The finer points of Studebaker Batteries

Wow, can't believe it's been a year since I wrote anything here. I guess that's because Barney has been such a good boy that I haven't had to fix anything in quite a while. He's kind of in a state of stasis at the moment; there are things I need to attend to (a few rust bubbles, window seals, etc.), but he drives so well that I've just been enjoying the ride.

Summer, however, is when things get stressed on any car. One of the most common things to fail in the summer is the battery; heat and storage cell technology do not mix well. That's why, at least in the Southwest, batteries fail more often than any other time of year.

And so it went this past weekend. I'd been watching a slow decline in cranking power since April, but since I'm a tightwad (I drive a Studebaker, after all!) I put off doing anything about it... until last Saturday. I sat down and started to crank him over, and Barney...groaned. About 15 seconds of slow turn with no fire, and I let the starter rest; on the second try the engine made exactly 3 revolutions before the battery gave up for good.

The nuance of Studebaker batteries
Studebaker sedans from 1956 - 1966 use a pretty standard-sized Group 24 battery. Notice I said "Group 24" - not the more commonly available Group 24F.

(Also note that Hawks and Avantis use different batteries - Group 24 applies only to sedan-based Studebakers and Larks based on that chassis. Be sure to look up exactly what you need.)

What's the difference? On a Group 24 battery, the terminals are placed so that, with the positive terminal located at the rear, both terminals are located inboard of the fender, as shown below:

On a Group 24F battery, the terminals are reversed; that is, the negative and positive terms are swapped, so that, installed the way you see above, the negative terminal is up front, toward the radiator. This doesn't work: the positive lead to the starter solenoid is placed just behind the battery tray, while the negative lead comes around the front of the battery from its connection point on the block. With a Group 24F, you'd have to swap the cables, and they don't reach.

"No big deal", you say, "just turn the battery 180 degrees." Nope - won't work, and here's why.

It has to do with the contour of the hood. Notice in this view that the hood center rises from the fender to provide extra clearance for the radiator, air cleaner, and battery terminals.

In this view, with the battery reversed (as it would be with a Group 24F installed backward), the terminals are much closer to the fender - and under the lowest part of the hood. Installing the battery this way does not provide enough clearance for the battery posts and installed cables to clear the hood - virtually guaranteeing a dead-short and electrical fire caused by your battery contacting your hood.

So, it will take a little more effort to search out the Group 24 battery, as the F variant is much more common these days. And, even when the counter dude (or chick) hands you your battery, be sure you double-check it; they don't always know the difference between a Group 24 and Group 24F.

Happy battery, happy Barney

One more thing: don't forget the battery hold-down. Yes, mine is not factory stock, due to the battery tray having rusted out and fiberglassed somewhere in the recesses of time B.C. (before Clark). But, it does the job and holds the battery in place, which is essential - you don't want that 75-pound lump coming loose and knocking into your fan at speed, or contacting the block and starting a whooping-good engine bay fire.

Barney is happy now with his new battery, and so am I - one quick flick of the key and he's off to the races. Which makes it yet another good day to be a Studebaker driver!

Differential Dilemma.

A persistent small drip from Barney's rear end finally led me to get under the car and inspect the cause. It turned out to be the fact that most of the differential cover bolts had vibrated loose. Obviously, they needed tightening.

As Barney's 1,000-mile chassis lube was coming up (Studes need chassis lubrication every 1k - not like today's 10,000-mile wonders!), I decided I'd do both on the same day, and picked out a nice Saturday to get 'er done.

The first task was to get his butt up in the air. As there are no front parking brakes, it's necessary to lift both front and rear in order to be safe. Note that there are chocks on both sides of the rear tires, as well as jack stands at the rear and front chassis fishplates. You can't be too safe, no matter what car you're working on! Use proper jack stands in good condition and make sure that, when you're rolling around under there, you don't use the chassis as leverage to move - it doesn't take much to pull the car off the stands and down onto you. This generally goes poorly for the human component.

The reason you want to lift the rear end for this is that you're going to need some elbow room. When the car's suspension is fully compressed, the upper differential cover bolts are difficult to access, since they're hidden behind the forward edge of the fuel tank. With the rear end fully lifted, you can easily get to all the cover bolts.

Getting out the trusty Studebaker Shop Manual, I found that there is a torque spec listed for the cover bolts (as there is on nearly everything!). Barney's axle is a Dana 44 limited-slip differential (known to Stude lovers as a Twin-Traction axle - PosiTraction if you're a Chevy fan), so the torque spec is listed as 25 - 30 foot-pounds. Don't use this spec if you have a Dana 27 rear end; the torque required is much lower.

In fact, I learned something important: you may not want to use any torque spec for this operation. But more on that later.

Anyway, I got out my big 1/2"-drive Craftsman DigiTork and proceeded to tighten up the cover bolts. And they were loose. Some at the top were very nearly finger-tight. No wonder it was dripping! So, working my way around, I tightened up each bolt. And, of course, on the very last bolt, something went wrong. The bolt wouldn't torque up, and...well, you know what happened next.

Yep. Off twisted the bolt-head and into the pan it dropped. And the leak, which had previously declined as the cover was tightened, suddenly turned into a significant dribble.

As the sweat started forming on my forehead, I remembered that I had a set of quality bolt extractors. I was going to have to drill out that booger.

This is a tool everyone should have in their box, because sooner or later, you will bust off a bolt. These are reverse-extractors: first the chisel-tip drills the center out of the broken fastener, and then the threaded collar bites into the drill-hole and backs the fastener out of its place.

By the way, be safe: wear goggles when you do this work. Flying steel chips and eyeballs are not a great combination, ya dig?

So I went to work, beginning to drill out the broken bolt, when - wonder of wonders! - something awesome happened. The bolt head had broken off in such a way that it left a nearly straight ridge of metal left across the face of the shaft. When I began to drill, the extractor caught that ridge and the broken shaft backed out of the axle housing like a hot knife goes through butter - no drilling needed. Thank you, God!

As you can see from the pic above, the bolt stretched. You can actually see the deformation of the threads. This failure mode is really what saved my bacon. As Bob Palma (the SDC Technical Editor) noted in this thread on the Studebaker Drivers Club Forum, had it bottomed and been impacted, removal would have been a ton tougher.

Here's where the learning comes in. Even though there's a torque spec in the shop manual, Bob recommends not using it. An automotive professional for over 40 years, Bob says:

I don't even torque mine; I just use a step-down reducer from 3/8 to 1/4 inch drive and then tighten them about as tight as I can get them with a 1/4" drive ratchet, which, as you know, is pretty small. That doesn't squeeze out the gasket, as do higher torques.

 And that's just what I'll do next time.

I had a new bolt of the proper size in my bin, so I screwed it in and the leak stopped, but now I'd need to refill the axle. Running a differential dry isn't good for you, for your car, or for your wallet! So down went the car, under went the catch basin, and out came the gear lube. Why lower the car, when having it up would have made filling easier? Because you fill the axle with lube even with the bottom of the fill hole, so the car must be level when you do it.

Removing the filler plug will require a Crescent wrench; a 12" should do.

Just so happens I was prepared, with a brand-new bottle of gear lube in the garage. Now, some guys stick a clear vinyl tube on the bottle spout and stick it in the hole to fill the axle; others have used their wives' turkey baster (not a recommended procedure!). I prefer to add a little at a time, so as not to overfill and have a river of lube pouring into the pan. I used a spare medical syringe available at any pharmacy.

As it turns out, the axle was pretty empty. It took about 20 of these - I estimate between 1.5 and 2 cups of gear lube went in before the proper level was reached.

See the differential gear carrier, visible inside the case through the hole? Besides the tags on the axle housing, this is one way to physically confirm that the axle is a real Twin-Traction limited-slip diff - the carrier is so large that an index finger inserted in the hole will be stopped by the carrier at the first knuckle. If the differential was a standard "open" unit, you'd be able to get an entire finger in there.

In this photo, you can see a little trickle of lube out of the hole. That means it's filled to the proper level. After it's filled, all that remains is to wipe the case and reinstall the filler plug. Remember, you're going into a steel cover with a cast-iron plug - so clean the threads and tighten it up snug, but not so tight that you strip it out.

All back together - and just in time for International Drive Your Studebaker Day on September 14th! All's well that ends well. And all's well that doesn't leak, too.

Advanced Distributing for Studebakers.

That little part above is, as you probably know, a vacuum advance canister (or "spark modifier" in Studebaker parlance" for a Delco distributor of the type used on Studebaker V8 Larks from 1960 to 1961. Although only used by the factory during those two years, the "window-type" Delco is prized by many Stude drivers because it's easy to rebuild, get parts for, and set point gap on, compared to the Prestolite units used on other years.

As detailed in an earlier post, I obtained and rebuilt one of these Delcos, using a core graciously given to me by Warren Webb, one of the regulars on the Studebaker Drivers Club Forum.

At the time I built it, however, I installed a vacuum advance specified for a 1961 Impala, figuring (wrongly) that a vacuum can is just a vacuum can. I should have known better! What I've found out since is that not all cans are equal. On this Forum thread, Joe Hall notes that the can commonly sold for Studebaker applications (NAPA VC680) is actually 2 degrees shy of the Studebaker OEM advance setting for V8 cars.

It turns out that nearly all of these vacuum advance units are all manufactured by Dana Engine Controls, now owned by Standard Motor Products, so no matter what brand you buy, it's the same part in the box. The trick is determining the right part. And there are about 25 different cans, each with a different setting for the point at which full advance kicks in. So how do you identify them?

Dana stamps a number on the mounting bracket of each advance unit. Each number corresponds to an advance profile that denotes how much vacuum must be applied to achieve full advance. It turns out, according to Joe Hall's research, that the Studebaker part number is "B20." The VC680 that NAPA's system specfies is "B1". Obviously the wrong part.

Insufficient advance can be responsible for lost power and poor gas mileage - both of which my Barney has exhibited. So I started digging to find out what part number was correct for the Studebaker distributor. VC1765 turns out to be the correct Stude part.

Thanks to the guys on the Corvette forums, who know their stuff when it comes to Delco parts, I found out the difference in the two parts' advance delivery settings:

• VC680 (stamped "B1") delivers 0 degrees of advance until 8" of vacuum, and 16 degrees of advance at 16" of vacuum.
• VC1765 (stamped "B20") deliver 0 degrees of advance until 6" of vacuum, and 16 of advance at 12" of vacuum.

So the part I had on the car started delivering advance too late, and full advance came in waaaaay too late. No wonder I was getting crappy mileage! B20, by the way, is the unit used on high-performance GM engines. I take a bit of pride in knowing that. (According to a very scholarly treatise on vacuum advances written by Lars Grimsrud of TunedbyLars.com, B26 carries the same specs as B20 and may be found in the same box.)

So I went to my friendly local NAPA and ordered a VC1765. Wisely, I  checked the part before leaving the store - the wrong part was in the box, with a hand-written label that had another part number on it! Always check. Another part ordered, and this time it was correct - B20 stamped into the boss.

Replacement is easy, and doesn't require removing the distributor from the car. Just unplug the coil wire and undo the two spring-loaded screw clamps that hold the distributor cap on, and move it out of the way. The screws that hold the vacuum advance to the distributor base are accessible from the passenger side of the car once the cap is removed.

As you can see in the photo above, there are two screws holding the advance unit on. Use a magnetized screwdriver to remove them, otherwise you'll be cussing as you remove the distributor to fish them out after you've dropped them! Also note that a lug attached to a wire that grounds the breaker plate is located under the screw at the end of the actuating rod - you'll need to replace it there after installing the new advance.

After the screws are removed, pull the advance unit out; the actuating rod will then be able to rotate out of the hole in the breaker plate by pulling the advance body upward.

Installation, as they say, is the reverse of removal. Once it's all back together, don't forget to check the timing and reset the idle if need be.

For some interesting reading about vacuum advance, check out this post from the Vetteclub Forum, and the aforementioned paper from Lars Grimsrud. You'll find out everything you need to know and more!

Adjusting Idle Mixture on the WCFB

Idle mixture is an important setting on a carburetor, and most people don't know how to do it. What you're trying to do is set your carburetor's idle circuits for the most efficient operation with the least fuel.

There's no better tool for doing this than a vacuum gauge. It can also tell you a lot about the health of your engine; it's really an invaluable tool. For a great walk-through of how to use a vacuum gauge for diagnostics, check out this tutorial from Greg's Engine & Machine, of Copley, Ohio.

But for setting the idle mixture, there's nothing like actually seeing it done. Here's a short video tutorial I put together, showing idle mixture adjustment using a vacuum gauge on my '63 Lark with 259 and WCFB 4bbl. As you'll see, it's simple and fast - all you need are a tach, vacuum gauge, wrench and screwdriver.

Now go get 'er done!

Drivin' on the Coast.

Today, Barney took his longest drive yet away from home a 36-mile round-trip down coast to Solana Beach and back. It was a beautiful day, and we did some mixed driving - about half of the trip on the freeway, the rest along the 101 Highway. The drive was awesome - no problems of any kind, Barney easily kept up with freeway traffic (at one point hitting 75 to pass some tractor-trailer rigs) and just generally having a blast. He's in fine fettle and I'd feel no qualms about taking this car just about anywhere. Maybe La Palma on May 27th? Anyway, here's some pics from today's trip. Enjoy!

Today's route...

On I-5 heading South towards Leucadia

Along the Coast Highway in Cardiff-By-The-Sea

Coming back... looking north along 101 in Solana Beach. This is one of my favorite views along the coast.

North into Encinitas on the 101.

Spring wildflowers... just because I wanted to.

Lark Deodorant: or, how to get rid of that fuel smell

If you own an old car, it's virtually guaranteed that you will spend time, effort and money trying to track down some problem that should be easy to fix, but which somehow eludes you in the same way in which common sense eludes politicians. This is the story of one such quest - now solved!

Almost since the first day I've owned Barney, there's been the smell of gasoline in the passenger compartment. I don't mean a little whiff - I mean "Hello sir, can I fill 'er up?"-level odor. It was bad enough to require driving with the windows open and vent wings, too, in order to keep the air clear. In chasing this problem, I'd been systematic - replacing the two soft sections of fuel line between the tank and carb, replacing every gasket, hose and tube between the filler neck and the tank inlet (see this post for details), and checking the seal for the fuel gauge sending level for leaks. Nothing worked... it smelled as strong as ever.

Finally, I got a break. I was browsing through Barney's Chassis Parts Manual last weekend (yeah, I read parts manuals for relaxation... ya wanna make something of it?), and noticed something I'd never seen before in the parts diagram for the '62-'63 fuel tank: a UFO (Unidentified Fixable Object).

Look at the diagram above. See the long, bendy tube coming off the filler neck and running to the left? That's the fuel tank vent tube. Studebaker used an non-venting gas cap on later Larks, so this tube was used as a fuel tank vent. It clips to the rear valence panel inside the trunk, wraps around the left taillight assembly, and finally exits through the trunk floor. Well, see the itty bitty part circled in red on the diagram? That's a grommet. It's purpose is to go on the end of the vent tube and seal its exit through the floor pan.

I had never, ever seen this part callout before! And of course, the original one was long gone, so there was no visual evidence that anything was supposed to be there when I inspected the trunk.

So I went down to my local Ace hardware and got an appropriate-sized grommet from the bins (1/4" I.D., 3/8" O.D.), slid it over the end of the vent tube and pressed it into place in the floor.

Woo hoo! That did the job. After a week, I went out and opened up the car at noon - typically when the smell was strongest, after having sat for a while in the sun. No smell! I drove the car around for about 2 hours that afternoon, just to make sure, and the problem is gone.

So, big thanks to a .45-cent part for making my car pleasant to drive again :)

While I was at it, I fixed one more fuel-related problem. A few weeks back, I moved the car onto the street and parked it nose-up (I live on a pretty steep hill). When I came back, a wet spot under the back bumper and a slow, steady drip told the tale: the fuel cap seal was about as loose as a sailor on Friday night.

The factory fuel cap uses a partial-face seal. In the photo at right, you can see it just around the center stamping - that dark brown circle. This is a fiber gasket attached to a steel backing ring; it's only as big as the end of the fuel filler itself and seals to the rolled edge of the filler pipe. I guess that after 49 years, this seal has gotten a bit softer than it was, originally.

The fix for this is actually pretty easy: just add more gasket material. I went down to my neighborhood NAPA and got a roll of 3/32 Fel-Pro cork gasket material. I used aluminum foil to trace the size the gasket needed to be, then cut a circle out of the cork and slipped it around the center of the cap.

Now the cap fits nice and snug, and there's no way any gas is getting past that seal. It ought to help with my fuel economy, too, since the gas formerly used to lubricate the asphalt will now be going into the carb!

Wiper Arm Replacement

It's been crunch time at work, and I've been writing so much that the last thing I want to do when I'm done for the day is write some more... so the blog has been suffering. I'm sorry about that, and thanks to all of you who have written asking if everything was OK. It is! Just very, very busy.

I'm going to walk through something that seems pretty simple, but is actually an operation most folks have no idea how to do: replace a windshield wiper arm. I'm not talking about the blade - I mean the actual chrome/stainless arm that moves back and forth across the glass.

The passenger's side wiper on Barney has been worthless since day one; it simply didn't have enough spring pressure left to hold the arm tight against the glass and force the rubber to wipe. So the edges of the wiper would contact, and the middle would stay unwiped.

Someone had obviously monkeyed with the wiper before. On Trico wiper arms, which Studebaker used for Larks, there was a little stainless-steel cover that protects the spring. On this arm, that cover was sprung and the spring had been replaced, to no avail.

You can buy Avanti wiper arms all day long - they've been reproduced. Not so much for Larks. One of the Avanti arms works on the Larks; it's the driver's side arm ;) There are "universal fit" arms available, but these are mickey-mouse contraptions with adjustable joints and such to try and get the blade angle right... no thanks.

I finally found a dude parting out a '63 Cruiser on eBay and scored a pair of arms for $20, so yay! I could finally replace the old passenger-side arm with one that worked. The new arms arrived and they were sweet, so today was the day.

Here's the part that gets tricky: removing the old arms. No one really knows how to do this! It's one of those things you really never have to do... until you have to do it. The arms press-fit onto a splined hub that's driven by the wiper motor and transmission, but it's not the press-fit that holds them on: it's a small spring clip built into the arm itself, which engages the bottom of the driven hub and keeps the arm from flying off when it's being used. This photo shows the clip.

So the question is: how do you get under there to disengage that clip? Ah, well, like everything else, there's a tool for that.

Lisle #65750 is a windshield wiper removal tool. If you look at it, you can see that there's a tab with a little tang on the end; you insert this tang under the end of the spring clip on the wiper arm and pull while you (or a helper) leverage the arm off of the hub.

Problem is: nobody, and I mean nobody, carries these tools. They're not expensive, but if you want one, you're going to have to get it from JC Whitney or some other mail-order house. And, if that's what you want to do, you can stop reading right here, because we are not going to use this tool to remove the wiper arm.

Instead, we're going to use this tool, and a small pry bar. It's yer standard Craftsman right-angle awl, and it will do the job just fine with a bit of finesse.

First, protect your paint. Put a couple of rags or pieces of cardboard on either side of the wiper hub, and make sure that you're not pressing on the paint as you use the tools. Also make a mental note of approximately where the end of the wiper arm is laying against the windshield, so that you get the new arm on in the correct position.

Oh, and you'll need to remove the wiper blade from the arm before you begin. On these older-style arms, it's really simple: just find the little spring clip underneath the junction of the arm and blade. Pull it down, away from the arm, and slide the blade off.

This is actually easier with a helper, but you can do it yourself - I did! Lift the arm and locate the spring clip. Slip the point of the awl behind the clip and pull away from the wiper hub. While keeping that outward pressure, use the small pry bar to lift the opposite side of the wiper arm at the hub, as the photo shows.

Don't use a whole lot of pressure - you don't need to. If you've released the clip, a small amount of upward pressure on the opposite side will slide the arm easily off of the hub.

Remember when I said someone had monkeyed with this arm before? Here's the proof. The splined hubs are pot metal, and someone had boogered this one, probably by being ham-handed with a tool to get the arm clip to release. They must have really wailed on it to have taken a chunk this large out; luckily, there's still enough area there for the clip to engage and hold the arm onto the hub. If this hub had been damaged more, I'd have had to hunt down a new pivot assembly - the hubs are not separable from their shafts.

So now, it's just a matter of sliding the new arm onto the hub. Do a test-fit - position the arm to match the position of the old arm (you made a mental note, right?) and slide it on partway to check its angle. If it's not right, pull the arm back off and reposition - you might need the assistance of the pry bar again. If it's good, push the arm all the way on and give it a sharp smack with the heel of your hand - you'll hear and feel the spring clip engage. Woot! 

All done, right? Not so fast, Ace. As long as we're working on wipers, there's one more thing that's usually overlooked: lubricating the wiper transmission. There are a series of connecting rods hidden inside the firewall vent cavity that convert the rotary motion of the wiper motor to the reciprocating motion of the wipers, and there are three connecting points that need to be oiled up. If you've ever driven an old car whose wipers squeaked when you turned them on, it generally because no one has lubricated them in a very long time - if ever! 

On my Lark, you access the wiper transmission through the cowl fresh-air vent. Open the hood and you'll find four Philips-head screws that hold the vent grille to the cowl. remove them and the grille slides right off.

With the grille off, you'll have easy access to the transmission rods. The photo on the left is looking into the cavity from the driver's side of the car; you can easily find two of the three lubrication points. The photo on the left is a view from the passenger's side of the car, and shows the third, hard-to-get-to point, which is hidden under the driver's side of the cowl. You will need a telescopic oiler to reach this point. It might help to run the wipers a bit and shut off the key in the middle of the cycle, which will position the lubrication points more near the opening in the cowl.

Drench 'em with your favorite lube - I keep a little bottle of Marvel lubricating oil around for this, but you can use engine oil too if you like. Put the grille back on and you're good to go!

Valve Adjustment for the Studebaker V8

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!