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Mark Gregush

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Posts posted by Mark Gregush

  1. Too much fuel, flooding, can bog an engine down. When you set the air valve, was it seated or maybe partly open? Once the car starts, engine vacuum keeps it open. Do a compression test. Just because the engine was rebuilt at some point would not rule out sticking or valve that is not closing all the way or the cold gap is too small. 

    When setting the valve clearance, the engine needs to be up to operating temperature not cold, for the values given.

    Are you going by the instructions given in the Mechanics' Instruction Manual or Book of Information?

    As you cannot get the engine to run all that long, at this point you might want to open the gaps up some till you can get the engine to keep running. Once you get to the point the engine will run and can get up to temperature, then readdress the valve gap. 

  2. Try posting in the Model A or Ford wanted section down below. There are a number of Facebook pages for the Ford Model A. You may have to build your own considering how few may have been built in the first place. Would imagine most surf boards were just strapped down with ropes to the top without racks or just stuck in the bac in the 60's. Who had money for extras like adding a rack. Unless someone added them, pretty sure the Model A didn't have gutters to mount to like later station wagons. 

    Anyone can read these posts so it is a good idea not to post your personal contact information. 

  3. I had the air valve stick and car stopped running at about the same point, 1 mile , was running and driving fine the trips before that. Thought it was points as they had been giving me issues. Cleaned points while people took photos and asked questions after pushing the car to side of road at a stop sign. Got the car running, badly, and was able to get back home. I had cleaned the carb shortly before all this but when I took it off after this trip, there was a lot of powdery dirt keeping the air valve from freely moving. Unless when I had cleaned it, didn't take the air valve apart no pin spanner, missed it or just didn't get it all out because it was not coming from the gas tank or through the preheater/exhaust manifold end. Cleaned it again and has been running fine. 

  4. Decided at this point, just to put the head back on and keep using car as is till can check out the other engine and swap them. Not even going to drop the pan, there is a little sediment in it, but it's not too bad and don't hear any rods knocking, little piston slap at times, but no rod noise. :)

  5. Pulled the head on the 1917 engine, top end looks promising, but time will tell what the lower end is like. Interesting tid-bit, this engine has aluminum crankcase, bellhousing and whats left of the transmission case (was converted to stationary engine), funny thing is, both the number on engine and bell housing match, 163840 adding 30,000 to that number would be about car number 193840. The MPL shows Dodge started the pressed steel pan at 73457/74388 so doing the math that would mean this was about 119,452 cars after that.

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  6. My 1920 had some leakage around the head gasket so decided to replace the head gasket, valve job and pan gasket because of leakage at rear main and leaving a trail up the driveway. 
    Pulled the head, that's' where the fun started!
    It has aluminum pistons installed, great right? Not! They are stamped 3.888 but let me describe the pistons and rings I can see from the top at this point: 
    First off, these pistons have rounded over top edges and use lap joint compression ring. Ok nice. Again not! The lapped joint is so far apart there is a gap of just under 1/8" between the ends. While 3.888 is a standard size DB piston, the bore at the top of the block is 3.888/3.889. You can noticeably move the pistons back to front and side to side, number 4 being the worst of the 4. With the piston at BDC on the thrust side I am getting about 3.903 or about .004+ taper. 
    Most engines I have worked on the piston size is stamped on them or at least the oversize is. So, I am wondering if these were made from piston blanks that were sized to fit the 3.888 bore and that is the number stamped on them or were someone's attempt to keep the car on the road and used what they had. (more likely the latter) Same thing with the rings, used what they had or were a ring that could cover a range of sizes, these just being too small. 
    I had just done a compression test a few weeks ago, front to rear, 65-65-50-60. So, compression was not too bad. Number 3 might be low because there is some rust in that cylinder so is not sealing as well as the others. Actually, after I pulled the head, was kind of surprised at those readings. 
    While I have not pulled the valves yet, at this point all I can say is they are really loose in the guides. 
    I need to get the pan pulled so I can at least see what is going on with that number 4 and pull number 3 to clean the cylinder up some. 
    While I know what needs to be done, that is not going to happen at this point with this engine. So will get things check out then button it back up and decide what to do next. I have to be able to move the car so can't leave it sitting where/how it is. I do have a December 1917 that might be ok for a temporary engine, I will need to check that out. 

  7. If by usual passenger location, you mean, right side top of the crossmember front seat under your heel, sorry don't know of any other location except maybe, the number stamped on the frame did change locations to right side frame member near the right-side rear spring bracket at some point, but not sure of the change date. My 1920, while the numbers are rather large, they are not deeply stamped. You may need to remove paint or rust to see them.

  8. As posted above, can't just swap over to disk from wood spokes if you don't have the other parts. Then too, you would need to know the proper size disk wheels for Buick and which rims and rim clamps are correct along with brake drums and hubs. Tire size might even be different. Disk wheels used a demountable rim in that era for the tire unlike later cars. 

     

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