SeventhSon

Well, another Christmas has past and it's time to get back at it. I hope everyone had a nice holiday and received some nice NOS parts under the tree! I took a little break yesterday to enjoy the holiday and this morning I removed the supercharger and packaged it up for a rebuild. I removed the fluid first and it was more on the brown side of the color spectrum instead of a nice red hue. I wrapped it up in lots of bubble wrap (it almost looks like I'm sending off the Christmas ham!) and boxed her up. She's on her way now! Supposed to rain tomorrow so I think I will hold off until Wednesday to start on the fuel tank clean and seal. Can't wait to get that job done! I think I'm going to go ahead and put a new sender unit in. The original is close to 50 years old and I don't want to have to pull it back out next week or next year.

Have a great trip John and Alice! Merry Christmas and a super Happy New Year!

Great idea John! These are the tips one receives from those who have been doing it for awhile. I opened up the parts boxes and a bunch of fun jumped out! Or a bunch of work, depending on how you look at it. One step at a time, one step at a time....

Initial cleanup of the carburetor done, now time to get the little scrapers, Dremel tool, steel wool, etc. Whatever it takes to remove 50 years of crud and oxidation. But for now I'm going to go see what's in the parts boxes! I'll post some pics.

Thanks Paul - I'm glad to see the carburetor is original, as indicated by your list. All original, all old and in need of help. Kind of like me!

Sorry to hear about that super high estimate John. Maybe a small local shop could do the job - if you can find the right person. I don't know how many times I've said that in the last couple of months - "If I could find the right person"... Looks like I have a lot of thinking to do about my own paint job - mine is much rougher than yours. Maybe I'll take some classes in fiberglass prep and painting!

Thanks John - I will be continuing the cleanup of the unit today, may reassemble next week. In the meantime I'll be cleaning and sealing the tank, installing the new fuel pump, removing the supercharger, etc, etc. Fun, fun!

Dale, precisely the question I'm asking myself. What I could see of the inside of the tank looked kind of like aluminum. I'm not sure if they had any aluminum in those tanks but I was sure glad to see the almost new look to the metal. I might go ahead and seal it in case there are any problem spots that I can't see. And yes, John, I did dodge one on that. I was glad to see it, believe me. On the carb, there is a plate on the front but all the text is gone. There is a little tag as well that reads 3507S. Not sure if that means "sealed". I'll check out the manual.

Well, I decided to disassemble the carburetor and begin that process. Hoo boy, what have I done??!! Sure hope I can get that back together! I rebuilt a Rochester 4 barrel on my '58 Cadillac a lonnnngg time ago and it ran well. Let's hope for the same results this time. Yikes! I also decided to have a look inside the fuel tank and I was pleasantly surprised with what I found. The inside of the tank is the cleanest thing on that car! I have a feeling that there was a locking gas cap on the filler for the 20 some years that it sat and it was sealed up so no moisture got in. Why do I think this? Because that piece of metal that I mentioned in an earlier post knocking around inside the tank turned out to be the bottom half of a locking gas cap (last picture below). The tank is very clean inside, with the baffles intact. A pleasant surprise. Well, time to go home and do some more cleaning on her. Supercharger is coming off this weekend and going for a service/rebuild.

John - yes, that's an excellent picture and I have one to put next to it. A picture of my empty wallet! And Roger, I thought the $130 shipping I spent for those boxes was high! Good thing I'm in the continental U.S.!

Christmas came early! Lots of parts showed up in the last couple of days - now I have lots to keep me busy after the holiday crush winds down. Almost can't decide what to do first. I have to get that fuel tank squared away, rebuild the carb, install the fuel pump, change out the radiator hoses, replace the plugs, wires, points, rotor, cap, etc., etc., etc. Then I have to completely tear down the front end and rebuild it! Ah, what fun... Before I do much more, and since Christmas is upon us, I will spend a few days cleaning the old girl up, getting as much old grime and grease off her as I can so she smells and looks as well as can be expected. A couple of pictures of the parts boxes - haven't even had time to break them open, but I'll share pics when I do! Spongebob approves.....

John, I got to thinking about it and I figured that since I had so much trouble getting all the gas out of the tank then maybe that means the baffles are still intact. Or maybe that's wishful thinking! I did hear a metal object knocking around inside the tank when I was shaking it around to get the gas out. I think that may be the sender unit arm. I'll find out in the next couple of days!

Well. That was fun. Jeez, does the tank ever get empty??!! I drained it from the in-line drain plug on the fuel line. Then I siphoned from the tank itself. That was on 2 separate days. Then today, I cut the rubber line at the fuel pump and gas started pouring out. So I drained that into a container until it stopped. Then I cut the rubber line where it leaves the bottom of the tank. Nothing much came out. So I proceeded with the removal of the tank. Did I mention how much fun that was? Then, as I was removing the tank more gas came out into the interior of the car. I put the tank in the back of a pickup truck to carry to a work area. At the work area I was pouring more gas out of the tank into a can. I think it's empty now. Maybe.

I worked some more on getting the fuel tank out tonight. I drilled out the final screw holding the access panel and removed it. Pretty much what I had expected to find, some surface rust on the tank, petrified vent hoses, and a filler hose dry rotted and cracked. I have a new filler hose on the way, I'll be glad to get that replaced. But first, the tank must come out for a cleaning and sealing (I have that kit on the way also). No telling what kind of damage I'll find inside, I'm hoping, hoping that it's not too bad. I'll find out soon enough! Probably won't get to do anything on the car tomorrow, as I am having a work Christmas thing, expected to take most of the day. I'll just hit it all the harder the next day!

Thanks Stude8, it's always great to have the wealth of knowledge from the guys who have already done one (or three!). The driver's side hog trough is rusted through on mine, the other seems OK. There is a couple of "how to" articles that I have found showing the repairs undertaken on these. On mine I am going to try to fix it without removal of the body, as I don't want to undertake a body removal at this time. Maybe in a few years...

Kind of a light day on the Avanti today. Went to see my mother at the assisted living place and give her a gigantic box of candy for Christmas. I told her not to eat too much of it at one time. Right! She used to drive a '63 Studebaker Hawk. She loved that car. When I was 10 or 11 I went with my father and mother and a couple of siblings to look at the car when it was for sale. A body shop man owned it. It was flat black primer and was usually parked out on the street. A passing car got a little too close and hooked the rear fender well, ripping a 4 inch wide piece outward from the fender well. My father looked the car over and told the owner, "Fix that tear in the fender well and paint it and I'll give you 900 dollars for it. The owner said, "Come back in a week." We went back in a week and the car was a beautiful dark Turquoise. The tear in the fender well was magically fixed, like it had never happened. Driving it home that first night on the Beltway (there's the Beltway again) we heard a "toot, toot". We looked and saw an Avanti flying by (they always fly by), resplendent in her multi-tone primer paint. Another Studebaker lover! This was in 1971. I got to work on the Avanti some, removing the multiple screws hold the access panel to the fuel tank area. I wrung one off, have to drill one out, the rest came out ok. I placed three orders for parts this week with Studebaker International for a grand total of: A LOT! More fun to come.....

Checked the mail last night and there was the new fuel pump from Studebaker International! Also, a letter from the dental insurance saying they would pay for my last visit, which is just about equal to what I paid for the fuel pump. So, I'm "even" on that deal! Love it when that happens!

Wow! That race car is a monster! Too cool - can't wait to hear what the paint job for your Avanti will entail.

December 15, 1944. 67 years ago today: An invasion force is on the move, bringing men and materiel to invade the Japanese held island of Mindoro in the Philippines. Mindoro was wanted by American forces as a staging area for the re-taking of the Philippines. My father, a member of the Army Air Corps, was on the LST-738, a navy ship slightly longer than an NFL football field, designed to carry heavy armament and other war materiel. The invasion force came under attack by Japanese planes not far from their objective. As the attacks from the Japanese intensified the commander ordered all men below deck. My father thought, "The hell with that, we're carrying airplane fuel!" He stayed above deck. Japanese planes were attacking other ships in the invasion fleet. Most of the planes were taken care of by anti-aircraft fire from the ships. One plane, sputtering, made its way toward LST-738. The crew laid fire at it in a blistering attempt to "splash" her before she reached the ship. To no avail. My father watched the plane approach, the pilot obviously having trouble controlling it due to damage from so much fire laid upon it. My father thought the plane was too high and would fly right over the deck, but at the last moment the plane dropped and struck the ship just under the edge of the deck, flipped over and exploded on the deck. The explosion was white hot, my father went over the edge, either blown over by the force of the explosion or jumping over to get away from the fire. He was in the water, unable to swim, flailing about, temporarily blinded. He grabbed hold of something and held on. Finally, a sailor in a lifeboat drew alongside him and pulled him into the little boat. He was saved, but still couldn't see, and wouldn't be able to for another 2 weeks. Official accounts stated that the plane "drove" down into the ship and exploded. That contradicted what my father said, that the plane exploded on the deck. I found a book, "Attack & Conquer, The 8th Fighter Group In World War II", by John C. Stanaway and Lawrence J. Hickey that describes the events of the day. It quotes a young man, a Private in the Army, who was watching from a different vantage point on the deck of LST-738. He described the plane as a torpedo plane and said the the plane dropped its torpedo just before hitting the ship. That would explain the huge explosions and damage that caused the ship to be lost. In a few months the war would effectively be over and my father was on his way home.

Going a little off topic this morning to talk about my father. However, since he introduced all his sons to Studebakers I guess it's not too far off topic. Once, when I was a little kid, I was watching my father clean out his wallet, getting rid of all those little slips of paper and receipts that collect and end up being useless. I spied a tiny black and white picture. "What's this?", I asked. "Oh, that's a ship I was on in the war that was hit by a kamikaze." The picture showed a large ship with billowing smoke rising from it. "Wow, you were on that?" "Yeah, I was in the water at that point trying to keep from drowning." My father went on to recount how the Japanese plane had been shot down and the pilot aimed his plane at the ship he was on in a kamikaze style attack. Over the years I would think about that picture from time to time and wish I knew more about the details of the attack. As the internet became available I searched for Navy ships sunk during the war, there were multitudes of them. I asked my brother Brian, who had worked with my Dad for years, if he had any details. All he could tell me was that it was that the ship was a "Landing Ship Tank" or LST in Navy parlance. That narrowed it down and I was able to come up with 4 or 5 possible ships that it could have been. But without more information I could go no further. A few years passed and I was looking through a bag of old pictures my mother had told me to take from her house. I found the little black and white picture my father had carried in his wallet all those years! Excitedly I ran for a magnifying glass. There was a number visible on the ship! I got my old list from the search years before and there it was: 738. I googled it, and found out the story. Coming up: Part 2.

I came home at lunch today to pull the carb for rebuilding. Things went well enough, and as I was working on it and after I pulled the carb I could see where the gas smell was coming from. The base and inside of the intake manifold was wet with gas. In the pictures you can clearly see the gas inside the manifold (I had already wiped the carb mounting base off). All vacuum lines to the carb were, of course, hard and rotten, a couple broke right off. Since the carb removal went smoothly I decided to push my luck and remove the gas from the tank. I placed an oil drain pan under the drain plug in the fuel line under the driver's door and removed the plug. The gas began draining into the pan and it soon became apparent that this fresh, premium fuel was going to provide very potent vapors. So, after a gallon or more drained out I replaced the drain plug and poured the gas in a gas can. By this point I was feeling about like the fellow we used to see who went by the moniker "High Test" and hung out behind the 7-11 huffing gas fumes. I decided that this was probably not the most sensible way to go about this part of the project and I vowed to complete the task a different way. I've been checking out Studebaker International's catalog and I have found options as far as the brake rebuild. I'll probably go with the major rebuild kit which will have all the calipers, rotors, pads, cylinders, shoes, flexible lines, etc. It'll be all new, all original. Didn't do anything on the car tonight, but did devise a way to remove the rest of the gas from the car. I'll splice into the fuel line somewhere near the fuel pump with a 10+ foot section of rubber fuel line and run this out of the garage to the driveway apron where I will use a suction bulb or gravity to drain the rest of the fuel into a can, outside of the garage.

Thanks foxhole, I took a quick look at those bushings the other day and, like everything else on the car, they're gonna have to be replaced! I'll contact you when I get further along if I don't already have a set. Thanks again!

While pushing the Avanti around yesterday we heard a skree, skree, skree coming from the left front as the car moved. So tonight I decided to see just what the front rotor looked like on that side since I hadn't had any of the wheels off the car yet. I jacked up the left front and before pulling the wheel I gave it a good shake up and down. Klunk, klunk went the king pin. Ah well, no real surprise there. I removed the wheel and the fun continued, the rotor being deeply pitted. Again, no surprise there. I have always said that I always want to know where I stand. Now I know! Good thing about it all is that most, if not all of the parts are available and it's just a matter of rebuilding everything. Yank off the old parts and replace with new, stopping to clean and rust treat as you go. Looks like fun! Gotta stick to a budget though - don't want this getting away from me. I foresee this being a three stage operation. First, a total refit of mechanical, with all systems replaced or rebuilt. Just about new everything. Then a breather to regain some financial footing (if not in the poorhouse at that point), then move on to the interior. Then a breather, then the body. After the mechanical I'll do like West says, "Drive it like you hate it" 'cuz I probably will! Haha - not really!

Hmmm...they look OK on my computer - about the size other pics I've seen on here are. I had several options, email, website, etc. I picked website. True, they were tiny files (like 50 kb) so I'll try different things and see what works best. Thanks for the input!

The Avanti move.... Re-sized the pics - success! Thanks, West!