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!

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!

Oil Change.

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!

Head Bolt Torque, Revisited.

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!

Adjusting your Studebaker's steering gear.

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!

Adventures in shock-land.

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!