SeventhSon

Recently I was asked if I had re-named my Avanti. I began to think about some possible names, so far here's what I have: 1. Queen of Spades (Queen for short): I've mentioned this a couple of times on this blog. Thirty years ago I played a lot of the card game "Hearts" with my drinking buddies. For the life of me I couldn't tell you today how Hearts is played (probably has something to do with the drinking part), but I do remember that the Queen of Spades was known as the B***h. So, since I'm using that word quite a bit these days I thought I should somehow memorialize it. 2. BOAT: On the TV show "Pawn Stars" the pawn shop owner, Rick Harrison, hates to buy boats. Why? Because they're money hogs. Every time Rick even considers buying a boat he takes the boat to his "boat guy", a guy who knows boats and can advise Rick on whether he should buy the boat. And this "boat guy" always says, "You know what BOAT stands for? Bust Out Another Thousand!" So, that's why I'm thinking of calling my Avanti BOAT. 3. The Silver Streak: If I ever get to paint this ride Avanti Gray, and it has that sort of silver gray look to it, I might start calling her The Silver Streak (for obvious reasons). 4. The Gray Ghost: Once again, if I get her painted Avanti Gray, I may give a nod to one of our local marauders from the Civil War, Col. John Singleton Mosby, known by his moniker "The Gray Ghost".

This afternoon I went ahead and removed the head. Last night I cracked most of the bolts loose and got ready to pull the head. Today, after taking it easy for the first part of the day and restoring my motivation I finished removing the head. In a couple of the pictures you can see the bolts are numbered - I like to put everything back where it came from, including (especially) the push rods. The only slight surprise was finding where I had hit one of the head bolts when drilling the broken off bolt. I just put a tiny divot in it - I don't think it compromised the integrity of it, but if I could find another I would replace it. I was more startled that I may have broken through the head wall into the bolt channel. After examining the head when I pulled it I found that some of the exhaust manifold bolt holes extend right into the head bolt channels. I was relieved to find out that I hadn't broken through into a bolt channel. I still hope it can be fixed - I think a good machine shop shouldn't have a problem with it. We'll see.... I examined the cylinder walls and, once again, I'm pleasantly surprised. The cylinder walls are very smooth, and the best thing, there is virtually no ridge. I was very surprised. I think this engine must only have the 68,000 miles showing on the odometer, or someone has done some work on it. I'll probably never know, but I like what see, just like I liked what I heard last November when I ran it briefly. I think it's a good motor. I was going to just ask the machine shop folks about fixing the problem area where the exhaust manifold bolt hole is messed up (by me) and extracting the other broken off bolt. Now I think I will ask them about doing that and also grinding the valves and replacing the valve seals. Since they'll have it in the shop - shouldn't cost too terribly much more....maybe? When I got the car there were several gaskets and such in the back seat. In an envelope I found a set of valve seals - I'll take those along to the shop since I'm not sure if those seals are readily available. Speaking of gaskets, in the back seat there was also a set of head gaskets. However, the are quite a bit thicker than the gasket that came off the engine. Does anybody know why the new head gaskets would be thicker? Would it affect the compression ratio to any extent? I'll probably get a new set, if I can find them, I just wondered if I could use the one that is a bit thicker than original.

Thanks backyard mechanic, I thought of that during one of my middle of the night "think sessions". I still have the old manifolds, I'll take the right one with me - I hope this procedure isn't going to cost too much. Thanks John, hopefully it'll be a quick turnaround and I can get back moving forward. Avanti!

Well, I spent the day spinning my wheels trying to get the frozen exhaust manifold bolts out of the head. It's a tight spot, hard to get any tools in there to work. I finally decided to surrender and pull the head - should have done that 2 weeks ago but I just didn't want to feel like I was going backward again. But, as with a lot of things, sometimes you have to go backward before you can go forward. I'll be glad to get the head off and to a machine shop so they can extract the bolts. They'll probably have to put a helicoil in one, after they drill out the bolt extractor I broke off in it. Sorry, no pictures, I wasn't in the mood. Tomorrow, after I remove the head...

Norm, I'll check it out. I think that oil line will be long enough - in the side by side photo I posted it looks longer than the old one. Of course, the old one has shrunk with age, as is the case with all things!

Neil Young said it best John, "Rust Never Sleeps". Jeez, you just had them plated! Hmmm...where did you get those kick panels?

Made a couple of more small steps tonight, inching closer to the goal line. I moved to the left side of the engine compartment to install the exhaust manifold and change the plugs. I took a stainless steel bolt from the dozen or so I bought a few weeks ago and used it as a thread chaser. I just put a little machine oil on the bolt and hand tightened it in each bolt hole, working it back and forth until the bolt easily went in. I would remove the bolt during the process and wipe the threads clean, put a few more drops of oil on and continue the process. It made for an easier install when I put the exhaust manifold on - not too bad of an install. Then I moved to the spark plugs, bracing myself for another fight for the threads to release. I was pleasantly surprised when each plug came right out, they were basically near loose. Yay! I figure the folks who got the car running in Texas probably removed them at some point and gently re-installed them. I then got my Champion plugs, gapped them at 0.034, and in they went. Progress, I'll take it.

Well, I didn't break anything. I think. I removed the voltage regulator, which I'm going to put with the alternator and send to Dave Thibeault for a rebuild. Rebuild on the alternator and convert the voltage regulator to a solid state unit. I cleaned up around the lifter valley cover, poured a little STP over the lifters, and put the re-chromed cover on. Looks nice! They did as good a job as could be expected on that chrome - the rust had attacked it pretty bad (imagine that, on this car). I removed the old, crusty rubber oil pressure line and replaced it with a nice new one. Another step done. A few steps at a time, like they say, slow and steady wins the race. I'll take that!

Good idea John F., I hadn't even thought of that really. The water will give it a good clean out from all my rooting around in the block, along with the heater core gunk. Plus, I can check for leaks before I put anti-freeze in. Thanks! John B., thanks for the encouragement - I need it! I haven't reached the point of hiding the household hammers yet, but I'm close. I just need to keep my mind on what you said, fun to drive and get lots of looks! By the way, at the York meet I saw those plastic headlight covers you mentioned a while back. Dave Thibeault had them on his table - $69 apiece. I told his wife, "Now I know where to get 'em!"

Thanks for the advice - of course, the radiator hose might as well be the "Queen of Spades" too, just like everything else has been on the #$/*&% car! There. I feel better now.

P.S. I just stuck the expansion tank on temporarily, with the mounting bolts finger tight. When I get the radiator and bottom hose installed I will take the tank off and the new thermostat out and fill the block with 50/50 coolant mix, then install the thermostat and tank.

Well, tonight was a night to go backward, before I can go forward. I went ahead and flipped the water pump so that the weep hole was facing down, and in the process I cracked the mounting flange. My bad - I'm beginning to wonder about my ability to think things through, I've made a few mistakes on this car that I don't think I would have made in my younger days. Maybe I'm getting too old? Trying to do too much, too fast? Dunno, all I can do is slow down and think things through. It's not "the end of the world", just aggravating. Of course, anyone who works on cars knows how these things happen, ya just gotta roll with the punches! So, JB Weld is on the crack, which is right at a mounting hole. I'm hoping everything holds and there are no leaks - I hope. Another thing I did was "back up" on the fuel return line that I installed a few weeks ago. After installing that I began to think more about it and I realized the line wasn't big enough. It was even smaller than the factory line. Again, my bad. So, I picked up the correct size tonight and installed it in place of the earlier line. Much better. Maybe now I can move forward and not make mistakes!

Wow! How about dropping by and cleaning up an Avanti I have, Richard. Great job on that manifold!

I'm sure you're right Paul - I looked at it, turned it both ways and decided that I remembered seeing one with the weep hole pointing up. That one was probably installed wrong too! Ah well, that's what you get when an amateur starts messing around with things. In a couple of years, when I have the engine rebuilt, I will turn it around (if it doesn't fail first!). Thanks for the comments Foggy norm, now that you mention it I do believe there is something to what you say. I will take a close look at the odometer and see how the numbers line up. My rear bumper is rough - on the left side (that confounded left side issue again) there are two holes rusted clean through. After I got back on Friday I was putting the new trunk release cable in and, since I had just seen a pristine bumper, I inspected mine. On the inner surface the chrome layer is actually peeling away. I grabbed the bumper in the middle and gave it a good pull and twist - it seemed to have way too much flex in it. I began to wish that I had seriously reached deep and bought the nice one I saw. Oh well....

This weekend I decided to tackle the water pump, front engine rust, water expansion tank with thermostat, fuel lines from the fuel pump, etc. Not too bad of a weekend - removed the expansion tank and cleaned it up, replaced the water pump, wire brushed a whole bunch of rust and treated the areas with Rust Reformer. I cleaned up the supercharger idler pulley assembly, rust treated it and re-installed it with new plastic bushings. I also replaced the negative battery cable and ordered the positive cable, along with a new stoplight switch. I painted the expansion tank with Rustoleum, have to wait for it to dry to re-install it. Same with the new water pump pulley. I hope to do that tomorrow night. I also pulled the alternator - as I was fooling around with it, cleaning rust off of it, I realized it wasn't going to hold on for long. When I spun the pulley it squeak, squeak, squeaked. Needs some attention - so I'm going to trade it in on a new one, along with the voltage regulator. I also fabricated a couple of new fuel lines, one running from the fuel pump to the carburetor, the other a return line from the supercharger. I need a bubble flare tool though - I'll have to look into one of those.

A few more pictures. Brian, my Avanti is showing over 68,000 miles on the odometer. Not sure if that's correct, if it's turned over, or what.

Thanks John, I'm going to make good use of the wire wheel method! I think everything will clean up pretty well too. Brian, thanks for the offer of the blast cabinet - I didn't know you had all those goodies over there. I'll have to come over and visit my big brother and see what stuff I can get into. I thought about the whole thing, pulling the water manifold, pulling the head, then you should go ahead and rebuild the head, and since you rebuilt the one head you might as well rebuild the other head. Then it leads on to other stuff - never ends. I'll wait for now to rebuild everything - I just want to see if I can get the thing running and driving. That would be a huge accomplishment! Thanks for the encouragement, I've been fighting discouragement lately and asking myself why I'm doing this. Well, I went to York today to see why I'm doing this, and was encouraged to see an Avanti that isn't in much better shape than mine (the red one below). And it's out there on the road! So there's hope for mine - that's encouraging. Actually, there were 3 Avantis there that were drivers, not fancy or restored, so that was good to see. Then there was the white one pictured below - very nice condition. Inside the exhibit building there was a sweet Lark - so nice. Immaculate. If I won the lottery I would have my Avanti restored, I would have that red Lark, and I would have a Super Hawk. Those would be the first three Studebakers in my 24 car garage! In the parts building there were the usual tonnage of parts for all types of Studebakers. There was a fair amount of Avanti parts, but no real deals as far as prices. I did see a very nice rear bumper for an Avanti - near perfect condition. I went back to that several times and had to stop myself from going in over my head and buying it. It was $750 - I would have paid that for it if the budget wasn't already stretched. Sorry, I didn't get a picture - just imagine an immaculate rear bumper for an Avanti. Ah well, maybe another one will come along some day.... I saw Dave Thibeault and got my exhaust system, pictured below. He was the most popular guy in the place - always someone asking him something or buying something from him. One gentleman asked him about installing the trunk release cable. Dave asked him if the old cable was still in place. No. Well, you'll have to take the gas tank out. I asked him about how to change it out if the old one was still in place. He said to tie baling wire to the old one, pull the old cable out, fix the baling wire to the new cable and pull it back through. As I was coming home tonight I decided that would be my Avanti work for tonight, and that's what I did. The new trunk release cable is in place. Not all hooked up yet, but in place.

Well, I'm glad Scott brought up the rusty pulleys. I went through the parts boxes and found the pulley I mentioned in the last post. Turns out it is the wrong pulley - not the one I thought it was. It is the water pump pulley, not the crankshaft pulley. Arrgghh - old age is setting in...I thought I had the bottom pulley, not the water pump pulley. So I thought, "No big deal, I'll just get the bottom pulley, maybe even tomorrow at the York meet." Wrong! The bottom pulley is $195! Too much at this point in the budget. I'll just have to clean it up as best I can - it'll be fine. And I can put the new water pump pulley on when I install the new water pump in a week or so. Also tonight, since I'm going to York, I checked out the king pins I got back in December. Before I had the king pin bushings installed in the spindles I checked the bushings on the king pins - they were a little loose. I thought, "Hmmm...probably because they are not pressed into the spindles." So I wanted to check the fit now that the bushings are in the spindles, and before I start re-installing the front end this month. They fit nice and snug, I'm happy to say. Not too snug, not too loose - just right. And finally, I fit together the fuel return line that runs from the fuel pump back to the tank to relieve back pressure from the supercharger. Turned out pretty nice I thought.

Scott - thanks for your comments. I have a new bottom pulley in the parts boxes that I got several weeks ago. I was concerned too that all that rust would chew up the belts. So, I'll be putting that on, the supercharger pulley has been through the blast cabinet when it was rebuilt, the fan pulley is not too bad, I'll wirebrush/sand that. That leaves the supercharger idler pulley that is all crusty - I've been looking for a new idler assembly but havn't found one yet. Maybe I can find one tomorrow at the York meet. Thanks for checking in - hope you're enjoying reading about this rescue operation!

Well, last night I pondered over the broken off exhaust bolt situation some more. I haven't yet psyched myself up yet to pull the head, so I decided to leave it for now. I decided to treat the bolts with Liquid Wrench and some tapping with a hammer 2 or 3 times a day. Hopefully I will be able to penetrate the rust freeze if I keep soaking and tapping a few times a day for the next 2 weeks. In short, I want to exhaust (pun intended) all options before pulling the head, which will be a last resort. After a couple of weeks of soaking and tapping and maybe some heat, I will take a chisel and try to break the bolts free by getting the chisel to "bite" into the bolt and trying to knock it loose. I have had success in the past using that method, just not with super frozen bolts. If I see any movement I will then utilize the method I mentioned previously, which is to weld a washer, then nut to the bolt and bringing it out that way. I'll just have to be patient and work on it for a while. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, work continues. Last night I just removed the nuts holding the right side spark plug wire harness on so I could replace the oil pressure sender flexible hose. Tonight I replaced the fuel pump and hooked up the rubber fuel line. I also attached a 2 foot rubber line which is the start of the fuel return line going back to the tank. Hopefully tomorrow night I will be able to fashion the return line using the metal line I got a few weeks ago. We'll see.

Just another small step tonight - I was able to find some bolts for the two broken ones on the front bumper brackets. I put them in - they're a little too long, I went a little long instead of too short. Ah well, they tightened up the bumper real nicely. After that I stared at the broken off exhaust manifold bolts for a few minutes. They didn't go anywhere. For the rest of eternity they will stay there until they turn to dust. Unless I get them out. I have said before - the right way is the hard way, or vice versa. The right way? Take the head off and let a machine shop drill the bolts out on a press. Simple.

Wow - nice, just nice! You've done a fine job "refreshing" this car John!

Today I continued to make progress. I decided to install the new stainless steel hydraulic brake lines, at least to the rear axle for now. I'm trying to take care of all the stuff that is easy to do since the front end is out of the car. That is sort of a double edge sword - I want the car mobile, that is with wheels and brakes all around, but man, it is so much easier to work on with no front end under it! No control arms, springs, shocks, tie rods, etc., etc. to get in the way. Just jump under there and get to work! Ah well, I think I'm going to be much happier driving the car around than laying underneath it. So, I removed the old brake lines to the rear axle and installed the new lines. But first I removed the junction block and cleaned it up, first with a small wire brush, then in a bowl of warm water, Dawn dishwashing soap, and a little TSP (trisodium phosphate) and a toothbrush. Cleaned up nice and soon was back on the car. The new lines went in pretty smoothly - as I said last night, it's so nice to install clean, rust-free stuff. Next car I do I'm going to take it down to nothing and put all new stuff back on! Tomorrow I guess I'll have to face the music - time to get the broken off exhaust manifold bolts out. Sigh....

Wow - 12 bucks delivered! Sounds like a deal to me! Everything's looking good John, can't wait to see the finished product!

Well, I returned the hoist this morning, swung by Fairfax Auto Parts and picked up a solenoid to starter wire I ordered yesterday, and hit Sears on the way home. I love when stuff goes well, things go so much better when you have the right tools, like that hoist. Tonight I finished tightening down the motor mounts, reinstalled the transmission mount nuts, installed a grease fitting in the new bell crank assembly, put that new starter wire on, and re-installed the starter. I'll hit that starter with some Rust Reformer soon. Feels good to be installing some new stuff instead of fighting and wrestling with the old crusty stuff that doesn't want to let go(even though there is plenty more of that to do yet). Also, since the radiator is out now, I was able to remove the front two bumper bracket bolts, one on each side, or what was left of them. For some reason they were sheared off. Did they rust through? Someone try to remove them and wring them off? Who knows. Tomorrow I'll get some replacement bolts and that should tighten that front bumper up nicely. Then I'll just need to get a bolt for the right side of the bumper, where it wraps around the fender - not sure how that attaches yet. Also, I did a little garage cleanup - I took the old parts that are scrap, along with some other odds and ends, and loaded them in the truck. Off to recycling and out of my way!