avantey

Well, I finally got a good, almost all car weekend and made progress! The seats are in the Avanti, the battery is charging as we speak and the wheels are all stripped for powder coat. I ordered the PC material and it should be here tomorrow then off to the PC'er. In putting the seats back I cleaned and de-mildewed the interior as best I could in limited light. I know I will find more when she rolls into the daylight. Later today I went over and brought Overland from winter storage. I have to get ready for the big parade this coming Memorial Day. Carried Teddy Roosevelt last year and he liked it better than the 13 Studebaker before that. The old girl took a drink of fuel right down the throat and fired right up! Thought we might have to push her out of the trailer and into the garage but started on the second crank and backed her out. Got some mildew cleanup to do here too. Did not know trailer interiors are bad for mildew but all the leather is a mess, so I get to clean this week. I also spent a few hours yesterday and all morning today working on routes fxor a weekend HCCA local region tour we are hosting June 21 weekend. Made some headway but not done. Friday a I called the manufacturer I have been working with on weatherseal for the 31 Hupp. Finally got good news there too- he had shipped new samples off the new tool that day. Looks like the brown or Fedex guy will be bring Xmas early tomorrow or Tuesday. Yea!!

Hey John- That Jag is sump'in special, she wins awards every time out! Is the car that rare or just that good looking in person? Or is it the handsome driver who closes the sale? Looks like WV was another great event, may have to move down there- longer car season and cool events! We live an hour from Watkins Glen and I have had the Avanti(twice), the Model A and the 31 Hupp on the track. I also got to lap Daytona with the A on the '02 Glidden, that was awesome!! It was only a parade lap at the bottom of the track but still very cool. Hell, we couldn't get the A enough speed to stick to the 37 degrees in the corners! Had to be at least 70mph we were told. Still following,

Well, I stopped a few places on the way home from work tonite looking for TSP and learned another lesson in the wacky world of New York environmental correctness. My last stop was the local hardware owned by a high school friend. He said "No, I don't have TSP, they outlawed selling it 5-6 years ago. BUt I will show you what I can sell you." We walk over to the shelf and he hands me a pint can of TSP-PF. I asked what it is and hesays "it is TriSodium Phosphate- Phosphate Free" What is the point? The good cleaning agent in TSP is the phosphates so NY bans them as a water pollutant! Why have the product without them on a shelf? Would anyone buy it? I also got a really good price to powder coat my wheels from a friend who does it for at his business. Only thing is, they don't have a correct color. Another guy said Ford Wimbledon White from the 60's is a very close match to the original wheel color. So I am off- flying thru the marvels of the Internet in search of the right color powder now! Cheers!

Speaking of neglect, I then turned my attention to the door panel. I made a mixture of water, bleach, TSP, a little soap and put it in a spray bottle. I soaked the door panel and gave it a decent cleaning - removing the mold spores and mildew that had grown over time. After I was (pg 26, 2012) Hey Chris- I am ready to put my seats back in (finally got warm enough to glass here) but then I looked around. I have some mold and mildew stains on the seats I might as well clean up. I found the above from you in 2012 and wondered two things: How well did it work and what was the mixture 'recipe'? I do not want to spot bleach my black seats by using too strong a mix. Thanks,

Hey Chris, your car is looking great! Adding the small shiny things does really bring out the best and give a finished look to things. When I worked in design for consumer electronics we call them 'jewels'- just little bright shinies in the right spot to finish off the look. Well, I did go to Carlisle Saturday. Left at 2 AM, got there at 6 so we went to breakfast first. Got my tires- I went bias ply as I talked to the guys at Coker and they confirmed my suspicion about rim width. Said it could be done but the tires would bulge funny and maybe have trouble staying on down the road with the unnatural loading on the bead and sidewall. Took two wheels off tonite but I am too close to the 31 Hupp on the other side to get the jack under the frame and have room to crank it up. May have to use a bottle jack or something. I am also trying to decide about powder coat on the rims vs. paint. I always hear wheels flex a lot but how much? I know paint can flex and even take additives to make it flexible. I know powder chips and cracks after which the rust worms work their magic out of sight behind the finish coat until it is too late to save. But I have also heard PC can flex quite a bit. Once again any personal experiences out there with wheels and PC? I love the knowledge base here!! Thanks,

Thanks Ernie, John and all who spoke up on the tires, that is why this forum is fun and good to have! Like I said I am pretty sure of the path forward since I value original highly and I think I got most of the speed bug out of my system- LOL. I rarely do the speed limit when modern but I do not drive the old iron hard anymore so the only thing to miss is the improved handling of the radials.

As fast as things go bad they turn around too! The finger is now just a huge nuisance- never realize how much you use, hit and twist a finger on your off hand until you hurt it.... I came home from work today to mid-seventies so I had to get some shop time in. Called a friend over and we got the floor patch all in and riveted. Now just one more warm day and it will be fiberglassed over and the seats can go back in. Next is charge the battery and then DRIVE TIME! Except this weekend is Carlisle and next one is Rhinebeck. I am scheduled for both at this point but only as Saturday trips. Speaking of Carlisle I am getting all four tires I guess. I checked them quick last Saturday and thought about only two had enough dry rot sidewall cracking to need immediate replacement but a closer inspection tonite shows some sidewall cracking on all four. Since I do not want any trouble in June in Maine I will bite the bullet and get a set. I think they will be the original bias ply as I am still not sure about how under width my rims are but I will talk to the guys in the booth there. The sub radials are cheaper and probably handle a lot better but I just don't feel right about the 1.5 smaller than suggested rim width- seems like a lot that might change the radial performance or wear. Below are pics of the floor patch and the new seat bottom- both will be great improvements!

Well, I am not sure I am supposed to get the Avanti fixed up at this point. Sunday I tried to stop the radial arm saw with my left hand as it was spinning down and the saw won. At the expense of a serious cut to of my left middle knuckle of course. Slowed me down for the rest of the 80 degree day where fiberglass resin would have set up nice..... No stitches but today the hand is infected and we got antibiotics and a tetanus shot. Man I hate shots! Drawwing the blood test almost stopped me from getting married thirty years ago.... Woke up this morning to a covering of snow and 25 degrees and tonite we will get back to 20 I guess. Can all you Southerners please each mail a small bit of springtime to upstate New York? I'll pay the postage! I have had to play clean handed this week so not much getting done in the shop anyways, maybe this weekend! The floor patch is almost done and ready to rivet in so one warmer day could get me there!

Thanks for the input on the tires. I still have a week or so to decide. Part of my problem is that I am a stickler for original and on this car it is hard to not be. I have the original window sticker my father peeled off and it says he paid extra for the Firestone 670-15's. Kinda hard to argue with if you show the sticker- and I do sometimes just for fun, it is laminated and I put it right back in the quarter window so people can see it. On the great news side I got a call from the upholstery friend yesterday and went and picked up the seat at lunch today. He did it in about a day and it looks awesome!! It is a little loose in spots but he says it will tighten up some in use. He has been doing upholstery since I have known him (30+ years) and he still does really good work at good prices. Fascinating guy- does restoration, rods, built a mahogany boat that has won a million shows, never married and enjoys the heck out of life. Used to have an L29 Cord, just finished a frame off on a 53 MG for a customer, went to Charlotte last week from here in upstate, has a Cameo pickup that does flames, and did my seat in a day before two cars rolled in today for work. I hope to get the floor patch done this weekend and be driving the Avanti by next weekend, we'll see-

Chris and all other Avanti drivers- I need some opinions on tires please. I have always had Firestone 670-15 bias ply tires on my Avanti. I now have some serious sidewall cracks and want to replace them before going to Maine in June. With all original suspension, rims, etc. does anyone have experience with a switch to radials? Coker site suggests a 205/75R15 and the American Classic 1" whitewall would be my choice from their offering. A few things concern me on spec: (bias/radial) tread width 4.50" v 5.68" cross section 7.01" v 8.30" OD 28.58" v 27.00" rim size 4.50-5.00" v 5.50-7.00" The tread width jumps out. The Avanti with it's infamous understeer and foward weight ratio is already a slight steering load at low speed. How much heavier will the steering feel? The OD being smaller on a radial - will affect my speedometer of course but what about revs on bearings, etc. A biggie with the rim size!- my original rims would be way small for the radial per their numbers. Is this true and too undersize? I have thought of this before but never got into it seriously but the time has come to change them anyways. I have a erad a lot where people switch and have no issues on many different cars but now I am not sure which way to go. I would like to decide and get them at Spring Carlisle if I can. Any thoughts? In the meantime I got material from TN and the one seat is in the shop of an old friend who has done great upholstery for decades. I am happy with that as I did not want to do the whole interior and I know it will be a big improvement. The material is NOS Studebaker but the TN guy has a great repro I will get some day when I can afford it and the whole car needs to be done. Right now the other seats are phenomenal for original condition. I am also progressing on the floor repair- cleaned up things last weekend and made up my patch panel. I hope to install it this weekend since the weather will be 70's warm both days. See the pictures for the damage I am working on, driver's seat inner rear floor by seat bolt.

Not to change the subject but.... over the weekend a friend who is looking to upgrade his older Suburban told me it is hard to find a newer 3/4T. It seems Uncle wanted to reclassify them as cars because of the third seat, this threw GM in the tank on fleet mileage targets so they just quit making them in '12 or '13. I jumped on Ebay while we talked and there were not many and they were very pricey for the high mileage shown on later models (08-11). Anyone else verify this story?

The end is near! Just two more pictures of the remade part. Picture 1 is the front view. You can see the ears and it does not have the upper windshield hole (or material to put it in). Pic 2 shows it in my housing to roughly show how the ears would go in the rings on a two part housing. Now the comments- I hope you can see why I asked about your worm. It appears stubby without the upper bearing surface under the retainer plate I also hope these help you in your quest, feel free to ask me more here or in PM. It would help a lot to see a picture of your sector gear. I am curious as to what models went in what cars. Was there a pattern? Mine is an L, I think the eared version is from an S and the adjustable one from an H. The S and L are essentially the same body behind the cowl. They were made by Murray and delivered to Hupp. I do not know if the crank mechanism and windshield were delivered with the body or if Hupp sourced and mounted these units on the line. The only maker's mark I found is a globe with Mercator lines on the side of the sector and I have not tracked it down. I do not know the story of the H body either. I have found a modern gear of nearly the same dimensions and mates to the worm nicely. I am going to cut it up and do something similar to the redo in the pictures but add material for the top windshield hole and use the separate pin mounting like original. Regards,

And to go on some more- Picture 1 shows how the sector gear attaches to the housing with a thru pin. Windshield would be to the right Picture 2 shows the pin aligned with the sector, front view. Pic 3 is a side view of the sector. I am making a new one since the first three teeth to the left have ripped out and many others are worn. Picture 4 shows the front or windshield side of the sector. Thru the windshield frame screws hold it to the frame into top and bottom holes. Center hole is a deformation hole not quite drilled thru. When you have the pin located you punch the thin wall of material left in this hole and it acts as a detent feature in the groove on the pin (see pic 2). Picture 5 shows another variation that has been remade. It has 'ears' or external pins built into the sector. This is the surface nearest you, shoulda got a front picture! The housing for this style is split down the middle so the rings on my housing would go over each ear. Not sure how this housing in then held together since I have not seen it but I think it mounts to the car in the same way.

forgot to attach the pictures

To continue- Picture 1 is a closer look at the worm mounted. At the left, near crank handle end is the spring loaded pillow block; on the right is the retainer plate. Picture 2 has the retainer removed to show the two bearing surfaces on the worm for the pillow and under the retainer. Picture 3 again shows the worm seated in the pillow block. Picture 4 shows the worm out of the housing with the respective block and retainer aligned by the worm. The pillow just sets in the housing with the slight spring seated up in it away from the worm. Picture 5 shows the housing with the pillow in place and worm out of the way.

David- Here are a series of pics for you. First is a few sides of the housing. This is a heavy cast piece with wall thickness throughout the part like the piece you have left. You can see this housing is one piece with two ears. This is how the sector mounts in three of the variations using a pin I will show later. Refer to picture 4- on some units there are one or two adjusting screws with locknuts in this side of the housing. I think they are to adjust the tension on the worm near the respective end. Refer to picture 2- One style does not have the three triangular ribs around where the center body meets the top flange(piece you have remnants of). Refer to picture 5- you can see the worm mounted in the housing, crank handle away from you. More on this later.

David, Is that all you have? You are missing a lot of the housing and the sector gear plus a few smalls. Is the sector perhaps still attached to the windshield? I have recently started to rebuild the crank too (on my '31 L) but only the sector is bad. I have found a modern gear to use as a basis, make some serious modifications to and hopefully have a good mechanism. I know it is the same mechanism as your car and there are at least four variations on this mechanism. They all work the same but there are at least two worm gears and two sectors I know of. The differences are in the muonting of each piece which has led to the four different housings. Your worm gear looks different though- is the tip away from the handle broken off? I will take some pics for you in the next few days, mine is all apart anyways.

Thank you HWellens! I do not know if the specs are applicable to my '13 SA 25 but I bet they are since an SC 25 would be the same 4 cyl base car in their lineup. Thanks,

I'm jealous!! We had a wonderfully sunny day today but it was only mid-30's and snow still on the ground. Besides both front seats are out of the Avanti and in the basement still, would be really hard to drive the old girl..... just has been too persistently cold to even get much done in the basement shop at 45 or so. Hopefully we break out into spring after the storm at mid-week! Our traditional pattern is one last big storm in mid- March and then some cool wet weather as spring wakes up. I did finally find a gear to remake the windshield crank mechanism for the 1931 Hupp and that project is progressing. Also sent the last markups/changes to LA for the windshield weather strip for that car, will talk to them this week. I know what I want to do with re-upholstering the Avanti's driver seat- now it is finding the money and convincing the dealer to sell me material for only one seat. So I guess I have been doing some but spring fever is creeping in so, like I said- I AM JEALOUS CHRIS!! - Bill

Here in upstate NY I drove my '72 Pinto off the road in Rochester one year on the way home from night shift work. Ended up down the hill in a grove of trees and it took the sheriff almost an hour to find me with access from three roads! I tried talking him to me via CBer's but they could not see me. We had gotten 9" of heavy wet stuff on May 8th, the latest I remember! OH, it just started snowing again here but they say only a couple of inches thru the night....... Hey John- Just talked to my uncle in BBH and he said it is a long hard one by the coast too! We are signed up for the VMCCA Chrome Glidden in June, bringing the Avanti to Belfast and Bar Harbor. (At least we can look forward to spring with this in mind!)

We all know there have been a lot of component suppliers to all the automobile manufacturers since the start of the industry. Many cars were 'assembled' cars with most parts purchased rather than made in house. As one who likes orphan cars I have learned that quite a few smaller makers used a high percentage of bought parts as it was more economical than tooling up an existing part for a new company. As an example I am currently looking at repairing or finding parts for the windshield crank-out mechanism on my 1931 Hupp. It is a mix of diecast and stamped metal and machined parts that I am willing to bet Hupp bought. Through research I now know of four variations on this assembly used in varied 1931 Hupp models (H, L & S). The only clue to the maker is a globe symbol with the lines of latitude and longitude and a part number CB-80 on the sector gear part. Someone suggested it is made by Trico, the windshield wiper supplier to pretty much the entire industry for decades. This could easily be true given their work with diecast and formed metal but I have not been able to verify it. A few others to start the conversation would Timken for bearings, Schebler among many for carbs, Eaton for springs, Solar among many for gas headlights, and Prestolite for acetylene tanks and generators. I believe there were suppliers for things like axle shafts too but the names are forgotten by me. There was MFG for fiberglass bodies on the Corvette (and originally the Avanti too!), not to mention body suppliers like Murray and coachwork builders that are well documented. Has there ever been a database or list of these suppliers compiled? My interest is in the earlier suppliers as the auto industry was formed and grew through about 1930 but any information on this major part of automotive history would be fun to learn. Who can add to the lesson?

We used to get Yankee and I always loved the Swap page, first thing I looked for. One month I responded to an ad: House on Vinalhaven Island, ME needs work, for old car or what have you? I offered my 1937 Chev Master sedan until the guy wrote back with pictures- decided to keep the Chev and not get the work! The house was worth way less than the car, even then, in that shape. But we coulda been a Maine islander and lobster fisherman for many years now......

John- I will certainly keep you all posted on what I do. In the meantime I took the crank mechanism off the Hupp windshield this PM to see what what is going on with it. It is a cnter crank mechanism at the top of the windshield with no other latches or other locking means. The windshield does not quite crank closed tight and I think this contributes to any leakage issues. It is a sector gear with continuous worm drive type mechanism. When I fully exposed the sector the last three teeth are shot on the diecasting. How do you fix this short of retooling the part? I do not have any luck with JB Weld and refile to shape exercises, the part always seems to fail on me. I wonder if this is a candidate for rapid prototyping? I used to have access to a sintered metal RP machine but no longer. A regular 3D printer does not use a material I know of for this kind of application (the loads on the gear teeth). Any ideas here would be great! See the pictures and you note it is only the first teeth. The mechanism has no markings other than a PAT PENDING on the outer shell and on the sector piece a p/n CB 86 and a globe symbol. Does this mean anything to anyone? I am pretty sure Hupp would have bought this part as a lot of their car is assembled from suppliers sub-units not built in house. Thanks,

Thanks John, I have talked to Dave Tibo this AM and contacted another Stude person in TN that a friend has had work done by. I really do not want to do the entire interior since the other seats, especially the rear are in great original condition. I also do not want a glaring mismatch on the material. The original black vinyl is a semi gloss, heavy, smooth material devoid of all grain, and I want to match that as close as possible. The foam in my seats seems to be in great shape, still very firm and pliable. Dave T said that is very possible as the foam Stude used is a high quality that won't break down much at all until exposed to air ( and I assume UV). WIth the tear along the edge of it the outside bolster foam is now exposed so it must get fixed sooner rather than later to preserve that too. It will also keep my costs down if I do not have to re-foam it as well. I am getting samples and prices and will see how it goes. Thanks,

Hey Chris- i am sneaking in a little car work as weather allows and yesterday was not bad here. Got out there in the AM and pulled the drivers seat on the Avanti with help from a friend. The nut under the floor was not turning- the whole plate with the caged nut was loose from the floor. It is about 2" square and looks like it was bonded into the fiberglass floorpan. When the pan broke I think it allowed that to break loose and wrenching on it from above finished off all previous connection to the floor. Since I have to repair and reinforce the floor I plan on making a sandwich with a larger metal plate on the inside fiberglassed in and bolt and/or fiberglass the nut plate on the underside. This will all have to wait for warmer weather however. That part of the garage is unheated and the fiberglass won't set well and the repair guy won't work well... Besides I have to put the car up on stands, strip out the carpet and drop the muffler (at least) to get at the job. As for the seat it needs some major repair and I do not think the old vinyl is fixable. Where I thought seams have split the material is torn and shrunk as well down in the outer bolster on the driver's seat. I will go looking for the upholstery kit after this and see if I can afford it right now. Have to make sure I can pay the property taxes at the end of the month you know! After the Avanti we turned around and started playing with the '31 Hupp. I have been working with a rubber molding shop to have the windshield rubber reproduced and this was a good chance to check fit the first samples delivered last October/November, just before we got cold and snowy. It looks like the form for the three lower sides is a lot closer fit than I thought when holding it so that is very good. The top piece needs a lot of work from what we saw, just way too big and off in some critical dimensions. So now I can get back to the shop with corrections and keep that project moving. In the meantime the Hupp sits sans windshield and header piece, again hoping for an early spring warmup to test the next run of rubber. And I did not fire any of the old girls up! but it is going to be in the 40's again today...........