Bloo

As I understand it Brad Penn oil comes from the source that Kendall did back when it was green.

Cormorants? Aren't they in league with Packard? I sense a bit of rivalry here. Maybe even fowl play.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

I think it's a 1936 Graham. Yes, I know those are the same body stampings as a 1936 Reo. The trim on the side of the hood looks more like Graham to me, but the picture is to blurry to be conclusive. The trim on the trunk lid however, points to Graham. 1936 Reo: 1936 Graham:

You would need to cut the old sleeve nut off (split it somehow) to replace it while losing a minimum amount of tubing. In THEORY you would then need to cut just a little tubing off to give the new sleeve nut a full-diameter spot to dig into. It wouldn't take much. Maybe 1/4' or probably even less depending on tubing size. I seem to remember once getting away without cutting any tubing off on some project years ago, and getting away with it, letting the new nut compress into the old groove. I am not recommending that if there's another easy option. It might work in a pinch. On the other hand, the tubing might be collapsed too much. No problem using old fittings (female) if the threads are good. I would prefer it. The sleeve nuts you pretty much have to destroy to remove without mangling the tubing. You should be able to disconnect and reconnect lines as much as you want, the sleeve nuts just stay with the tubing. Did you say temperature gauge? I have mainly seen these on vacuum lines and fuel lines. Maybe an oil pressure gauge.

Pedal all the way back is a brake. As you tip it forward slightly it should be in neutral and you should be able to turn the balance wheel easliy. You can try this with the motor off. The clutch motor has a couple of adjustments. I can't remember what they do anymore. Too long ago. The Internet probably knows.... It may be possible to make it a little better, but clutch motors are just not controllable until you have been using one for a while. Stitch.... Stitch... BRAPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!! is just what happens when you are a beginner. Do this: Make a nice long scrap, long enough to go for a foot or two if it runs away. Put it in the machine, start the stitch by hand with the balance wheel. Move the pedal forward very slowly and listen. Listen for fssshhhhhhhhhhhh.... just hold it there for a second... fshhhhhhhhhhhhh.... maybe the balance wheel starts to move a little and make a stitch. Back off slightly. fshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... fshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... Try to make one stitch at a time. Keep your fingers back. Ok, it's probably gonna run away. Keep trying. You can go back and forth on that long scrap many times. More than anything listen to the motor. If you can get it to slip at all, you will get at least a partial second of that fssssssssshhhh noise, and maybe hear the motor slow a little. Practice finding that magic spot. Practice backing off ever so slightly when the first stitch goes through.

More Practice! I assume this has a clutch motor. Running one of these is an acquired skill, and it takes a while. Clutch motors come in either 1/3 or 1/2 horsepower, and in my opinion that makes no real difference for upholstery or auto trim work. 1/2 horsepower is the common standard on a walking foot machine. They also come in 1725 RPM and 3450 RPM (assuming you live in the land of 60 HZ electricity). Always get 1725. It is a little easier to control, and the situations where you would want to go full speed with a 3450 RPM motor are very few. You may never even encounter it. Some machines can't even do it. I think any change you get from a pulley is going to be minimal fine tuning. You would have to calculate it out and see how much could be gained. I have never heard of anyone in an upholstery or trim shop bothering to do this on a machine that is already set up and running. There are "servo motors" available now that allow just about anyone to sit down at the machine and effectively control the speed. That might be a possibility.

I'll bet it's brass. 70sWagoneers says he soldered it (good plan IMHO). That doesn't work with the mystery metal. Assuming the terminal is on right side up (sure looks like it to me), get a terminal cleaner like one of these and go after it slowly and carefully. Note the actual blades on these, as opposed to the commonly seen wire brush. Just hog it out enough to barely fit down level with the top of the post.

But that isn't going to work on most inline engines! Inline engine heat risers typically redirect flow up inside the intake/exhaust assembly, and the exhaust goes out the same hole whether hot or cold. That trick works fine on V8s though.

Waterville Auto Co. (Ford) Waterville, WA

The estimates sound high to me, but having not seen the car, I can't really say. Thats one approach, and it is the way most Americans use cars. Honda/Acura do an excellent job of building for this worst case scenario. And that is in my opinion MUCH better advice. (I am a former tech.) IMHO do at least what the maintenance schedule says. Some things might really need to be done more often. True enough. I always installed them with a little anti-sieze, but you have to be careful not to get too much, and to not get it anywhere but the threads. If there is any doubt about seizing or stripping, the engine should be stone cold. They may ask you to leave the car overnight. The plugs are likely platinum or iridium, or at least something goofy. The factory recommendation is *probably* (no, I didn't look it up) to leave them in for 100k miles. If so it may have more to do with EPA regs and fleet TCO than common sense. I suggest springing for the special OE plugs, whatever they are. They could easily be $8 a piece, but you don't do it often. I dislike platinum and other screwball spark plugs, but I think it is a good idea to use them in applications where the car was originally designed with them. Yes, I think 50-60k would be a good time to change them. Me too. This is worth finding out. Some Hondas tighten with wear. If the valves get too tight they will burn. If the valves are adjustable I would get this done for sure. IMHO what you should do is take this to an independent shop who specalize in Honda/Acura and get a second opinion. They will be familiar with the factory recommendations, but not bound by them. Fluid changes wouldn't hurt. Especially the brake fluid.

Yeah I'd go after it with a terminal scraper. Might be slow. Looks like a brass terminal.

I wonder if it could be very carefully straightened somehow? Maybe in a press? I saw a beautifully recast steering wheel for a 1937 Roadmaster, but it was from a source that no longer exists. It is possible. I don't know who does it currently. It is more common I think to fill the cracks with epoxy or bondo or polyester resin or something, and repaint. It depends on what you are doing with the car. If you are going to show it I suppose the cracks have to go. I never do that. I love the way the plastic of those old steering wheels feels in my hand, and paint just isn't cut it for me unless the plastic is literally falling off the rim. I am not bothered by cracks, because back in the day steering wheels were all cracked. It is expected and normal. That said, I have never seen as many cracks as you have on one steering wheel. Usually its 3 or 4 cracks. I would just try to find a better one that isn't bent, and hopefully with a few less cracks.

Until fairly recent times it was customary to run your dash lights extremely dim, with only enough light to see the markings on the gauges. This was to avoid your eyes adjusting to the presence of light, and reducing your ability to see the road at night. On a car originally built with no dimmer I would expect the dash lights to be dim by design. Assuming both the 3.8 watt bulbs and the 2 watt bulbs were 12 volt, and assuming you are not confusing watts with candlepower, you still have a wiring problem. Less light from a higher wattage bulb points to resistance in the wiring. Double check the ground on the cluster, and make sure you are getting 12v to the bulbs (should really be over 13v on a 12v system with the engine running). I'll bet you aren't getting enough voltage to the bulbs. I would be a bit cautious about drastically increasing the bulb wattage. Is there any plastic in that cluster that could melt? Are there painted surfaces near the bulbs that could burn? Double the wattage is double the heat. LEDs are a possibility to brighten things up, but I am not sure whether they would dim on the dimmer. Probably not.

IMHO soak it up in some real heat riser solvent (Mopar 4318039AC) for a day, and then heat up that shaft from the inside with an acetylene torch. Let it cool off. When its cold again spray it some more, let soak, and then heat it again. Do this 2 or three times over the course of a day or 2 while you are working on other things. then try tapping it again from the outside.

In the earliest cars there were typically no fuel pumps. The gas would have to gravity feed from the tank, and so the goal was to get the carb as low as possible. They could have designed downdraft carbs, they just didn't. Updraft carbs have some peculiarities, like the fact that any excess gas usually runs out on the ground instead of into the engine, and the fact that there isn't much hope of getting fuel up into the engine if the gas is too cold to vaporize. Other than that, the theory and operation of an updraft carb is exactly the same as a downdraft carb. In early cars the gas tank was usually under the seat or something like that, and it was possible to not have enough downward angle to keep the carb supplied with gas on a steep hill, and in those days there were some really steep hills on the main roads in some areas. Occasionally a motorist might have to back up a long steep hill (with switchbacks!) to keep the car from running out of gas partway up. The next step was to put the gas tank up in the cowl right under the windshield. This works better because there is a steeper drop between the tank and the carb. It limits the fuel capacity because there is only so much room up there in the cowl. Also, not everyone wants to drive around with a gas tank almost in their lap. What followed that was vacuum tanks. They use engine vacuum and keep sucking gas up into a tiny tank up high on the firewall. Now the main fuel tank can be located anywhere. The gas gravity feeds from the tiny tank to the updraft carb (just like it did when the main fuel tank was in the cowl).

And with that I think I should point out Mitchell makes 2 different types of product for the Model A. The first is an Overdrive that goes in the torque tube. This is not a planetary deal, it is an auxillary (second) transmission with 2 speeds, direct and overdrive. It is more comparable to a Warford for a model T, except that it has helical gears (much quieter) and is fully synchronized!. The second thing Mitchell makes is a set of fully synchronized gears for the model A transmission. With this, the model A is no longer a crashbox and basically anyone can drive it. It is still 1:1 direct drive in high gear like a stock model A. If you have enough money you could do both!. If it were me I would go for the Overdrive before I would go for the fancy transmission gears. A cruising gear is more important to me. I can shift a crashbox.

I don't know what that tool is called. Better to do it on the car anyway IMHO. The tool to do it on the car is called a "generator test set", and lots of companies made them including Allen, Sun, Snap-On, and so on. They can be found at swap meets. Someone well-versed in electronics can probably fake most of it with some kind of more modern test gear like an AVR or something, as long as it has a carbon pile in it. You might also need a separate analog voltmeter, and possibly an ammeter. This assumes a complete setup. I am gonna go out on a limb here because I don't know what you are working on. What follows applies to typical generator systems made after the introduction of sealed beams, with 3 relays inside the voltage regulator. There are basically 3 settings in a typical post-1939 regulator (except for air gaps and point gaps and stuff like that. Those are set with drill bits and feeler gauges). The 3 settings are: 1) cut-in voltage 2) maximum current and 3) system (charging) voltage. Typically, the first two should NEVER need setting unless things have been really messed with. 1) Cut-in voltage just shuts the whole system off to keep the generator from trying to run like a motor, and also to keep it from trying to run the battery dead when it is not being spun by the engine. The cut-in voltage is specified in the manuals, but should never change, and so should rarely if ever need to be adjusted. 2) Maximum current: This is to protect the generator. Generators will happily charge way over their rating and melt if allowed to. This setting is just set to the maximum current the generator is rated for. 20 amp generator? Set it to 20 amps. 35 amp generator? Set it to 35 amps. As you might imagine, there is no reason to ever change this unless you got the regulator or generator off of some other car. 3) System Voltage (Charging Voltage). This one is pretty simple. It is the only one that should need setting in normal use. There will be a specification in the book, and it is a really good place to start. All you need is the battery fully charged, terminals and connections tight, and an analog voltmeter. Digital meters might (probably will) lock up. If a digital meter does not lock up you can use it. Rev the engine up to 2000rpm or so and watch the battery voltage on the meter. Let it stabilize. Set if necessary. The setting is the tension on the little spring on the relay inside the regulator. Make sure you have the right relay (the book will tell). Assuming the air gap and points gap has been checked and is OK, you set it by bending the little tab the spring is hooked to a TINY amount, though some rare regulators may have a screw to adjust the spring tension. You must check and recheck the system voltage with the regulator cover ON, because having the cover off affects the setting. If you don't know where you are, set to the factory setting. Check the battery with a hydrometer after driving a week. Make tiny changes if necessary. If the battery isn't fully charged after driving a week, set the voltage 0.2 Volts higher and try again. If the battery is overcharged, lower the voltage 0.2 Volts. Repeat until the battery is happy. Good luck!

For what its worth, at least on the smaller 47-54 Chevy and GMC trucks, the radiator was mounted on the back (engine compartment side) of the core support in Chevys, and on the front (grille) side of the core support in GMCs. The GMC engine is longer and needs the extra room.

Those old body definitions are tenuous at best. Many manufacturers broke the unwritten rules. As I understand it a Phaeton is a 4 door open car, windows or not. So is a Touring car. If something was made in the 30s (or 40s I suppose) it is more likely to be called a Phaeton, If built in the 1920s or earlier, it is probably called a Touring. IMHO a Phaeton would be more likely to have roll up windows just due to the era the term was popular. I have no idea why Cord built something with 2 doors and called it a Phaeton (but apparently they did). In traditional terms, a Convertible is a 2 door car with roll-up windows, and a Roadster is a 2 door car without. There is currently a thread in these forums about an Oldsmobile Roadster that has roll-up windows and probably would have been called a Convertible by most other manufacturers.

Grandpa: How would you interpret the harmonic balancer finish in that picture?

I seriously doubt that a 1936 Buick is dimmable. I would expect to see the same kind of combination maplight/dashlight switch usually seen in mid 30s GM cars, dashlights to the left, maplight+dashlights to the right, center off. No dimmer. Can any other 1936 Buick owners confirm?

The terminals need to be connected somehow, and it varies. We haven't see what you are using. On some terminals you strip the wire and fold it back under before crimping the terminal tightly around the wire (capture the conductor end so you don't have something sharp sticking out). Some terminals have a spike that contacts the conductor inside the wire (shaky, but fine when brand new). Some screw in the end of the wire like Brian_Heil mentioned. Nothing wrong with that. If none of these apply, you will need to strip a little wire and solder it to the connector for decent results. I prefer soldering. Good luck.

They only have a torque value. There is no adjustment to upset. IMHO the only danger is the support ring falling out of position if you removed them all. If you do them one at a time and torque to spec, then tighten the locking nut, IMHO there should be no problem.

Aren't there three? They push forward a collar that holds the front pinion bearing in place (by forcing it to the bottom of it's bore. FIrst, one makes sure the collar is all the way forward, then the 3 set screws are tightened evenly, (probably with a torque wrench by 1940). Once the set screws are torqued, the locking nuts are tightened down against the case to lock the set screws in place.