Bloo

I've seen this on other cars. My guess is it was based on weight, with the car loaded to it's absolute maximum capacity, and of course bias ply tires. It was probably as soft and squishy as they thought they could get away with. The roads were awful. 23 pounds would feel flat to me even on bias ply tires. It would be begging for trouble on radials.

That depends on whether your rims leak. It is true that Diamondback radials can be run tubeless if the rims will support it. The tires will run cooler and you are less likely to have a sudden flat. I am running tubeless radials (another brand) on a 36 Pontiac for a little over a year now, no problems. I did check for leaks before putting them on the car, and then watched them like a hawk for the first month or two, to be certain the rivets would not leak. They don't. I have one Diamondback Auburn, but it is my spare, so I can't really say much about it other than it looks and feels like a high quality product.

I am pretty sure that is the Ford-O-Matic, the later 2 speed type that had an aluminum case. I can't think of anything else it could be.

What kind of a transmission is this? On the Borg Warner cast iron transmissions Rambler typically used, I don't recall any adjustment for case distance. Doesn't this just screw in and bottom out? The modulator usually has an adjustment screw that can be reached through the hose connection that adjusts the spring tension. The most obvious effect of adjustment is how early or late it shifts, and there are probably default settings in the shop manual. Shimming the modulator might have a similar effect? Or not? Somehow I don't think it's the right way. You need to suck on one of those to tell if it is any good, not blow. A mityvac or similar pump works well. It should hold vacuum. If you could blow through one, it is definitely bad, but don't use compressed air, that could easily blow the diaphragm out. It is usually obvious when they are bad because the vacuum line is full of transmission fluid. It wouldn't hurt to flush the line out if you see fluid in it when you replace a modulator.

Lots of unprintable things. But seriously if we were talking about 1954, it was a Borg Warner type, possibly built by Ford that had 3 speeds but only used two in normal operation. They called it Ford-O-Matic. A few years later they enabled 3 speed shifting optionally and called it Cruise-O-Matic. Sometime after Cruise-O-Matic was around, they had an unrelated aluminum case 2-speed, probably a Ford design(?) that they called Ford-O-Matic. A little while after that, they were calling the C4 and the C6 Cruise-O-Matic, but only the versions that had the optional 2-speed or 3-speed shifting.

If it's Champion J-11, then we have come full circle and will be talking about whether the bases are plated. In 1933 I'm guessing no, but I am no authority.

OK, wild speculation time because it is hard to troubleshoot through a screen. Feel free to be skeptical if you like, but keep in mind that fixing stuff like this was how I made my living for quite a while. I have compression tested and leakdown tested an awful lot of cars. You are correct that open valves should hiss through the intake or exhaust. RIngs ALWAYS hiss, even in new engines. Worn out ones hiss more. The amount that some of those came up wet DOES suggest shot rings, but you should not default to believing that. Why? Two reasons. First, since the car has been sitting long enough to have bad gas, it might also have stuck rings. That might sort itself out if you were driving the car. Secondly, if you have been trying to start it, the rings are both cold and washed down with fuel. They are at their absolute worst right now. It is easy to miss the forest when you are looking at the trees. A couple of things that stand out to me, I have NEVER seen a compression test come out like yours from just rings. I doubt that 10 and 25 are even physically possible without valve involvement, maybe if there were big holes in the pistons that could do it. A lot of the others readings are highly questionable. That doesn't mean they tested it wrong. It means the rings are not the whole story. The other thing is bad rings wont make the car not run. They might make you buy a lot of motor oil, but at least you can drive to the store to get it, and you do have a big trunk. You were just driving it. Rings are not the answer. I think @trimacar nailed it in post #4, and it has a bunch of stuck valves and bent pushrods. I also think the timing chain is jumped. If it were mine, I would pull the valve covers and look. I would then proceed to verify the valve timing. If it is jumped, you know you have to also do a timing chain. I could be all wet of course, but it is time to pull the valve covers and look.

This one ticked all the boxes for being a scam.

I hope so. I cringe every time I see a newly scammed person post that they have tracked down the scammer's name and address, because it is undoubtedly chosen at random and stolen by the scammer, or just made up. The most likely scenario is that whoever lives at that address is an innocent person who has no idea that any scam has happened until the phone calls and hate mail start coming.

Except that it isn't new. Nearly every carbureted or throttle body injected car has has manifold heat for over 50 years, more like 90. I want to bang my head against the table every time I hear someone say a heat riser is for "cold weather" or "carburetor icing". No it isn't. No doubt it helps with those things, but the real reason is because the gas falls out of the air the first time it has to turn a corner. Then more fuel (more choke) is needed to keep the mixture rich enough for the engine to run, and the liquid fuel runs into whatever cylinders are downhill, washing the rings off, shortening engine life, and diluting the oil. Manifold heat also helps even out the fuel distribution between cylinders. The fuel distribution will never be perfect on a long manifold, but the heat helps immensely. The overall mixture can be leaner if it does not have to be artificially rich to keep the end cylinders from going lean all the time. This results in better driveability, better fuel economy, and reduced plug fouling. These things were all well known in the 20s if not earlier. By the late 30s, engineers were getting pretty good at implementing what they knew needed to happen.

One thing that needs to be understood is that there is no "tracking down" to do in cases like this. Do not make the mistake of believing that "Charlie Duncan" or any of these people that try to scam you are real people. They are not. It is all smoke and mirrors. "Charlie Duncan" will be back tomorrow afternoon or earlier as "Bobby Smith" or "Rudy Jones" or whatever. Any real world address you manage to track down will at best unuseful, and more likely a stolen identity. Everything about it is fake. Our moderators here are really fast to track down and delete this stuff compared to some other sites, but they have to notice it or someone has to report it (note the "report post" button at the bottom of every posting here). The sooner a scam post gets reported the better. The scammers will try to take the conversation off of this site immediately to avoid being noticed. They will want you to contact them or "someone they know who has the parts you need" via some other method, usually email. Maybe phone or text. One thing to keep in mind when posting a want ad: If you put contact info in your publicly viewable ad, like your email address or your phone number, that allows the scammer to contact you directly without even going to the trouble of making an account and logging in here. They love that.

That cannot be. Sure, all the rings could be bad or stuck. There would still be some compression. It would also run. Maybe not good enough to use, but it would run. No compression at all is almost impossible, and if it is 30 pounds or less, there is a 99% chance it is valve trouble of some sort.

I don't know. I am not discounting the idea that residue gets released less if the bowl is full, but I have never heard of it before. To me, this is a way to get a car to fire up right away when the bowl is known to be empty, for instance when the car has been sitting all winter. I probably never filled one all the way. I would have erred on the side of caution in the interest of not running it over. Not all cars have that pipe but it is convenient when they do. Always secure the air cleaner. It can act as a flame arrestor if the car backfires.

Nobody blows up tires from too much pressure. On the other hand underinflation is the most common cause of blowouts. I'm not suggesting running over the max (although it would still be better than running too low). It sure helps to pay attention to tire pressure, and that goes double on hot days.

Down this pipe. A condiment bottle from the dollar store might come in handy.

A blueprint? As if you might have some blocks cast? I suggest you join the Hupmobile Club (the USA one). Fairly recently they have acquired all the surviving factory blueprints. It turns out quite a lot of them survived. They are furiously cataloging and scanning, so I'm told. I imagine it will be a while before it is all done. I have no idea if that particular one has surfaced. I would sure contact them and ask. https://www.thehupmobileclub.com/

Since the heads are done, I think I would just use them, and hang on to your spares. More was learned in the late 80s and 90s about valve seat recession without lead. I turns out it is rarely even measurable in street driven cars. There are always exceptions, but not that many. Heavy use, like heavy towing, dump truck, cement mixer, etc. will probably get valve recession without hard seats.

I suspect it is the same sheetmetal, and the dual headlight pods are add-ons.

The travesty is that the 58 2 door hardtops never got this single-headlight nose.

It's possible it could be sticking on the pin. Whatever it is I hope you can get it sorted. All the best.

The non-detergent thing is sort of a myth with a tiny grain of truth in it. Anyhow, like Rusty, I wouldn't assume it has been running non-detergent oil all these years. I believed that myth fully when I was younger. My first car was made in 1953. I was asking about non-detergent oil. My boss at the gas station I was working at said something along the lines of "When this place opened in 55, we already had multiviscosity detergent oil. They called it "Heavy Duty" in those days and we put it in almost everything". There is an oil filter of sorts on a 51 Pontiac six. It is a reversion type in the oil pickup that uses momentum to trap dirt rather than any sort of paper or filter medium. It isn't intended to need service until 100.000 miles. If you are really concerned about sludge, you could drop and clean out the oil pan. That is a good idea anyway, and you could take that filter apart and clean it out while you are in there.

Now THAT is good to see. That is the sort of a nightmare problem most people could never fix. Kudos for seeing it through.

Do you mean a groove where the needle contacts the seat? If the needle has a groove in it, it is shot. You would need a new needle and seat. I'm not sure I understand. If there is a "sticking position" for the float itself, something is not set up right about the float. The float drop setting probably. Spot on. An afternoon spent nitpicking that function, especially the function of the check valves and the fuel pressure, is worth about 10 electric fuel pumps. This is something that was never checked in the old days, except by guys like me on extreme "tough dog" cars, because it was almost never wrong. The fuel pressure specs were in the old Motor and Chilton manuals. The problem with some newer pumps sure isn't limited to Corvairs. I have seen it on crimped pumps on other cars where you can't do anything about it. The Corvair subject always comes up because the Corvair people realize it is happening and almost no one else does. The float valve in the carb and the diaphragm spring in the fuel pump are fighting each other. If the fuel pressure is wrong the float level becomes wrong as a result. If the float level is wrong the mixture is also wrong, even if the carb doesn't run over.

It has been done a couple of ways on the MTFCA forums. Modification is needed to the front wishbone to take the torque. The stock ones are not really up to the task. They are unlined, There is a better way though. It is called "Rocky Mountain Brakes", a popular period accessory. I believe they are band brakes like many cars of the period. Reproductions may be available new. Panic stops are never going to be good on 30x3.5 tires. Front brakes would help though. Then there is the steering.....

Hi Billy, Those are great pictures. Thank you for bringing us all along on your trip!