Did Commander 6 cylinder ever go to incerts bearnings?

The motor in my 39 does not carry much oil pressure when warm up. Plus today driving in the West Virginia hills on a hard pull I heard a knocking sound. first a ticking but did get a bit louder. I guess the motor is going to be pulled and rebuilt. But it was rebuilt about 200 miles ago at a cost of $4,000 I was told. I did know that when Frank had the car it had a bad knock and he let the car sit until he died. His son got the car and had the engine rebuilt. His friend I guess done the work. I know the crank was in bad shape and it was spray welded I was told? When I got the car I did notice that it had low oil pressure. It don't look like the engine was ever out of the car. I know the son is truthful and was taken with the engine rebuilt job. So be it. I would like to find a 39 motor so what year is the same? Who the best person hat rebuilds Studebaker motors? I want the job done right this time. Winter work I guess. I have not drop the oil pan as yet but will this week.

They went to insert rods in 47 or 48. Stude sold a rod kit to upgrade the earlier motors to inserts. The rods and bearings can be found but not plentiful. The motor was increased to a 245 and used until 1960.

Kenneth, that is a heck of a leap from one test drive to a rebuild. What do the spark plugs look like? Is is burning oil? Have you put a good oil pressure gauge on it? Does the oil filter have a restriction fitting? What are the compression values? You mentioned vapor lock in another post. What makes you think that? This all could just be a timing or mixture problem (pinging, not knocking). Take your time. If the engine is toast it will not likely get much MORE fried if you wait.

Early on in my Stude ownership my engine developed a horrible rapping noise as it warmed up. I shut it down and starting cursing loudly. The only thing I had done on the car recently was check the oil. So I checked it again. The noise went away. Turns out that on my car if the dipstick is turned just right it will bend far enough as it warms up that the crankshaft will hit it. So the fix for my "knock" was a little dot of paint on the dipstick so I don't put it in "wrong". Sometimes the most failure-prone part on these cars is the owner...

Good luck!

Nathan

Nvonada,

I thought I was the only person that had ever happened to. My dad and I overhauled my sweet '57 Chevy BelAire engine and upon starting it back up it had this awful noise. Well my dad thought it was something I had done wrong and decided to pull the pan. Out came the oil, off came the pan, and luck was with us as he could see where the dipstick was being hit by the crank. He bent it to a correct position, on went the pan and in went the oil and viola, it was fine. LOL

I check the oil and its full 6 quarts. The dip stick only goes in one way. The engine started a light tapping when pulling a steep hill. As the trip got longer it started to get a bit louder. Still got a lot more checking of the problem. I am pretty sure it not a spark knock. I want to talk to the fellow that did the engine rebuilt. The car does not burn any oil or smoke. If grounding out each cylinder with a screw driver will that tell if a rod knock??. I though a knock on a hard pull was a main? What do I know. Any way I want to get to the bottom of this.