Gary_Ash

Having the right amount of tongue weight on the hitch helps to avoid the tail wagging the dog. The recommended amount is 10-15% of the loaded weight of the trailer. With my 2700 lb aluminum trailer and 2500 lb car being hauled, I shoot for 600 lbs on the hitch. I bought a Sherline tongue weight scale to measure the weight. I usually just crank down the trailer jack so the foot rests on the scale and the hitch is clear of the ball to read the weight close enough. It's on Amazon for $150. Once I found the right place to put the car in the trailer for the correct tongue weight, I marked on the floor where the tires should stop. I also have a quality electric brake controller that has an interface to the Ford dash panel. No wagging on my Ford Expedition XL (6000 lb empty and dry)!

The form crew arrived Thursday morning, finished the final details of the forms before the concrete truck arrived for the pour. All went well. Friday they returned to strip the forms. The house moving crew appled a coating of black sealant to keep water from soaking the concrete in future years. Now we let it sit 7-10 days to harden the concrete, then remove the steel beam, backfill the trench, and fill in the holes in the sill and siding. A little caulk and stain outside will finish the job. I’ll have some sweeping and dusting to do in the garage, but it won’t be difficult. I can recommend Reggie Cooper at Aquidneck House Moving for prompt, quality work. Forms ready for pouring concrete. The pour in progress. New concrete coated with sealer. The front corner repaired and sealed. Inside the garage.

David Taylor, are you an AI bot?

We had both the "house moving" crew and the concrete form crew in action today. The house moving crew cleared out any remaining dirt that fell into the trench plus the muck from the concrete sawing. Inside the garage, I hooked up a 6,000 lb-rated come-along to the big plank on the wall, put a nylon sling around a pier for the center bay door, and started cranking. My steel shoe didn't start to slide as I had hoped, but the chain joining the come-along and sling seemed to have hung up on the crib supporting the steel beam. One of the guys used a big sledge hammer to tap the piece of 6x6 that was the problem and the wall suddenly jumped in the desired 3/4 inch. Perfect! Then they drilled holes for rebar in the footings and cut ends of the wall. I had them use my air hose and blow nozzle to get all the dust out of the holes because dust was the cause of failure of the Ted Williams Tunnel ceilings a few years ago. In the tunnel, they just shoved epoxy coated bolts into dust filled holes and the bolts later pulled out, dropping ceiling pieces weighing several tons, and killing a motorist as she went through the tunnel. So, clean holes in my walls, fresh epoxy on the rebar, and all is good. Since some of the earth fill under the garage floor fell into the trench, they cut pieces of pressure-treated 1/2" plywood for the inside wall of the forms. The height was 6" less than the finished wall so that concrete would overflow the tops of these pieces and fill the cavities behind the plywood. There was no way to shovel dirt back under the garage floor and have it stay there. The form guys brought in 2 ft x 4 ft x 1 inch plywood form pieces, attached them together and braced them against the outside of the trench. Inside the garage, some of the sill was removed to make an opening for the concrete to flow in. A heavy form piece is in place for the inside of the wall, will be braced by a 2x4 power-nailed to the concrete floor. While there is a little work left on the forms, they got the bulk of the work done in about 3 hours. They'll come back on Thursday, finish a few details on the forms, and pour concrete in the afternoon. Concrete is now $200 a yard, 6 yard minimum. We'll only use about 3 yards, even filling the space under the floor. Since the trench is there all around the forms, they won't be able to pour the apron at the same time. Once the forms are stripped the day after pouring, the trench will be backfilled a week or so later, and the apron poured with hand-mixed concrete, about 7 cubic ft. The come-along, chain, and sling ready to move the wall in. Carpet pieces placed over the come-along cable just in case it breaks. Rebar in place and pressure-treated plywood for the inside of the form. Outer form being installed with form ties. The form pieces for inside the garage. Note where sill was partly removed for concrete pour. The outer forms being installed and braced against the trench.

Barney Roos was the engineer behind many of the Studebaker engines of the 1930s. Barney Roos

The plan: Drill holes in the cut edges of the walls and in the footings, insert rebar pieces with epoxy, add more rebar for reinforcement. Cut out ~16" of sill in the middle of the wall, build up the forms, pour concrete in where the gap in the sill is located, lower the garage onto the new wall, an replace the missing sill. This work begins on Tuesday, Sept. 5. When the garage is done, it will be time to look seriously at repaving the 37 year-old asphalt driveway. The driveway is over 160 ft long, includes an island for a turn-around plus entry to the five garage stalls. To get an idea of how much area needs to be paved - they charge by the square foot - I started laying out my 100 ft tape along one edge of the driveway, placed my cell phone to point along the tape, and read the compass direction of the tape. I worked my way around the driveway, then measured the island. It isn't as accurate as using a transit or theodolite, but it's not bad, maybe 1 or 2 degrees error on each measurement. By the time I had traversed the 450 ft perimeter through many bends and corners, my computer plot of the result came within 5 ft of closing. Not bad for a quick and dirty survey, good enough to get a price estimate. The paved area is something over 5,000 square feet. Ouch! Full disclosure: when I was in high school at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, I had one semester of surveying. Divided into teams of four students, we surveyed with transit and rod around the entire city block that the school stood on, a section each week. By the time we got all the way around the building, our calculations showed that the front steps of the building had sunk 10 feet, though they seemed to be in the same place as when we started. Google tells me that, had I used a new iPhone 14, I could get latitude/longitude coordinates of a point to within a half inch. My iPhone 12 is good to 5-10 ft using GPS coordinates of "dropped pins" on a Google map zoomed in to the max. Mason and Dixon should have had iPhone 14s when mapping the DE/MD/PA lines back in 1763, would have saved them years of work. 😁 Driveway layout. Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in Baltimore, MD, circa 1930, but looked the same when I was there 30 years later. Three thousand students, all boys. In the left front corner of the building, in the basement, was a 200 hp Corliss triple-expansion steam engine with 15 ft flywheel running a DC generator for the shop equipment. As seniors, we had to run a boiler efficiency test on the engine and coal-fired boiler.

To put you in the ball park, here is a photo of my Studebaker straight 8 on a scale while hanging from an engine hoist, 533 lbs. including the spreader bar. It does have the head on (57 lbs), no manifold, no flywheel (52 lbs), or clutch. Your six should be a little lighter than an eight but more than 75%. So, in round numbers, maybe your block as described is near 500 lbs +/- 50. The digital crane scale is available on Amazon under $30, capacity 660 lbs.

EmTee: The plan is to leave the footings in place. They don’t seem to be cracked, though it’s hard to understand how the corner of the garage sank without the footing moving. After much consideration, we decided not to break up the footing as that would substantially escalate the project and disturb the soil underneath all over again. To prevent future movement, I’ll have a landscape contractor build a retaining wall 25 ft long and 5 ft high along the side of the garage and driveway. We’ll put a perforated drain pipe behind the wall, back fill with crushed stone, and bring the top level up a foot or so while sloping the new dirt fill down from the garage wall. I’ll also extend the outlets of the downspouts over the wall to dump the roof runoff into the swampy area beside the garage - that should keep the froggies very happy. Those things should hold the garage in place through my lifetime. As I’ve gotten older, it seems that “forever” has an expiration date.

The concrete cutting guy arrived today with his Husqvarna concrete saw and got to work. Setting the equipment up is slow but the cutting is fast. He put some anchors into the wall and mounted a rail, then installed the saw mechanism. The 24" diameter saw blade is steel with diamond-coated teeth, costs about $1500, lasts 3-4 months. The saw system cost $50,000 - $60,000. He made a first pass about 5" deep, then made another pass to get through the 8" thick wall. On the side wall, he made about 8 vertical cuts and 3 horizontal cuts producing pieces about 300 lbs each. The hard-working crew then extracted each piece with a sling, a piece of chain, and a John Deere G35 mini excavator. It might be called "mini" by Deere, but it's a lot bigger and stronger than my compact tractor's backhoe. The 23 year-old operator is the grandson of the house moving company owner. The excavator bucket has a "thumb" on it that enables it to grab a big hunk of concrete and lift it into the small dump truck. Next week, the concrete forms guy will come to set forms for the new wall. Here's a video of the sawing process: http://youtu.be/VM1d6nR_qis Buddy driving the Husqvarna saw. The wall cut into pieces. Piling up the pieces using the John Deere G35 excavator. Lifting pieces out of the trench. This is the dangerous part. Hauling the pieces away. Looking out the bottom of the garage wall after cutting.

Maybe White Post Restoration could help you. They are near Winchester, VA in the village of White Post. Phone is 540-837-1140.

Here is a link to a discussion we had a few years back about locks for a 1932 Dictator (Model 55):

Today, the foundation repair crew built the wood crib inside the garage, cut a hole in the siding, and slid a steel beam through the wall. I had prepared a "shoe" to go on top of the beam using a pieces of 1" x 8" steel bar with a piece of angle iron welded to it. With the beam in place, I greased the bottom of the shoe, placed it on the beam, and slid it tightly against the large plank attached to the wall. Using two hydraulic jacks, the beam was raised until the shoe touched the beam, then raised another 2" or so to re-level the sill plates. Reggie, the 80-year old contractor, has called a concrete sawing company to come in and cut the broken foundation wall into pieces. We need to figure out where he can dump about 8,000 lbs of broken concrete. Once the old wall is out, we'll use a come-along to pull the bottom of the wall in an inch or so to make it vertical again. I'm guessing that the force needed to lift the front corner of the garage is perhaps 5,000-6,000 lbs and that the come-along needs to supply about 1,000 lbs of force to slide the greased shoe along the beam. Then they will build some forms and pour the new wall. The foundation excavated down to the footings. They will remove about 10 ft of wall on the side and 3 ft of wall in the front. Reggie supervising the placement of the beam. On the wall behind him is my "wall art" 1956 Studebaker Sky Hawk side. Leveling the beam before jacking it up. Note the steel shoe on top of the beam and under the plank. I'll bolt a D-ring to the plank to attach the come-along. The beam sitting on the two cribs, shimmed in place, with the corner of the garage raised.

The special pliers for split rivets are designed to curl the ends over so they push on the sheet metal and provide some some pressure. This prevents the rivets from moving or rattling. The blue tool shown in the post by Keiser31 does this, not sure if the home-made one does it as well.

The contractor came today and started work on repairing/replacing part of the garage foundation. My John Deere 1025R tractor with backhoe was used to excavate a 2 ft wide trench down to the footing of the wall for about 10 ft. I didn't hit any big boulders. While the wall was broken and tilted outward, the footing didn't seem to have cracked, maybe because it has some rebar in it. Then they started breaking up the apron in front of the garage. The apron is 6"-8" deep in places so the electric jackhammer had a tough time breaking off pieces but it was mostly done by the end of the day. Inside, they attached a long, full-thickness, 2x10 plank to the wall studs with giant screws and built a crib outside the wall with pieces of 6x6 laid on some thick planks. They used a Sawzall to cut the anchor bolts attaching the sill to the foundation. When they return on Monday, they will build a crib inside, cut a hole in the siding, and slide a heavy steel beam across the tops of the cribs. A couple of large house jacks will be used to lift the 2x10 plank and the garage wall. It has to go up about 2 inches. Then they will (somehow) destroy the 8" thick concrete foundation wall, build some forms, pour a new wall, and lower the garage on to it. Stay tuned! Me operating the backhoe on the JD tractor. Digging the trench. The trench nearly finished. The cracked wall on the footing. Breaking up the apron with the electric jackhammer. Pieces of the apron removed. The big plank screwed to the wall studs. This will spread the load when the steel beam is jacked up under it.

The Grancor Special was wrecked in practice.

My error, ignore.

Try using Google Patents. I found patent # 1,250,144 issued 1917 to Dewitt C. Cookingham and assigned to Baker R & L Co. It is for an electrical controlling device for a car. At USPTO.gov you have many choices about limiting the span of years for searching and choosing inventor name and assignee, though you can also do this at Google Patents if you can find the instructions.

Tractor Supply carries “Majic” brand enamel in a variety of colors, mostly tractor colors like gray, blue, red, black, white, yellow, and green. Price is usually $60/ gallon. Use their hardener to reduce drying time. Apply with a high quality natural bristle brush for best results, light coats to reduce runs and drips. Follow Rusty’s advice for sanding between coats. I used Ford tractor light gray and a brush to paint the chassis of my Studebaker Indy car when I decided the initial paint sprayed by the body shop just wasn’t the right color and the car was all assembled.

Could be 1941-48 Studebaker M5 pickup truck with aftermarket bumper guards.

Call Sandy Olsen at Olsen’s Gasket in WA. He can recommend the right gasket material for your block and head, and he can supply the right one and suggest the right torque for the head bolts. The older Bohnalite aluminum heads can weld themselves to the block. I’m still not sure if a copper or steel gasket is best for an aluminum head.

My distributor is from a 1937 Studebaker President 250 cu in straight 8 that I used on my 1932 Studebaker Indy car replica.

I was missing the feedthrough block in my Delco Remy 662M distributor. I 3D printed a new one from ABS plastic and used a modified brass screw to make the connections.

I saw this car in a hotel parking lot. An interesting solution!

call Tom Van Meeteren in Nebraska. He is usually on this forum.

Yes, Keiser has the correct ones, I think. But, it also depends if you have a "65" or a "75".