Bloo

Nice!

How do the wiper arms attach to those? Do those have some kind of adapter attached or is the shaft you see sticking out all one piece? I know in 1936 there was a mid year change from arms that squeeze/clamp around the shaft in early 30s fashion (for early 36) to a tapered shaft with a threaded end (late 36). I believe this also applies to Buick. The transmissions are identical except for the end of the shaft. The late 36 transmissions and arms are half year only(!). It is really surprising to me to find out that 35 is probably different from early 36 as well.

Hi Bob, Good to see you in here. You don't know me, but when I was a new 1936 Pontiac owner I read the document you and Andy Lee published and everything you wrote online about your 1936 Master Cabriolet restoration and about your 1936 Master coupe. It is the most extensive 1936 Pontiac information out there by far, and it is a pity that a lot of the pictures are no longer up. All of that was a huge help getting my 1936 Master sedan sorted out. I suspect you know a lot more about these cars than I do, but I'll try. My best guess it it's the front shackle bushing on the rear spring. It's an ungreaseable thing probably made out of rubber. Mine need replacing too, as one of them squeaks. I don't think there would be anything to stop the side of the spring eye contacting the hanger once the rubber let go. I don't know if the part is currently available. Reproduction bushings are made for Chevrolets for sure, and I think they will fit, but I have not had an opportunity to try it. I guess the greaseable bushings at the back of the rear spring could also be bad. On my car some of them were stuck, but all that was needed was to disassemble and clean them so they would take grease. I had to make a couple of the washers for the end. I used leather, but the originals may have been dense felt. It was hard to tell. If it isn't a shackle bushing, I guess I might try loosening up the rear brake and seeing if there is too much axle endplay, as set by that rectangular piece at the center of the differential. Good luck and I hope you find it.

Very nice!

Wow, nobody? I'll admit I was confused looking at the pictures when I first saw this thread the other day. I don't know when the change was made, but as you have already noted, what you have is the parts in the last exploded view (pic 4 red circle). The keys are shot (pic 1). The synchronizer sleeve (pic 1, right, outer) looks OK, but the other side would need a look. The usual trouble is the tips of the teeth. They should look like the roof of a house and they do. They can be pretty beat up and be fine, as long as they are still sort of pointy, not blunt or flat. If the other side meets all that, I would still look at the spots on the inside of it's bore/spline that act on the keys, and if there is no obvious damage, I would use it. Are those 2 brass synchros (39 in pic 4) the the same part? One looks like it has a wider back face than the other (pic 1). The upper one is destroyed (pic 1). The lower one should be cleaned up, and tried with a drop of oil against the cone on the actual gear that it contacts in operation. If you push and turn it should grab or stop. If it does this and there is decent clearance between it and the face of the gear, it's fine. The retainer wire (pic 1, right) with the double bump looks all wrong to me. I don't know for sure, but I think it has to be the wrong part. What is that double bump supposed to engage? I would expect the retainer wires, 2 of them, to have a tang at the end (pic 4 #37), and the tang to hook in a key. I would expect them to go opposite directions, but hook in the same key. From your exploded view (pic 4), maybe these go the same direction? Maybe they don't hook in a key? Either way, when assembled, the keys should not be trying to tilt in their slots. Sorry I couldn't answer your actual question.

What do those mounting bosses mount to?

The Part number is 4058847, one per car, so it's one transmission for both sides, unlike 1936 which uses 2 identical transmissions.

I do like that car.

I agree adjusting them could be a bit of a challenge. One interesting thing I learned the hard way is that adjusting spiral bevel gears the way we expect to adjust modern hypoid (offset) gears may not work at all. It turns out there are 2 ways of making a hypoid gear, one is by hobbing and the other is... I don't remember. There are all sorts of pattern examples online using paint on the teeth. Many contradict each other and none seem to make this distinction. There is a document floating around by Dana Corp. showing the difference and acknowledging that that pattern moves in an opposite direction when adjusted, depending on how the ring and pinion were originally made. Once I discovered that, I thought I had the tiger by the tail. Nope. My Pontiac/Chevrolet spiral bevel gears did not behave in either expected way. Deburring helped a little, but not near enough. It appears there is some relief inside the valley, and the adjustment is fairly critical. The pattern when correct as it can be does not look "normal" by modern standards. My gears would not adjust by GM's method (they were aftermarket, and the pinion length was slightly different). At some point I discovered that the depth was marked on the pinion, and I needed to measure from the differential carrier bore centerline (axle centerline) to the tip of the pinion. It is often done this way on modern ring and pinion sets. I bought an old Buick factory tool that could measure the distance in a roundabout way. Once set, I had a sort of acceptable pattern, but a couple thousandths of an inch either way and it got completely screwy. I don't know how pinion depth was set on a Model A Ford, but I suspect you will have to do something about like this. I also think that since these gears are spiral bevel, and the old ones were plain bevel, your pinion bearings might have to deal with substantially more fore/aft thrust than they did originally.

I blew that small picture up as big as I could, and I do not see double windlace. The double windlace look is usually a combination of windlace and wire-on. For instance, a headliner might tack down to some wood at an edge. A piece of windlace tacks down to the same piece of wood. . That leaves a row of exposed tacks between the two. A piece of wire-on tacks on top of that spot, and once folded over on top of itself, looks like a second row of windlace. Restoration Specialties of Windber, PA used to have matching wire-on and windlace in their catalog. I have not tried lately. EDIT: look here. The wire-on and windalce example in the thread looks more like a triple bead or something, but just imagine the big part of the wire-on a little fatter as it often is and you will see. The thread also shows Hidem, which is not the same thing.

Is this a Fisher bodied car?

I like this better too, but what I said about the other one stands. I mean... That is to be expected in these cars, possibly without it meaning anything bad about the general rust situation. It is in WA, and rust is not a big problem here, still, I wonder what the repair looks like. And it looks good, and usable. Good color too. Black. Quite a few Commanders are stuck with an awful gold. The door panels are black too, so it was probably built with a black interior. I like it. I suspect the upholstery is not like the original though. The ashtray is open and well used. It might stink to high heaven in there. Makes it look good, but you have no idea what is under it, compared to the other one that has original paint and few if any rust holes in the usual places. This one is probably fine because it's in eastern WA, but you don't know. Too bad there's no pictures under the hood. I'm expecting it has lost any semblance of originality, but that's probably not fair. My cynical view comes from seeing several of these cars over the years that were godawful messes, including the one I owned. It was probably the worst. These must be hardcore Studebaker people, I see a zip van in the background. Maybe it's nicely done... Incorrect ones.... It may sound like I'm picking this apart. Not really. I like this car and it looks driveable or nearly so as is. If it were a stick and overdrive I would probably already be on my way to talk to the owner.

The 66 is the best looking of those last lark variants IMHO. The front anyway. I'll admit the 64-65 tail light is a little better. The reason it's weird looking is it is still a Lark with some different panels bolted on, and that is pretty limiting. Also, Studebaker had convinced themselves that they were going to just make the same thing forever like Volkswagen. I once owned the roughest most beyond hope 66 Commander that ever existed. I would like another someday, hopefully in better condition. What I can't get past here personally is my seething dislike of vinyl tops, and all 66 Daytonas have them. Every single one. Studebaker was known for building you anything you asked for, so in theory one without vinyl could exist, but as far as I know none have ever surfaced. You would have had to get the order in at exactly the right time too because production shut down really early in the year. You can't be too picky about these because they didn't make many. I'm really struck by how unmolested this car seems to be. More pictures would be a good thing. If you don't recoil at vinyl tops, and if the top isn't hiding a massive rust problem, this might be a good one to get. Me? I'll wait for a Commander with a factory V8 and 3 speed overdrive. I'll probably never see it.

6 volts is fine with everything sorted. It worked then. It's not like 12 volt systems didn't exist. Hupmobile, Studebaker, and Dodge Brothers among others had 12 volt systems and dropped them in favor of more modern 6 volt systems. 12v conversions are much harder to sort out. Most are done badly. It doesn't have to be that way but it usually is. Making some of the 6v stuff work afterward is not to bad. Making all of it work is dicey at best. Some things never do (like the Chrysler M6). 12 volts makes a lot of sense in things like street rods where the radio, heater, gauges, etc. will all be 12v items. Some people have to do it because there is some 12v item they can't live without. I hear that a lot about air conditioning. The size of a 6v charging system can sure be limiting in the 30s, not so much after 1940. 40-45 amp charging systems became fairly common. The parts usually retrofit back to earlier years without too much grief if needed.

They say MoPar on the lenses? What kind of bulb do they take? Speaking generally, and not MoPar specific, I would say if they are sealed beam, they are post 1939 and much more likely postwar. I would not get hung up on the size unless you can get some factory documentation to tell you otherwise. Most cars in prewar pictures do not have auxiliary lights at all, and most that do have one light. There is only so much the charging systems of the day can do. Still, a few cars wound up with 2 auxiliary lights. For best brightness, use a relay and pull the current for the bulbs from the generator side of the ammeter, or from the "bat" terminal of the regulator which is just the other end of the same wire. Run dedicated grounds to the light housings, or better yet to the sockets if it is practical.

You are unlikely to find another 66 Studebaker as unmolested as this one looks.

^^That's excellent advice. There are an awful lot of 6 volt tractors still working for a living, and any store that caters to them is a good bet to find a fresh 6 volt battery. Tractor outfits also should carry 6 volt battery cables and straps (in other words big ones).

The best is Optima. The downsides are the cost (really high), and the weird shape that means they don't fit most battery boxes without a little help. The upside is they are really powerful, and your terminals wont corrode. My best conventional Group 1 battery by far is labeled "Pacific Power", a regional brand in the Pacific Northwest, USA. You don't seem to have a location listed, but I guess that's probably no help if it turns out your name refers to New Orleans.

I thought I could go right to it. Greatbasinrovers.com and GBRutah.com may be the same thing? Here is a wayback from 2015 or something. The site looks completely different than I remember it but it has to be the same outfit. There can't be more than one company in Utah actually manufacturing (not just reselling) Land Rover ring and pinion sets. https://web.archive.org/web/20150109222929/http://gbrutah.com/product-catalog/cs-differentials-overview/coil-sprung-diff-gearing/ This looks like the same outfit now but really pared down. I'm not seeing the ring and pinion sets: https://gbrutah.com/ Also probaby the same outfit, but the link is dead: greatbasinrovers.com But, there's always junkyard 3.55 gears, if any still exist. I saw a couple of likely vehicles in a Seattle area pik n pull several years ago. It was muddy, cold, and the rain was coming down in sheets. "Some other day" I said....

And if that diaphragm leaks, the timing wont advance at part throttle. If the weight and springs don't work... the timing doesn't advance with rpm. I think a lot of "failure to proceed" problems with Pertronix are because people did not look to see that the ground wire was intact. The Pertronix uses it to fire the coil just like the points did.

Unfortunately I don't have any. I did the deep dive when trying to figure out what might be possible to retrofit to my 36 Pontiac axle, and the Land Rover gears and Model A gears were 2 things I was taking a serious look at. Unfortunately my notes are lost, and I was never completely sure about the measurements on the Rover gears anyway. What is unique about them is that they are spiral bevel, and thus have no offset, making them potentially adaptable to many very old cars. I believe designs like this were all gone in the US by 1940 or so, and all gone in the UK by the mid 50s with this one exception. I don't know how Harm's pinion mounts, but I think many cars before the mid 30s mount on the end of a shaft like the model A Ford. The Rover design is for an open driveline, and the pinion looks about like any other pinion for a newer car outside of the fact that it runs with no offset. There is a machined area, and a spline, and then a threaded area on the outside. The idea is that you have a couple of Timken bearings, or potentially something else I guess, and a flange goes on the spline held on by a nut from the outside, clamping it all together. Good for open driveline, bad for torque tubes. For a torque tube you want the threads on the inside holding everything together and the spline sticking out past them to attach the driveline to. Well, either that or you want the pinion to bolt on to the end of a shaft like a Model A. There could be a way to make it work with 2 flanges if you had a lot of room at the back of the torque tube, but I think most torque tube solutions would require a double floating spline, and that never turns out well. Another thing to watch out for is that a ring and pinion for a front axle may have a reverse cut. I don't know how much it matters. There is (or was) a company in Utah who make these Rover ring and pinion sets in all sorts of ratios for people looking to change, 3.55 being a common factory ratio as I understand it. I think the company may have been Great Basin Rovers, but their site is not working now, so I could not verify. You might find this interesting:

That is exactly what happens with fiber timing gears of all sorts. They fail suddenly and leave you to walk home. I can't speak to the model A specifically, but laminated (and another type of fiber gear I don't recall the name of) were common in that period. The trouble is a camshaft, with the valve springs acting on it, is trying to jerk back and forth on the gear as the engine turns. Eventually the gear fails from all the pounding. A solution to this problem is an aluminum gear, but aluminum rings like a bell, and tends to make knocking noises at low speeds. It gets worse as the gear wears. It can be pretty obnoxious and sometimes sounds like bearings knocking. Fiber gears were commonly used in passenger cars because they were quiet, but reliability was always suspect. Trucks sometimes got aluminum gears.

I was about to suggest that, but I see Layden B already has. Model A gears are spiral, so you would need to deal with more fore/aft thrust. You would be rewarded with less noise. Since I see you need to remake the part that supports the pinion anyway, that might be a non issue. Another possibility, though maybe not quite so easy to adapt would be Land Rover / Range Rover gears. They were about the only manufacturer still using spiral bevel (zero offset) gears in modern times. This was in Rover-made axles only, but into the early 2000s. There are 2 versions, "short nose" and "long nose". These were semi-common junkyard parts in the US 7 or 8 years ago, and 3.55 was a common ratio. I have no idea if these would be common where you live. The pinion has an integral shaft like more modern vehicles, and unlike the Model A Ford. Also the pinion threads are at the outer end of the spline, inconvenient but probably not impossible for a torque tube application.

Are you in the US? If so, you could rent a tierod puller at Oreilly or Autozone that would probably fit.

It is important that the vacuum diaphragm does not leak, that the weights and springs are not sticking, and that the ground wire from the breaker plate to the distributor housing is present.