ErnieR

May I strongly suggest a disc brake conversion from Turner Brakes. If you have the original Dunlop style non sliding caliper, non-vented rotor type you will never achieve, even with all new parts, the braking you will get with a Turner Conversion. Vendors - For Studebakers The link is a list of Vendors that sell The conversion but if you scroll down and find Dave Thibault 978 897 3178 he sells rebuilt original style parts also. Also Bob's Studebaker Resource and Information Portal is an invaluable source of info. ErnieR

You really shouldn't see any fuel laying on top of the carb. There should be three screws holding the nozzles in and underneath the nozzles a needle, as in needle and seat, or a check ball and rod. If the nozzles aren't snugged down or the gasket is bad fuel will spray out the nozzles and anywhere else it can escape. My starting method is cold start after a few days sitting. Usually enough time for some fuel to evaporate low enough to not fill the accel pump chamber. The fast idle is easy just move the throttle linkage at the carb and close the choke manually with the car off. Let go of the throttle and make sure the fast idle cam is at the highest spot and resting on the fast idle screw on the base of the carb. Start the car without touching the pedal and adjust by ear if your tach isn't working. Should be pretty high but not screaming. You may have to play with it a little. I wouldn't worry too much about your popping. Reving the car at a standstill repeatedly especially if the car is not FULLY warmed ( read HOT ) will leave unburned fuel laying in the manifold and you will get some odd occurences. Also, the choke and the secondaries are connected. The AFB has mechanical secondaries but they are not activated directly with any linkage connection to the primaries. What actually opens them is a spring, visible at the base on the passenger side. They stay locked if the choke is even slightly closed ( depends on the linkage adjustment itself but that's the way they are supposed to work ) they open when you put your foot down and the choke lock offers no resistance to spring pressure. So if you did a couple of full throttle openings and the choke wasn't opened all the way yet there can be a little fuel collecting on top of the secondary throttle blades. Then when they do open you are way too rich. My car would get hot enough to boil fuel and have it dribble out of the venturis. I removed the heater control valve and blocked the exhaust crossovers and remedied the problem Best thing I ever did for warm weather driveability with no sacrifice in cold weather performance. Your cold weather driving could be a little different if you did that requiring a longer warm up time but with the R2 it isn't a problem because the supercharger preheats the air and does what the heat riser would normally do. Next time you dig into it with the timing light make sure you have advance as the rpm's rise and check your vacuum advance. Chris...if you run into a hot restart problem again try holding your foot to the floor and cranking. The flap on top of the carb hat is there so fumes can escape when the car is off to prevent flooding or an overly rich restart condition. I don't think it worked particularly well. ErnieR

Check the accel pump like I mentioned in the previous post. I would bend that "S" piece so that pump action was instantaneous with pedal action. The initial spurt should be strong no matter how far you open the throttle. If you haven't done it already change the fuel filter and maybe buy a second one to have around. A car that hasn't been driven for a couple of years can generate some fine particles in the tank and the lines. When I first got my 88 I had to change the fuel filter at almost every fill up. Took about 3 tanks and 4 filters before it cleared out. That car had been sitting for a few years only being moved a few feet at a time over the duration. It would fade out at higher speeds and up hills. Simply a matter of fuel supply not keeping up with demand. Another easy thing to check and that could cause the symptoms you've described would be sticking rods. Looking at the top of the AFB there are two little kidney shaped covers with two small screws. Loosen the screws only enough to move the covers you don't want to swallow one of those screws. The enrichment rods and pistons are under the flaps. They should be trying to pop out pushing up on the covers as you are loosening the screws . If they are not get them out and clean them up. If you can't get them shiny with a little carb cleaner use a Scotch Brite pad or something similar and clean them up. While they are out you can spray some carb cleaner directly into the primary jets by sticking the nozzle down the hole the rod slips into. BTW, look at the springs and see if they are the same height. Won't hurt to check the rods, clean them up and make sure they are straight. In case you aren't familiar with the rod's function...at high vacuum, like cruise conditions i.e. light steady throttle, they are pulled into the primary jets operating against the spring ( no rods on secondaries ) limiting the amount of fuel. The instant the throttle is moved vacuum changes and the springs push the rod up. At full throttle which is closed to or at zero vacuum they are all the way up and the thinest part of the rod is in the jet allowing the most amount of fuel to flow. While you have the carb cleaner in hand spray into all the little air bleeds. Holes and tubes about the diameter of a paper clip. Not the big nozzoles with the diagonal cuts. That just dumps carb cleaner into the bowls and you might get a hard start. Wouldn't hurt to use a paper clip in those bleeds. You cant hurt anything. So, it's possible that a sticking rod is not moving freely enough to provide enrichment as you give the car more pedal to maintain cruising speed up grades. Another easy thing to check is choke operation. Before you try starting the car take off the air cleaner and oprn the throttle. Choke should snap closed. If you open the throttle all the way it should open 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch. Start the car and let it warm up completely watching the action of the choke. It should end up fully opened and not try to close when you blip the throttle. BTW, if your car sits for a couple of days try starting it like this...don't hit the gas just crank it for a few seconds. I like to spin them until the oil pressure gage is reading pressure or if the light goes out it protects the engine from a dry start a d fills the carb bowls with fuel. Now, after cranking, give one or two pumps on the pedal, at the most, to set the choke and spray some fuel (assuming the accel pump has past previous tests ) then crank with foot off the pedal. If you have the fast idle adjusted correctly it should start and idle around 1500 rpm. Take the fuel line out and remove the fitting in the carb top and look in. I've seen hose particles in there, or sometimes there's a little screen filter. That filter is mostly on Edelbrocks but since most of the parts are interchangeable it doesn't hurt to check it might have been in a rebuild kit installed in the past. BTW, the ballast resistor is not an issue. They either work or don't. If it wasn't working your car would start and then immediately shut off when you released the key to the run position. The resistor reduces voltage to the points when the car is running to prolong their life. Are you lucky enough to have a Delco "window" style distributor? No matter what you do have if there's a Pertronix kit available convert as soon as you can. I swapped out my Prestolite for a Delco Window and then put a Pertronix in that and starts were much quicker AND the idle smoothed. I had a little Mercury Metor a few years ago and it needed to be tuned. I didn't even bother with buying points and condensor I just converted it. Great product. Had it in my Avanti for at least 6 years and then I put in a Mallory. I should have saved the money. Car ran no better with the Mallory than it did with the Delco/Pertronix and you can't get parts just anywhere if you need them for the Mallory. ErnieR

Heading into work now but tonight ill give you some easy things to check

I would double check all your ignition components before tearing into the carb. Do you still have a point and condensor distributor? If what you sre experiencing is truly breaking up and sputtering I would go right to the points and condensor and work from there to the plugs. I'm pretty good with carbs. I built a hybrid Edelbrock Bottom and AFB top for my R2. The car ran like it was fuel injected. Off throtle hesitation could be an accel pump issue. Easy to diagnose. Look into the carb with the engine off and move the throttle ever so slightly. You should see a dribble the instant you move the linkage. Next would be a quick opening of the throttle at least halfway. You should see a strong spurt from the discharge nozzles. Tell me what you find and I'll suggest what to do. If it's shooting a nice strong stream and reacting instantly the carb isn't your off throttle hesitation. The carb pictured is an Edelbrock with an AFB top Carb issues are USUALLY flat spots, surging, dying out slowly on acceleration or up steep grades at steady throttle. The main thing is, though, the symptoms occur smoothly not typically an on off type feeling or sputtering and popping. Reason being whatever is happening is the result of too much or too little fuel. Sputtering, popping etc. is more ignition related because you are either sending erratic spark, poorly timed spark or no spark at all but for the brief moment that spark and fuel are in concert it runs OK for a moment. Spark plugs that were new 3 years ago but have been sitting aren't really new anymore. At the risk o f starting a brand war my experience with Champions has been that once they fouled they were garbage. Even new ones that were exposed to raw fuel would not start the car. I switched to AC's and all those issues disappeared, IMHO. If you still have your wires inside the shielding they can be arcing inside there. As cool as it looks I never put it on. Original Stude distributors are notorious for either frozen or worn out pins for the centrifugal advance weights. Points wear out quickly and the condensor can cause all kinds of sputtering. A little oil underneath the condensor could actually cause a miss or hard starting in the morning. I won't say you can't possibly have carb issues and I changed mine out because it ran way to rich at idle. Becasue of underhood heat issues, especially in R2's. there's an air bleed valve meant to open as things get hot enough to boil fuel. My guess it was a stop gap/compromise and once things got warm the car would run so rich that the person behind me gat a facefull of black smoke as I pulled away from a light. Put some AC R44S plugs in there, check the wires for signs of arcing, white powdery or actual charred spots, if you have pionts and condensor change them. Check to see that you have centrifugal advance and working vacuum advance with your timing light. Advance the timing 2 degrees over recommended setting try it, if you don't get a ping or a hard start try 2 more. Make sure you readjust idle after each timing change. I'm willing to bet that most of your carb problems will go away.

Don't rule out a MAACO. I think I mentioned them in a previous post. My son had a minor accident that damaged the header panel and hood on a Dodge Magnum. He replaced the parts himself and presented to a local MAACO. They did a great job of blending and did it for $1,000 less than a place he used to work for. The crack in your fender doesn't look like a difficult repair and the rest of the car looks good. If you do a bease/clear paint job you can save some money by doing the final buffing yourself. I was told that it's better to do that after the paint has been on for a few months anyway. Take it from me if you do any driving there will be nicks and it's a lot easier to take that first blemish on a $2500 paint job than a $12,000 one. Besides, The car can be repainted any number of times. I enjoyed driving my car a lot more than showing it. Sitting out in the sun for hours gets old quickly, at least it did for me. Besides, most hobbyist cars are not done to the concours level. There are hundreds more #3's out there than 1's and 2's. The great thing about the Avanti is that you won't ever see a bad rust repair come bubbling through. So many people paid big money for body and paint on their metal cars only to see that concours paint job be ruined by recurring rust. Get some color on it, drive the daylights out of it and have fun.

For the next group to remove their springs use a Sawzall the blade fits nicely inside the brackets and slices through the bolts easily. Might take a few blades but I had my springs out in a little over an hour. Sorry john, I need to visit your blog more often.

I thought I would never sell it either. Without going into detail I needed the money. I sold the 64, an 88, my highly modified El Camino, a 1962 Mercury Meteor S33, a Hemi Magnum and believe it or not my favorite of the bunch a Tuxedo Black 2002 Thunderbird, That being said the Avanti wore me out and the reason I have the knowledge I have is I spent about 5 years working on that car without the benefit of the Internet. I did things two and three times which usually meant two and three times the cost. My biggest disappointment was the interior kit that I purchased. The color began to come off within months and in some places while it was being installed, by me, BTW. So I had this new interior which took me months to put in including recovering the seats and it almost instantly looked worn. The vendor was not willing to do anything for me and the total cost of the interior was around $2500 in 1997. I had the door panels cleared along with the side panels in the rear to protect them from further deterioration and the back seat was never used so I cleaned it carefully but the front seats needed to be re-done. Then began the "Great Transmission Saga" as it became to be known which I won't bore you with here but let me give you a teaser when I tell you that I personally removed and replaced a transmission in that car 7 times. Conservative estimate on the cost of the transmission saga $8-9,000. It began with a cracked flexplate and ended with a high performance TCI 200 4R GM overdrive. The final chapter of the saga occured two months before it was sold. I would tell people that when I would go to the garage to take it out for a drive I would have to remember to get in it and not under it. The new owner uses my Avanti as a daily driver and has publicly stated that the car is a great running Avanti and he had quite a collection for comparison with most of his cars including other Avantis and Studes with extremely low original miles. He finished off a couple of minor annoyances and still drives it two years later. He bought it based on pictures and when he saw it in person he had an odd look on his face and I thought he was disappointed. On the contrary he told me "he never thought the car would be this nice". The day it left it ran the way I had always wanted it to. But, as you know, we do what we need to do.

When I did my rear springs I just automatically cut the bolts off. From past experience I've never been able to get the bolt out of the bushing. If it's any consolation the new rear springs will make a very noticeable and positive difference in the way your car rides. I've never had the occasion to drive another Studebaker Avanti other than my own but I will say that once the rear springs, shocks and all bushings front and rear were replaced the car was as comfortable as any touring sedan could be. I'm sure the sound deadening and sealing I did helped but the Avanti can be an extremely comfortable cruiser. I'm sure you will feel the rear springs, no matter how frustrating, were a worthwhile project.

Are you absolutely sure the pushrod into the master is adjusted properly? If you have the original master then the measurement is in the shop manual but if you have converted to a dual you need to play around with the pushrod length. Also, there should be checkballs under the bleeders on the calipers; are they in place and is the bleeder screw at the top of the caliper?

John some of the oils for the rear already have an additive for the clutches. However, I noticed after a long highway run 50-70 miles my limited slip clutches would chatter even with the additives. I drained it and refilled with Redline synthetic and never had a problem again.

POR 15 POR-STRIP GALLON PAINT STIPPER REMOVER GALLON : Amazon.com : Automotive You can buy direct from POR 15 64 S Jefferson Rd Whippany, NJ 07981 <NOBR>(973) 887-1999 It was very convenient for me as I used to live 6 miles form there.</NOBR> This is the stuff you want. It's very mild and takes a little longer but cleans up with water, won't hurt your new rubber and definitely does not harm the fibreglass. If you are going to be working without a hose this stuff can be sponged off. Goes on with a spray bottle. No issues with off gassing either. ErnieR

They are right about the gold and silver. The gold did fade out with age. Most of the world wouldn't know the difference just remember those side emblems can only be accessed by taking the interior panels out so whatever you pick remember changing them out is a pain. A lot of the paint looks razor blade worthy!! On the emblem escutheons, I bought mine already chromed and they were obviously ground to remove pits and while the chrome looked good and it held up you could see the waves. Buying them at York or the international meet coming up in south Jesey might be a better idea than through the mail this way you could inspect them before you plunk down the money. The other thing to plan for is that under body support replacement. I know there was a two piece that was out there that could be installed without cutting into the rockers and I never looked at it closely because mine were good but I'm sure you don't want to get into paint and bodywork AFTER you did all the paint and bodywork. ErnieR

One thing I've noticed after going to two national Studebaker and Avanti meets is that there are more Avantis out there built and painted to drive than to show and worship. So, since paint can be scuffed, sanded, polished, buffed and sprayed again there's very little that can go wrong. Let's face it you love the car the way it is now and if your expectations aren't too high you will love the car all one color. Besides driving by at 50 mph the rest of the world will think it looks great and if they can pick out the flaws at that speed it doesn't matter since they can't stop and point them out to you or anyone else! I'm looking forward to reading and learning from the paint blog. ErnieR

The razor blades work best on thick old paint. I think I mentioned that my car had al the available Avanti colors on it except gray and white all piled on top of each other. The blades took the top layers off quickly but couldn't remove the primer. It was easier than I thought and plenty of sharp blades and scraping as close to parallel took off a lot of old paint without damage. Of course I stayed away from edges and only used the blades on the flats. Most of the scraping was on dry hard paint. It just flaked off as I scraped. I did use blades on softened paint but most of the scraping was dry paint. The rest was done with POR Strip. From POR 15 and 3m pads. I didn't use much sandpaper and resisted using the DA. My original intent was to paint it myself but in 1996 I went to work for a dealership that had a body shop. They worked on it in between jobs and the painter did it after hours. Still cost me $5500 including the new fender header panel and rear fender cap. Not a perfect job either but I got what I paid for. The nice thing about the latest fad is you can have a car in prime for awhile and as long as the wheels and tires are nice the car is in acceptable cruise and show state. I personally don't get the idea of spending the same time and money to make a car look ratty as to look nice but it does give the in process cars street cred because the rest of the word thinks anything rusty or unfinished is now a rat rod! The Duplicolor stuff is intriguing since its lacquer it can be scuffed and shot over in a relatively short time so mistakes like runs can be corrected easily. It dries quickly so any dust is in the topmost layers and can be color sanded out. There will be spots that look like bondo because the bodies are glued together. The outer fenders are glued to inners so you would see filler all along the top if there was some finishing needed after the assembly process. Compressors aren't terribly expensive but I would bet there's a rental company out there that has a whole paint setup available Ive always had the intent of painting something myself but chickened out. You seem patient and detailed enough to pull it off. What's the worst that could happen? ErnieR

Driving it and prepping it shouldn't be too difficult. I couldn't drive mine because it was completely gutted and de-glassed. I had to push it in and out of the garage sometimes with the help of a come-along. Some stripping ideas...My car had so much paint on it that I was able to take all the layers off (except for what was left of the original turquoise and primer )with razor blades. Then I used a stripper by POR-15 that was so gentle that I would forget to put gloves on. Unless you have a very light tough avoid electric sanders. It doesn't take much effort to scuff the fiberglass and end up with a surface with more waves than the car was built with originally. In retrospect I don't know if I really needed to go to bare fiberglass as there are some sealers out there that let you paint over most anything. Then there's the guys out there that are putting a coat of primer on with a foam roller. What the heck, you're going to sand it anyway. Or you could get Ed from the "Wheeler Dealers" show. He seems to be able to paint whole cars with a rattle can! On my '88 which I called my "beater Avanti" I painted the Tailight housings, headlight doors and rings with that Stainless Steel paint that I love so much. If the car was metal than you would need to strip and prime right away but you could strip, spray some sandable primer and drive the glass Avanti. There's always the choice of satin black primer, cleared with bright bumpers and some old school Cragers. Or, if you stick with a more generic color like the gray you originally mentioned Duplicolor has these no mix lacquers that you just pour in a gun and shoot. Not expensive either. I'm rambling again, sorry. Ernie

You are right Chris. Besides, new rubber will come out easily and go back in the same way. I've done it a couple of times on the Avanti. It is too easy for us "hanger ons" to spend someone else's money. I do know what you mean though it took me 10 years to get my Avanti cosmetically finished and money was a big factor. And your point about not driving it is well taken. Once mine was apart and not drive able I needed to have something fun to drive so I bought a 1969 GP that I swore I wouldn't put any money into. Well I'm sure you know the outcome there. As far as the dash goes the tooling to make them is on eBay for $50,000:) ErnieR

Not trying to spend your money but did you investigate the price of doing just the bumper vs both bumpers and other miscellaneous pieces all at the same time. There might be a discount for multiple pieces and since it takes some time to do the process you will have time to prepare the body and the wallet for the new bling. I went as far as having the vent window frames done but it's a chore and if your windows fit ok it might not be worth the trouble unless yours are really bad. The door handles are not as intimidating as they look and they looked great re-plated. I bought what I thought was a new hood ornament and turns out it was a used one that was rechromed and wasn't as nice as mine would have been re-plated. Headlight doors and rings, "S" emblem escutcheons, front bumper, door handles, park and tailight housings and your whole car is replated. Discuss it with your chrome guy because I'll bet dinner and drinks that if you start putting old chrome on new paint no matter what your expectations are for the car's use you will send that rest of the stuff out for chroming. IMHO, of course. ErnieR I wish I had jumped on board this thread before you replaced the glass rubber because the paint job looks extra nice without tape lines at the weatherstripping

A little bumper story... It was about 1997 or so when I began the serious restoration on my former Avanti. My wife Cindi and I had just gotten married ( number two was the charm for me ) but she had become accustomed to the constant visits from the UPS truck and the multitude of boxes that were being stored in our basement before we tied the knot. I was never questioned about the cost of things and I always made it seem like things weren't all that expensive. After all, most times the boxes weren't very large and I do all the work myself so there were no shop invoices laying around. So in 1997 I was able to buy a front bumper center section and a rear bumper NOS from one of the vendors. They were for an Avanti II so there was a ridge in the front bumper that didn't appear on the originals but mine was very wavey and I'm not that fussy. The pair cost me $900 plus shipping so we were a fair amount over $1,000. I was a sales manager for a Ford dealer at the time and rarely got home before 10 PM and Cindi was always the first to see the new shipments. Since they were large and heavy, for her, she was curious as to what they were and wanted to see them. The cost never came up and I wasn't about to elaborate. Skip ahead a few months and we were visiting my parents in the Adirondacks and there happen to be a car show at a town close by so we went for a couple of hours. Lo and behold, even though there weren't more than 30 cars on display, right at the entrance is a VERY nice 1964 Avanti Gray R2. Naturally, I was all over the car and the owner and his wife were very gracious and we spent lots of time talking Avantis. My new found friend's wife asked Cindi how she felt about the time spent at car shows and maintaining the car and Cindi said she didn't mind so much and then...Mrs. Gray Avanti says... "but how about the price of the parts? Do you know how many outfits I could have bought for the price of those bumpers?" As my car restoration life flashed before eyes I saw a moment of clarity in Cindi's eyes. For the rest of the afternoon I waited and waited for the "discussion" but it never came. It's a good thing too because I had just ordered a full interior at almost $3,000. She still doesn't hassle me about car stuff for which I am forever grateful. ErnieR

I watch Chip Foose cut and re-weld old bumpers all the time on his tv show. However, my guess is that the chromer would fill and work the rust hole on your bumper rather than cut up two bumpers. It's amazing what those guys can do.

Picture Link http://s146.photobucket.com/user/AvantiR2/library/Sun%20Machine Great working garage art. The video link above shows the machine spinning and the vacuum pump and gage working. I didn't have a point style distributor to demonstrate the strobe light and dwell functions but they do work. I did set up a couple of distributors a few years ago for an Avanti I modified. Lots of fun! With the strobe going and the lights on the gages it's like being a mad scientist in a 50"s "B" movie! One glass is cracked but other than that it has the patina of a well used piece of garage equipment but clean overall considering the age and use it has gotten. It has a "manometer" port and a telescoping gage in the back that must have had mecury in it at one time becasue it's graduated in Inches of Mercury. I'll admit I don't know what it was used for or why it was necessary but it's there. I have a parts manual and maybe an instruction manual although I haven't seen that since we moved from NJ. Too big to ship but will fit in the back of most mid size and larger SUV's. I'm in Dobson NC 27017. I can store after payment is made but I don't have a vehicle large enough to haul with so I can't deliver. Asking $450. I will trade for 1979 or older Pick Up or El Camino/Ranchero with additional cash of no more than $600 for a vehicle that suits me. Restored machines have been offered for sale for over $2,000 and I haven't seen a working model advertised for less than my asking price. I have pictures I can link you too but they are too large and too many to post here. ErnieR

If you look closely on the inside I believe you will see where the ends were welded from the original manufacture of the bumper. It would take the rechromer less time to weld the good piece on your old bumper than to straighten the new one out, I'm sure. ErnieR

Chris, I wouldn't call your work fumbling. I have an unfair advantage in that I owned service stations in the early 70's and worked on the cars of the era with a paying consumer to satisfy. I'll admit the Avanti was new to me when I started on it but once you have the basics you can apply them on any older car. I did have one disadvantage though, I was working on the car for years before I bought a computer and found the wealth of knowledge that was on the Internet. I still have the mark on my forehead from where I slapped myself for waiting so long to get online.

I found my parts manual and your configuration is correct. I decided to keep it by the computer instead of in my workshop so I can avoid passing mis-information in the future. The rest of my babbling is still good:) Sorry.