Bloo

I don't know exactly what is normal on a 26 Essex, but third brush generators in general have a curve of output current. there is only one particular RPM where they are at their best, they drop off if you go higher or lower. I am assuming you have a third brush generator and a simple cutout relay (no voltage regulator). If that's wrong, please correct me. Typically you would start out with the third brush set to whatever current the original service information for the car says, and then check the battery with a hydrometer after driving it a week, and adjust a little up or down as necessary. How full the battery gets depends heavily on the owner's driving habits and how much the lights get used. Many of these systems they cannot carry the lights indefinitely, the battery will go dead. If you turn the third brush up enough to carry the lights, it might boil the battery really bad when running a long time without them. Unlike a system where the voltage is regulated, a third brush system will TRY to charge at the current the third brush is set to no matter whether the battery is full or not. It can't really do that because it wont be at it's ideal RPM all the time but it will try. If the battery is already too hot, it does not back off. Back in the day the goal was to get the third brush set so that the battery is just getting full when the owner shuts the car off at the end of the day. I doubt you should be going into high RPM discharge in normal driving if your lights are off, but I am not sure.

If they are too large, you will get folds causing sudden unexpected failure. I have found even using older tubes that came from old tires, and using lots of tire talc (for gods sake don't breathe it), and letting all the air out 2 or 3 times, it is often difficult to be absolutely sure that that the tube is laying out smooth in there. For this reason I have always preferred to use new tubes. Their slightly smaller size (since they aren't stretched out yet) makes it easier. In recent years though, all I hear is how bad the new ones are, and for the last few months how you can't get them at all. One common complaint is that they are made more undersize now to save rubber, and have to stretch too far, causing the seams to fail. I have not seen this myself, but if it is true, it could work in your favor. I would buy just one of those tubes, and put only enough air in it to make it tire shaped, then stick it inside one of your old tires (no rim). If it rattles around in there, I think you are good to go.

The reason checking the pedal pushrod was recommended (I suspect, as I'm not the one who said it), is that too much length would not allow the brake pressure to release. I concur that it is a good thing to check. Inside a master cylinder at the bottom of the reservoir are two tiny holes. The cup MUST go back far enough that the tiniest hole is uncovered, or pressure will remain in the brake system. If the adjustment is right on the edge, it can change with heat and expansion. You can see this cup clearing the hole with a bright light and some magnification if the cylinder is near empty on some cars. Probably not this car due to the tiny filler port and the fact that the master cylinder is mounted down low. You would just have to make any or all brake pedal and pushrod adjustments according to the shop manual, and then trust it is OK. Regarding the pressure switches, you will find they do not trip as easily as mechanical switches, so the brake lights do not come on as early as you might expect. Some of the newer production switches have a different suffix on the number. It is because they trip on less pressure than the old ones. This is desirable. .

If the points resistance is high, it could weaken the spark. You could drag a tiny file over them, but don't overdo it. One scrape ought to do the trick. If the car runs fine I wouldn't worry about it. Regarding dwell meters..... Dwell is the number of degrees that the points are closed, charging the coil. So, a wider points gap is less dwell, and a narrower points gap is more dwell. The gap will get narrower and the dwell higher as the rubbing block wears. Since there are 6 lobes on a 6 cylinder distributor cam, 360/6=60 degrees. The distributor fires every 60 degrees of distributor rotation. If the points never opened, that would be 60 degrees of dwell or 100% "on" time for the coil. If the points never closed, that would be 0 degrees, or 100% "off" time for the coil. 30 degrees dwell would be 50% "on" time. The reason I bring this up is that many dwell meters and analyzers cannot deal with 6 volts correctly if at all. When auditioning a dwell meter, set for 6 cylinders on a 6 cylinder car, points closed should bring the needle to 60 degrees. and points open should bring it to zero degrees. Some dwell meters have a knob to adjust. If it won't do this, or it's backwards, the readings are going to be wrong. EDIT: KEK I misread your post the first time, so maybe I didn't need to type part of that. Glad it's running well. .

So it is the same except the extra bolt?

Overall width 46 inches from fender to fender. Top to bottom 7 inches, measured with the tape hooked at the seam between the tail panel and the body, tape wrapped around the bottom to the edge, at the center of the panel. 3 bolts each end. 9(!) bolts across the top to the body. Did you by any chance miss one at each end? It's tucked up high. .

Maybe. Electricity always takes the shortest path to ground. The maximum voltage is set mostly by the plug gap, but it is really the sum of the plug wire resistance, the resistors in the plugs (if any), the plug gap, the carbon button in the distributor, the gap at the tip of the rotor, and anything else that causes resistance between the coil tower and the case of the plug where it grounds to the head. The resistors in the plugs (if any) and the resistance of the plug wires are so small compared to open gaps that they can pretty much be ignored unless they are bad. If there is a bunch of extra resistance in a plug wire, or a coil wire, or a plug, or whatever, the voltage will go much higher than normal, and the insulation will have trouble keeping it in. If it can jump to ground somewhere without going all the way to the plug, it will. Voltage is highest when pulling a load. If the wires are not that fragile, you could just ohm test them with a DMM. It is hard to get a good connection with your probes, but be persistent. An old non-resistor spark plug can be useful for getting a connection on the plug end. Test from the center electrode to the other end of the plug wire, or better all the way into the contact on the inside of the distributor cap. This won't tell you anything about the insulation, but in my experience insulation failure almost always starts with high voltage caused by a bad plug wire or some other high-resistance fault. Check that the carbon brush in the distributor is there, and that it is indeed touching the center of the rotor. I believe you said the rotor was new (?), but try a different one anyway, maybe your old one. Look over the cap under a bright light for carbon tracks. If the wires are too fragile to mess with like that, buy the cheapest set of 7mm plug wires you can find for whatever car (look for a set with a coil wire that is long enough) and substitute them temporarily. Let us know how it goes with the flathead guy

Yeah they just put all the extra length in the hood to accommodate the eight, As far as I know the cowl is the same or real close. As I recall, if you look on a fender at the shape of the area where it bolts to the cowl, you can tell a 6cyl fender from an 8cyl fender pretty easily.

That would test it, however my mantra is "do on harm" and I would never do that to a customer's car. For what it is worth, there are or were kits to drill and tap a hole in the exhaust pipe to check for restriction. Exhaust restriction is fairly common on catalytic converter equipped cars, and that is why these kits existed. A fitting screwed in the hole and you could attach a fuel pressure gauge (this is usually the same instrument as a vacuum gauge, with 2 scales and zero in the middle) and drive while watching the exhaust pressure. The kit had little plugs to plug the hole afterward. I would not drill a hole in a customer's exhaust either, and never did, but it sounds a lot less invasive than what is being proposed, so I'm throwing it out there. If it were me, I would be soaking up those manifold bolts or studs every day with heat riser solvent, in anticipation of possibly having to unbolt the exhaust. I can't even imagine. Maybe he was testing for something else? Inline engine heat risers typically don't do anything other than redirect the exhaust up or down. I hate to be blunt, but this says he doesn't know what the hell he is doing. Heat risers aren't rocket science, and they are not overly aggressive in 1938 like they were in the 20s. If a Studebaker spring is unavailable, most likely a spring from some vehicle with more reproduction parts available will work. Can the problem be duplicated in the shop? Will it screw up if you just rev it up a little and hold it there? Or do you have to drive it and put a load on it? I wish I were not 5000 miles away. I'll bet if I were there I could figure it out. How far is Ed?

This is not a bubble or a bleeding problem. It is one of the 3 things already mentioned in this thread. Either the port in the master cylinder is blocked, the pushrod is too long, or the switch is defective. By the way, I don't trust these switches any farther than I can throw them. On the day I went to pick up my 36, the brake light switch shorted to ground, and probably would have caught the wiring on fire if I had not been really quick about disconnecting the battery. If there is any question at all about the condition of the switch, replace it.

It's back in my driveway, I'll try to get some measurements and pics up tonight or tomorrow. Any details in particular I should be looking for?

Bob Shafto and Andy Lee's 1936 Pontiac restoration document says this: http://www.badgoat.net/Early%20Times/36%20Restoration%20Guidebook%20Feb_06.htm .

Well there was this hearse: And this one:

I did this successfully years ago with some industrial detergent/cleaner concentrate from Costco and steel shot. Shake it up. I don't remember what the detergent was but it was something that mixed with water. Whatever it was, the supply dried up over a decade ago. I have a hunch Oil Eater might substitute.

Avoid dot versions if you want the cutoff. Every one I am aware of was designed long ago and don't even pretend to have a cutoff. They imitate sealed beams.

Where did HID come from in this thread? E-code headlamps are simply headlamps made to European beam specs. Any of these that we would be likely to use in US market cars have a replaceable H4 bulb if the reflector supports both high and low beam, and a replaceable H1 bulb if the reflector supports high beam only. These are halogen bulbs, not HID. Hella would not be my first choice, although I would take them hands down over any sealed beam. I wonder if another brand might fit better (or worse?). Cibie is getting hard to find though. Marchal and Carello are even harder.

I agree, but in this case MrY said: GM gas gauges from the beginning of electric gauges until sometime in the 1960s (it varies by model) were 0 Ohms empty and 30 ohms full. The fact that he is stuck on E and can make it go to full by disconnecting the wire at the tank leaves zero doubt that there is a problem in the tank. It also suggests that the gauge and wiring are probably fine. Just don't buy their red plunger pump. It's horrible. They have others. That will work. Another possibility is purple Loctitie on the threads. It is low strength and made for small screws. The corrosion can't really get going if the threads are full of Loctite, however steel screws could rust at the tip where they stick through and that could cause difficulty getting them back out even if the threads are prevented from getting stuck. I would use Loctite even if I was using stainless or brass screws. It prevents gas wicking up the threads, and you WILL smell that in the car. It also lets you decide how tight to make the screws to not clobber the gasket, with no worries about whether they might vibrate loose.

Yes, and any sealed beam, no matter how fancy is likely to be inferior. There is only so much light available from the bulb at normal wattage. The trick here is putting as much light as possible where the driver needs it to see, and NOT in the eyes of oncoming traffic. On low beam E-Code lights shine farther, but look dimmer to oncoming traffic. Even with oversize bulbs installed there will be less glare to other drivers. They do, but in the USA the 1939 standard we were stuck with for decades, and still have vestiges of, required some light shining up high and thus into the eyes of oncoming traffic. Why? Supposedly to illuminate overhead signs. It is completely insane. When was the last time you saw an overhead sign that was not illuminated? Maybe there were some in 1939. The Europeans were not stuck on a 1939 standard and continued to develop the headlight in the decades following WW2. The regulations in the USA did not even begin to relax until aerodynamic headlights came along in the 1980s. Today some aerodynamic units exist in the USA that are much closer to the European standard, but in many cases we still shine light up into the faces of oncoming traffic.

If you take the tire off of that 1960s/70s bicycle, and take the rim strip off, you can turn the spokes with a tool like the one in Locomobile's post. It's handy when lacing or truing wheels. Whether the tool manufacturer intended it for that or not I couldn't say, but it would work nicely. So would a regular screwdriver with a notch cut in it.

On the US side most of the old car ads migrated to Facebook when Craigslist started charging for ads. I don't really blame Craigslist because the amount of spam was getting ridiculous. I do miss browsing the car ads as I do not use Facebook.

1938 Chevrolet? .

That works well if you suspect trouble with the fuel pump. What I suggested way back when was hooking it with a tee to the inlet side of the mechanical pump to look for a restriction. A mechanical fuel pump will suck a whole bunch of vacuum if the fuel pickup or line is restricted.

I don't dislike that new head it is actually a good idea, what I dislike is not being able to find slotted head screws anymore. I'm not sure if that new head is really new, or just some Asian standard we never saw before. There are other differences. For instance, if you buy a wood screw in a given size, the shank is slightly smaller and it appears the taper may be slightly different. Perhaps it's a different standard that is only close? Or maybe a side effect of production on modern metric machinery? You would not be able to use one of those wood screws in a hole an old American screw came out of. At my local hardware, some of the brass screws are still available in straight-slot, and the shape appears identical to old American screws. A one point I zinc plated a bunch of the brass ones because I couldn't find what I needed in steel.

My brother told me that it happened on his son's old truck. The balancer had the rubber inner ring and the outer ring slipped. They had a hell of a time of trying to figure out why they couldn't get it timed and running right. Exactly. And if a rubber ring balancer has slipped, even if you make a new mark it will be wrong in a few minutes because it is still slipping as the engine runs. I don't think they had rubber ring balancers yet in the 30s, but not knowing what balancer (or pulley) design this Studebaker uses, it is impossible to guess if or how it might fail. When you find the TDC mark exactly where it is supposed to be, then you know you can trust it as you continue to run the engine and troubleshoot.

Does this car have a timing chain or timing gears? Whichever it has, the cam turns half as fast as the crankshaft, and so the cam has twice as many teeth. If you have a picture of the timing gears, you can count the number of teeth on the crank gear (or sprocket). You can also then measure the circumference of the balancer with a fabric measuring tape, and divide by the number of teeth, and then you know how much distance on the outside of the balancer equals one tooth. It is normal for the cam timing to run a little late on an old car due to gear or chain wear, but gear or chain wear will always be quite a bit less than a whole tooth. Rotating the engine by hand, easiest with spark plugs out, watch what happens at the distributor as you are getting close to the IGN mark. The points should open at the IGN mark, or a little before if someone advanced the timing. Compare the distributor rotor position to the wires on the distributor cap to be absolutely sure the rotor points to either #1 or #6 while you are watching the points break. If the points have not broken, continue to rotate the crank until they do. Measure from the IGN mark to the spot where the points actually break. It should be considerably less than a tooth's worth if the cam timing has not slipped. This only works if the distributor has not been moved.