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jari12

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Everything posted by jari12

  1. Mine bolt to the top of the oil pan flange on the engine side as well but they also bolt to the lower side of the frame rail. Right hand side was bolted to the bottom side of the frame rail from below. Left hand side was bolted to the bottom side of the frame rail from above. I tried to test fit my repaired left pan by bolting to the bottom and it wouldn't fit until I put it in on top and made a notch for the rear engine mount. The right hand side is definitely more complicated. I'm going to reuse the engine side again because of the curved section to fit around the curve in the oil pan for the oil pump. The right one also drops lower for the water pump and shaft which are in the rear on my engine so it has two bends. It has to get back up to frame height on the outside edge as well. The older style look good with the extra pieces covering the spring shackles. Thanks for the pics.
  2. I got to spend a little bit of time in the garage this afternoon. I pulled the little center pan under the center front of the engine and scraped most of the grease off of it. Mostly still shiny black paint under the grease but a little bent and looks like a corner missing. I posted a photo of the three pans together on the garage floor with the engine side set up on wood blocks. I am going to keep the engine side of the pans and make new panels for the bottom and frame side. I got the left one cut out and temporarily bolted together to check fit as shown in the second photo. I used a two by four, angle iron and a pair of C clamps to make the bend and a step drill, cut off wheel and air shear to cut the pattern. It fits well but I had to put it back in with the frame side resting on top of the bottom frame ledge (like the old one was placed before I removed it). I will clean them up and weld them together before painting. I am definitely not a great fabricator and have minimal tools but I think it turned out OK and will serve the purpose.
  3. Just stand back and look at the overall picture (like the rest of us) and a few little wrinkles won't even register. We are always our own biggest critics. The car and the top are beautiful.
  4. Thank you Ron. I can see advantages to both ways. Easier to put them in place if below but you don't have to hold them up while you fit the first bolt if above.
  5. Tried the oven cleaner. Worked great on the grease but also took the original paint off the engine block. Softened the paint up almost immediately. so much for leaving an original paint patina on the motor. I will now have to think about new paint or repainting to look old. The oil stained original paint almost looked like olive drab in places but also looked light mint green in places. Bought new steel to patch the splash pans today. I will post before and after pics of the pans. I can't find postings on this forum of Fast four engine splash pans so I will try to provide some info on them. Right hand side is 30" long, left is 29". Mine were mounted with the left side above the bottom frame rail and right side below the bottom of the frame rail. How were the frame sides of the pans mounted originally?
  6. What if you used the original one for the rear and made the two side blinds using the house mechanisms? The sides would match each other and the rear doesn't have a mate anyway the size difference wouldn't be as noticeable. It would get you going and you could keep looking for more without the same amount of pressure.
  7. I've ordered new valves and gaskets to put the motor back together. Valves are back ordered. while waiting I'm cleaning up the engine bay. 95 years of grease, oil, and dirt that is hard as rock is not fun to chip off of evrrything. I've also pulled the splash pans which are pretty rotten but good enough to get a pattern from so I can patch them. I don't have "Aussie skills" or equipment so I'm keeping the engine side of the pans which have compound curves and are more intricate. I will be forming new pieces for the frame side and bottom and attaching them to the original engine sides of the pans. We'll see how it goes.
  8. Thanks Minibago, it helps a lot. It's nice to have another set of eyes to confirm that I'm not seeing things. I've been looking over the photos you shared a lot as I daydream about what to do with the rear body on mine.
  9. Minibago, were the rear fenders lowered lowered on these two boattails from their stock height? It looks like they are closer (fit tighter) to the tires and are lower in relation to the front fenders. I think it makes them look a little cleaner and racier.
  10. Thanks for the warning (with visual aids). My wife is gonna kill me. As I sit here and add up the price for all the gaskets, valves, vacuum tank, etc. for an engine that still might need the electrical parts repaired or replaced in what is still very much only half a car. But it is fun and I have the luxury of not feeling guilty when I veer from originality since it is only half a car that was pretty close to being scrapped when I got it. Now I know why it takes everybody so long to restore their cars. They have no time to work on them because of the second job they have to take to fund the parts bill.
  11. I made a little more progress over the weekend. I pulled the oil pan. Really clear that there is not much info out there about this engine. The oil pan info from the last book of information (18th addition) is for the previous engine and so is the Mechanic's Instruction Manual. This pan is very different and you have to remove the flywheel inspection cover first which is not intuitive from looking at it. No oil came out when I pulled the plug. Had to push my finger up through the sludge to get it to drain - it felt like the skin that builds up on a half full can of paint. Sludge was about three inches deep. The good news is that my cam and crank look good and everything is tight. Before I saw Choclatetown's post about my valves being two piece I had already reground them. So I went ahead and reground the seats in the block as well and lapped them. It looks like the intake valves are two piece and that the exhaust valves are one piece. I am going to reassemble it and see what the compression looks like and see if I can get it to fire using the old gaskets and the two piece valves. I just want to hear it run. Then I'll pull it apart again after I can get gaskets and valves. On another topic. I have been staring at my firewall a lot lately while pulling things apart. It is the only part of the car (there really isn't much car at all) that still has paint. I have read through some of the posts looking at original paint colors. The documents that have been shared show only one paint choice at a time for the various models, is that true? If I bought a Sport Roadster in late June/early July of 1927 did it only come in Cossack Brown over Czarina Beige? Were the two colors listed as upper and lower mean the body was one color and the fenders etc. were the other or was the body two tone? Also, (back to my firewall) is the color below Cossack Brown? It looks olive drab to me in person.
  12. I searched for info on the Thompson oilcrome valves but didn't find much. I did find the link below which is about Thompson himself and mentions his role in developing valves for the automotive industry. His company became known as TRW. Fun stuff. https://case.edu/ech/articles/t/thompson-charles-edwin
  13. Thanks. Do you know if this type of valve was standard when new or are they cheap replacements that were put in at some point?
  14. Thanks for the response. Were they the original valves from the factory? Did DB number the valves and pistons? What makes them so bad? Sorry for all of the questions but I find it very interesting. It was fun to get them all cleaned up and see the markings appear.
  15. Got all of my valves out. At first glance, some of them looked really rusty. Soaked in evaporust for 24 hours with occasionally pulling them out and wire brushing. I think they cleaned up amazingly well. Couldn't see any markings or even the holes for the lapping tool. Now I can see that they are numbered in order from front to back and that the exhaust valves are marked with "Thompson Oilcrome". Pistons are also numbered from front to back and have a big & symbol. All of the pistons look good. Number 3 was the worst but it only has staining. You can see from the head that number three had a lot of rust. Heading out to meet a friend with access to valve grinding equipment. going to regrind the valves and see if all of them are able to be reused. Will also borrow the equipment to clean up the valve seats in the block. Have a couple of pics below.
  16. It's amazing how industrious the little monsters can be. My high school car was a 1968 Rambler American. It was my first project car and I worked a lot of late nights on it to get it running so I could avoid the school bus. One winter I got the bright idea of throwing a couple of 50 pound sacks of horse grain into the trunk for weight. I got pulled over mid winter for having no tail lights. When I opened the trunk the feed bags were empty and all of the insulation on the wiring to the rear of my car was chewed off. I ended up having to re-wire the whole car. I found all the grain when I pulled the rear seat. They had moved it all from the trunk into the rear seat and pulled all of the padding out of the seat at the same time. Terrible mess and a good lesson.
  17. Started digging in to my car this week. Pulled the hood and fenders off. Pulled the radiator shroud and straightened out the worst of the dents. Straightened cooling fins on the radiator. Found mouse nests packed into the top radiator tank and pulled them out. I have had a couple of stuck valves since I got it and never took the time to see what was going on. Now have three stuck valves so I pulled the head and found more mouse nests in the water neck and above the valves. Valves were really rusty but pistons and cylinders look amazingly good. Valves were packed with pink fiberglass insulation. Pulled the exhaust and intake manifold and found more mouse nests. Once all of the insulation was cleaned out and everything was soaked in PB blaster and deep creep all of the valves are moving. I will still need new valves but at least everything is free. Only one casualty. I broke the spark advance arm off my distributer. Hopefully I can repair it but if not I will have to find a new one. It's a nice hurdle to have crossed, I have been putting off pulling the head for a long time. It wasn't that bad. The center most head bolt was really rusty and was keeping it stuck down. I had the whole head up 1/4" to a 1/2" and it was still stuck in the middle, made me think there was something about the distributer hole that I had to free up but it was just that one stud. When I looked under the head through the 1/4" gap I could see that bolt was still dry with rust when all of the others had penetrating oil soaking them. I sprayed deep creep under the head onto that bolt and let the head settle back down. Did that a few times and then it came right up. Amazing that one head bolt could hold the whole thing in place.
  18. Thank you for the response. After zooming in I could see the fill cap. Nice way to run the engine for a short time while working on it until you get your fuel system fixed. Thank you.
  19. I've had my car for 10 years now and have not gotten much done on it. Kids, house, work, illness - basically life seems to get in the way. However, I have diligently watched for parts on ebay, craigslist, and this forum. I have collected lots of bits and pieces for the car but have never seen anything for the wire wheels come up. I did purchase a full set of wood wheels to get the outer rims and hardware for mounting them. The rims worked out great and I was able to pass the wood wheels on to someone else as a spare set. I have also searched for pictures of wire wheeled cars like mine. I have found pics of a few (6-8) DB's with wire wheels. Of those only 2-3 have the same type as mine. Two were identified as 1927 sports roadsters which I think my car was (1927 model 124 sports roadster). My cars frame serial number is A-931-xxx which would put it somewhere between June-July of 1927. The person I learned the most from was DWollam on this forum. He helped me identify what my car is, confirmed that the wood wheel rims would work on the wire wheels, and explained that there are two types of wire wheels both of which had six lug bolts. Fun to have something rare but a pain when you can't find parts.
  20. The picture below is one I found on the internet. It has the same wheels that I have. It's how the car was assembled. Originally a nickel plated ring would be in place of the six locking tabs that lock the rim to the wheel. The outer rim is removable like on a wood wheel. I replaced my rotten outer rims with ones I took from a set of 21" wood spoke wheels. When you change the tire the wire wheel stays on the car. To take the wire wheel off you have to pull the hub to get to the lug nuts in the rear, you can access the back of the hub in front.
  21. The bolt is 1/2"-20 TPI. About 1 3/8" total length with 3/4" threaded. "Keys" are 3/16" wide and 3/8" long. Head is 15/16" wide at widest point. Nut is 3/4" . The dome is what shows externally, the keys go through the wheel and slot into keyways in the hub. Nut goes behind the hub in front and behind the brake drum(which is behind the hub) in rear. Each wheel takes six. I have enough for one axle. Any help would be appreciated.
  22. I apologize. Didn't mean to offend or get the thread off topic. i just liked the ingenuity that I saw in the photo and wanted to know more. Thank you.
  23. I got my wheels mounted inside the rims. It was kind of a pain to get everything balanced and tight. I have to imagine that it would be much worse with the wheel on the car. Trying to come up with enough lug bolts to mount them on the car. I need to roll it to where I can degrease the engine and drop the oil pan. I put separate post up about the lug bolts and have reached out to a few places to try to find the bolts or a substitute. I may have to check out what it would cost to get some machined/made. Getting the wheels mounted has freed up some space in the garage and looking at them is getting me motivated.
  24. Hi Matt, Is that two bows on either side of a steel form? I'm looking forward to watching your top as it progresses. Thanks
  25. Stakeside, Can you tell me about the top on your vacuum tank? Is that a homemade cover? The top of mine is cracked into pieces some of which are missing. I would like to know about yours and how you made it if possible. Thanks
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