Mark Huston

Back in the late 70’s my brother was driving around in a 1965 Cadillac Coupe Deville. As was his habit he finally ran the car into the ground through lack of proper mechanical care and then parked the car behind my dad’s barn. Fast forward to the 80’s my dad got sick and tired of all the cars behind the barn that my brother abandoned over the years and started to get rid of them. A fellow bought the Cadillac and wanted it delivered. I helped my father load up the car onto a trailer and deliver it into the new owner’s driveway in a nice suburban neighborhood. As my father and I were in our truck preparing to drive away the new owner was opening the hood of the Cadillac just as we looked back we saw a skunk hop out from under the hood of the Cadillac in front of the startled new owner. With that my dad hit the gas and got out of their as he said: “Not only did I get rid of a junk Cadillac, but I got rid of a skunk also”.

Thank you Larry, I did not know about Rally America, they are only a two hour drive, so nice and close. I will contact them to see if they will do my wheel repair.

Can anyone direct me to someone, or a company, that can repair a wire wheel? I have a wire wheel that has non-adjustable spokes, and is missing one spoke. This problem was discovered during the striping process in preparation for powder coating. Now the process is stopped until I can find someone who can repair and replace the missing spoke. I live near Sacramento, CA and ideally I would like to locate someone within a reasonable driving distance in CA. I do not want to ship the wheel because if it was lost in shipping it would be next to impossible to find a replacement wheel. And yes, I have had rare and valuable parts lost in shipping before. Any suggestions? P.S. The wire wheel that I have is a 19” wire wheel that was only used on the 1929 Studebaker President Brougham. No other year, or model, President used this wheel. This is why I don’t want to trust it to shipping companies.

These were used to secure the side mount tires of a car that has metal side mount covers. When you have full metal side mount covers you would not have used leather stripes over the covers. The “Y” shaped end hooked the outside edge of the tire, the inner hook, next to the threaded end, hooked on to the side mount rest. I had a nearly identical set that came with the full metal side mount covers of an early 30’s Studebaker. I am sure these are not for Studebaker, but would have been used on car with full metal covered side mounts.

Your Dictator looks great! You have done a lot of work in a short time. Your blue and back color choice for the Dictator is much more authentic looking then the original brown and beige. I can sympathize with your plight of starting something simple and ending up much deeper than you planed. My winter project on my 1929 President was to do a break job and has now mushroomed to the point that I may not be done by NEXT winter! Congratulations on your great looking Dictator.

One of the most ridiculous comments I have heard was while driving my 1928 Studebaker President on a long cross country drive. A friend of mine had a 1928 Studebaker President Roadster, mine was a 5 passenger sedan, and we both lived in Northern California and wanted to attend car meets in Logan, Utah, and Sutherlin, Oregon, on back to back weekends. We loaded up our cars with camping equipment, children and spouses, and headed east to Utah camping out along the way. Somewhere near the Nevada / Utah boarder we stopped for gas and a women walked over to my wife and asked her what we were doing after taking note of old cars with out of state licenses plates and camping equipment tied down to the back end and on the running boards. After finding out we were on a two week vacation driving cross country camping out using 1928 Studebakers the incredulously women asked my wife “Why are you ALLOWING your husband to put you and your children through this kind of TORTURE?”. I suppose to some people if you are not traveling in a modern SUV with built in TV’s for the kids, air conditioning, cup holders galore and every other conceivable modern contraption the trip must be torture. This trip occurred when my two daughters were under the age of 10 years old; they are both in their 20’s now and have very fond memories of this specific vacation. By the way, we drove for two weeks, through 5 states, and nearly 3 thousand trouble free miles on some of the most beautiful roads the west has to offer. One of these days I plan on doing it again, if I can just get that amount of time off work again. Oh, and the other comment I have been listening to for over 30 years that I have owned 1928 and 1929 Studebakers is this: “My Grandfather had a Model T Ford just like this one”. At one point I had a large custom sign made for my car that said STUDEBKER, and still I heard about the Model T Ford connection to their grandparents, so I have given up.

I do not have a problem with using my real name on this forum and have been doing so since I registered February 13, 2000. In the nearly eight years that my name has been associated with this forum I have not had one negative experience. Think of it this way, those of you who are members of large car clubs that publish yearly rosters your name, address, phone number, and cars owed, are published and distributed for anybody to read who happens to get their hands on the roster. You never know where those rosters might end up after the original owner discards them. Just a thought, and on this site your address is not included - unless you disclose the information.

I do not know if the 29 and 30 Erskine dash panel are the same. What I can tell you is that Studebaker in 29 and 30 used the same dashes on the President, Commander and Dictator models. It is possible that they may have done the same thing with the Erskine.

Your dash looks a lot like the one shown in a current eBay listing of a 1929 Erskine. Here is the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1929-Stud...1QQcmdZViewItem

As a collector, and enthusiast, of Studebakers for the last 33 years I have never heard of an experimental straight nine cylinder Studebaker engine. Although, I am not an expert and this is not to say that the Studebaker engineering department did not experiment with a nine-cylinder engine. I am wondering if the reference could have original been to the introduction of the nine main bearing engine on the President models in 1931. The first Studebaker President straight eight engines in 1928 were five main bearings, upgraded to nine in 1931.

The Toyota quality control problems continue with a article that is in today’s Sacramento Bee about a “whistle blower” at the California Toyota/GM plant who has been harassed for trying to report problems of serious defects in vehicles produced at the plant. http://www.sacbee.com/308/story/505030.html

Because Toyota is a popular auto company, and it is politically correct to own a Toyota, I do not think this issue will make the news the same as it would have had this problem existed with a truck manufactured by one of the Big Three. I recently read an editorial chastising Toyota for their declining quality control. The speculation is that Toyota has broadened their product line to the point that there is no longer the level of quality control oversight that there was in the past in preproduction design and engineering. I am afraid that this is just the beginning. Incidentally, I did own a 2003 Toyota Tundra SR5 Extend Cab for all of 24 months and traded it in after only 24,000 miles on a 2005 Ford SuperCrew. I am very happy with my Ford, so much so that in the 26 months that I have owned this truck I now have over 56,000 miles of trouble free driving. I will never own another Toyota Tundra, they are not much better then owning a Tacoma. If you want a real truck, shop the Big Three and you will not be left trying to do a heavy job with an inadequate truck.

Professional concrete contractors have told me that concrete takes about 90 years to fully cure, give or take a decade or two. While your garage floor is curing, the moisture in the concrete works it way up and evaporates into the air – which would include right under your car. If you have a lot of excess moisture work its way up through your garage floor you might see a chalky substance build up on your garage floor. This is a result of “wicking” when the moisture pulls minerals out of your concrete while working its way up and out of the concrete into the air. You might want to look into using a good quality concrete sealer while your concrete floor is still oil and grease free.

Rbl2 – I agree with you and I am in the same boat – I cannot afford to buy a restored car – and I have to many other priorities to spend money right now restoring a car. At least while the car is mechanically sound I can enjoy driving it the way it is – flaws and all. I have been in the old car hobby now for over 33 years. In those years, the kind of cars that I have owned have been unrestored original Studebaker’s of the 1928-29 vintage. As a rule the activity that I enjoy the most is going on a drive, or tour, with other car owners – not car shows. I have no desire to collect awards. Every once in a while I will attend the occasionally car show when a friend will talk me into it – although there are not many shows that will accept my original unrestored 1929 Studebaker President Brougham with the rusty chrome, bad paint and over all shabby old car. Some of the things I have witnessed people doing to my cars at a car show: One family (mom, dad, and three kids) were literally all over my car, one kid on top of the HOOD – looking in the windshield, mom holding another kid in the drivers window while the child played with the steering wheel controls, another kid hanging from the passenger rear door window with his shoes kicking against the door as he tried to pull himself up to hang in the open door window – all the while he father looked on with a look on his face of “way to go son!”. On another occasion I had the doors closed, windows up, doors locked on my 1928 Studebaker at a car show. I was sitting in the lawn chair at the back of the car when I looked up to see a woman with her husband jerking and pulling violently on the right front passenger door handle. I asked them to please stop doing that (politely), but they continued to try to open the door (it was locked), since they did not get the message of the polite request I got more direct with them to knock it off and step away from the car. I then gave them a lesson in vintage pot metal door handles that are easy to break on these old cars. Their response: Then why do bring the car to a show if you are afraid of someone breaking it? There have been many more instances like the ones I have mentioned here but you get the point that there is always a small percentage of people at a car show that you can not turn you back on or something will be broken, damaged, or stolen from you car. One last item from a car show that I attended this past Sunday. My 1929 Studebaker President was in the Classic class and I was the first to arrive at the car show that morning. As the morning progressed, other car owners arrived and parked their cars on the field. When the show had started and all the cars were in place on the field my unrestored original Studebaker was sitting alone without another car any closer than at least two parking spaces. None of the other Classic owners wanted to park next to an original car. I made a joking comment to the owner of a Pierce-Arrow “Don’t worry, rust can’t jump”.

Do not read the Time article on The 50 Worst Cars of all Time if you have a weak heart or are on blood pressure medicine. It is very clear from the couple of car reviews that I have read in this article that the author is very biased and hates cars. An example is this quote from the review of the Model T Ford “A century later, the consequences of putting every living soul on gas-powered wheels are piling up, from the air over our cities to the sand under our soldiers' boots. And by the way, with its blacksmithed body panels and crude instruments, the Model T was a piece of junk, the Yugo of its day.” It is quite plain to see that this article is anything but informative journalism, it is at best a hatchet job on the auto industry and another biased attempt at promoting the environmentalist agenda. I will not waste my time reading any of the other informative car reviews. In my opinion, this entire article belongs in the top ten of The 50 Worst Journalism Articles of all Time.

Looks like a headlight for a 1929-30 Studebaker.

Dizzy, I can sympathize with you on a wasted road trip. I do enjoy driving and will take off on a road trip for just about any excuse I can come up with. However, I sure get upset when I feel like a seller is ripping me off ? at my expense in driving cross-country to be fleeced by them. Back about 15 years ago, I arranged to buy a 1929 Studebaker from a seller in Salt Lake City, Utah. After I got off work on a Friday, I left Sacramento pulling an empty car trailer with a roll of cash in my pocket. 650 miles and 12 hours later I was sitting in the seller?s driveway when he woke up Saturday morning ready to load the Studebaker and head back to Sacramento. When the seller fired up the Studebaker it sounded like a thrashing machine and smoked so bad you could have used it for mosquito abatement. Upon closer inspection, I found ? Plexiglas windows, wire wheels off of a Ford, headlights and taillights from an unknown donor, evidence of a front end collision with a bad frame straitening job, and many other problems. I was enraged ? having driven all night without sleep did not help my disposition. The car was totally misrepresented. At the time, I was ready to buy the Studebaker I already had a 1929 Studebaker ? which I had agreed to sell to another collector when I bought this one, so I knew all the questions to ask before agreeing to buy the car based on photographs and telephone conversations. Little did I know the pictures the seller had mailed me were ones taken of the car over 20 years earlier ? before the car accident that it had been involved in ? and the poor quality repairs. The trip did not turn into a total wash out. Since I did not want to go home to Sacramento with an empty car trailer, I drove from Salt Lake City to Boise, Idaho, picked up a complete engine and transmission, rear end, etc for a 1929 Studebaker. This ended up being one long road trip without any sleep, a lot of gas was used up and a lot of fast food was eaten all for a spare engine for the Studebaker that I already had, for which I ended up keeping for another several years.

The flying horse emblem ?Pegasus? was a logo used by gasoline companies as early as the late 1800?s. Here is a web site for additional information: http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/About/History/Corp_A_H_Pegasus.asp As for the car, I cannot see enough of it to make a good guess

I did some further research for you. According to the Studebaker Master Catalog Chassis Parts All Eights 1929-1940 (they are available as reprints), your wheels should be as follows: Your wheel size is: 19X4 Your wheels were available with either 5-inch hubcaps or 8 inch hub cap depending on your car?s serial number. You need wheels with 5-inch hubcaps if the serial is before 2,131,978 (wheel part number is 165441) You need wheels with 8-inch hubcaps if the serial number is after 2,131,978 (wheel part number is 173012) The location of your serial number is stamped into a plate riveted to the drivers side of the frame just behind the left front wheel.

You have a Dictator Regal Brougham. A Dictator with dual sidemounts was called by Studebaker a Dictator Regal. Without sidemounts just a plain Dictator. Regarding the wheels. It is very possible you might have wire wheels from either a non Studebaker car, or a Studebaker of the early to mid thirties. I once had the opportunity to buy a 1929 Studebaker Commander Brougham and while checking the car out the wire wheels did not "look" right to me. When I asked the seller about the wheels he volunteered the information that wheels were from a Model A Ford. I did not buy the car because of that problem and others issues the car had. Here is a picture of a friend of mine's 1929 Dictator Regal Cabriolet. Notice the looke of the 19 inch wire wheels. Yours may have had a bigger hub cap in 1930 but would have been close to these.

I do not know the specific tolerances are for the oil pump. What I can tell you is that the machinist that I used had to shave down the body and gears so that they matched in thickness. The reproduction oil pump body and the reproduction gears are not an exact match in top to bottom thickness. By having the machinist mill them to the same thickness improves the performance and oil pressure.

The person who has been providing the reproduction brass oil pump body and gears is Lionel Stone, Sherman Oaks, CA, 818-990-8916. His add was in the recent Nov-Dec 2006 issue of the club magazine. Another person who makes reproduction parts for antique Studebakers is Custom Antique Parts, Spokane, WA 509-892-9258. Just a word of caution, I have purchased the reproduction brass oil pump body and gears for three Studebakers, a 1929 FD Commander, 1928 FA President, and a 1929 FE President. To obtain the best success with these reproduction pumps you need to have a machinist fine tune the tolerances of the pump body and gears.

I have had to replace the speedomoter cable on 1928 and 1929 Studebakers in the past. Each time I have had a local speedomoter repair shop make me a cable. I have not found any sources for ready made cables and your best source is a speedomoter shop. Any good speedomoter shop will have everything you need and will be able to put together a cable together for your Studebaker.

The serial number plate located on the drivers side frame will only tell you the model and production year. At the time of your Studebaker's production the term VIN number was not yet in use and your car did not have a "modern" type VIN number that included production information like that used on more modern cars. Studebakers used three serial numbers on your car. One is the engine number, then there is a body number and the frame serial number that your mentioned. Please check out the Studebaker Club web site for additonal information: http://theantiquestudebakerclub.com/indentifycarsall/dataasheet1929thru1933.htm

Stude8: The roof on the Brougham was done long before I bought the car. Who ever the person was that painted the car a solid red was also the person who replaced the roof material the car. I was recently at an upholstery shop looking into the cost of a correct new interior. This is a high-end shop that specializes in the ?Classic? era cars. According to the shop owner my Brougham has 1969 Mercury Cougar vinyl top material. Oh well, it looks nice, and was a well done installation. The correct material for the Brougham roof is buckskin leather. It is on the list of things to do and may take a few years to get the correct paint and finish on the car. In the mean time, the car runs and drives nice, cruises on the freeway all day at 55-60 mph. Oh, and that is at 10 mpg with a 16 gallon tank.