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GLong

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Everything posted by GLong

  1. With a sound engine, the '32 Model 54 'Club Brougham' car is a very handsome car, and a great performer. The '32 Pierce has a Ross steering gear box, providing wonderful light steering forces, and longevity. The transmission has synromesh on 2nd and 3rd gears. There also is freewheeling if you like that feature. The Club Brougham as well as coupes, Convertible Coupe-Roadsters had factory 'high speed' gearing: 4.08:1 ratio, the heavier cars had 4.42:1 With great styling, wonderful driving characteristics and with fresh babbitt and a good valve job , these are great touring cars. GLong
  2. Your Model 54 in 'great shape, unrestored' condition can be anywhere from $20K to maybe $60K. Most likely $35K-$45K. What makes a huge difference is actual mechanical and actual cosmetic condition. What one person describes as 'Great Condition' is another person's 'OK but needs paint and interior.. AND the huge issue: actual engine condition: I have inspected many engines, this requires dropping the oil pan, and removing each connecting rod cap. Then measuring the rod journal and ID of the reassembled rod bearing. The old poured babbitt has at best a 30% chance of being 'ok'. MOST connecting rod bearing babbitt has cracks. missing pieces.. AND the engine sounds and runs ok.. But won't survive an hour long drive at 50mph. GLong
  3. Edinmass: with the lousy, lousy tubes available today, I will always patch a tube. I've never had a patch fail in 50+ years. Why do you not like patching tubes? GregL
  4. I have a couple of those coil testers. The vibrator's points often get corrosion on them, and do not make a good electric connection. Use an ohmmeter to test to see if the points in the vibrator are making a good contact with each other. I found I had to clean the contacts of NOS vibrator points in order to get the vibrator to energize the coil tester. I found that the coil tester works well, the wider the gap, the better the coil. Greg
  5. These trailers were built with many items and materials that are either very rare or unavailable now. Such as: the interior walls were covered in thin, Red Gum plywood. It was molded to fit the contours of the interior, when it was laminated or glued into sheets. The kitchen hardware is very different than a home kitchen of the era: The faucet has a built in air pump. to pressurize the water tank. The stove was an alcohol fuel unit, like used in marine applications. As mentioned several times, value is mostly based on condition an originality. An extensively modified Travelodge is pretty much a used travel trailer. The only collector value is in the exterior appearance. Sort of like any Classic Era car that has a modern drivetrain and suspension: it's just exterior appearance that has any collector value. An original Travelodge with all or most of the original hardware, the doors and paneling in good condition, and sporting the original Coal/Wood cast iron miniature Pot-Belly heating stove, well get two or more interested, knowledgeable bidders, and I think a Model A might be bid to over $40K-$50K. Post some photos of the interior and exterior, and underside of your Travelodge, and we can help you much better. GLong
  6. Having only a strap type ground from the battery to the chassis is not enough. Make a dedicated ground CABLE from 1/0 or 2/0 welding cable. Solder the loop ends on the cable. Put one end on the pinch bolt of the grounding battery clamp, and put the other end under the head of one of the starter-mounting bolts. Use a star washer between the cable end and the starter-body or mounting ear. When you are experiencing a humidity-related no start, you said you can just barely hear the solenoid clicking. I'll suggest that the solenoid has some dry dust from the starter brushes or road dirt on the moving parts: the piston moving inside the electromagnet of the solenoid. When damp, the dust is more like mud, and is causing the solenoid to move slow, with low energy, and it can't close the contacts. I'd take the solenoid off, and apart and make sure it is perfectly clean inside. The Tractor supply solenoid is a great idea. GLong
  7. Tom, there recently was a correct Stromberg O-3 on Ebay, with a buy-it-now of $999.00 . It did sell. The Pierce-made carburetors were actually very, very good carbs. My 1919 has it's original carb and it is an amazing piece of engineering and quality construction. The Series 80 carbs work well. But they must be set up right, and the rest of the car be set up right. My extensive experience with Series 80 carbs shows that most of the problems blamed on the carburetor are either points and condense problems, or old gasoline, and problems from lack of use. I was at a friend's collection in early June, he had called said he had major carburetor problems with his Series 80. When I took a look, the needle was stuck [ more like GLUED ] in full up/open position. GLUED? yep, by the varnish and residue from old gasoline around the float bowl top where the needle rides up and down under the domed acorn-shaped nut [if the nut is still there, most are missing]. Some carburetor cleaner and some manual moving of the needle soon had the carb working correctly. The problem is we have with cars that sit for a year or two, with gasoline evaporating in them, leaving behind all sorts of goo and gunk is not the fault of the carburetor, it is just what is. The standard series 80 carburetor is simpler than the carburetor on your Briggs and Stratton lawn mower's engine. It just needs to be kept clean, and be understood. The needle and float assembly and the two 'teeter-totter' arms that move the needle in the opposite direction of the float are subject to being gummed up from evaporating gasoline, and get wear on them from vibration. The pivot pins often get notches worn in them causing erratic action of the float and needle, and the pivot holes sometimes wear oblong.. Treat these pivot pins and holes like the parts of a clock, replace the worn pins, and rebush the oblong holes. The carb's main-jet needs to be understood and used, that is drive the car often. My 1926 Series 80 Town Car, Durham Bodied, is kept on display in the Pierce Arrow Museum at the Gilmore CCCA Museum in Hickory Corners Michigan. Each year when the Pierce Arrow Society has their 'Gathering at The Gilmore' late-August meet, I open the fuel shut off under the vacuum tank on the firewall, I watch the needle in the carburetor drop as the float bowl fills, then I start the engine with a short squirt of primer from the driver's seat. Shutting off the fuel and running the carburetor dry is critical to have this reliable start up each August.. Do not leave the gravity-pressure from the Stewart Warner vacuum tank on, to slowly leak past the brass needle/brass seat. Gravity will win, the carb will have more evaporation residue. Take care, GLong
  8. And a great time was had by all !! GLong
  9. Please joint the Pierce-Arrow Society as Dale had. There is a North East Region that has a get-together each year. The Pierce Arrow Society has an annual meet each year in various parts of the country. This year, 2018, the meet was in Grimy's back yard: North of San Francisco in Sonoma Wine Country. It was a wonderful meet. Several PAS members from New England arrived and had a great time. Next year, June 10-June 16, 2019, the PAS Annual Meet will be in NE Indiana, in the Pokagon Indiana State Park. We will have 3 days of touring and a great car show/judging show on the grounds of the host Inn within the State Park. If you can come, we'd sure like to see you and your wonderful car at this meet. Look on the Pierce-Arrow.org website for more information, or in the PAS publications. GLong
  10. The Pierce Arrow Society Annual Meet is always a great event. We are a DRIVING car club. Each day we departed Rohnert Park [5 miles south of Santa Rosa] and immediately were on country roads heading to the Redwoods, the Pacific coast, a Winery Tour or one of several spectacular car collections. Here are a few pics I took. My '32 Convertible Coupe/Roadster In front of the School House from the Alfred Hitchcock movie 'The Birds'. A warning sign we ignored. My '32 CCoupe/Roadster and my '25 Touring at the top of the climb. Next year the Annual Meet will be in NE Indiana June 11-16th GLong
  11. Hi FourSpeed, I just sent you a message. Greg L
  12. To free up the steering, jack up the front axle take the car's weight off of the kingpins and thrust bearings.. Pump 'special compound' through the kingpin zerks while moving the steering from lock to lock.. keep pushing 600w or even 140 weight through the kingpins until the steering does not improve any more.. Working on the steering gear box is a similar process. What happens way too often is that the zerk fitting on the top of the steering gear box as an indication to put chassis grease in the steering box. Since chassis grease does not 'flow', when chassis grease is put in a steering gear box, the upper and lower shaft bushings don't get lubrication, nor does the pitman shaft get any new lubrication once the old 'special compound' weeps out. The steering gear box, inspite of being full of 'a' lubricant, it will not get to the areas that need lubrication.. If can, remove the steering box's inner cover and scoop, then wash out the chassis grease.. Then reinstall the cover, and fill with a light gear oil, like 80-90wt. Keep working the steering wheel from lock to lock, The lighter weight gear lube will work it's way into the bearings and bushings. Once the lubricant has made it's way into all the dry bearings and bushings,, you will start to see the thin gear lubricant will start leaking out the pitman arm and the bottom of the gear box's seal around the throttle and timing rods. You can remove the steering box cover and let the light lubricant drain, or you might be able to use a suction gun with a thin suction tube. Replace with 600w or thicker gear lubricant. With the very extensive and well done restoration on this car, i doubt that the steering box was ignored. So the stiffness in the steering system seems most likely to be lubrication-related.. Greg Long
  13. Hey RustyJazz, I have a few rough-castings of water pump impellers, that could be machined to work in your pump. If you are at all interested, please email me, and we can get together and see if any of them will work for you. Email: DualValve@gmail.com I'm in SE Michigan, so the logistics should be easy. Greg
  14. Hello Rusty. I have several water pumps that are NOT Studebaker, but I might be able to salvage an impeller that might fit in your pump housing. I'd need to see more of your pump housing to see the design of the pump. I also have two or three different new repro castings of water pump impellers that might be workable. I'm in SE Michigan as well, about 18 miles south of Flint. Send me an email message to: DualValve@gmail.com and we can see if we can get pump housings and impellers together. GL.
  15. I usually have good luck with Amazon. The US Postal flat rate box shipping is brutal though. I've had lightweight boxes shredded, and have had a heavy box show up with a side ripped open and half the parts missing. And it's not just the cardboard boxes that are brutalized. I carefully packed a freshly babbited connecting rod, and shipped it to myself from the west coast. When it arrived the big end of the rod was hanging out of the box, and half the babbitt had been knocked off the rod cap, that takes some serious impact and force. Thankfully I had insured it well. GregL
  16. Brian, call me or email me next wednesday or thursday, I'll be back in Michigan. I'll fix ya up, but maybe not with a NOS one, they do come rather 'dear'. But I have a lot of these caps.. I can recognize them with the big mounting 'ears' very easily, I've been known to see one from about 30 feet, sitting on a table or on a tarp on the ground.. :-) I don't even use an NOS one on my cars.. usually a good used one.. GregL
  17. Hello Brian, Which distributor do you have? Is it the Delco who's rotor has a flat topped steel contact that slides on the underside of the distributor cap on a flat circular surface, the brass contacts for the plug wires flush with the flat circular surface? If so, I'll be back from the tour I'm on next wednesday or Thursday, and I'll look to see if I have a new cap. The cap I described is used on the Series 80 and earlier Pierces GregL
  18. 'Grimy' put it all together: Our loved ones, our cars, our buildings and possessions are worth paying for a GOOD, EFFECTIVE fire extinguisher. A CO2 'fog' will conduct electricity: I saw a guy get knocked off his feet when he tried to put out a fire on a running engine: the ice-fog from the CO2 conducted the current from the ignition system to the extinguisher. CO2 hast to DISPLACE the oxygen in the air, in order to starve the fire of oxygen. It will also starve YOU for oxygen to breath if you are in a small space with no fresh air available. A dry chemical extinguisher is just a powder 'blanket'.. It is intended to smother the burning fuel.. be it liquid, solid, gaseous, whatever, a dry chemical extinguisher must cover the burning area to put out the fire.. With the fire under the hood scenario, you can't fight that fire safely with a dry chemical extinguisher, you have to open the hood, and this creates a place for the fire to go, up into your face, and the air is sucked in from under the car.. Spray a dry chemical under the burning engine, and it does NOTHING. Spray a CO2 under the burning engine, it might do the job. BUT: HALON or any of the new derivatives WILL put out the fire by spraying under the hood.. The Halon works by attaching to the oxygen in the air, and making it unable to support the combustion of what ever is burning.. it is a chemical reaction, not moving all the oxygen away from the fire like CO2 has to do, or blanketing the fire with a powder. But just spray at the base of the fire, from 6-8 feet away, and the fire will go out.. Halon works best and as 'Grimy' stated, it is the only type of fire extinguisher approved for aircraft use.. If you have a fire in an overhead luggage bin, the aircraft crew members are trained to just pry open a corner of the door to the luggage bin, spray Halon inside, and leave the door closed, The same for a fire in an aircraft lavatory: leave the door closed, spray through the louvers in the lower part of the door, if no louvers, then along the floor at the bottom of the door, or open the door a very small amount and discharge the HALON extinguisher.. I'm a retired Airline pilot, and have had 40 years of annual fire-fighting training, and I've had some very interesting training events that have proven to me that ONLY Halon is worthwhile to buy and count on to save your cars, buildings or loved ones.. There is the tragic story of the Canadian Air Transportation Dept [like our FAA] outlawing Halon, making that decision on some erroneous information, All Canadian Airliners removed Halon, and put in Dry Chemical extinguishers, a few months later, a flight from I think Toronto to Cincinnati had a fire in a lavatory, in the trash receptacle, this was back in the '60s I think.. The dry chemical could not blanket the paper burning in the trash receptacle, and the smoke filled the plane, everyone was killed in the resulting crash of the plane.. within a year, the Canadian Air Transportation Dept reversed their earlier order regarding Halon, and made Halon required equipment.. The amount of Halon that is needed to be effective to put out a fire is about 50% of the concentration that could be harmful to your health, The concentration of CO2 that is required to put out and keep out a fire is high enough to cause you to pass out from lack of oxygen.. So don't believe the 'Urban Legends about Halon being dangerous to humans or pets.. It's NOT. A LARGE CO2 is needed to be effective, as well as a LARGE Dry Chemical.. An airliner with 180 passengers has two 2.5# halon extinguishers in the cabin and one 1.5# extinguisher in the cockpit.. That should give you an idea how effective Halon is.. A 2.5# Halon is very effective for a car or truck.. Every door to my home has at least one Halon near it. Every vehicle has at least on Halon in the car, and some vehicles have a second one in the trunk, and all enclosed trailers have at least one Halon as well. A very nice car was destroyed five or six years ago from a fire that started on top of the fuel tank. The car had just had the gas tank filled, it is believed that the brake light wiring might have shorted, but regardless, a fire started on top of the fuel tank, which in this big sedan, was under the rear of the car, roughly under the rear seat.. The car had stopped at a stoplight, the driver in the car behind it ran up, told the driver he was on fire, Both men had a dry chemical extinguisher, and as expected to me when I heard of the fire, the dry chemical was ineffective.. just think: how could you lie under the car and spray up to the top of the fuel tank to put a powder blanket on the fire?? Another dry chemical extinguisher was offered by yet another car that stopped to help, Even with THREE extinguishers, the fire could not be put out. The car had a wood body structure, and soon the wood caught fire, and the car was a total loss. Sorry this turned into a novel.. But there is nothing more terrifying that having a fire raging out of control, and nothing more destructive. GLong
  19. Hi Terry, that is true, but when working with an engineer at one of the spring companies, the pressure @ given installed height, as well as the pressure at top of lift, were all part of the questions asked and used to determine if an available spring was made for or in stock for another more modern engine.. One of the problems is too LOW spring pressure for some 'made for xxx antique car' springs from some common old car parts sources. Example: the '33 and later Pierce engines had Hydraulic lifters. and their design was such that a higher seated pressure valve spring was needed to prevent high engine oil pressure when cold from pumping up the lifter and un-seating the valves.. The listed seated pressure in Motors is 64#.. for the previous year's mechanical lifters, the seated pressure was around 50#. I called, checked on specs for a set of new springs. They were stated to be made 'to specification'. But when I received them, and checked the pressure at the prescribed length, they were only 45# !! probably would work ok with manual adjusted lifters. but would not work at all with the '33 and later hydraulic lifters.. When I called to for a Return Authorization Number, we ended up in a 'discussion' [I'm being nice] about the specifications used for the manufacture of the new springs.. The wire size/diameter was significantly smaller for the 'new' springs, and of course this resulted in a much weaker spring. Even with 1/8" !! of shims under the new spring, it did not get to even 55# seated pressure.. they were simply NOT usable for the engine they were sold to 'fit'. I would certainly not recommend just buying any spring that has the right external dimensions.. the correct springs do have several parameters to be 'correct'.. GregL
  20. Hi Guys. are the valve spring unique in some dimension or pressure or ?? I've contacted a few spring companies with issues regarding valve springs, and found a few very helpful people who knew how to navigate their databases, and found a modern spring that fit the parameters I needed. The extra long springs used in many of the old engines do usually require having some made to order, but the shorter springs usually can be found in some form or another, being used or recently used in more modern engines.. Just a thought.. Greg L
  21. Hello Brian, I'm the Pierce Arrow guy from Holly, you came to an old car event at my place a few years ago. I've done the same operation with modern valves on several engines.. I look for a modern SS valve, with the valve stem enough larger that the wear in the original valve guide can be reamed out and honed to size. I don't like putting the stress of pressing out and pressing in new valve guides in old iron cylinder blocks. If an inconell exhaust valve can be found, the valve will outlast the car and engine. What Caterpillar valve did you find to use? .402 is an odd size, most common is .375" which is 3/8", next up is 7/16" which is .437".. So that .402 stem is somewhere around 10.5mm. Some late teens engines used a valve with that stem diameter too. The valve length is pretty long: 7.5" long, with a 1-5/8" head diameter. Where did you find you could purchase the Diesel valves? Glad you 'only' have the reassembly of the engine to do now. Good warm weather for driving an open car is still a month or two away.. Take care, Greg Long
  22. Do you have a Marvel Mystery oil dispenser on the engine intake manifold? or a similar upper cylinder lubrication device? If so, could it be leaking, pooling on the throttle butterfly, then leaking out the throttle shaft clearances ? The only 'red' substances that are oily, are ATF, Marvel Mystery Oil, liquified red grease, dried or partially dried gasoline, I'm sure there are dozens more I can't think of. GLong
  23. If you heard air leakage when performing the compression test, it is most likely valves not sealing. Just because the valves are going up and down, does not have anything to do with how well the valve seats make clean, tight contact and seal the combustion chamber. Any time the head is off one of our old cars, it is a good idea to clean the valves, and lap the valve to the valve seat and inspect the results. The lapping will turn the seat a silvery-gray. Any black specs or spots are pits in the sealing surface. If the pits are grouped closely in an area, that part of the valve is not sealing well. If there is an area where there is NO contact, with the lapping process, that valve is not sealing much if any. Sometimes just a bunch of carbon chunks get caught under the valve, and hold it off the seat. This can easily be remedied when the head is off and if the valves are cleaned and lapped. If the rings are really bad, you will see a carbon-free ring around the outer edge of the piston, where the oil is coming past the rings, and 'washing' off the carbon. You can, like you mentioned, push a piston around in a cylinder bore and often see the top piston ring.. So find the gap in the top ring you can see. Is the gap in the ring greater than say .030"? That's just about the same as the spark plug gap. if the ring gap is wider than .025-.030", then the rings are pretty worn. If it were my engine, from your description, I'd clean and lap the valves, I'm pretty sure you will find some poor valve seats, or carbon stuck in the seats, stopping the valve from sealing. A rebuild with boring the block, new pistons and rings, new valves and valve guides, rebabbited mains and rods, with mains line bored, and the crank and cam reground, cam followers refaced, cam bearings replaced or ? Timing chain ? if it has one, replace it if worn, You are looking at $15,000-$20,000 or possibly more, depends on a LOT of wear factors, condition of heads and cylinder blocks, etc. Hope this helps. GLong
  24. Yep, where did that 4 1/2 quarts of oil go, while it was on the flatbed? Was the car sitting level when YOU checked the oil level? I believe an inspection of the engine is in order, take it to someone who will drop the oil pan, and inspect each connecting rod for scores, excess oil clearance and obvious wear. While you have owned and driven the car, have you changed the oil? Did you notice any change in indicated oil pressure while driving in the Pocono's ? If the oil was that low, and the engine starved for oil enough that it burnt up a connecting rod bearing or two, then you should have seen significantly low oil pressure, and possibly even elevated engine coolant temperatures. Did you note any low pressure indications ?? GLong
  25. Solid copper wire spark plug wires have the lowest resistance and therefore the lowest spark voltage of any spark plug cable. In a '20's or '30's vintage car, most engines have a spark plug wire loom or tube that all the wires are routed through, and exit at each cylinder's spark plug. If a '20's or '30's car has carbon core wires installed, and feeds them [read: pushes and pulls them] through the plug wire loom, they will not only most likely sustain damage to the center core of the wires, as they are fragile.. But when high voltage wires are jammed together in a tube, spark voltage will find the path of least resistance. And with carbon core wires, that likely will be to the wiring tube, or other plug wires. If looked at on an ignition oscilloscope, a carbon core wire if broken internally, will show a much higher voltage than a good wire, and any carbon core wire will have higher spark voltage than a copper core wire.. For a '50's car, with plug wires separated by a 'rooster comb' then the cross-firing is not likely a problem, but I'd never use anything but copper core wire on a '20's car with a wiring loom. As for the electronic ignition, like most of the above posts ask.. WHY? I have a '33 Pierce Arrow 836, I've driven it 500-1000 miles every summer since 2000, and the dual points and condenser system has never changed it's settings or let me down.. AND, if it did let me down, I can get it running with minimal tools and time. GLong
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