Bloo

Look for a little triangular cover plate on the block, along the pan rail, about halfway back. If it has the plate, it's low pressure oiling. If it does not, it is full pressure oiling. Displacement can be trickier. The 1952 pickup should have had a 216 when built, and all of those are low pressure oiling. I'd like to hear more about the overdrive.

Try putting the parking brake halfway on.

I suggest having the head magnafluxed. As for the block, I think you will have to just clean it really well and inspect with a bright light (and maybe dye). There are only so many places the combustion could be getting in. It has to be the head gasket or a crack/porosity in the combustion area somewhere. Re-torque your new gasket a bunch of times after heat cycling.

You need to clean the inside of the cylinders all up and take measurements before deciding what to do. From the pictures, it appears you have vertical scoring in the cylinders. If so, that will leak combustion around the rings. Clean it up and see if you can catch your fingernail in the scoring. If so, it won't disappear with simple honing for standard size pistons and rings. While you have it apart, measure the bore size in several places. Measure at the most worn spot at the top at 90 degrees to the crank (highest wear), inline with the crank (to check for oval), and as low as you can get in the cylinder. Do this both 90 degrees to the crank and inline with it (to estimate taper). You can't accurately measure taper with the pistons in, but since the worst wear is always overwhelmingly right near the top you can get a good idea. Measure all cylinders. "Inframe" overhauls were common in the old days, and if it does not need boring, you may be able to do it. If it does need boring, you probably need to take the engine out. Back then, people did bore engines inframe, using a portable attachment. It is not as good as a modern boring machine, and I doubt you would find anyone to do that today.

My condolences.

Do exactly what you are doing, use a machinist's straightedge and a set of feeler gauges. Go diagonal as much as possible. Your'e gonna have a bad time with all those studs in there. Try a bunch of spots. Cover as much length as possible at a time. I don't know how much is too much slop on that, but .0015 is definitely OK.

Yes, more or less. I highly doubt it would directly bolt into a Chevrolet, but I am not completely sure it won't. The internals would be about the same as the Chevrolet Master's transmission from the same year. I think most of the internal parts would be exactly the same.

@John_S_in_Penna, There have been posts edited, and that response isn't what it seems. It said "synthetic" not "silicone" previously. Yes you can mix synthetic with the ordinary kind, because it is the same thing.

There is an extremely high probability they never got all the air out. My first experience with this stuff was back in technical college in the 80s. When I say it is difficult to bleed I am not kidding. It might be the understatement of the year. I converted my own car during that time. I was over a week bleeding it. Eventually I did get it right and got a rock hard pedal. One of my teachers was using it in his race car, and I got some pointers. I think I can do it in 2 days now, maybe, with planning and scheduling. It might take me three. I don't use Silicone fluid anymore, but may in the future. It solves the corrosion problem, and that is a big deal. On someone's first try with it in a car, I predict a week before it is bled, and that is if they know what to expect. If they don't know what to expect, it is going to take longer, and most likely they will never get all the air out and just give up. Just for fun sometime, put some in a glass jar. Pour some more in as if you were refiling a master cylinder while bleeding. now get your eyeball up to the jar and look. There are tiny air bubbles in there that were formed when you poured fluid. There are probably even smaller ones you cannot see without high magnification. Come back in three or four hours and look again. Yep, the bubbles are still there. Those bubbles get sucked back into the system if you go ahead and bleed right after you add fluid, or right after you just filled the system. Almost no one uses Silicone fluid in racing. You just can't be screwing around like this trackside like this when things go wrong. A quick bleed is going to be spongy, no question. Glycol on the other hand can be bled very quickly.

Now this is getting REALLY confusing..... The main advantage of *Silicone DOT 5.0* fluid (other than the boiling point) is that it is not hygroscopic. It does not draw moisture from the air. Actually this is kind of a big deal on older cars with systems vented to the atmosphere. Silicone (DOT 5.0) brake fluid should not be added to Glycol brake fluid (DOT 3, DOT 4, DOT 5.1). Every can of DOT 5.0 Silicone I can ever remember having says it's OK to mix the two, but there are horror stories on the web of the mixture gelling up and things like that. I don't know if I believe it or not. It doesn't matter though. Either way, you should not mix Silicone (DOT 5.0) with Glycol (DOT 3, DOT 4, DOT 5.1). Silicone fluid is difficult to bleed. It also floats on top of the glycol, and therefore never gets to the bottom where all the corrosion damage is happening. Since the remains of the Glycol fluid and water remain in the lowest parts of the system, you don't get to take advantage of the higher boiling point of the Silicone. In short you get all of the disadvantages of both types, and none of the advantages of either. Sponginess is air. Silicone (DOT 5.0) is *extremely* difficult to bleed. You might need to spread the process out over 2 or 3 days. Some never accomplish it. In my opinion, anyone who is going to try Silicone (DOT 5.0) should start with new hoses, all new rubber in all cylinders, and lines flushed with alcohol. There should be no trace of glycol left anywhere in the system. The fact that we even have to ask this really annoys me, but we do. I was surprised the first time I got a can of "**synthetic brake fluid**" (not **silicone**). I felt I had to figure it out before adding a completely new unknown fluid to a brake system. It really took a lot of digging and time spent to get a straight answer. So it turns out that synthetic brake fluid is ordinary Glycol brake fluid. All conventional Glycol brake fluid is synthetic. Apparently two or three years ago the marketing people decided that "synthetic" sounded modern and high tech, and started printing that on the cans. Maybe they were planning to jack up the price. Who knows. It's the same stuff it always was. It's like saying "sugar free lettuce".

In theory, yes, in a car with a return line. It has been done on at least one fuel injection system that is not very sensitive to fuel pressure, anything between about 12 and 18 PSI would have run OK. They used a simple restrictor orifice in the return line. The size of the orifice set the pressure. I doubt this approach is ever practical on a carburetor. It won't work even in theory on a car with only one line for the fuel. When the carburetor bowl is full and the float valve closes or tries to close, there is no demand at all. With the fuel line dead-headed like that, the fuel pressure would just rise to the maximum available pressure instantly. It would blow the float valve open and run the carburetor over. A restriction in the line would also mean there is not enough flow available to pull hills. The amount of fuel an engine uses constantly changes due to load. That is why regulation is needed when the supply pressure is too high. In the old days with mechanical fuel pumps, the spring pressure on the fuel pump diaphragm set the fuel pressure. That was was relatively easy for the engineer designing it to calculate. Easy as long as he knew how many pounds force the spring provided, and how much surface area there was on the fuel pump diaphragm. With plain gravity feed or a vacuum tank, the distance of vertical drop and the weight of the fuel determine the pressure. That is also predictable and fairly easy to calculate. You can't fool mother nature. Good regulators that actually work are expensive, and might need a return line added.

Did you have to straighten the center part on any of the Hupp wheels?

I have heard of "using parts up" stories told about GM, but mostly in the 20s. I agree with @1939_Buick that they would not have "rough cut out" fenders to use them up. In the mid 30s, there were so many mid year changes at Pontiac it is hard to even follow. Some make sense, but a lot of these seem to be the opposite, where they designed new parts and changed something in the middle of a model year for no obvious benefit.

@marcapra are you calling those terminals in @Fordy's post bayonet? The pics are so tiny I can't see anything. In the US the ones in @Fordy's pic are normally called bullet connectors, and then yes, you just need some female ones. Another thing that was done sometimes in those days was to use a double female connector, and then you can just solder another one of those terminals in @Fordy's post to the other wire and plug the two together. It's one more connection (not preferred), but then there is no insulation to deal with (and that part is nice). They may have done it that way originally. If the local outfit doesn't have the double female bullets, Rhode Island Wire will for sure. What do original ones look like for that car? Have you seen any? Another possibility is just some modern female bullet connectors. The only thing is they are likely to be the wrong size, but only slightly. Maybe you could see if they are close enough or bend them a little bit, solder them to your new socket wires, and use heatshrink for insulation. It might work.

I don't know if I would be willing to accept "too slippery" as the reason for any trouble. DexronII/III/Mercon's claim to fame was the presence of friction modifiers. Type F was the one without all the slipperiness. Some newer ATFs are lower viscosity in the interest of fuel savings. I can see that potentially being an issue in a transmission designed around more viscous fluid. For what it's worth, when you drop the pan and change the fluid and filter in a car as new as 1980, there will probably be no torque converter drain. Only a small portion of the fluid will actually get changed. Most of the old fluid will stay in. If I were doing this, I would get the DexronII/III equivalent. In Valvoline, you'll have to look in the small print on the back to see which one that is.

I don't like it either, but that's how it normally is. I'm a fan of straight boots. Nevertheless, right angle it is on FE. Nothing else quite works out all right on one of those. I slide the boots way back and snap the terminal in. If it wont snap in I spread it until it will, and then slide down the boot afterward. They still try to walk back up, at least at first. After a while they settle in, but at first they always look a little funny. If boots won't slide well on the wire, I use a little bit of CRC "heavy duty silicone". That particular spray is not like the others. It wont leave an oily mess all over rubber parts. Also if the boots can slide good on the wire, they might drift up but won't be trying to pull the wire out of the cap while everything is settling in. Those boots you have will probably be fine with some right angle terminals. The tails of them are quite long.

Straight terminals are the normal setup with 7mm wires. I doubt the stock Ford right angle boots would even properly cover a right angle terminal. Those boots you have look like they will be fine though, as long as the terminals are pretty short.

Correct, as far as I know, and my 1937 parts book seems to back that up. Also synchronized first to second, since the synchronizers are on second and third, but not first. It's the same setup as most if not all other synchromesh of the period. The internals of this Chevrolet-based transmission should be mostly the same as a large series Chevrolet of the same year. The synchros required internal clearances to be set with some selectable thickness parts, probably snap rings but I don't recall exactly. It is my understanding that even when set up correctly you can't expect these synchros to just work flawlessly like you can in Pontiac's Buick 40 based transmission, or in the new Chevrolet transmission that replaced this type in Chevrolets for 1937 onward. Your mileage may vary. It might be useful to have the oil viscosity just right to make timing the shifts easy. You might need to do some double clutching. These are things you would normally be thinking about when you have an unsynchronized transmission.

Ford had those floats until 2016(?) or so. I remember trying to buy one right after they were discontinued. Any of the Mustang/Thunderbird/F-series parts houses will have replicas available.

Yeah, that way you only have to do 3/4 of it.

I've done pretty much all of those things years ago. Lately I just don't use electric fuel pumps. Oil pressure is probably not a great idea for the reason you mentioned. It worked OK for me, but I don't really consider it a good idea. You can wire a relay, probably a DPST if I remember correctly, in such a way that the pump comes on with the starter, and then it goes and "hunts" for oil pressure. When it finds some (because the oil pressure warning light switch opened), the fuel pump comes back on. Checking for pulses at the ignition is done with a "tachymetric relay". These are French, and mostly used in Peugeot and Volvo. They work fine. They also handle the job of turning the pump on to get a little fuel in the carbs before starting. There are several kinds, and In the late 90s and early 2000s some of the versions were becoming unavailable. As many Volvos as there are here in the US I imagine some version for a later 240 or 760 still exists, but maybe not. It might come down to opening an old one up and resoldering the cracked solder joints, a common problem. If I were doing it today, I would definitely use an inertia switch. The ones used in old Alfa Romeos and Jaguars should be avoided. The contacts probably should have been silver plated or something and are not. They are unreliable. The earliest Ford ones (Large, 2-pin, from around 1984-85) should be avoided like the plague. They trip too easy. I vote for the Ford 3-pin one from around 1987-88 and probably much later. You could find these screwed to the inside firewall of Ford Rangers back when you could still find late 80s small Ford Rangers in junkyards. In regular Ford passenger cars you will usually find the switch inside a rear quarter panel accessible from the trunk. There is probably something more recent that works well, but I am not familiar with more recent options.

Pontiac's transmission change was in mid year 1935. The whole story is a bit convoluted. In 1932, Pontiac V8 and Six had a transmission of the family generally associated with the Buick 40 series. I'm not sure if Buick was even using this yet in 1932, but by 1935 Buick in Flint was the main if not the only source. For 1933 the new Pontiac Straight Eights used a transmission of the same family as the Chevrolet Master/Eagle/etc. (not including Chevrolet Standard) was used instead. As far as I know all of these were synchromesh. It allegedly wasn't very good synchromesh. You might have to double clutch. This continued when the new Pontiac Sixes were added to the line for the 1935 model year. In mid year 1935, there was a strike at Chevrolet's Toledo plant, the source of Pontiac's Chevrolet-based transmissions. Chevrolet bought transmissions from Borg Warner for part of the year. Pontiac switched back to the Flint built transmission family that we usually associate with the Buick 40. Apparently that change had been planned for 1936, but due to the lack of transmissions coming from Toledo, the change was made in mid year 1935 instead. Late in 1935 a few more of Pontiac's cheapest model were built with the Chevrolet-based transmission. In 1936, all Pontiac transmissions were the Buick 40 type. It is said in various internet writeups that there were some non-synchromesh transmissions, or that Pontiac "switched" to synchromesh in 1935, or sometimes mid 1935, or that Pontiac's cheapest model had no synchromesh. Another thing oft repeated is that Pontiac went to a "fully synchronized" transmission with a synchronized first gear in mid 1935. I don't believe any of that is true, and nothing in my parts books backs any of those ideas up. All of the transmissions I have described above are synchronized on second and third. Pontiac did not synchronize first gear until sometime in the 1960s.

12 is normal and means the engine is not running. 42 may be the interesting code to look at. Write it down, clear it by disconnecting the battery for a couple of minutes, and see if it comes back after the car fails to stay running. Is it losing spark? Generally speaking, GM V6s of this period could have Magnavox or Delco ignition. I'm not sure if this applies to Reattas. Which system do you have? Magnavox was known to be problematic as the cars got older. Delco has 3 separate removable coils. If I am remembering this correctly, Magnavox does not. If something in a Magnavox system is bad, a whole Delco assembly may interchange, at least in some cases.

Evaporust is indeed magical, but doesn't work so well where there is oil contamination. If I intended to do this, I would use some sort of solvent like carb cleaner first. Evaporust only works well when there is no air, and that usually means submerging the parts. Since you could plug and fill the line with evaporust, it would probably work really well. The environment needs to be above 60F or the reaction grinds to a halt. The warmer it is the faster it works. I would flush with hot water to get rid of the evaporust. Getting rid off the water is no problem, flush with denatured alcohol as if it were a brake line. Definitely check the line afterwards with a mityvac to make sure the line holds vacuum and you do not have pinholes, or so that you can fix the pinholes if you do have them.

Several companies made lights about like those, sometimes brands were round, some oval. I think the earliest I have seen reference to them was about 1936 or 1937 from Guide Lamp. That basic style was used into the mid 50s. Yes, double sided ones like this usually went on the front fenders. Matching single sided red ones would have been available for the rear, or optionally flush mounted ones for buses. If you look closely you'll probably find a stamp from the maker like Arrow, Yankee, Do-Ray, etc.