Bloo

Statesman or Ambassador? It's a fairly dig difference. Hydramatic or stick? If stick, is there overdrive? If you can't tell any other way, the Ambassador has a 9 inch longer nose and overhead valves. Look in the front floorboards for rust from a leaky windshield that can be structural. It is a unibody and the sheet metal "rails" run right through there. They are not hard starting cars, so the tampered electrical is a bit of a red flag. I drove my 51 Statesman several winters in central WA and never needed a jump. At least 2 years of that was on a Volkswagen battery. It gets below 0F fairly regularly in January here. The starter button is under the clutch pedal on sticks. Hold the clutch pedal hard to the floor to crank. On Hydramatics. pull the shift lever toward you to crank.

Anyone coming north from SoCal with an empty or partly empty truck? I need to get a 6cyl flathead engine from near Redlands, CA to Washington State. It would need to be picked up from the seller. The north end of the trip could be much more flexible. I am in Wenatchee, but just about anything sort of close could work, Seattle, Spokane, Ellensburg, Portland OR. etc. Shoot me a PM if you have a trip planned that might work and let's talk about it. Thanks.

I'm in Washington State.

Yes and yes.

@jdome nailed it. You need a separate signal wire to every corner of the car. The wire coming from the brake switch that used to go to the brake lights now goes to the turn signal switch. They both come from the flasher. The flasher has 3 terminals. One of the three supplies power to the flasher. The other 2 go to the signal switch. The one from the flasher's "P" terminal goes to a bulb in the signal switch for an indicator. The other one provides "flashed" power to the switch. Those 2 wires, plus the five from @jdome make up the 7 wires of a 7 wire switch.

A 2-brush generator needs 3 things, current regulation, voltage regulation, and a cutout. Usually it's 3 relays in a box. It also needs a second wire/post coming out of the generator so the voltage regulator and current regulator can control charging rate via the field coils. Some 3-brush generators have a second wire too. This is for a voltage regulator as seen on mid 30s Buick, Pontiac, Chrysler products, and some others. A system like this would typically have 2 relays in a box, cutout and voltage regulator. Current regulation is still by third brush. Hupmobile did this for about a year around 1914 or 1915, but I would really not expect it in 1929. Finally a "third brush and a cutout" system was very popular in the late 20s and early 30s. This is by far the most common thing to see on a 1929-ish American car. There is only a cutout (one relay). Current is regulated by the third brush. There is no voltage regulation at all. It is not ideal. Some makes have kludges like thermal switches to make it a little better. There is only one post on the generator, and it connects to the cutout. A peculiarity of a third brush generator is that if it is run with no battery connected the field windings will burn up. Some makes have a fuse. Is this a Delco generator? Those may have a little resistor inside that sometimes burns up in a valiant attempt to protect the field windings. When you figure out what you have I (or others here) can probably tell you what to do next. If you can't find a diagram, some pictures might help. Good luck.

This is a 2-brush generator with only a cutout? If so, I don't understand what keeps it from burning up. What is the field terminal connected to? I think we are going to need to see a wiring diagram or something. Flashing is or can be necessary on just about any generator. If this were a normal third brush system with a cutout, closing the cutout points should have flashed it.

@rocketraider's first pic with the green dot and white dot is what you would expect to see in 1966. If you wanted those labeled "D1" and "D2" instead of Green Dot and White Dot, I think you had to step up and buy a Mercury. D-2-1, as seen in @rocketraider's second pic for a transmission with a manually selectable second gear and would be 67 or later.

Sounds normal for 1966 or earlier to me. Green dot is 1-2-3, located where second would be on a newer Ford. White dot is 2-3, located where drive would be on a newer Ford.

There is excellent club support for Hupmobile.

I know it sounds crazy, but some of us like to actually drive them. 🤪

What are you guys planning to do with all the heat made by these resistors? You understand that in both of those last two proposed scenarios 1/3 of the energy used is going to be dissipated as heat, right? And that the car's electrical system will have to generate about half again the current to keep up? There is no fooling mother nature, and if you try Mr. Ohm, Mr. Kirchoff, and Mr. Watt are going to want a word. I see no good solution The best things I have heard in this thread so far are the 9v magneto bulbs connected in series, or using 3 optima and tapping at either 6 or 12 volts. Neither are perfect. The magneto bulbs sound the best. Given the shortage of magneto bulbs, and the fact that we don't know whether they will fit or focus in White reflectors, 3 Optimas and a tap sounds like a best, though somewhat flawed solution. Some brass era cars had 6v/12v arrangements with a tap, as shown for 18v above. It gets the battery's charge levels out of balance. There is a good reason systems like this weren't sold for very long. DC-DC buck boost converters, in theory are the only reasonable solution, because they don't have to waste all that energy as heat. In practice, I doubt they will hold up long at all in an antique electrical system. I expect a lot of failures. The voltage spikes on antique car electrical systems are huge. Auto designers did not make any attempt to control back EMF from motors, relays, ignition coils, etc. until they were trying to put digital electronics in the cars themselves. That would be the late 1970s at the very earliest.

THIS^^

What does the back window panel look like?

Start at the transmission and follow the cable. Probably there is a cable from the transmission to a sensor for the cruise under the hood somewhere, and a second cable that continues from that sensor to the speedometer. The cruise control probably does use vacuum, but it probably only uses vacuum to pull the throttle.

Thank you!

That model 35 manual solves a lot of mysteries, but not this one. Model 25 has acetylene lights and starter. Model 35 is all electric. Model 25 uses dry cells to power a Splitdorf "hot shot" magneto for starting. Magnetos like this were available for different voltages, but I was able to nail down the Model 25's magneto as 6 volt years ago. I don't recall where I found the information. My metal box is missing, and I was never able to figure whether the dry cells went in it originally or not. You just solved that. Dry cells would have been #6 (telephone) cells. Four are needed for 6 volts, and that compartment in your metal box is the right size for 4 cells. Are there holes in your metal box? Can you tell how the wiring was routed? One thing you should know, the ground "floats" on the dry cell wiring. You need (+) and (-) wiring all the way from the dry cells to the magneto or control box and back. You do not ground either terminal to the chassis like you would on a normal car. The dry cells must have a different separate ground not connected to the spark plug's ground. This comes from an old Splitdorf book on magnetos that covers the magneto series that was used in the model 25. Since the engine is bolted directly to the chassis in a model 25, you cannot use the chassis for a battery ground. My model 25 was my dad's car before it was mine, and we used 6 volt Volkswagen batteries under the back seat for about 50 years. Those were the days before battery maintainers, and the batteries didn't hold up well at all. It would be a non-problem now, but 6v Volkswagen batteries are no longer common parts store fare. "Group 1" 6 volt batteries are still common and would work electrically, but are too tall to hide easily. More recently I have been using a rechargeable 6 volt pack salvaged from a broken windmill. If I had to buy something, I'd get a 6 volt Optima and put it on a battery maintainer when not driving the car. Those can lay flat if necessary. It could potentially be hidden under the back seat if it didn't fit in the part of the box that was probably tool area. When you have a chance, could you please get accurate measurements of the metal box?

This^^ It should go to a port inside the barrel that is just above the throttle plate at idle, and just below it as soon as you crack the throttle.

Generally speaking that's true on a positive ground car like this. Definitely so if the coil being used is an aftermarket one, because the markings would have to be decipherable on any car. The hot wire from the key is negative, it is 6 volts or more *below* ground, so this makes sense. On a factory job they could mark it any way they wanted. Some coils may have been wired different internally. Someone in here should know what Chrysler did for coil terminal markings, but for now it doesn't matter. They probably did (-) to the key like almost everyone else. Worst case the spark plugs fire backwards and you can correct it once you figure that out. The transmission needs it to be wired like the LAST diagram you posted. The wire from the "BAT" (fused) terminal needs to piggyback on the wire from the key, and the wire from "PRI" needs to piggyback on the wire from the points, always, no matter which terminal is which on the coil. There is a lot wrong here. First, it is showing 3 low voltage terminals on the coil. It can't be. The wires shown as red and green have to go on the same terminal. The last diagram you posted has this detail correct. It is almost certainly the terminal marked (-). The truly important parts are that: 1) The wires shown as red and green on this diagram are on one coil terminal and, 2) The wires marked 46 (pri) and 48 (points wire) on this diagram are on the other coil terminal. If the spark is backwards you can reverse the coil terminals later. Just make sure the above two things are always true. I don't think you will have to change it. When @Oldtech said I believe he was talking about that bare strap that was prominent in one of your earlier pictures, and the subject of your first post in the thread. He is absolutely right that you don't "ground a coil". One coil terminal connects to the ignition switch and the other coil terminal connects to the points. This is pretty much the true for any car with points ignition. If either of these were grounded the car could not possibly run. Nothing on the coil needs a dedicated ground to function. The coil's case usually is grounded, but not because it needs to be. It's just a coincidence because it's easy to bolt the coil bracket to the engine or firewall. The coil does not care whether it's case is grounded or not. As for the bare strap, it could go to the coil bracket, or maybe something else, but could not go to either coil terminal, ever. The strap is there to ground something, but definitely not a coil terminal. The bare strap isn't shown on these diagrams at all. We may need pictures from another car to figure out what the truly correct location is. It bolts down to grounded metal somewhere though, you can be sure of that. As for Egge, I don't know what they know or don't know, but I'd leave them out of it. Believe the shop manual.

I give up. Good fishing?

Nope, you have it correct. 30 ohms is full on old GM. They kept that through about 1963-65, though I don't think they changed every model over to 90 ohms the same year. GM used 0-90 until about 1996! I don't think any other automakers used 0 ohms for empty. That's just begging for trouble.

The first thing to look at is the condition of the wood.....

Well... That sure looks like a 36 Pontiac radiator. What kind of a radiator cap does the new radiator take? I imagine it takes a modern one as I hear many aluminum radiators for antiques do take a modern one. The original radiator was an open system. The original radiator for an Eight (which doesn't quite fit a six) was pressurized at 4 pounds with an old prewar-style large pressure cap. In your case you would probably be way better off running 4 pounds pressure, maybe even 7 or 15 pounds. Do you have a heater? If you do, and it is a prewar one, you probably don't want more than 4 pounds, as old heaters weren't intended to take a bunch of pressure. If not, I think I'd go for at least 7 pounds. maybe more. Your 50s engine should have a water pump that can deal with a little pressure, so you should be good there. The last packing pumps were on early 37 models. Aluminum radiators are generally less efficient than brass, In an old narrow-hooded cars like a 36 Pontiac, it is possible, even likely, that your cooling is limited by the size of the radiator opening. For cooling efficiency, old time racing wisdom says aluminum wins on weight, and brass wins on size. You always want a race car lighter, but the implication for a street car is that when you are size limited by the air intake, you are going to give up some cooling by going to aluminum. There are very modern aluminum racing radiators that buck this trend and can be more efficient thanks to radical core design. My guess is you won't get anything like that in a radiator for an antique. What you get will probably be very traditional, and you will be giving up some cooling because it is aluminum. These cars don't cool particularly well in the first place, and yours has a bigger engine. Some pressure will help keep things under control. You will have to have either the nose off or the radiator shell and grille assembly completely off to get the radiator out of this car. When you do that, take the water tube out of your block and look at it. If it's bad, the engine will run too hot and have a tendency to boil over. Spoiler: it's bad. It's behind the water pump. Pull it out and look. Then, get a brass one if you can and a steel one if you can't. 1937-1954 Sixes all take the same one. There are tin shields on a stock 36 Pontiac under the radiator shell that prevent grille air from getting under the hood without going through the radiator. Not having this massively reduces airflow through the radiator. If they're missing, find or make some. Originals are hard to find, but there is nothing complicated or special about them, so making some would be no big deal. Similarly a rubber dam goes from the top of the radiator to the inside of the shell for the same reason. Make all air that comes through the grille go through the radiator. I don't know what to say about the fan. There is just too much I don't understand about how it was set up with that newer engine and why it had that catastrophic failure of the balancer. If the car were one year newer, that engine would have almost bolted in. 1937 and later engines do not have the bosses for the side engine mounts. What keeps the engine from tipping over? Fans... well you probably don't want the 36 one and it probably won't fit anyway because it was meant for a packing pump with a different style fan hub than any of the newer ones. It also is a nearly identical design to an infamous Hupmobile fan that is known for exploding and taking out radiators. Something newer would be better. You don't have much room. You'll just have to measure and see what you can get in there. It probably has to be smaller than the 36 one, and you are already short on cooling. If you have a 37-48 water pump and an extra hole drilled in the block, the fan will be up higher. What will it hit? The upper hose connection? I don't know. If you have the 49-54 pump, I'm not even sure it will fit behind the radiator. If the fan is as far back as it was in 36, and it has to be because they almost touch the radiator, then it will hit the harmonic balancer unless the fan is really really small. If it has a 33-36 pump on it, well I don't know how they did it. They're not real similar. If you go electric, it probably helps at low speed and idle, but blocks at speed, making your cooling worse at speed. For what its worth fans with few blades and a lot of pitch block air less and fans with a bunch of cool looking almost flat blades block air worst. Did this car ever work properly for you for an extended period of time? If so, great. If not, you might be spinning your wheels trying to repair it if the engine is not tied down well enough. Good luck with the project!

In 1941, it is highly doubtful they are turn signals. The first factory turn signals on the front of the car were on 1940 Buicks. It took years before the rest of the industry did it. I think it happened in the early 50s. They are probably parking lights. I don't know why some would have it and some not. in 1941 it was probably still required to leave them on all night in some jurisdictions (yes, really). In the mid to late 30s fender top parking lights were optional on some cars, but the ones without generally had a tiny parking light bulb hidden inside the headlight. By 1941 that approach would have been impossible, because 1941 (and most 1940) American cars had sealed beam headlights, and they are... sealed. They couldn't just stuff a tiny parking light bulb inside the headlight anymore. Are you sure they built some without?