Stude Light

It's a great looking car and will be a head turner everywhere you go and, unlike an original car, you can actually have fun driving the wheels off it. I would just focus on having things in good mechanical condition and start enjoying it. Great find!

Excellent! I was pretty sure you would find another axle with the vast resources of this forum and other social media outlets. I will be looking for you at the show. I'll be one of the volunteers working the show so not sure if I'll bring something or not.

Yes, Matt has it right. That will save you a ton of work. If you just want a fun show and not too much work, skip the judging.

Depends on what you want to spend. Top awards given at RE Olds Transportation Museum Car Show (July 29, 2023 this year) are these lighted gas pump globes. Museum volunteer made the wood bases but the lighted gas globes come from Gas Pump Heaven. https://www.gaspumpheaven.com/product-category/globes/ The rest of the awards are solid crystal - no plastic. Link to their shows webpage. https://www.reoldsmuseum.org/events/auto-show/ If you go to the registration form you can see their list of classes (42). You could easily pare that down by eliminating the special Oldsmobile group and combine some classes. The classes were set up based on years/types of cars that attended in the past. Best of luck with your event Scott Adding to this after posting....this show is very successful and well attended because it is judged and the awards are nice ($5k budget). That said, it takes a ton of work. Besides setting up and running it with, say 25 volunteers, there is another 25 judges to get through the 200+ cars and those judges need some training. Without the judging it would be so much easier but then becomes just another "people's choice" show which are a dime a dozen but can be fun to attend. Need to decide which way you want to go and how you may want it to grow.

I never knew that story about Dick Passwater. He had donated a 1953 NASCAR (on the right in picture below) to the RE Olds Transportation Museum that I took out last fall and put on the track next to the 1952 Fabulous Hudson Hornet, now owned by Al Schultz and housed at the National Hudson Motor Car Company Museum within the the Ypsilanti Heritage Museum. The photo taken below was done by Hagerty Media for the Hudson's inclusion in the National Historic Vehicle Register. I can add this to Dick's story....Thanks.

I never, ever though I would post a new topic on engine oils as it has been discussed over and over in this forum. How many times can you beat a dead horse? But....I thought the article below interesting as I hadn't seen information on diesel oils before. Maybe it was already talked about here. If so, I missed it. I have chimed in many conversations about oils, pre-war cars, post-war cars, ZDDP levels and how today's off the shelf oils are fine for all but the most severe application. My knowledge in this area doesn't come from anecdotal stories from the people peddling their specialty oils or additives. Instead, it comes from my discussions with the oil experts during my 30 years at GM, from reading the many SAE papers written on the subject at the time oil additive formulations were changing (I had access as a member), working with automotive & aircraft engine rebuilders and some other research I have done. But let's just put that discussion aside for now and focus on the pros and cons of using diesel oil in your gas engine cars. All of my aforementioned research focused on gasoline engines and not on diesel engine oils. I have not done the research on diesel engine oils so I cannot make any definitive comments about the accuracy of the article. I am just sharing it for others to read and you can form your own opinions. https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/diesel-oil-in-gasoline-engine/

I would imagine that Kris Arneson would have some detailed information http://www.runningboardrubber.com/ As far as restoration goes, if you want an exact restoration, Kris is great option but it’s pretty labor intensive so a bit costly. I had him do the running boards for my 1939 LaSalle and the workmanship was phenomenal.

But the crankshafts in the Pontiacs don’t snap in two and break engine blocks like certain four letter brands. Pick your failure mode 😉

Let me just say from a physics standpoint…..more water flow through the engine and across the radiator means more heat rejection. Reduced flow rate means less heat rejection. Unless a restrictor is preventing some type of pump cavitation or extreme turbulence it will reduce heat rejection. Think of it in terms of reducing the airflow through your radiator…reduces the amount of heat rejection. Restrictors are great when it’s cold and you want the engine to heat up to normal operating temperature. That’s why thermostats came about. When it’s 90 out and I’m running my engine hard I am wanting my thermostat wide open, not restricted.

If you are looking to replate all your nickel parts then, as Ed mentioned, it’s all in the labor. Each part has to be cleaned, stripped, polished, copper plated (usually) then polished again and nickel plated and sometimes polished again. I did all those little parts on my Studebaker with a Caswell kit and a lot of time. Here is a post I put together on the process

Any of today’s SAE30 or 10W30 will be fine and has plenty of zinc dithiophosphate for your application. Don’t put in any additives. While not required, if you want to use a racing oil like VR1 which has higher levels of zinc required for the extremely high contact pressures of a flat tappet racing engine, that’s fine too, just costs more.

And head bolts if you haven't already. On my Cadillac flathead, I usually do that three times.

I wrapped a rubber piece around the clamped area so no issues for me.

I use these clamp on door edge mirrors on my LaSalle A quick Google search turned up these https://www.amazon.com/STREET-STAINLESS-UNIVERSAL-MIRROR-CHROME/dp/B00AMO2S7C/ref=asc_df_B00AMO2S7C/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=647222620937&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=556377016371047015&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9058213&hvtargid=pla-729395923644&psc=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwqNqkBhDlARIsAFaxvwwHpdAz8Vye6CZIMucFv_ZgfAgMZgva6MYhdRN0VTgFt2SSMllInYIaAgEVEALw_wcB

What about a museum that has a Pontiac or Chevy that will never drive again? You would be surprised how many cars in museums fit that description. Give them a few bucks and swap out parts. You never know....

I took the carb all apart without breaking or rounding off any screws since I used some penetrating oil, applied a little heat where needed and used my "gunsmith" screwdriver set. I did have to drill and easy out the float bowl level plug. It all went in the ultrasonic tank which took quite a bit longer than usual to get the gunk and corrosion off. After some Scotchbrite here and there and a brass wire brush I got everything cleaned up nicely. Filed, blasted and coated the original steel screws. And all back together. Had to make one new hard paper gasket (actually modified one to fit). I apply a gasoline proof grease to any areas needing sealed like tapered surfaces and any gasket faces. Need to use acetone to cut the stuff. This carb is the OS-1 that originally went on the 1920-1921 Studebaker Light Six. The 1922 and early 1923 OS-1 has several differences so I'm glad to have found the right one for Dave's car.

Fog Lights.... This is my car with the cheesy turn signal lights it came with. This is it with fog lamps (converted to turn signals) I'm with Matt on the fog lights. Maybe roll them out a bit wider so as not to block the grill - better airflow across the radiator too. Yes, I'm bias.

My 1939 LaSalle has a similar vibration at at slightly higher speed (flathead V8). The LaSalle did not come with a harmonic balancer so I added a balancer from a Cadillac engine which helped some but didn’t eliminate it. Something in the car “lights off” at a particular engine rpm in 3rd gear around 40-45 mph. I spent years at GM in driveline development so always got tuned in to vibrations - 1st order, 2nd order, 3rd order…. Sometimes it was a torsional vibration, sometimes bending and once in a while we really hit a harmonic frequency. Engine, trans, driveshaft, axles, u-joints, tripots, wheels, tires, brakes - you name it. Basically anything that spins can create a vibration and those vibrations can excited lots of different things like body, roof, floor pan, steering, seats. To really get to the root cause usually requires some decent instrumentation and analysis. At GM, we would hang tuned dampers on all kinds of parts to make cars vibration free. I look at the very basic engine and trans mounts along with the torsional harmonic balancer used on my car and I just ignore it anymore since it is inherent to the design. No one else in the car notices it unless I point it out and have them focus at the right time to which they tell me it’s hardly noticeable. We are often our worst critics.

The failure was more than likely from a poorly processed part. The quality control in that era was nowhere near today’s standards. I read through at least 25 durability test reports that GM ran in the 1920s and 1930s on their products and their competitors and failures of hardened parts almost always were the result of poor processing based on the post failure analysis (improper hardening, depth of hardening, tempering, etc.) The recent failure of front spindle from a 1914 Studebaker had the same cause - improper processing. So, they are not all prone to fail…just the luck of the draw or bad luck in this case. It’s great you have some direction….this forum is full of so much knowledge!

On my cars I tighten the joints as far as possible without binding them to line up the cotter pin. I always thought the springs were there to dampen out that few thousands of an inch of slop to avoid a clunk situation.

How disappointing after all the work you put in! I would think that GM was sharing parts across brands so this axle might not be too hard to find. I would take pictures if the axle housing along with dimensions of housing and axle and start posting. Best of luck Scott

Ransom Olds was only with Olds Motor Works less than 5 years. After leaving in 1904, he wanted to create the RE Olds company but the Smiths, who were the primary investors in Olds Motor Works, claimed rights to the Olds name and threatened to sue him so he settled on his initials instead and about put them out of business until Billy Durant saved Olds Motor Works by bringing them into General Motors in 1908.

From what I can tell, yes, there was a thin paper gasket. That said, I did some poking around my OE-1s and found this….. I was going to disassemble and clean it up and verify all the parts are there.

Part number for the port gasket is 16967 (qty 6) These used an alignment ring too that kept the gasket in place - part number 16966 (qty 6)