Bloo

I'd really love to know where exactly those dry cells are located in the car.

Moving the pinion in and out to fix backlash sounds like a recipe for disaster. You probably need to get some gear pattern compound of some titanium white artists paint to check the pattern. White or red lead was used in the past but is generally not available. The in/out of the pinion is set to get a reasonable pattern at a reasonable backlash, but the backlash itself would be set by moving the whole differential case (the part that spins) left and right. Bearing preload in anything that old should be set with shims, and the nut is independent. This in contrast to modern stuff that has a crush sleeve and the torque of the big nut is involved in setting the preload. With shims, you'll have to check the bearing preload with tiny torque wrench after the big nut is tight. If it is wrong, you must shim differently. That tail on the pinion does look like it would be handy to help you torque the big nut. I don't see any reason you can't check preload on the bench. Hold that outer housing with something and turn the big nut and pinion with a tiny torque wrench. EDIT: re-reading @Oldtech's post, he pretty much nailed it. Back to gear patterns: the deck is sort of stacked against you for several reasons. I would warn you to take any pattern reading instructions on the web with a grain of salt. Most rear wheel drive cars have had hypoid gears since the late 30s or early 40s, and therefore most how-tos assume hypoid gears. If your pinion intersects the ring gear at the center, you have spiral bevel gears, not hypoid. Also, you will notice a lot of those charts online contradict each other. Several years ago I found a Dana/Spicer document that told why. There are 2 methods to cut hypoid gears. The way the patterns move as you adjust in/out are different depending on which cutting method was used to manufacture them. I believe one type moved opposite on the coast side. I was working on a spiral bevel rearend at the time, and it didn't behave like either one. Backlash and pinion position move the pattern, but in different ways. You'll just have to try a bunch of things to see how the pattern moves on yours with a change in pinion depth, and with a change in backlash (side to side adjustment). What you want is a wide contact patch at the center of the tooth on both power and coast. You probably wont get it and need to settle for least bad. What you DON'T want, is contact on an outer edge or corner, or contact in the root. Anything that concentrates force on an outer edge will break teeth off. On the Pontiac spiral bevel axle I was working on most recently, as you moved the pattern in toward the root, instead of making a nice oval like all the books show, it made more of a "D" shape, widening out to something closer to a narrow straight line across the tooth. I suspect the root of the pinion was "relieved" a little bit, causing this. Better than having contact at the root. Incidentally in that Pontiac rearend, The shop manual wanted the gears lined up like you show in your third pic. The gears were aftermarket and the pinion had about a bunch of extra metal there, and it was not even possible to set it like that. Trying gave a pattern that was almost off the edge of the teeth. I advise to not put a lot of stock in that method. If it gives you a good pattern, great. If not, throw that whole idea out and move on. I agree with @Oldtech that clunks are usually in the differential itself or splines. There might be some bronze washers under the side gears or spider gears that could be worn and replaceable, but you also might need to live with it. Good luck. EDIT 2: Wow. I would check the pattern, but would be strongly inclined to leave the pinion depth set the same as it was.

Well... everything points to the flasher(s). Before buying something else, you could get a couple old sockets and hook 2 bulbs in parallel. 6V Battery(+) >> Flasher(X), Flasher(L) >> paralleled 2 bulbs (wires), Sockets of paralleled 2 bulbs >> 6VBattery(-) If the flasher is good, and is appropriate for 2 bulbs, the bulbs should flash. That takes the swtich, relays, car, wiring, grounds, etc. all out of the picture. I've got a sneaking hunch it isn't going to flash.

You just don't want traditional DOT3 or DOT4 brake fluid and paint to ever get near each other. There is a good reason most brake cylinders are bare cast. If I had to come up with something to try, I think I would use a 2-part paint like an epoxy or urethane. Something where you mix 2 parts and it cures by a chemical reaction. I'm not sure, but that might do it. I don't think any traditional air dry paint will work.

As shown it should work. Let's look at one side. Turn on the right side signal. I am assuming no semaphores. Relays R=R1 and R=R2 have their coils connected to 6V and ground. The switch contacts inside them disconnect terminal 30 from 87A and connect it to 87. R=R1 connects the right front bulb to the flasher. R=R2 disconnects the right rear bulb from the brake light switch and connects it instead to the flasher. Now we have 2 bulbs connected to the flasher. That is exactly what a modern "7 wire" turn signal switch does. If we want to split hairs, by the old German numbering system these terminal numbers come from, they have 85 and 86 reversed. It makes NO difference though. Zero. That detail is pretty much ignored today. It isn't even worth reversing them to try. It works equally well as shown. It basically has to be the problem on some level. The flasher is the only thing that flashes. If it is a traditional thermal flasher, the current drawn through it by the bulbs connected makes it flash. It sits there *not* flashing until you connect bulbs to it. On the old originals, the flashers had to be matched to the number of bulbs. Otherwise they flashed at the wrong speed or didn't flash at all. Later on there were "heavy duty" units that were less sensitive to the number of bulbs. They still needed the current draw, it's just that if a bulb burned out or if you added one temporarily by plugging in a trailer it would still probably sort of work. Electronic flashers may not care that much about how much current. Some of them may need a ground. The old thermal flashers did not need or use a ground. LED bulbs, if used, draw almost no current, so they won't make a traditional flasher flash. Those generally require a special electronic flasher. Speaking of bulbs, I am going to have to make the wild assumptions you are using a traditional thermal flasher for a 6 volt car with 4 bulbs, and that your 4 bulbs are incandescent, and the flasher is either "heavy duty" or sized for 2 bulbs. 2 bulbs because only one side is on at a time. By the way, these are bright bulbs that run hot. Original brake light bulbs should be fine, but little 1-1/2 candlepower parking light bulbs used in front on many antiques hardly draw any current. The front bulbs need to be roughly equivalent to the rear electrically. If you used those teeny bulbs or some LED to fit the available sockets in front or for clearance or to avoid melting a plastic(?) lens, you would need to be using a flasher that can flash with only one (rear) bulb. In that case the front doesn't draw enough current to count. Maybe an electronic flasher would work. If you are keeping the park light function, the sockets and bulbs in front need to be changed to dual element. If you keep using single element bulbs in the old parking light sockets, you need to disconnect them from the old wiring completely. Bad grounds reduce current. All four corners of the car need good grounds.

There should be sand, or something similar added to help with traction. I don't know what they recommend.

34.5?

This is going to be a bit ambiguous, but I might as well try. Have a look at these headlight rings. Not my headlight rings, just random ones from google images. These are brite dip over aluminum. look at how WHITE they are..... Around the upper edge of this second one, there is some white haze like I spoke of in my earlier post, probably corrosion damage. No way could you get rid of that without going through. Choose carefully. This grille is almost certainly brite dipped aluminum. It was shinier than this originally, but is still really white looking. It wouldn't weigh much. While this one is real chrome over diecast zinc or pot metal. Notice the deep rich blue color. If you held this in your hand it would weigh a lot compared to the one above. The ring around it is probably brite dipped aluminum. Check out this stainless drip rail below. It normally wouldn't be as scratched up as this, but still probably not as high polish as chrome. Notice how this is dark silver, more like chrome yet somehow duller and also less blue. Stainless is often used on drip rails and around windows. Look at this below. Is that a brite dipped aluminum corner on stainless trim? I think it is. I'll bet if you were there you would find a hidden screw holding that corner on. It's whiter. It might be a trick of the camera, and it might all be stainless, but it sure shows you how it LOOKS when they combine brite dipped aluminum and stainless in the same line of trim. You will see that a lot in 60s cars.

When I was a teenager, new cars were malaise era cars that, with very few exceptions, no one my age wanted. Old cars were "It". 1950s and 1960s cars were cheap, available, and at least twice as reliable. Rust was not a serious problem here, so there were gobs of them around. I have done a lot of junkyard scrounging and held a lot of these parts in my hand. When you have held the parts in your hand and seen both sides of them, the differences get obvious quickly. My friends and I were always looking for undented trim. As for Simichrome, one of my friends introduced me to that in 1978. I had a 30s bicycle, still have it actually. It didn't/doesn't have much plating left, but that made quick work of polishing stuff up where there was plating left that would have taken a lot of work normally. Bad plating. Ugh. Anyhow, later on, on car trim, I didn't understand what brite-dip is. When you tried to polish and blend a damaged area it just didn't work, at all. You were left with a big darker splotch. If you did the whole part, it was still a darker silver and not as shiny as it was before. Not horrible, but it wouldn't stay polished either. I recall having some parts that had developed a white haze in the brite dip that I never polished because I figured they would look worse. Any stamped aluminum parts I quickly learned to be really careful with.

Mostly weight if the parts are removed. It is difficult to explain in print. Color is different too. Stainless conatins a lot of nickel, and is almost the same color as nickel plating, but not exactly. It is usually the least shiny, although it can be polished up to look almost like chrome. Stainless parts are usually stamped (but so are aluminum). Chrome is a plating, and if bad usually shows rust dots or peeling. It has that deep bluish silver and high polish that everything else is trying to imitate. Well, usually. On 80s and newer cars it can be a little yellowish. Chrome usually has copper underneath, and you can sometimes see signs of it on the underside of the part, or on top if it peeled. Brass or pot metal castings are ususally chromed. Brite-dipped aluminum is the brightest, shiniest and "whitest". It is usually stamped parts. They weigh really light because they are aluminum. Some other things, stainless is springy but aluminum just bends. If a part is hammered or pressed over something and needs to hold itself there, like drip rail trim for instance, it is *probably* stainless. Aluminum parts are more likely to be held on with screws, although stainless parts often are too. American cars in the 60s and 70s typically use all three, sometimes more than one on the same bodyline, and assume you can't tell the difference. Once you pay attention for a while and get a handle on the colors, you can and it's obvious. Keep looking.

I don't know for sure, but personally I would not want to get it on paint. I think it would do damage. It smells strongly of ammonia. It is more appropriate for parts you can remove during a restoration, or parts that are not mounted on paint.

Two things may be getting crossed up. 1) Simichrome is an abrasive polish (fairly mild) that works on stainless, brass, copper, aluminum, etc. It's not the only option, but a very good one that reduces the amount of work needed. Stainless can be brought up really shiny with this. 2) Aluminum trim parts as used on 60s-70s American (and probably other) cars are coated with a form of anodizing called "Brite Dip". You shouldn't use abrasive polish on this, or really do anything other than mildly clean it unless you are going to strip or polish all of the Brite Dip off. Halfway off is very ugly. If you strip it and polish it, it will never be as bright as it was when new, and it will require constant maintenance to stay shiny, unless you can get it re-anodized and re-brite-dipped, which I suspect you cannot. You may have no choice but to strip if it is already really bad with scratches or corrosion or if you have to pound dents out. Proceed with caution on aluminum.

Simichrome (yes, the spelling is correct) is a metal polish made by Happich of Germany. It is very effective on stainless and several other metals. Find it online, or locally in USA at motorcycle shops. Highly recommended. Think twice about polishing any stamped aluminum. As @Littlestown Mike mentioned it is usually anodized, but not just a normal anodizing process. Normal anodizing has a matte finish. Stamped aluminum auto trim parts usually went through an anodizing process called "Brite Dip". This is much brighter than simply polishing the aluminum, so don't strip and polish parts that already look good. Also, bare aluminum oxidizes instantly in air, so it will not stay polished. I went down the rabbit hole about Brite Dip a few years ago. The details escape me right now, but as I understand it anodizing is pretty simple and can even be done at home on small parts, but Brite DIp is extremely expensive to set up and has poisonous chemicals to deal with, environmental impact, and so on. Based on what I read then, I doubt it is possible to get Brite Dip done today even in China. If someone knows different, please post.

Connect them in parallel, + to + and - to -. Generators charge very little at idle if at all. That is normal. On the other hand, if the dimming is happening revved up, it might depend on how many accessories you are talking about. A 38 Buick charging system is capable of about 25-28 amps. I don't recall exactly. 1937 has a 25 amp generator, and as I recall 38 has ever so slightly more. If your battery is fully charged, and you don't exceed the current (amps) the generator system can supply, you should have the voltage the regulator is set to as you go down the road. That is probably 7.5 volts at room temperature. If your accessories do draw more current (amps) than the generator system can supply, then you are starting out at about 6.3 volts with a fully charged battery, as that is the natural voltage of a 6 volt battery. It goes down from there as the battery discharges. The bigger (electrically) the battery is, the slower it drops. The difference in brightness between 7.5v and 6.3v is a lot. You can easily see a 0.2V difference in lights.

I suppose it depends on what you are working on. A lot of Ford distributors have a breaker plate with an offset pivot that does not move concentric to the shaft. Whenever the vacuum advance moves the dwell changes. Ford distributors are not the only ones that work this way.

Maybe. Look here: https://restorationstuff.com/ Also, possibly look in Model T Ford supplier websites. Similar things were used on other cars for sure. Pay attention to the details and you might get lucky.

The 2 brushes directly across from each other are the main ones. The armature windings are the ones that supply charge current. One brush is grounded, and the other goes to the cutout (in the regulator box). From the other side of the cutout relay, a big wire goes to power the car and charge the battery. The field coils, the ones in the case that do not move, are controlled by the voltage regulator and the third brush. Those will be connected to the third brush and the field terminal in some way or another. EDIT: 2 should be the field. Most likely 2 goes to one end of the field coils, and the voltage regulator connects to the other end.

I have no personal experience with the exact product @EmTee linked, but I have worked in several shops with professionally done epoxy floors. Highly recommended. Also, do it before the floor gets dirty. This type of floor is bulletproof if done as part of new construction. In shops where it was done later, they wash the concrete with acid or something, and the coating is better than bare concrete in any event, but adhesion was never perfect on used floors that had once been oily. Light gray color (reflects light under the car) and a traction additive (sand?) is the best kind of shop floor.

It's Volts. I'll bet it's part of a cell tester for car batteries back when the bus bars were exposed.

I'd ask on the MTFCA forums, since it's a T. In general though, rust is strong, but very brittle. Shock waves break it. Things like hammer hits, ultrasonic energy, heat expansion, etc. are your friend. Don't just use a giant cheater bar as a first option. Try to mess up the rust instead. A piece of steel like a bolt is effectively a spring you can twist. You can only twist it so far before it yields. A soft old bolt from the 20s might yield fairly easily, and even more so if there is rust damage concentrating the force at a thin spot. The yield point is a place you do NOT want to be. Instead, put some load on it like some constant pressure with a box end wrench. Maybe a cheater bar too but don't kill it. Keep holding the load against the bolt and hit it's head with something like a brass hammer. Not a deadblow or plastic or leather hammer or anything soft. You want to SHOCK it. Sudden shock waves, without putting enough rotational torque to actually twist it off. Imagine you are trying to break glass. It is about the same. Absolutely correct. I hesitate to suggest it because how to "finesse" a rattle gun is not obvious, and something most people have never done. It is hard to describe in print. I'd use a big rattle gun turned way down. I wouldn't squeeze very hard either. Lots of shock, but hopefully not enough twist to go beyond the yield point. Too much and you twist things off even worse than with a cheater bar.

Well... as you say, someone apparently added a voltage regulator. The second wire is to control the field. If done properly, the voltage regulator is a significant improvement. What are your goals for the car? If it's going to be a driver, I would leave that for now and try to set it up and use it and see how that goes. For show of course you would probably need to get rid of it. There were factory systems that work about like this around 1934-38. The can has a traditional cutout and also a voltage regulator inside (2 relays). Current regulation (Amps) is still handled by the third brush. Make sure you still have a third brush in the generator. I'd set the third brush to the maximum current (Amps) that the generator can safely supply long term. Caution, that probably wont be in the manual, and it won't be much. The maximum spec (Amps) in the manual for cars of the 1929 era is usually a bench test setting intended only to check generator health and is WAY TOO HIGH for constant use. A safe setting is going to be much less current (Amps) than the test setting. Cars that came from the factory with a voltage regulator on a third brush generator usually do not have an adjustable third brush. It is riveted in place. Maximum current (Amps) is fixed in that case so you don't need to consider it. On cars that had only a cutout originally, like almost everything from 1929, the third brush is adjustable. You must still consider the third brush (Amps) setting when using a voltage regulator. I'd set the voltage regulator (the relay that controls the extra wire) so you get 7.5 or 7.6 Volts at the battery at room temperature. This is with a fully charged battery, the engine revved up to a fast idle, and the can installed on the regulator. Don't check with the can off. The setting changes with the can on. Check a few times and be precise. Never ever run a third brush generator with the battery disconnected. Some windings may burn. If it is unavoidable for some reason, disconnect the generator and ground it's output terminal. This applies only to third brush generators.

@edinmass has contact info for an excellent cast iron repair shop. You should PM him for details. Good luck with your project.

How many ignition coils? Does it take two whole turns of the crank to get one turn of the distributor? Most cars do. With 3 lobes though, it wouldn't necessarily have to. Got a pic of the inside of the distributor? These days getting someone to put it on a distributor machine is the easiest, fastest and best. Back in the day it would have been done with a tool that measures the angle difference between the 2 sets of points. Then, timing for the whole engine would have been set with a test light in the normal way for the time, aligning the mark to the spot where the points open and the light changes. A timing light also works and might be better. Without seeing it I am flying by the seat of my pants. Dual points in a prewar context can mean a whole bunch of different things. It almost never the means the same type of dual point system used in the postwar era that so many mechanics are familiar with.

https://www.then-now-auto.com/fuel-pumps/ Since you don't know exactly what you have, send them a pic of it and a pic of any numbers you can find on it. They will be able to positively ID it, and send you parts. For what it's worth, I think there is a high probability that the stock fuel pump for the 1965 390 would work on the 360, or at least fit at the interface to the engine. There could be differences like the aim and size of the fuel fittings, maybe one has fuel filter and one doesn't etc. It's really hard to tell for sure without being there to look at it. Welcome to the forum!

I can't think of many flathead sixes that have both a removable water jacket plate and a low mounted distributor. One that comes to mind as a possibility is the Hupmobile Century Six.