Just one of those days

Ever have one of those days when things seem to be against you?

Fortunately, for me, it was just the house that apparently felt neglected and wanted a bit more of my attention. This morning began at dawn, snaking tree roots out of the sewer line after having the toilet overflow on the bathroom floor late last night. And then this afternoon while taking the pics below, one of torsion springs on the garage door broke (it made a surprisingly loud, gunshot-like noise when it did it as well.)

But that said, I had a fairly good Studebaker day. As you can see from the pics below, I have the engine mostly assembled. The machine shop took care of that broken stud for me in the rear main bearing cap, leading to a largely uneventful reassembly.

Please ignore the fan blade and the alternator--those are going to be replaced so I didn't spend any time cleaning them up.

Intake? Going to replace that with a 4bbl model, so might as well leave it off for now.

Valve covers are being prepped for paint.

Colors are close to original for a 53, with a little bling added here and there.

Right now, the valve covers are on it and it is wrapped in plastic on the stand, ready to spend its first night outside the garage. Given the weight of the beast, at least I'm not too worried about someone carrying it off. . .

Update: Garage door fixed, engine nestled safely in the garage. 

oh sh*t!

It was bound to happen eventually.

Tonight I went out into the garage to fit the oil pan side gaskets so I could put the timing cover in place. Being a responsible Studebaker owner, I decided to replace the rear main bearing seal while I was in there, even though the old one didn't show signs of leaking. To remove the rear main seal, I carefully removed the oil pump so I could access both bolts on the rear main bearing cap, then loosened the middle 3 main caps per the shop manual and then removed the rear cap.

Everything looked very good--there was little if any sign of wear on the rear main bearing, and the seal was still supple and sealing well. I carefully removed the seals halves, put in a new ones and torqued down the bearing caps.

I was snugging down the last nut on the oil pump with a small hand wrench when I heard a loud crack and the nut spun freely. I had broken the stud.

It really isn't rusty, that's just my old camera phone under fluorescent lights.

I made a quick attempt to remove the remains of the stud by carefully drilling a hole in it and trying a bolt extractor, but the metal was too soft and it couldn't grab enough material to back the stud out. So I'm not going to take a chance--it is off to the machine shop tomorrow to let the pros take care of it.

Upside down. . .

Busy weekend, but it might not look like it from this pic:

I'll get out the real camera and take a nice pic when it is all together.

I cleaned and painted the heads and got them installed (man, they're heavy--it wasn't worth getting out the engine hoist for just a few minutes of suffering!) Before installing the heads, I had to clean up the mating surfaces, chase out the threads with a tap to make sure they were clean (and I ran the head bolts though a die as well) and then make sure everything that would be inside of the engine was very, very clean.

I also installed the core plugs (aka freeze plugs), the oil filter block, and the motor mount assemblies. Of course, this also meant that I cleaned them up and painted them as well.  In addition, I modified the timing cover to take a more modern, neoprene seal instead of the old felt seal (instructions here, if you're interested) and I cleaned, painted and assembled the harmonic balancer and front pulleys. I also cleaned and started straightening the oil pan. It was a mess--dented, rusty, and of course, grimy.

I have to install part of the oil pan gasket before I can install the timing cover. I've never seen anything quite like it so I'll have to study up on how to do that properly. It is a confusing collection of 4 individual gaskets  made of two different materials. And although I've pretty much figured out where everything goes, nothing seems to quite fit just right.

It is getting there, though. At least there seems to be fewer parts on the floor.

Reverse disassembly

Starting to put the engine back together, cleaning and painting parts as I go. It is slow going, but this is no time to rush.

In 1953, Studebaker painted their engine blocks dark green.

No comment

I've heard rumor that some people have had difficulty leaving comments on the blog. And I've also discovered that I don't seem to be able to leave comments as well!

For those that have had difficulty--my apologies, but I'm not sure there's anything I can do about it. And to those that have left comments please bear in mind that I'll be unable to leave a response unless I do so in a future post.

Nothing Studebakery (is that a word?) to report, other than I ordered some gaskets and core plugs (aka freeze plugs) from Studebakers West today. Oh, and I discovered that when I was getting a parking permit at work last week, Studebakers are not listed on the computer system.

"Who makes Studebaker?" she said.

"Studebaker," I replied. "But they haven't made cars since 1966."

"Oh. That's probably why they aren't in here."

"Could be."

I wonder if the guy at work with the 54 Panhard Dyna Z had the same problem?

Black sand

This weekend, I cleaned up the block.

As part of that cleaning, and based on some of the reading I've done on the Studebaker Drivers Club Forums, I decided to pull the freeze plugs and see what things looked like in the water jacket surrounding the cylinders. Of course, the experienced folks at the SDC Forums were right. There was a lot of casting sand packed in there that, for best cooling, needed to come out.

So tonight after making a special tool out of a discarded piece of brake line tubing, I started pushing, prodding and pulling the blackened sand out of the engine block. 

Perhaps it was the combination of the sand and the hammer I'd used to form the end on the tubing that brought it all back to me, but suddenly, I was a 7-year-old boy again, timidly entering the front door of the cast-iron foundry where my Dad worked, his forgotten lunch bucket in my hand. I stopped just inside, my eyes adjusting to the light. There he was, just in front of me, the cauldron of molten metal beyond giving more light to the room than the dim sodium bulbs 25 feet overhead. I walked over as he was driving spikes into a large black cube with a 5-lb hammer. He saw me, smiled, and walking me into the nearby break room split a Little Debbie's snack with me. I asked what he was doing, so he took me back into the foundry, and showed me how they made the molds out of sand. Touching the mold, I would have never guessed that something made from sand could be so hard. As the overhead crane swung by to move the mold over to the pouring area, he lead me back outside and thanked me for bringing me his lunch.

Dad passed away a little over a year ago. I would've liked to ask him what he thought about that much sand left in the casting, but I think I know what his answer would've been. Somehow, I don't think he would have approved.

Friday Night's Alright for Pulling Heads

A little carbon but not bad

It was a quick job, but man, those things are heavy. I decided to use the engine hoist to pick them up for me.

I really should of at least wiped off the oil and anti-freeze before taking a pic.

Everything was about as I expected. A good amount of carbon build up, but I could not detect a ridge at the top of the cylinder with my finger nail (it was visible as a dark area.) Cylinder bores were mostly shiny but if I looked carefully I could see evidence of cross hatching.

I'll clean things up in the morning and have a good look, but I'm thinking that I'll likely just button things up (although there is a temptation to throw new rings and bearings in it... and maybe some flat top pistons and a nice cam. See? That's what happens when you tear into things. Maybe I should've just left the heads on.)

I should be at work right now. . .

After spending yesterday cleaning up the garage and getting ready for the next phase of the Studebaker project, I had planned on going into work this afternoon--I'm working on a project that needs to be completed by Friday and while things are going well on meeting that deadline, it would be nice to have a little breathing room in case something unexpected comes up.

But sometimes, especially when you've been working particularly hard lately, a little mental health break is in order. And for me, there's nothing more relaxing than tearing into an engine.

So much for that nice, clean garage floor.

Here's what I started with. . .

Here's what I ended up with about an hour and a half later.

Pleasantly, no surprises. Everything looks clean and, as my British friends would say, in good nick. I have a lot of exterior cleaning to do, but I'm pretty sure I'll button it up fairly quick. Ok, I admit it: it will go together quickly, but the cleaning will be a pain.

The only thing I'm pondering--and here's a question for you gear heads out there: should I pull the heads?

If you're having a busy few weeks at work and need to unwind, I strongly suggest tearing into a Studebaker V-8. I'm much calmer now.

IDYSD!

After my morning cup o' joe, I headed out to the garage to button up a few things on the Stude so I could take it for a little bit longer of a drive than to the corner and back.

Basically, I needed to clear up a few very small leaks in the brake system. A couple of new crush washers on the left front, re-double flaring the lines into the master cylinder, a couple of trips to the parts store because I invariably forgot some small thing and I was set to bleed the brakes. This was quickly accomplished thanks to the help of my able assistant.

At 2 p.m. I backed out of my driveway and roared away to the north. My first goal? The gas station . Wouldn't do good to run out of gas on International Drive Your Studebaker Day. The attendant (we're not allowed to pump our own gas in Oregon) was surprised when I told him that it was IDYSD, and then talked about the big Studebaker sedan his Dad had when he was a little kid.

One fat guy in a mullet walked up during our conversation and asked, "what year is that?" When I told him it was a '53, he snorted and said, "yeah, it looks like it." Nice, my first sneering comment. I wanted to follow up with a, "have you seen what most cars actually looked like in 1953?" but I refrained. Nothing was going to ruin my little IDYSD drive.

Then the car wouldn't start. A little fiddling with the carb, though, soon cured that. In the car's defense, it hadn't been driven this far in at least 10 years (if not longer) so it really could use a good tune-up, including going through the carb and cleaning things up.

So where to now? I decided to not be fool hardy, and just take the long loop around the quiet back streets to my house. So off to Crystal Lake Drive. The car cruised along nicely, but the temperature gauge was at the very top of the normal range--a little concerning. Either the gauge is off, or I'm on the border of overheating.

And then my left front hubcap decided I was driving too slowly and raced ahead down the side of the road. I caught up to it, pulled over and threw it in the passenger seat.

3 minutes later, I was pulling into my driveway.

Loved every minute of it.

Today is a special day

Today happens to be my birthday. And the first day I drove my Studebaker down the street.

I still have a little work today--the brake pedal is a little low and a bit soft and I need to change the connectors on my brake light sending unit. Oh yeah, and there's no muffler either. But she moves down the road just fine.

It was a good birthday.