Bloo

I was thinking one of those old British cars (MGA?) that had a 12 volt system with 2 tiny 6 volt batteries, one on each side of the car for better weight distribution. I imagine if that was it you should have found 2 of them.

The goosing is an ESSENTIAL part of double clutching when downshifting. The whole point is to match gear speeds. Disengage clutch, pull out of gear, re-engage clutch, goose engine, disengage clutch, pull into gear. Timing is everything, and will have to be worked out by trial and error. The truth about what is happening is a bit complicated, but the way oversimplified version goes something like this: The engine would be turning faster if the car was already in second gear, so you must "match" that speed with the disengaged gear. You first disengage the clutch and pull the transmission out of gear. Then you reengage the clutch. This reconnects the spinning parts of the transmission to the engine. You then goose the engine to increase the speed of those parts. You need to go a little bit too high. Then you disengage the clutch a second time. When you disengage the clutch for the second time, the spinning transmission parts will instantly begin to slow down. You then shift to second. The trick is to spin the transmission parts fast enough that when you disengage the clutch the second time, and their speed falls, their RPM matches second gear at the same instant you shift to second. Give the engine some gas as you re-engage the clutch for the second time. The gears may have matched when you shifted to second, but they are still slowing down, and the engine has slowed down probably even more, and you don't want the car to lurch slower when you re-engage the clutch. If the engine speed matches what it should for the current speed in second gear, the re-engagement will be smooth, but a bit too much engine speed is way better than too little. Note: you could probably eliminate the FIRST clutch pedal disengagement when you pull the transmission out of gear, as in Gary W's post above, because the point is to spin the transmission parts up to a higher speed. The clutch must be engaged to spin those parts up when you goose the engine. You might even need to eliminate that first disengagement for timing reasons. It depends on the car, the hill, etc. etc.

I prefer Synchromesh oil of any sort over modern gear oil in a synchronized transmission, but the main thing is that it is not out of oil. It may not fill clear to the plug, if I remember correctly my 1936 does not, check the manual for the actual amount of oil. Regardless, you should be able to reach in with one knuckle of your pinky and touch the top of the oil. If you can't, it is definitely low. We do need to know whether this is a floor shift or a column shift. I agree the linkage should be checked. Throwout bearings can scream, as can clutch pilot bearings. They are only spinning with the clutch pedal pushed down. If the screaming is happening with the clutch pedal up and the car not moving, the bearings in play are 1) the front transmission bearing, 2) the bearing (or bushing) between the input gear and the output shaft 3) the front countershaft bearing (or bushing) 4) the rear countershaft bearing (or bushing). 5) any bearings or bushings that might exist in the drive gears where they contact the output shaft.

The quality definitely slipped when they moved production out of the US, but they are still good tools. If you hold a new socket or wrench next to one from the 1990s you can see the difference.

Got plenty of oil in the transmission?

I have never had a bit of trouble getting stuff repaired/replaced even on a truck I had never seen before. That is why you pay Snap-On prices. If getting stuff fixed is a problem now, it is something new. Of course some things are excluded. I imagine electronics would fall in that category. If your old Counselor II breaks they probably wont give you a new one. That is expected.

I have been wrenching on cars for decades, having bought my first one in the 1970s while still in grade school. In the 1970s cheap Asian-made "tool sale" tools were unusable junk that simply could not get the job done, even for a hobbyist. The sockets were soft and would strip on bolts that weren't even very tight, ratchets would strip, wrenches fit too loose and rounded nuts, screwdriver tips stripped or broke, etc. Craftsman tools (from Sears at that time) were a lot more expensive but were sold onesy-twosy if you needed and were commercial grade, or nearly so. You could buy that one wrench or socket and get the job done. Most hobbyists could simply not afford real commercial tools like Snap-On, Mac, Matco, etc. at 3 times the price of barely affordable Craftsman. It just wasn't an option. Craftsman were lifetime warranty tools, but by the 1990s or so the lifetime warranty did not apply to commercial use anymore. Some guys were still using Craftsman. I even still had a few, and still do. The thing is most mechanics work more than 5 days a week, and often get asked to stay late to get some car out the door. While exhausted from working all day you would have to drive home, shower, get into some street clothes, and drive down to Sears before they closed (8 PM?) to exchange a tool. The tool dealers on the other hand would come by your place of business once a week and exchange your broken ones, usually from stock right off the truck. If you were really stuck on something and called the tool truck guy, he would probably come the same day. Commercial tools are often bought on payments, and you typically don't pay interest, so the 3 times Craftsman price is not quite as bad as it sounds. That brings us back to Harbor Freight. Frank has it right. The world has changed, and these are NOT the cheap Asian tools of old. If you have not seen them and used them you REALLY do not know. Yes, there is still plenty of utter crap available in a Harbor freight store, but a majority of the hand tools like sockets, wrenches, etc. are very near commercial grade, and the cost is comparable to the unusable junk of the 1970s. I think you could almost use them in a commercial setting. The only hitch, like Sears in later years, would be what to do when they break. I have never tried to warranty anything at Harbor Freight, but I doubt it would work out that well because they, and most other purveyors of the Chinese tools only seem to stock whole sets. The tools are good enough. As good as Snap-on, Mac, or Matco? No, but about as good as 1990s Craftsman, and the finish is often nicer. I don't have that much Harbor Freight stuff although I have used it quite a bit. Most of my tools are tool truck stuff like Snap-On, etc., bought when I was a professional mechanic. My specialty was driveability, so my collection is not even that big compared to guys who did mostly heavy mechanical work. If it all got stolen tomorrow and I had to add up my receipts I don't even know what it would come to but it would be shocking. I'd have to take out a mortgage to replace it. I can understand if someone does not want to buy from Harbor Freight for personal reasons. I totally get it. But I also get that some guy working on one antique in his garage can not possibly afford to buy commercial tools like mine, not in the 1970s and not now. Everything else comes from the same sources as Harbor Freight, and the option of going down to Sears for that one socket you need right now has evaporated.

My suggestions: 1) Most importantly make sure the clutch is disengaging completely. First adjust the clutch per the manual, to make sure that part is OK. Then, with the engine idling on flat ground, disengage the clutch, put the transmission in second or third to stop the gears. Then put the transmission in first. Never let up the clutch pedal. Then take it out of first gear carefully, going only to neutral. Do not let up the clutch pedal. Count 5 seconds and try to put it back in first. If it grinds, the clutch is dragging for some reason. and you will have to investigate further. There could be oil on the clutch disc, or there could be some worn out linkage parts, or another mechanical problem. 2) If it went right back in first gear, or went with just the tiniest bit of a thunk, and did not grind, your second gear synchronizer is not working. It might be shot. My second suggestion, on the off chance there is some super-slippery hypoid gear oil in there, is to change the oil to some real synchromesh oil, like Redline MT-90, or Redline 75w140NS, or GM Synchromesh, or something similar. and see if it helps. It might not, but it is easier than taking the transmission apart. If the clutch does not drag, you should be able to bypass a bad synchronizer by double clutching.

I think most or all the tires come from Coker in some way shape or form, except Diamondback, but there are still at least 3 dealers you could check in addition to https://dbtires.com/ . There is some overlap, and all 3 don't carry exactly the same stuff. https://www.cokertire.com/ https://www.universaltire.com/ https://www.lucasclassictires.com/ Oh, and then there's this one for reproduction Goodyear only: https://www.kelseytire.com/

Today I learned.....

Bumper dolls?

Good question. I would think Fords, Terraplane 8s, or big fast luxury cars (Cadillac etc.). I imagine maybe Franklins and Studebaker Special Sixes a few years earlier. I get the "gangster car" comments all the time in my 36 Pontiac. Kind of surprising to me, but I never say anything to spoil their fun. Pontiacs of that era had a reputation for being long lived but not very fast, so I think it is probably one of the last cars a gangster would be found in.

A 38 Special should be 6.50-16 shouldn't it? There's not much available in regular tires, you are pretty much stuck with reproduction. Bias have the look. Diamondback radials hit the look real close. Coker radials do too, though at least one forum member had a set of the Coker ones and they had a visible "radial bulge" even at higher pressures. He didn't like the way it looked and went back to bias. Radials go straighter. Whatever you do, check out the front end real good and fix any problems you find before you buy new tires. Adjust the steering box. Radials can mask front end problems, and you wont notice it until you have ruined a couple of tires. Tires like this are expensive. Inspect your wheels real good too, make sure you don't have any that are rusting thin or cracked. The "radials break wheels" thing is largely nonsense, at least if we are talking about normal drop center rims like you might find on a 38 Buick. If it happens at all it is most likely because people tend to drive faster on radials. Go around corners at the same speeds as you did on the bias tires if you want to avoid stressing the wheels. One more thing, if you opt for radials, put more air in than you did with bias. They like more air. I struggle with this every time I have to buy tires because bias are authentic and you can't beat the look, but I like the way radials drive and I like the reliability.

I don't know exactly what is black/green, but the source is that wire coming from the generator cutout, not the terminal it is attached to. If you attach to that, the headlight current isn't going through any of that stuff. You would have an unprotected wire from that terminal to the headlight relay, unless you fuse or fuselink it where it leaves the terminal. Whether that matters probably depends on where that wire runs, how long it is, and whether it could get in harm's way. In terms of voltage loss, fuselinks are best especially if they can be soldered in. Fuses are a little more lossy and circuit breakers are downright awful. They have to be a little resistive to generate the heat to open when overloaded. They also have points, which tend to be lossy. It's a double whammy of bad.

I might move that relay supply down one post so it's not on a breaker. You'll probably gain a little light. Fuselink it if you want.

That was the 1970s model.

Maybe splitting hairs at this point, but that also includes anything Lincoln had already connected on the generator side, like all the stuff on the circuit breaker and the ignition switch. I edited my post because it was unclear about that.

It's got a 30 amp ammeter? Wow. Well, that helps. As long as it is a screw on the same piece of metal, in other words NOT actually going through the circuit breaker it should be fine.

Yes, you can pull from the ammeter (preferably generator side). On many cars it is just the other end of the wire coming from the generator cutout. On that Lincoln diagram, it goes to the breaker first, and then on to the ammeter from the same terminal. If that terminal is a nice stout terminal with a screw you could put a ring on, I might use is because it is a little bit closer to the generator. That terminal, or the ammeter, (or the cutout), is the preferred place to pull current. No matter what you do, all the extra current will be coming through the ammeter part of the time. If you connect to the generator side, when the engine is running and the system is charging, the current is diverted away before it gets to the ammeter. But, with the car off the current IS running through the ammeter, backwards. The only time I would consider connecting to the battery side is for some accessory that will mainly be used with the engine off. Even then it's bad because any current it uses registers as "charge" with the engine running. The only way the ammeter would be endangered by connecting loads to the generator side as I suggest, is if all the loads you connected there, plus what Lincoln already had connected there exceed the full scale reading of the ammeter. Then, if you turned it all on with the engine off, or you were driving with it all on and stalled, the ammeter would peg "discharge" and possibly burn up. In that case you would need to experimentally add a shunt to the ammeter to make it's full scale reading higher than it was originally. A bigger problem is that the charging system wont keep up when driving no matter where you connect the lights. This is kind of an edge case, but does need to be considered if you have aftermarket lights because many 1930s charging systems are too small to carry extra lights.

It depends... Back in the day for a headlight relay like yours, they pulled from the battery or starter post. I think its a bad Idea, but that is what the instructions say. Stuff inside the car was probably pulled from the ammeter, or headlight switch, which were all the same point electrically, more or less, on a lot of old cars (but I don't know how the K is wired). Fog lights probably came from there too because the switch was there, if there was no relay. In my opinion, the closer to the generator the better. On a cutout system, that is the end of the cutout that connects to the car's wiring. On a regulated system, it is the "bat" terminal on the regulator. Next stop on that wire is the ammeter (and probably the light switch and/or ignition switch). The further from the generator you get, the more voltage drop there will be, but sometimes it makes sense to draw from inside the dash anyway, provided the wiring is big enough for the loads in question. It would be nice if everything between the generator and the battery (and all the stops inbetween) were pretty substantial wiring. This generally means cutout/regulator >> ammeter >> battery. Look at it this way. The source of current is always the highest voltage point in the system. When the generator is charging, the source is the generator, but the regulator or cutout is as close as you dare go without screwing up it's operation. If your takeoff point is there none of your light or accessory current goes through the charge wiring or any superfluous connections. When the engine is off, or the cutout has cut out due to low RPM or whatever, the source is the battery and the current is flowing through the charge circuit backwards to get to your accessories. Since we expect the car to be driving and charging, the generator side is where we want to be. That could be at the cutout under the hood (usually preferable), or at the other end of that wire in the car, where it hits the light switch or ammeter or whatever it hits. That might be preferable if going to the cutout would add a bunch of extra wire length. Generally you don't want to add any loads to the ignition switch in the interest of not burning it up. Generally you do not want your light current going through a thermal circuit breaker for brightest lights, because they require a voltage drop to work. The other side of that coin is that a thermal circuit breaker will try to come on after a short circuit, but if you blow a fuse there is no chance of having the lights pop back on. If you fuse circuits, remember that fuses are to protect the WIRE, which we don't want to catch fire on a bad day. Wherever the wire or circuit gets smaller, that's where the fuse goes to protect the smaller wire. Example: a simple fog light circuit with no relay. Ammeter/cutout >> switch >> fog lamp. The fuse goes at the ammeter end, not the fog light end. The ammeter is a high current source. If there were a short along the smaller fog lamp wiring, a fuse at the ammeter end would blow. A fuse at the light would not and the smaller wire between the ammeter and the short would get really hot and possibly catch fire.

The wool carpet used in American cars of that time frame, as far as I know, has not been manufactured for decades. A "Wilton" of some sort should get you close. Wilton is not a manufacturer, it refers to the weave and the machine that made it, traditionally in the UK, but maybe somewhere else now. Make sure you are getting wool. For decades, auto trim suppliers had samples of three Wiltons, Wilton I, Wilton II and Wilton III. There were likely other types if you knew who to ask. As of about 5 years ago, two of the three were still available, although I don't recall which two. Of the two, one type was mainly used in British cars, the other mainly in Italian cars. Global, as Dan O mentioned, is a possible source. Veteran Co. in Los Angeles is another. https://www.veteranco.com If your original carpet is decent I think I would leave it alone.

Which club? Was this AACA?

Haven't used it. Aluminum changes changes size more with temperature than cast iron, so I might concentrate on the aluminum. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

The Fisher body manual has instructions. There are some posted on chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com and possibly also on oldcarmanualproject.com if you do not have a hard copy. The earlier editions are more detailed, so if you don't find what you need in the correct year, try looking in the 1926-1931 book.

Excellent! Glad you got it freed up.