Bloo

Have a look at the location of the water pump. Early 50s had it on the side of the block, behind the generator. Not sure, but I think the later ones had the water pump on the front. If your car has a pump on the side, and the new one doesn't, there is a good chance the engine won't fit in the available space. Look closely at what you have and what you are getting before you buy.

53 Chevrolet is six volt.

Are you sure that trick still works? There used to be all sorts of carb and brake cleaners that would act as fuel for that sort of testing (also for vacuum leaks!), but I haven't had much luck lately. If that Berryman one still works, I'm gonna run out and buy a few cans. Thanks in advance.

I believe a supplier was FIngerhut. They are still in business, but I just looked and the covers are not listed. I doubt that is what he refers to. Clear plastic seat covers were extremely common in the 50s and 60s up here in the US. They were put on usually when the car was new to preserve the upholstery, much like the leatherette and plaid ones that you still see on an unrestored car from time to time. The clear plastic ones came 2 ways, 1) plain clear (like boat side curtain window material) and 2) embossed with some small geometric or floral pattern to give it a little texture. I agree. My 36 Pontiac has red painted highlights in various places on the chrome. Originally it would have had highlights on the grille too, but on my car those would have been silver. On a car with red stripes on the wheels, It would have been red.. I think the grille is distracting. Note that the first Olds has red striping on the wheels, while the second one has silver. They might very well both have highlights on the grille, but the silver wouldn't stand out.

Those are voltage scales for the charging system. The scales are on the left meter. The "16v" one resolves down to 0.2 volts, good enough for setting up regulators on 6 and 12 volt cars, barely. They also have charging voltage "normal" ranges marked.

Some equipment works and some doesn't. Then there is the issue of dwellmeter accuracy, and how to calibrate. That rabbit hole runs really deep. You can read for hours if you want. I bought actual antique 6 volt equipment, and then I had to repair it. Some modern units should work right out of the box, it is just hard to tell which ones. If you connect the dwell meter with the points open, and it goes to the number of degrees that exists between cylinders (45 degrees on an 8 cylinder, 60 degrees on a 6, etc.), then the dwell function should work on any car. RPM would have to be checked against another meter I guess. I do suggest you stick with analog meters. My attempts to use digital tachs and timing lights on 6 volt cars so far has been frustrating and fruitless. The ignition, or maybe the generator system just generates too much electrical noise. I also tried a Harbor Freight laser tach to avoid connecting electrically. it locks up if I get it close to the engine.

Compression test (then a leakdown test if the compression test shows trouble, to pinpoint the reason). And yes, keep us posted.

Not rocket science, just fiddly and a lot more expensive than it looks. This goes for any sort of driveline and/or rear suspension mods on a torque tube car. For what it's worth, torque arms from a 1960s era Chevrolet 1/2 ton pickup are usually used to carry the suspension forces Buick carried on the torque tube.

Yeah, it looks like a Studebaker Special Six. I will defer to oldford on the year. As far as I know, among Studebakers, only the Special Six had a grille shape like that.

The middle one is a Mopar Slant Six. The last engine is a Chevy straight six, probably a 216. The guys over here would be able to identify it positively. https://vccachat.org/

IIRC there are codes on the tire that show where it was made. If it is made in the USA you are looking for, don't go by the brand name, as it doesn't really relate to the country of origin anymore. A tire made in the USA today could have anyone's name on it.

That is a problem to solve while the tank is out. On most cars it is easier to get right with an original sending unit, but no matter what you do, make sure the float is good, that it does not bang on the tank (but gets very close to the bottom), that it has enough sweep (change in resistance) to swing the needle all the way from E to F, and that the gauge will hit "e" before the pickup can no longer suck. Most of this can be sussed out with an ohmmeter by turning the tank upside down. The last bit can be sussed out by putting enough gas in the tank to raise the gauge a little. sucking the gas out through the pickup with a hand-powered transfer pump until the gauge is at "e", then suck out as much as you can through the pickup into a separate container. Measure this fuel. This is your reserve. Now you know how big it is. Add a ground to the sending unit. It hurts nothing, and makes the gauge more reliable. I would also add a sock to the pickup if it is reasonably practical to do so. Mileage logging or not, driving without a gas gauge can be pretty stressful if you are out in the boonies and don't know where the next filling station might be.

With all the sky is falling warnings all over the Internet I would probably believe this except.... some salesman talked me into trying "phosphate free" antifreeze back in the 1980s, before it was a common thing. I liked it because it makes a much smaller mess if it leaks or boils, and have been using it in most of my cars since.. I am in my 50s now and am wondering how long it is going to take for this stuff to eat a radiator. Will I live long enough to see it? I'll keep watching. Here is a car with over 200k on it. It is a 1991 and has had nothing but DexCool and distilled water since the summer of 1996 (and 60k miles). The radiator core and the heater core are brass/copper and both are original. When they fail, if I live long enough to see it, should I blame the antifreeze? There are more examples in my "fleet". Change your coolant regularly and everything will be OK.

I think these are "roadsters" with roll up windows. If I am not mistaken Oldsmobile was the only GM division that did this.

There is a Reliant forum here: http://www.world-of-reliant.org.uk/phpBB3/index.php Maybe they would know something?

Are you sure it can't? Which way does the fuel flow through the filter? The sediment bowl on my 36 Pontiac is built upside down about like that, and doesn't even have a glass bowl up there, just a metal cover. It uses a fine brass screen (that also will fit the "normal looking" AC right-side-up sediment bowl). IIRC the gas has to flow up to get through the screen. There are cavities cast in the metal below to catch the crud that falls.

Thats it. Many older GM products had a way to leave the ignition unlocked without the key in. I had a 53 BelAir that had a raised area around the key slot for the same purpose.

If they are anything like 1936 Pontiac shackles, they are threaded to keep the springs located (for suspension stability). You can probably press or tap them out of the spring (or frame) without removing the springs from the car (I did). I used cheap sockets and a hammer to drive them out. I think I used sockets and allthread (without the pin) to press them back in, but I cant remember for sure. I will warn you that it is hard to get everything together afterward because the spring wants to arch more and not reach. You will have to block it somehow, or lash up a long pole to "straighten" the spring somehow to get the shackles hooked back up when you are done. Once you get the bushings out, put them in a vise and use heat from a torch to help the penetrating oil work, and work them until you can screw the pins out. "Mopar rust penetrant", available at a Chrysler or Dodge dealer makes quick work of stuck rusty things and doubly so if you can heat the rusty parts up and let cool a time or two. You can in a vise. If the penetrating oil you have now wont do it, try that stuff. Tapping with a brass hammer on the pin helps too, rust is brittle. Once you get them unscrewed just clean them all up. When they are all clean, check them for looseness. If they are shot, maybe Chevy ones would fit? If so they are available in reproduction. I didn't need to replace any, and four of mine were stuck, 3 on back and one on front. If they are ok, press the bushings back in the car, screw in the pins, and grease em up. There should be washers at the ends to help(?) keep water out. Chevy washers might fit too. They were heavy felt originally. Mine were so saturated with old grease they appeared to be heavy leather, and that is what I made a couple of replacements from, not realizing they were supposed to be felt. The leather worked out fine.

Maybe, but I wouldn't unless it just wasn't coming out and I absolutely had to. Those frame bolts were in there when the dent was made. The time will almost certainly come when you have to separate the body from the frame. I would postpone that as long as practical. Is the rear window not broken?! I might take that out if so. I have a sneaking hunch it isn't going to make it.

Note: I am not a body man. Use the following advice when everyone else has given up. YMMV. A friend of mine who went to college for body repair told me a long time ago that steel has a memory. As long as you don't heat it and relieve the stress, the metal WANTS to go back to the correct shape. He said if you could reverse the impact exactly, the dent would come all the way out. That little bit of information has served me well over the years. If I had to fix that, based on what I have seen, (and really. I would have to see more underneath), I would find some way to tie the car down SOLIDLY (and that might be the hardest part, finding something solid enough to anchor, and also to spread the load out on the un-bent part of the car to avoid doing more damage). Then I would pull, from something else solid (huge tree maybe?). I would try to duplicate the angle and center point of impact exactly, and I would pull like crazy with a comealong. Anchoring the comealong would most likely mean putting some holes in the body around the taillight area, and fabricating some sort of plate to go underneath to keep from pulling through. The shape and size of this plate might have to change as you pull (several pulls, several plates). Simultaneously, you may need to push underneath somewhere with a porta-power, maybe more than one. The reason is that as the car folds up, things hit each other when the dent goes in (and push on each other) that will not pull back when the dent goes out. You need to reverse the forces of the dent as closely as possible, and that probably means also pushing from the inside. It may also mean pushing on the frame if there is obvious damage. Typically you will have to pull about 10% too far, as the car will spring back. It is sort of hard to estimate, but the car doesn't WANT to go too far and it will start to resist pulling even more. Pull from the outside and tighten from the inside, and tap or maybe bang on high spots and creases with a hammer to help it along as the dent comes out,. It would be imperative to have a perfectly straight bumper to work with as JohnD1956 mentioned, as well as a perfectly straight trunk lid. You would also need a bunch of measuring tools. Jack stands, angle gauges, a roll of twine or a chalkline with no chalk in it (or two), plumb bobs (several), levels, straightedges, measuring tapes, laser pointers, etc. Fortunately all these tools are available at Harbor Freight these days for not too much money. After the dent is more or less out, and you have pulled as far as you can, and have the major inner structure back where it belongs, and the taillight area is probably stretched out almost beyond repair, and the straight trunklid and bumper and the door fit correctly, is time to stop and re-assess. Put the car on a REALLY flat piece of concrete and get out the jackstands and strings. Check the wheel alignment. Is the axle in the right spot? Is the frame (still) bent? How far? If bent can you straighten it with the porta-power? is the frame LEVEL or is there a corner up or down? Measure up from some strings tied to jackstands, and checked for level. If it is bad enough, the body might have to come off of the frame now. Regardless of how, if the frame is bent, straighten it. There is going to be a lot of stretched metal from the wreck and from the pulling. You can shrink metal with an acetylene torch. Don't heat anything until you are completely done pulling! It may be easier to cut the whole panel off and replace it. Probably at least some sheet metal will need to be replaced. Keep working it until everything is back where it belongs.

When all else fails, just make them! This heat riser weight was made out of bar stock with a hacksaw, an acetylene torch and a rat tail file. A couple of holes were punched with a Bridgeport mill, but it could have been done with a hand drill and a vise.

The 216 Chevrolet's "splash oiling" is not what some of you probably think. Oil is squirted out of jets across the width of the oil pan. The dippers on the rods dip from those streams. A mis-aimed jet could easily result in one isolated rod bearing failure. Those jets need to be aimed properly when the engine is apart for rebuild. Usually this is done with a special tool for the purpose. Special tool or not, those streams need to be aimed so the dipper gets a squirt. If it doesn't, there's gonna be trouble. Always use light oil in these engines (20W back in the day). If the oil is too heavy the squirters wont squirt far enough when the engine is cold. There are also troughs, but those don't help much if the oil is too thick. There are 2 issues here others have already mentioned that could bite you. The first is that the bearing journal might not be round anymore. Check it with a micrometer from a whole bunch of different angles. If it isn't round no bearing will hold up long term. Years ago people did all sorts of things at the side of the road to complete their journey. If the journal isn't round, and it often isn't because the knocking often makes a flat spot, old stories about this usually end "Well, it got me home" or "And it almost got me home!". On the other hand, If the journal is still round, it is possible to polish the journal and then fit a new "bearing". Since the 216 has poured bearings in the rods, this generally means replacing the rod with a re-poured one. You can still find them on Ebay, but I would lean toward having yours re-babbitted if possible. That would likely take longer and cost more. If you don't re-babbitt and instead use an exchange rod, at least try to ensure that the new rod is about the same weight as the others in the engine. The second issue is that there could be metal from the failure floating around in the engine. People often got away with fixing them back in the day as long as the journal was round, but not always. If it were mine, I would tear it all the way down and clean every internal surface and oil passage. IMHO doing anything else isn't worth the risk. You really need to post pictures of the damage. The reason you aren't getting direct answers is that "spun bearing" is something that happens to engines with bearing insert shells. Typically when lubrication fails, the thin layer of babbitt on the insert goes away, and then the steel core of the insert welds itself to the bearing journal, and then the crank spins the insert, grinding out the hole in the rod (or block if a main bearing). Since 216s had poured babbitt in the rods instead of inserts, there should have been no insert to spin. Maybe it was converted to inserts? Best of luck, and I hope you are able to fix it easily.

Today "older restorations" are often looked at with a bit of suspicion because the authenticity may be lacking. One can infer that "down to the last washer" authenticity in restoration is more common today than it was in the 1950s and 1960s. As the cars get older and rarer in the future, people may care more than they do now. If the little details are not recorded while those who know them are still alive, the information will simply be lost. I do not see it as snobbery. My cars are drivers and will not do well at any concours, nor even be invited. I really don't have a dog in this race. When rebuilding things on my cars I do try to push them closer to authentic where I can. Old threads on this forum have been very useful to me. Thank you all. Please, let's put our pride aside and record the little details for people in the future who may care more than we do.

If there is no obvious reason it rusted out in that one spot, (like battery acid dripping on it, or a low spot that collected the worst of the rotten brake fluid), then ALL the tubing needs to be replaced. That isn't what you asked though. You asked whether JB weld will hold in this situation. No.

My 36 Pontiac has bleeders like that. They just have machine screws in them. I gathered it is just to keep the crud out (like the little rubber caps that go on more modern bleeder screws). I am fairly sure I bled them with a suck bleeder. I probably just crammed a hose over the outside flats.