap, which positively locates it and keeps it from rotating; simply place the cap on the base and use a flat-blade screwdriver to depress the hold-down, then rotate it so its ear is beneath the locating notch underneath the cap and release it; it will clamp the cap to the base. Repeat on the other side. The cap, by the way, was also gotten at NAPA: Echlin #RR1650. This is the matching heavy-duty cap for the rotor, with brass terminals instead of aluminum.

That's it! She's assembled and ready to be dropped into Barney's engine. I'm hoping I get the chance to do this tomorrow - stay tuned for further developments.

Thanks to Warren Webb, Jeff Rice, Bob Johnstone, Bud Alenik and all the guys at the SDC Forum for their help information.

*FLAPS -- Friendly Local Auto Parts Store.

Spring has sprung.

2009-09-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

Distributor advance weight springs are one of those things that get neglected, but should be replaced every now and then, simply because they are, after all, springs -- they will eventually stretch.

Whilst rebuilding a Delco distributor for Barney, it was obvious I'd need new springs, so I went down to Smokey's Speed Shop (Smokey as in Yunick - yes, the legend himself opened up a shop in Oceanside years ago) and got a Mr. Gasket #928G Advance Spring Kit. This kit contains 3 sets of springs for Delco distributors -- but absolutely no instructions. Checking the Mr. Gasket website doesn't help either; they have no instruction sheets online like Crane or Moroso do.

Finally, after an extensive Google search, I came up with the way to tell the 3 sets of springs apart, and am posting it here in hopes that some other poor soul looking for this info will have an easier time of it.

Mr. Gasket 928G Spring Weight Decoder:

Gold springs = Heavy (OEM style, slowest advance)
Silver springs = Medium (faster advance)
Black springs = Light (fastest advance)

From yet another website, here's a chart that explains when the centrifugal advance will kick in for each set of springs used (click on it to see full-size):

To Mr. Gasket and the Prestolite Corporation: Love your products, hate your documentation.

PJ O'Rourke and the death of American Iron.

2009-09-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

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.

His latest essay, on the death of the American automobile industry (and a romantic reminiscence on what it used to be) is posted on McLellan Automotive's site. You can read it here.

I agree wholeheartedly with P.J. I miss the days when cars were an optimistic means of propulsion to the future, instead of the gub'ment-regulation-befouled people pods they've become. Need transportation? Seating for 4 or 6? Want fries with that?

That's one reason my Studebaker will be my daily driver. First, so that I don't see myself coming down the road in the opposite direction 20 times a day... and, second, just to piss off the "pointy-headed busybodies" who control exactly how boring modern cars are. That's right, eat me, you beaurocratic bumblers!

A drive to Perris.

2009-09-03T11:48:00.001-07:00

Back in the day, when I spent my days spinning 45s and playing used-car commercials, I worked at a radio station whose promotions were so chronically low-budget that we used to joke amongst ourselves that (insert big-voiced announcer here) "We're sending lucky listeners on an all-expense-paid trip to beautiful PARIS! [Long pause......] California!"

Of course, this other Perris is spelled a mite different. It's in what's referred to as Southern California's Inland Empire, the cities and towns that make up Riverside County, just east of Los Angeles and north of San Diego Counties.

Tuesday, when my buddy Kirk found that my distributor was toastier than an English muffin (see Good News, Bad News...), I posted a cry for help on the SDC Forum, asking for assistance in finding a new distrib for Barney. Within an hour, I had two offers of a free unit! Dean Pearson in Murrieta offered one up but it turned out to be for a '51 V-8. But then Warren Webb in Perris said he had one which would fit my car that I could have just for coming and getting it. Woot!

So we connected by phone and I made plans to run up the next day. Perris is about an hour's drive from Oceanside - not a big deal. After dropping Reed as school on Tuesday, I hit the road and arrived at Warren's place around 8:45.

Warren is a cool guy, with cars in his blood. His dad was the body shop manager for a Pontiac dealer on the East Coast, so he grew up around cars and learned the paint & body trade. He became interested in Studebakers when the Avanti hit the news, but is first Stude was a '59 Lark VI 4-door with a straight 3-speed that came to the dealer as a trade.

With a mutual love of Studebakers and Pontiacs, we had a lot to talk about and spent about 2 hours shooting the breeze (or should I say "chasing the shade" - it was hot!). Warren has quite a few Studes - on the property he's got a '63 Avanti, '63 GT Hawk (R-2 powered!), '62 Lark Daytona convertible, '60 Lark VIII convertible, '66 Daytona 2-door, '68 Pontiac LeMans convertible, '62 Champ pickup, and '67 Barracuda notchback -- my favorite Q-body of all time!

Warren was kind enough to give me a Delco window-type distributor from a '61 engine, which I've begun to refurb. It'll go in Barney to replace the ailing Prestolite that's apparently falling apart as we speak.

It was a great visit, and Warren is a very cool guy. I enjoyed the time immensely and, after we'd said our goodbyes and snapped a couple of pix, headed for home thinking (once again!) how the Studebaker brotherhood is the neatest bunch of car guys I've ever met. Thanks again, Warren!

Good news, bad news, good news...! Post 100.

2009-09-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

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.

I asked if he'd help me suss the fuel leak that'd been driving me nuts for months, and within 2 minutes, he'd cured the problem. No more leak; my hard line to the carb was dry as a bone on both ends. I guess the car just responded to him :)

Well, since it was running nicely, he started futzing around with the carburetor, and got the idle mixture and idle speed set, then started in on the timing. But he couldn't get it right -- it ran well at idle, but kick up the RPMs to around 2,000 and it missed and sputtered like a PETA member at a hot-dog eating contest. He sucked on the advance hose and got no response either.

So off comes the distributor cap and right away Kirk says "Oh oh." And he grabs the rotor and proceeds to give it a twist. A distributor in good condition would resist this, but mine -well the rotor moved about 20 degrees either way. "What the hell's with that?" he says. "I don't know much about Studebakers, maybe that's supposed to do that... but I ain't never seen anything like that."

So out comes the distributor -- original Prestolite -- and, looking down into its guts, Kirk gives with another "Oh oh." And he points to a slot in the breaker plate where we can clearly see that one of the advance weights has fallen out and is flopping around down there. Over to the tool chest we go, but not before he turns the unit upside down to let the broken spring clip that supposed to be holding the cam to the shaft fall out into his palm.

The further he opened it up, the worse it got. Advance springs laying in the bottom, metal shavings, egged-out holes in the advance yoke, mismatched weights, and a kluged-in vacuum advance can that interfered with the operation of the breaker plate.

He put it all back together and stuffed it back in the hole, and I fired Barney up from inside. It ran better, but obviously was not well yet. "You need a new distributor," says Kirk; "this one's shot."

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!

So I posted to the SDC Forum and within an hour had two offers of a free distributor from guys within an hour's drive of me. And tomorrow I'm going up to Perris to meet Warren Webb, who's giving me a spare Delco distributor!

I keep saying it over and over -- in all the time I've been into old cars, I have never found a group that is as generous, gives as much effort, moral support and pure camaraderie as do the members of the Studebaker Drivers Club. I love these guys, and I feel absolutely at home among them - they've given me more support than I ever would have dreamed of during Barney's re-vivification. I just hope that I can help out someone else in the same way.

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!

Great customer service.

2009-08-29T02:04:00.000-07:00

Got a call this afternoon from Studebaker International, the big repro & NOS parts house owned by Ed Reynolds, the outgoing president of the SDC. A few days ago I'd ordered some miscellaneous heater bits, plus a new set of window fuzzies and U-channel for the front doors - the stuff that's in there is so far gone, it's hip, Daddy-O!

So Tom from SI informs me that UPS called him to say that they package they'd shipped me was damaged in transit, but that they were sending it to me anyway. He told me to take a careful inventory of missing or damaged parts when it arrived, and to call him back and tell him what they needed to re-send me!

My job entails some interaction with technical support and customer service, and I am acutely aware of how important it is to keep the client happy. Proactive stuff like this goes a long way. They didn't have to call me; they could have just let me receive my stuff and then call them up with a mournful tone in my voice. But now I know what to expect and, more importantly, know that they'll fix the problem ASAP.

My hat's off to Ed and the good folks at SI. It's good to deal with people who care.

Heater progress...

2009-08-29T01:51:00.000-07:00

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.

The radiator shop told me that the core leaked like a sieve when they tried to pressure test it (no duh - I know what the inside of the blower case looked like!). They're scaring up a new core for it.

I also went down to Ace hardware this afternoon to scare up some new fasteners. Every single one was rusty, right down to the quarter-inch 6-32s that hold the blower case together. (Well, there were only two 6-32s... the rest were assorted pan-head wood screws. Sheesh.)

Tomorrow I'm going to try to take apart the air box and replace the long-gone rubber flaps that sealed the air diverters. Stand by for pics.

Sure does feel good to get something done!

Rust buster!

2009-08-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

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.

So I am now embarked on rebuilding the heater, and therein lies a tale, one of mild alkali, electricity and rust removal.

The squirrel-cage blower fan had rusted (no! really?) and although they're still available, $30 made the CASO* in me squirm. I remembered an article I'd read about electrolytic de-rusting, and decided to give it a spin.

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.

You can read a much more detailed explanation on the Stovebolt Forum .

So, last night, in went the squirrel cage. And this morning, out it came, with nearly all of the rust banished.

Oh, and don't worry about the filthy mess in the bucket after you're done - all it is, is iron oxide, baking soda and whatever other sludge your part may have had on it.

As I write this, the blower housing is soaking in the bath, and I have ordered a new fan motor and miscellaneous other parts from SASCO. Look for the step-by-step heater repair post coming soon!

*CASO: commonly-used acronym, stands for "Cheap-ass Studebaker owner". Can be a term of endearment, or not - use carefully!

Lark & Hawk Wiper Blade Refill Interchange.

2009-08-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

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!

If you're into Studes and not on the Forum, you really should be. The repository of knowledge there is vast (some may say half-vast!) Seriously, these guys know their stuff. It's an invaluable resource.

Be safe!

2009-08-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

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.

But the consequences of exposure can be severe. Do yourself a favor and read this first-person account of just how wrong things can go - the author was exposed to a minute amount of superheated brake cleaner, and is lucky to be alive - although the damage done to his kidneys, pancreas and lungs will shorten his lifespan dramatically.

Safety's no joke. Read the labels, protect yourself. No short cut is worth your life.

Lotsa Larks!

2009-07-28T16:44:00.000-07:00

It's always cool to see a young person driving a Studebaker (as opposed to the old farts like me that you usually see in the driver's seat!), so I wanted to share this neat video posted by Dave Arnold on the SDC Forum, of his daughter taking her first drive with her temporary driver's license -- in his shiny black 1960 Lark convertible!

I'm not sure my heart could handled that ride if it were my son in the driver's seat! (Of course, that's the plan for Barney... just don't remind him of that!)

Spring is here.

2009-07-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

Well, springs, actually.

I ordered up a NOS set of factory rear springs from SASCO to replace the old, flat, tired ones in the Lark, and they arrived last night. 45 pounds of 45-year-old metal, waiting for me on the porch when I came home from dinner. The UPS man must had had fun with these!

Problem is, I ordered HD (heavy-duty) springs, and SASCO shipped me standard-duty springs. The difference? HD springs have 5 leaves; SD springs, only 4. I'm deciding whether to keep them or send them back, pending advice from the SDC Forum guys.

Update: After calling SASCO, Denise told me that they were out of the HD springs. These are standard-duty, so will replace what I have no problem. Hey, still 1/4 the price of new units from Eaton Detroit!

Getting wires in the right holes...

2009-07-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

It was hot today but I got an important bit done - the plug wires are finally in the correct holes in the distributor cap.

I labeled the distributor cap with the plug numbers when I disassembled the engine for rebuild, but once the car was running, I found that the distributor had to be turned so far clockwise that the nipple for the vacuum advance canister was contacting the firewall!

Luckily, Dwain Grindinger over on the SDC Tech Forum had posted a copy of a tech page that shows exactly how the distributor should be clocked on Studebaker engines, and I realized that the PO had installed the distributor 90-degrees off. Armed with this info, I went out and moved all the plug wires around the distributor cap, connected the battery and fired her up. Sweet!

This is a good page to have since it explains how to find Top Dead Center, clock the distributor, identify the cylinder numbers and insert the distributor into the block - for both 6 and V8-equipped Studes. I've attached a full-size copy; feel free to print and stick it in your Shop Manual.

Gaskets!

2009-07-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

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.

When I pulled the lenses off, I found that no interior gaskets were mounted in the backup lights, letting water run right into them and rust them out. In the first pic, you can see the results - the old lamp bodies are badly rusted and, while operable, are certainly not very nice.

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.

Fortunately, new die-cut gaskets are available from most Studebaker vendors. These are made of modern expanded-cell foam materials that compress nicely and resist deterioration. It's easy to install; simply scrape out the old adhesive and bits of gasket, and run a bead of 3M Black Super Weatherstrip Adhesive (available at any body or paint supply shop, or online). Then press in the new gasket; the 3M adhesive sets fairly rapidly and you can install the new part nearly immediately.

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.

Good news and more progress.

2009-07-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

Lots to talk about. Been getting a few minutes here and there to work on Barney and things are going well!

In my last post I talked about the fuel line leak I've been working on. Turns out that the NOS hard lines I got from SASCO were fine - the problem was in the brass 90-degree fittings I got from the Dorman bins. Seems that 2 of the 4 I purchased were defective! Bad seats straight from the bin. That's why the leak moved from the fuel pump to the carb end, and why replacing one didn't help - the replacement was defective too! Finally I got a good one (the last one in the bin drawer) and it worked. Fired up the car with the new carb for the first time last weekend, with no leaks - purrs like a kitten!

Yesterday I got under and got the front sway bar bolted in. This had been giving me fits. There are four links on the Stude sway bar: two in the center of the bar on the front frame crossmember, and one on each end that connect to the A-arms. The centers were easy to get on, but the ends - OY! The bolt holes in the bar end clamps would not line up with the holes in the A-arms. I could not do it. So it had been sitting, partially assembled, since May.

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.

The driver's side was easy, but the passenger's side gave me fits even with the new proceedure. Turns out the bracket was tweaked just enough to prevent the bolt from sliding in, so I clamped it in my vise and gave it a few bangs with the lead hammer to get it square. Finally, I got it on (to the detriment of my powder-coat job) and now the front suspension is, at long last, complete.

Next step is to time the ignition. Once that's done, I'll have it flatbed towed to my brake shop for installation of a new master cylinder and steel lines and alignment of the new front end.

Almost there...

2009-06-15T19:32:00.000-07:00

Had some time between dinner and sundown so went out and proceeded to yank the old carburetor and put the "new" one on the manifold. I also put in the new NOS hard fuel pipe from SASCO; we'll see if it leaks or not (the first one I got leaked like a sieve. Probably a bad flare).

Tomorrow morning I'll head over to NAPA for one small bit - the vacuum nipple that mounts on the front of the carb base and actuates the distributor advance. I was able to get the old one off the old carb, but it's so crusty I didn't want it on my nice new one .

Hopefully tomorrow I can sneak a few minutes from work and fire it up.

New carburetor!

2009-06-11T21:03:00.000-07:00

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!

The 2219 that's on Barney right now came from a 1955 President V8 with a manual transmission. It's pretty crusty, and I haven't been able to make the car stay running at low idle, due to the lousy springs and nasty fuel gum buildup all over the unit. So when this 2214 came up on eBay, I jumped on it. WCFB 2214s are specified for cars with automatic transmission, and since Barney has a Flight-O-Matic, this carb ought to give a little better performance (aside from the fact that it's in much fresher condition).

I'm going to try to swap out the carb tomorrow, as well as install the new fuel pipe I got from SASCO. I'd love to get it lit and ticking before I leave town.

Don't tighten the bolts until you're sure!

2009-05-27T10:06:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm a moron. I've always known this, but just had it reconfirmed.

My son and I went out last Saturday to reinstall the hood on Barney. I was smart - I'd marked the location of the hinges by outlining them with Sharpie before I removed the hood. So all I had to do was match the hinges up to the marks on the hood and bolt 'er down.

Here's where the moron part occurs. I forgot to allow for the 1/16" of gap between the nib of the pen and the actual placement of the hinge. So my boy held the hood in place while I tightened things up and then gently closed it. Can you guess what happened?

The hood was aligned 1/16" too far back. So when I tried to raise it again it snugged up against the cowl and would not open.

I tried tugging on it from the front to try and skooch it forward. No go, I'd tightened the bolts just a little too much. I tried running a plastic Bondo spreader in the gap, hoping to coerce the metal of the hood UP. No go. I tried sticking a long board in the opening between the grille header and the hood to push the hood up from the inside. Similar results. And of course there's no way to loosen those bolts from the engine compartment, even if you could get an appendage up that far from underneath. I had visions of having to cut the hood off at the corners...

Thank God the body gaps in Studebakers are so wide, for that was the only thing that saved me. It occurred to me that the sheet metal "wrench" on my Skil circular saw was the same size as the bolt head. So I flattened it with a couple of sledge blows and levered it in the gap between hood and fender. Got it! a few turns on all four and the hood slid forward enough to lift it without damage.

So let my stupidity be a lesson to any other rubes and noobs reading this: never tighten 'em down until you're sure the alignment is right. I escaped with just a barely noticeable kink in the hood where it meets the cowl, but it could easily have been much worse.

I posted this at the Studebaker Forum, to which Jeff Rice (owner of one of the sweetest trucks ever, a yellow custom '37 Coupe Express), posted a simple, elegant solution:

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...

Thanks Jeff!

Take a ride in a Golden Hawk.

2009-03-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Sure, all Golden Hawks are special; they were the ultimate offerings of performance and luxury from Studebaker. Based on the seminal hardtop coupe body created by Bob Bourke for the 1953 model year, they were classy, stylish, sporty and fast. But the 1956 models were extra special: for that year only, you could have a Hawk with the big-cube Packard 352-cubic-inch V8 - a rocket ship if there ever was one. And although there was a full nest of Hawks in that inaugural year - Golden, Sky, Power and Flight - the Golden was the only recipient of that big Packard engine. And only about 4,000 were built, in Studebaker's South Bend and Los Angeles plants, making the Golden a rara avis indeed.

Frank Ambrogio has been in love with "56J" models (shorthand for the factory model code that designates these birds) for a long time. In fact, he began the Golden Hawk Register, to track known survivors - running or not - in 1989. His site also features technical information, manuals and authenticity guides, and personal stories, including the tale of how Frank found his first Golden (he owns two) under a pile of garage dung in 1983.

As these cars have become both rarer and better known, some folks have tried to fake them. So Frank has put together a series of YouTube videos showing what to look for when scouting for a potential purchase; very useful -- you can find them by searching YouTube for username 56shgor. What's excited me, though, is Frank's recent posting of a ride-along video in his manual-transmissioned 56J. It's a great ride, and you really get the feeling of the power and grace these cars posessed. Frank's a pretty funny narrator, too :) Take a look:

If you're interested in finding out more about these wonderful cars, check out the Golden Hawk Registry pages at www.1956goldenhawk.com.

We've got a new President

2009-03-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

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:

Just goes to show that you don't have to be an old coot to love Studebakers, and also that you can find some really nice ones out there if you put your mind to it! Read more about John & Tracy's Studes on their blog.

Winter doldrums.

2009-02-04T14:27:00.001-08:00

Nothing much happening here? You're right - Winter (even here in California) has kept me from doing much with the Lark. Anything, actually. With the days too short to tend to the car after work, and NAB approaching, I've got precious little time for anything else.

No, I don't have snowstorms or torrential rain showers to keep progress at bay. But that sunset up there came at 4:30 P.M. (I know, cry me a river...)