PhilAndrews

Happens to the best of us. You get in the mindset that the procedure "start engine, get oil pressure" is so normal and taken for granted it's easy to forget.

If the oil pump is completely dry it'll have a hard time drawing up the oil. I would say there is no harm at all with @OrtonvilleBob's method- last thing you want in a new build is a lack of lubrication. That should backfeed to the pump and prime it. Primed from everyday running mine will build at least 5lb (puts the pressure warning light out) on the starter in a couple of seconds, even hot. if you lack a method of pumping oil in, take the oil pump off and pack it full of petroleum jelly, reassemble and that'll help it pull the oil up. Phil

Worst culprit back in the day was refinery sand getting into the fuel. The rock catcher filters were considered fine enough to prevent a single particle large enough to block the jets from being passed through. Any smaller particles should be caught in the sediment bowl, and anything finer than that could just burn. In reality a large volume of small particles can easily block things up, but hey ho. If they'll block the jets they'll block a filter. The idea there is it's easier to change a filter than spend an afternoon cleaning the carburetor out... Phil

Nice, I have the same original, mine over-reads by about 5 mph. I think I'll pull the gauge apart and recalibrate it that way, though. Just because I don't want to source and spend on an adapter...

Okay, they didn't do anything other than increase the diameter. Gotcha. The listing I have here for '57 has 11x2¼ for the front and I was looking, that's what mine are.... Listing is wrong for the model. Works for me, the shoes should fit. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

Front shoes look the same between 54 and 57. What changed on the front brakes?

Are there any cross references for front and rear drums? Are they available new still?

Thanks. I do enjoy driving it, for sure. It doesn't like being parked up for more than a few days.

It's done about 5000 miles this past year. I thought the new shoes would have lasted but apparently not.

The car is parked in the naughty corner. I need to get the drums turned and a new set of brake shoes, these new ones have fallen apart.

Heater put to the test. A clear, bright, chilly moonlit night. Heater on full, toasty warm!

New 12v fan motor, after the old 6v one died for the third time. Blows nicely and is nearly silent which is good. Made in Canada, which is surprising. Phil

Yeah, my pump didn't much like drawing through a filter (large metal can style) at high RPM.

Also, been fighting issues with the gearbox. Discovered the valve face on the gearbox itself is no longer flat. So, I made a gasket for the valve block. That helped a fair bit. I then tried it with this, 20W transmission oil. "Universal" ATF is 10W and too thin when it gets hot, particularly. $60 from tractor supply. That's improved things though I think for summer 30W may improve it further. Phil

The heater motor finally quit. I ordered another one, in 12V flavor but while I'm waiting for that to come in I had a look inside this one. One brush had shattered, the commutator showing a badly out of round burned section. So, for now I bought a couple of brushes, sized them to fit and put it all back together. It runs again. Should last until the new motor comes in. Phil

Out and about. Round trip of about 60 miles, crunched some numbers and the electronics appear to have helped. A 25% increase in fuel economy has been observed over normal for the same journey. Phil

Yup. It goes out in the rain. Makes some people surprised to see a classic on the road in the rain. It's a good all rounder vehicle.

Mine has those. It used to have the guards. The hole just has a chrome cap bolt in now. (It's lashing down with rain today, that's as close as I could get in the lee of the house without getting wet). Though, saying that, I think the side guards go through the top holes, the rearmost bolts to the bumper iron and the front one actually bolts in at the lower front bolt hole. Phil

That is a good way, but there's very few swap meets locally and although mine is a common distributor the cost is going up. So, hence my decision to ditch them and go with this. So far I cannot say I'm unhappy with the choice. I had a Lumenition system way back in the day and that was wonderful. The car would start each and every time like a new vehicle. No maintenance outside checking the cap and rotor periodically. Plugs lasted much longer too. I put my Colortune in last night to validate I had the idle mix correct by ear, feel and smell. The Pertronix creates a very powerful spark, visible through the glass of the plug. Idle is better, and the car smells a lot less fuelly because it's burning more, definitely hits each cylinder better, particularly under heavy throttle at low RPM. You could feel and hear it blowing the spark out before.

Yeah. The post on that plate is in very good condition. The new points have enough slop that they'll happily sit half off the contact pad. They bounce about and are generally terrible. The timing light would show the timing move at idle easily 3-4 degrees, revved up maybe 10-15 (hard to tell with no marks on that portion of the pulley). This system it just sits bang on the line each and every time. At low RPM (<1500) the running is about the same. Above that is noticably better. A good example is in third accelerating up the bridge here- there's a crash wall on either side that reflects the sound of the exhaust and I can hear it's lost the uneven sound around 2000 RPM that it had on points. Highway running at 55 now I can hold 14-15"Hg compared to 12-13 before. It's definitely better at higher speeds. Phil

When they were churning them out by the hundreds of thousands, and manufacturer's reliability image relied upon the quality, they were better. Now, on much smaller scale production the quality is somewhat lacking. The cost of NOS ones is high; for the price of 4 sets of new points I bought this. It's a tried and proven system, and the electronics are mature. Phil

Yeah, the trigger was from the signal so it was a crapshoot; had I spent a little more time I would have wrapped a wire around #1 plug lead and used that as the trigger and then delayed the trace. A modern digital scope with storage capability would be a very useful tool. This is an analog storage tube from the 70's which does work but isn't as flexible to use as a computerized one. In that example, that means that the arc wasn't able to cleanly traverse the gap and blew out partway, re-establishing as the primary voltage in the coil rang and re-peaked- that is between the rotor nose and plug lead contact inside the cap. Result of burned/dirty/corroded terminals inside the cap. Fix was to clean the cap terminals. Phil

Napa, echlin and they didn't like the damp.

10x probe connected to the CB (-) terminal of the coil. Reads the voltage in the primary side of the coil. The trace there is a single plug firing. I didn't sync the trigger to any particular plug-that can be done via electromagnetic pickup wrapped around plug lead #1 I would have been able to identify which cylinder that was, but at the time I had just wanted to do a bit of diagnosis to see what it turned up.

I did- those are MSD wires, of the correct type.