Orphan Car Show - Oregon City

Saw quite a few Studebakers today at the Orphan Car Show in Oregon City--some of my favorites:

Love the flamingos (Phoenicopterus plasticus) next to this pair of nice Larks!

That cream yellow Cord has nothing on the 38 Commander next to it.

I passed by this 50 Commander on the drive up here

A nice 50 Starlight Coupe -- the predecessor to my car

Nice 53 Starliner

And a pair of 63s, a Superchaged Avanti with a 4-speed and a very well restored GT Hawk

heater blower assembly

The heater blower assembly mounts under the passenger fender, taking fresh air in from the fender vent on that side and then pushing the air back to the under seat heater core by means of a long tube, similar in size to the dryer vent in your home. Since my car didn't come with a heater, most of this assembly was missing and I'd purchased more than enough bits earlier on to piece together what I needed.

So going through my box of heater parts, I picked through what looked like the best of the lot, and started disassembling and cleaning things up. My first problem came when I discovered that the blower fan was stuck on the motor shaft. I couldn't even get it to release with a gear puller. So out came the dremel with the cutting wheel.

That done, I could remove the motor and replace it with a new one (Napa part #655-1020 is a direct fit.) A quick browse through my parts bin found another fan to replace the one I cut off.

Even though the parts aren't visible, I finished my clean up, removed the little bit of surface rust with a wire brush and wheel, and then painted them up--should be good to go for another 60 years.

And then more sanding

Stopped in on the way home from work to get some measurements for a temporary seat and saw that the car was back together and getting worked on. Good to see.

And more little bits...

The finished pile is growing

The little bits...

Just because my car is off to the body shop doesn't mean there's not a lot to be done. There are still hundreds of little pieces that bolt onto it, and all those things need to be cleaned up, reconditioned where needed, and if they'll take it, spruced up with a little paint.

I decided a good place to start (largely because I keep tripping over them) were the horns.

The Stude has two of them, a high and a low pitched one (marked with the letters H and L) and while they work, the power wire coming out of the horns is a bit brittle. I figured how hard can it be to replace it? Plus they were just a filthy mess--years of travel under the front end of the car had left their toll; that, combined with quite a bit of overspray from previous paintjobs and they definitely needed attention.

So up on the bench. The cover, a sheet metal dome, is held in place by some bent-in tabs around the edge--by carefully prying those up with a screwdriver, I found out what the inside of an old horn looked like.

My inspection found the internal wiring to still be in very good shape--still supple and well connected. So I decided to just replace the power wire.

The power wire is held in place by a combination of a bent over tab and some solder. It took quite a bit of heat to finally be able to pry that tab open--called for a bit of patience.

After it was finally free, I pounded out the dents in the domed cover, brushed off the dirt and surface rust, sanded it down, primed and painted. Then on to the next.

 

Not perfect, but good enough for something you have to crawl under the car to view. On to the next bit.