Bloo

This is why we have rain-x.

If those doors are wood framed, the kick out at the bottom is what happens when the wood gets loose. Are they wood? There might be an adjuster inside... or not. Or, you might need to add something. If there is an adjustment, it probably amounts to a rod or strap diagonally across the door. Tighten to pull the lower corner in. The other misalignment could be all sorts of things. Loose hinge pins, loose screws, broken wood etc. letting the back of the door hang down lower than normal.

How sure are you that the engine will fit in the hole? I once had a 51 Statesman, and Statesman was just the new name in 50 for the 600. It had a cracked block, and in those pre-internet days finding a good block any closer than 2000 miles away in Kenosha (yes really) from someone in the club was impossible. I looked at every possibility. The 600 engine family did indeed stay in production until 1965, eventually becoming the Rambler 196 in both flathead and OHV versions. The 600 block is EXTREMELY short. All common v8 and 6 cylinder engines were way too long. Ambassadors for instance had something like 8 or 9 inches more engine compartment length compared to a 600 or Statesman! The 600 engine has the water pump on the side of the block behind the generator. In 1955, Nash moved that to the front. It makes the engine too long to fit. I do understand that 1948 is a completely different body than 1949-1951. I still have my doubts that the engine fits in the hole. I suggest re-measuring. Advance Adapters makes a bunch of oddball pilot bearings, including some extended ones. Maybe they would have something useful.

Blocks over the winter are a good idea no matter what the tires are. You would probably damage a tire if one went flat. They aren't inexpensive. That said, my radials sat on the ground over the last 2 winters, 3 months each, with no issues.

Like something right out of the cartoons. What vacuum tank? The one that pumps fuel? If so the vacuum wipers would be unrelated to that, outside of the fact that both need vacuum. Is there a storage tank for vacuum? Some people have tried that, and I think Ford even offered it as an accessory at some point, but there was some downside and it never caught on. Later on there were vacuum pumps combined with a mechanical fuel pump on the engine. That made things a little better, but probably didn't exist yet in 1928. Most electric conversion motors are 12v. They are also bigger and tend to stick out in the wrong places. On some cars they mean you couldn't have some other bulky accessory (like maybe a radio or a heater). 6v electric wipers did exist. Today you would most likely have to adapt something from another car to get 6v. My dad's International L-160 truck had 6v electric wipers. As I recall, the motor was gigantic though, and it blew fuses a lot, so maybe that's not much help. I'm with Mark. Vacuum wipers are part of the character of the car. I won't be converting. When thinking of performance though, keep in mind that a year or two earlier you would have been moving the blade back and forth with a lever, and a year or two before that you would have been getting out every few feet and wiping by hand.

Comments that follow are for cars with a conventional distributor, points or electronic. It is possible to use a standard oscilloscope. It sure wouldn't be my first choice. I think I did it once. The possibility of blowing out the input circuits of the scope with some unexpected voltage spike would weigh on my mind. Well, unless the scope was old enough to be all vacuum tube based in the input circuits. In that case spikes wouldn't be such a big deal, but you would still need to be sure you were not feeding the input circuits too much voltage. You will have to make some adapters. The basic plan to get a secondary parade pattern (the one most used) is to use capacitive coupling on the coil wire fed to the vertical amplifier. An inductive pickup like the one used on timing lights will work for triggering. clip it on spark plug wire #1, and feed it to the scope for an external trigger signal. Set the timebase on the scope to spread the pattern on the screen appropriately. The primary pattern would come from the tach connection (points wire) fed to the vertical amplifier. Triggering could still come from the inductive pickup on the #1 plug wire. In either case, to look at one cylinder individually, put the inductive pickup on the cylinder in question, and turn up the sweep speed on the scope's timebase until you have only the pattern for one cylinder. A scope with delayed sweep would be nice here. Textronix usually has it, many others would too. If you don't have it, and the scope is triggering too late in the pattern for your liking, put the inductive pickup on one cylinder early. For instance if the firing order is 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 and you want to look at #4, put the inductive pickup for triggering on 8. Then spread the pattern out to look at the second cylinder in the pattern (which will be #4).

Thank you everyone for the responses! I spoke with one local shop yesterday who did not have the right equipment to make these parts efficiently. Today I am going to talk with another shop who might. One more thing, I don't know if anyone saw it but these three holes are heavily countersunk. I am imagining that is a separate machine shop (or drill press) operation. Any thoughts on that?

Glad you got it fixed!

This^^. In fact, when 180 out you will hear the popping (or more likely poofing when it does not quite make a backfire) alternating between the intake and exhaust as you crank. It is kind of subtle, and few people hear an engine with the timing 180 out often enough to realize what they are listening to. On the other hand, once you hear an an engine doing that, and realize what it is, it gets almost impossible to miss from that point on. Puh---pooh---puh---pooh---puh---pooh---puh---pooh---puh---pooh---puh---pooh---puh---pooh---

It's not a rumor. Most silicone caulk or uncured gasket material contains acid. If your reflectors are silver plated, outgassing from whatever you use could be a real problem and tarnish or damage is likely. I don't know what material was used on an FH President as exported to Australia, but many American cars of the period use a rectangular section piece of cork similar to the Ford A parts @Dandy Dave posted. As I understand it, this should be pure cork, not cork suspended in rubber as often found in gasket material, due to the outgassing of the rubber. I got my material for the 36 Pontiac several years ago from https://www.stevesautorestorations.com/ in Oregon. I don't recall if it was interchangeable with the Ford A material.

I did consider making one by hand. I also have one that is better than what I posted, but not that much better. I have noticed most rebuilt pumps seem to be missing this part. Were you able to find specs for the impeller clearances on your Graham pump or did you have to wing it?

Have any among us had steel (or stainless steel) plate water jet cut or laser cut? Practical for a onesy twosy part? Too expensive? Here is the part in question. I guess this is about 3/16" original thickness, but I'll measure it when I get a chance.

There is no rule of thumb other than the one laid out by @Piaras. Limits are 1). Pinging (less likely on today's fuel as the octane is much higher). 2). Hard starting, chugging, slow cranking, caused by the engine "kicking back" at the starter at cranking speed. Don't let this persist. It can break things. 3). Roughness due to over-advance either at cruise (vacuum advance all in plus some centrifugal) or under full power (only centrifugal advance). 4). Idle speed too fast for good shifting due to too much static advance. Once one of these 4 stops you, that is as optimum as it gets without changing the advance curve (vacuum and/or centrifugal). On modern fuel, most 1930s cars will tolerate, and indeed respond positively to a little more advance. My 1936 Pontiac wanted less though. I shortened both the centrifugal and vacuum curves. That is definitely not typical. Before getting too interested in what the initial timing setting should be, I would start by verifying that the centrifugal and vacuum advance are meeting Chrysler's specs.

I was in an aircraft shop just the other day asking about magnetic particle testing. This particular outfit has dye testing but no magnetic. Nor surprising considering so many aircraft parts are non-ferrous. He said magnetic particles can detect smaller cracks than dye, but of course only in ferrous metals. What sort of a shop keeps magnetic particle testing equipment these days? Where should one go and ask?

Napa is like that now too. It isn't the kid's fault. The gray haired guys are stuck with it as well. It is the same software you deal with when you look it up yourself online. The paper books are long gone. There is one older guy here at NAPA that has it all in his head. When he retires things are going to get difficult fast. At Oreilly here, there is one older guy and a couple of kids who can find almost anything but it is in spite of the system rather than because of it. If you can identify what you need, it is generally overnight here for NAPA, Oreilly, or Autozone, even though it probably isn't in stock in the store. That part has improved dramatically in recent years.

It's only done for the hottest hits....

I was talking to an aircraft mechanic about that 2 days ago. His comment was that magnetic detection can find a smaller crack than dye can, but of course it only works on ferrous metals. Dye will work on either. I will be interested to see what responses you get to this. I have a steel part I would like to have checked.

Terry what sort of trouble are you having with the cone clutch? When you described it as "smooth" I almost commented "there must be something wrong with it", but I would have been kidding. Cone clutches are famous for being so grabby they are almost impossible to drive, and the one in my 1913 Studebaker lives up to the reputation. It gets regularly treated with neatsfoot oil. That makes it almost driveable. The lubricant in the Studebaker's sliding gear transmission is some godawful glop that approximates a type reputedly used in the brass era (1500 weight?). It was mixed up in the late 70s from some recipe published in the HCCA gazette. Due to the drag of that lubricant (I think) you almost cant shift fast enough. By shifting fast enough, I do not refer to engine speed and shifting early as @edinmass was (he is right), but getting from one gear to the next, as in @DonMicheletti's post. Back in the 70s before the heavy glop, the Studebaker had SAE90 in it and since reading your post I am trying to remember if the shift timing was drastically different but I think it was. The SAE90 leaked out very quickly as the Studebaker's transmission apparently has no seals, and in any event was not intended for oil that light. Downshifting would probably be easier with lighter oil, I think. Maybe one of these days I will test that. I believe you mentioned a clutch brake. I was under the impression that those exist to help a driver deal with the drag of a multiple-disc wet clutch. You really need it in that case. How do you use that with a cone clutch?

If the shift timing is that different, you probably have heavier oil in the transmission than you did then.

That whooshed right over my head. I saw brass and nothing else LOL. I completely missed that they are electric. I have a car with acetylene too, and I know better. Good catch ID-ing the lights as Cadillac. I see what appears to be an impulse mag under the hood, and no other electrical stuff. I feel sure the lights should be acetylene just like you remember seeing.

I can't imagine with the pin being grooved like that what would keep the oil in. There must be more to the story.

It is news to me that they went bankrupt. Do you know when that happened? As I recall they went through an endless string of corporate mergers and acquisitions after shutting down the last auto production line (in Hamilton, Ontario) during the 1966 model year. I do recall reading in the newspaper when they ceased to exist altogether around 1996 (that's not a typo).

Keep driving. The more the better.

Are they Cadillac headlights? What did it have before? I was a bit surprised by the fancy lenses, but there is nothing unusual about acetylene headlights on trucks as late as 1918, or maybe even 1920, even though they were gone from passenger cars by 1913 or so. Trucks often still had a crank, a magneto, and no electrical system.

Both! It just depends when. The column of colored fluid running from the tank to a sight on the dash was one of their creations. The thermal bimetal gauges used in Fords and Mopars from the 50s(?) through the 80s (or maybe beyond) are another. Those can be recognized by the presence of a little thermal relay that turns the power on and off constantly to limit current. In-between those 2 systems was yet another thermal bimetal system that had the little off-on-off-on relay integrated into the fuel sender somehow.