Gary_Ash

More work on the carburetors and linkage! I'm using four Stromberg EX-23 carbs from 1936-37 Studebaker sedans, similar to the ones used by the factory. However, the sedan carbs had stamped throttle arms that were peened onto the ends of the throttle shafts. Some of the old carbs I acquired had the shafts completely frozen in the base or the peened brass had split, leaving the arms loose. The stamped arms were all wrong anyway, so I had made new arms and links, but I also needed to make new shafts. The shafts are 1/4" diameter brass with a 1/16" wide slot cut in it for the throttle plate. Two tiny 6-32 screws secure the plate to the shaft. One end is threaded for a 10-32 nut, then milled on two surfaces to locate the throttle pump lever. I'm not a very experienced machinist and the task looked pretty daunting. Since I needed four shafts for me and eight more for carbs for some other guys, the estimate I got of $60 each made the potential cash outlay pretty high for a few small parts. So, I did it myself on my Harbor Freight 7"x10" "toy" lathe and my used Rong Fu mill/drill. Starting with 1/4 brass rod, I cut the pieces to 4.000" long, then turned down and threaded one end. With some old aluminum scrap, I made up a fixture with alignment stops to hold the shafts in the mill. I bought a 1/16" wide x 2.5" diameter slotting saw and arbor from Victor Machinery (good supplier for drilling/milling bits and cutters, etc.). With a shaft in my fixture, I leveled the shaft parallel to the bed, centered everything up, and cut the slot part-way through the shaft, then flipped the shaft over and did the slot from the other side. This left room to slide the throttle plate in. I kept a close watch on where my fingers went with the saw blade spinning at high speed! Next, I drilled and tapped the two 6-32 holes crosswise on the shaft, drilling right through the fixture. I finished up with and end mill to cut down the small shoulder and 10-32 threads to mount the throttle pump arm, using the cross holes to align the 180 degree rotation. Getting the exact alignment for all of these operations was tough. My results weren't perfect, but good enough to reassemble a carb, tighten down the new throttle plate screws, and do a test assembly of the rest of the linkage. The throttle arms and stamped links had been zinc plated with clear chromate overcoat at a local shop. The parts look very much like the original cars (see photo below). It was a lot of work for some small details, but worth the effort. I still have to strip all the carbs, de-gunk them, paint the bodies flat black, and reassemble with new gaskets.

For those small jobs, get a Preval sprayer at Home Depot or any hardware/paint store. You get a can of pressurized gas, a glass jar to hold a few ounces of paint that screws on, and the spray nozzle. Just pour in the Centari or other enamel and go to town. Google it. You could mount the wheel on an old broomstick so you can turn it around and get to all sides. See http://www.preval.com/what-is-preval A couple of cautions: Don't add the hardener to Centari or PPG Delstar because it contains cyanide compounds that can kill you if you don't have the right mask and air supply equipment. The paint will take a few days to dry completely hard, but it will dry. Just hang the wet part where there aren't bugs or dust. You should still wear a high quality face mask with charcoal filter canisters. Also, don't spray indoors because you'll have overspray everywhere - ask me how I know! I once used a Preval unit to spray the hot air furnace in a house I was about to sell because the built-in humidifier had caused a lot of surface rust on the outer shell. The paint job came out OK, but it took a long time to wipe and sweep up the paint dust on everything else. [Yes, the furnace pilot light was off when I did that!] A disposable Tyvek suit will keep the paint off you.

Car #46 presents an interesting mystery. Let's start at the beginning of a long, complicated story... We need to cover what we do know about the Studebaker Indy cars. In 1931, Studebaker was interested in participating at Indy but did not want to get involved "officially". So, car #37 was built using many parts from standard President sedans, such as the engine, transmission, steering, front axle, and gauges. The rear axle came from a 1928 Studebaker GB or EW roadster or Victoria coupe because it had an available 3.09 ratio, standard was 3.31. Brakes (12", cable operated) came from a smaller Studebaker sedan, a Dictator or Commander. The chassis was built by the Hermann Rigling shop in Indianapolis, pure race car. The body was made by "Pops" Dreyer in Indianapolis. Many other Indy cars of the 1930s used Rigling chassis and Dreyer bodies, including the Shafer 8 cars with Buick straight 8 engines. The #37 car was owned by Ab Jenkins and George Hunt, a Studebaker engineer. The car did well enough in the 1931 race that the factory authorized building four copies of the car and raced them as a team of five, though #37 continued to be privately owned. Also , there were a number of other privately-owned cars with Studebaker engines that raced from 1930 and as late as 1939, including the ROMTHE Special, Art Rose Special with front-wheel drive, and several cars by John Snowberger, who started using Studebaker engines about 1930. The cars - except #37 - got new bodies in 1933 to gain speed through streamlining. Some of the cars got new racing numbers for 1933. It isn't clear what happened to the 1932 bodies, but some of them survived in storage. The Depression hit all of the car makers hard, and Studebaker went into receivership in 1934. They had discontinued the 337 cubic inch straight 8 after 1933, had planned to use a racing version of the 250 cubic inch straight 8, but had to cancel racing plans before the 1934 race. They then proceeded to sell off the 250 cubic inch racing engines for $750 each. They also sold all of the race cars. So, the car that was #18 in 1932, got a new body in 1933 and a new number, #9. That car was eventually sold to A.E. Small, a Studebaker dealer in South Africa. The car was raced, sold a couple of times, and stayed as a race car until about 1959. The chassis and body went to a scrap yard, but the engine block went into a 1928 Studebaker 7-passenger limousine, perhaps in the 1970s. The limousine survives, was recently purchased by Peter Gillespie, a Studebaker enthusiast in South Africa. The serial number on the block matches the records for the race cars and the modification for installing a magneto for racing is there. At least we have the engine from #18/#9. The history for the other cars, except for #46, is pretty well documented. Car #25 in 1932 got a new body and number 34 for 1933. Somehow the 1933 body got separated from the chassis, and is now in California, owned by a collector. A new, replica body was built for Brooks Stevens when he owned #34. The car is now owned by August Grasis III in Kansas City and is regularly raced in vintage events. It is white and carries #34, as it did in 1933. It's the only existing Studebaker Indy car with a 1933-style body. The original body and grille from #18 emerged from a back-alley garage in Chicago in the late 1970s and was bought by Mike Cleary, who restored it with the assistance of Darrell Dye. It got a new chassis and engine, along with many other mechanical parts, to complete the car. It, too, races regularly in vintage events, has a blue paint job and wears #18. The #22 maroon car somehow wound up with its original body, though considerable restoration had to be done at the Studebaker factory in 1962 for it to appear at Indy events that year. It had raced as #6 in 1933 and as #53 when it ran Indy in 1937 with its original body. Today, the car is at the Indy Speedway Museum. The #37 car ran as #47 in 1933 with its original body, wound up in the hands of Ab Jenkins' son, converted to a sports car. It eventually was bought by Stan Smith Sr. about 1972 and was restored over a long period to its original configuration, color, and number. It is now owned by Robert Valpey in New Hampshire. So, what about #46? We can accurately account for all the other cars, but there is a big, 50-year gap in the history of #46. It may have gone to Argentina in the 1930s because there are no records or photos of it appearing at car events in the U.S. from the 1930s to the 1980s. I have emailed a number of car hobbyists and racers in South America asking if they have photos, magazines, newspapers, or any documentation of the car appearing at events in South America - so far, no luck. I did correspond with the family of a Mercedes dealer in Germany who apparently imported the remains of some kind of race car from Argentina in the 1980s, nominally car #46. I can't find any records of who the Argentinian seller was. Eventually, the car wound up in the hands of Alfred Weber who had the car "restored" in Indianapolis with the help of some key people at the Indy Speedway Museum and shipped back to Germany about 1994. I talked to "Junior" Dreyer, grandson of the original body builder, who said he made a body for the car, working from old photos. Apparently, the Dreyer family does not have original drawings for the car bodies. I was told that the car came back to Indianapolis again for repairs and upgrades. Today, the car is owned by Ronald Springer in Germany, and has raced at Nürburgring the last couple of years in vintage events. One of the things that lends some credence to the chassis and many other parts being original is the assortment of spares that are clearly from an original car. The current engine is not an original Indy racing engine, but it is a 337 cubic inch one. There is a spare engine, pictured below, that has the magneto installed and the unique tach drive adapter in the head where the distributor originally sat. I have no reason to doubt that this started life as the #46 car, but I sure would like to know where it was for 50 years. It may have been sold by the factory with a 1933 body, and a new 1932-style body may have been created for the 1994 restoration. There is no truth to the rumor that one of the Studebaker Indy cars was lost in the sinking of a ship bound for South Africa or South America, according to Richard Quinn, Studebaker historian of great renown. So, a long story and interesting mystery!

Ah, the #46 car that Thomas refers to is in Germany. For those of you who don't want to build one yourself, just buy #46 - bring a fat wallet! Gorgeous and fast!

Under the right conditions, electroless nickel is not porous and is very corrosion resistant. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroless_nickel I designed parts for industrial applications that saw exposure to corrosive gases, repetitive cycling to cryogenic temperatures with weekly returns to room temperature wet environments and the parts never showed corrosion after 10-20 years. I believe that electroless nickel is superior to cadmium - but it's very difficult to find anyone to do cadmium plating now. I looked at the Caswell Plating kits for "CopyCad", but there is a significant investment and it's basically zinc, anyway, and you need to set up a chem lab to do it. I'm content to send the parts out and let them worry about the details. I had a similar reaction to looking at anodizing aluminum parts - yes, you can do it, but why bother?

In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) set very stringent health and safety rules for many industrial activities, especially plating. Historically, chrome plating has used a hexavalent chromium compound to deposit the chrome coating. Rules are tough on exposure of humans to the plating solutions and also to disposing of spent solutions. There are newer processes that don't use hexavalent chrome, but you still can't dump chrome or copper compounds down the drain - and you don't want to dump them in the back yard where the solutions get into your well water or someone else's well. I once worked at a company that got in trouble for the amount of copper flowing down the drains into the town's sewer system. When the quality of the incoming town water was tested, there was more copper in it than was in the discharged water - the town stopped pursuing the case. Bright zinc plating is nowhere near as corrosion resistant as true copper/nickel/chrome plating, but it works OK in protected areas, like under the hoods of cars that will never get driven or parked in the rain. Also, it's not very expensive. I paid $50 to get about 60 parts plated, but that was the minimum charge and they could have done 5-10 times that many parts for the same money. They finished with a clear chromate layer for extra corrosion protection. For many functional parts, I would prefer electroless nickel plating in .0003 to 0.001" (8-25 microns) thickness for corrosion protection and hardness. The electroless nickel covers all surfaces uniformly, coats into holes and recesses, and covers corners. It's available in both bright and dull finish, stands up to long-term exposure, not as shiny as chrome, but pretty good. The local plating shop says they will get into nickel plating in a few months. The shop is 10 minutes from my house, the people are friendly, and they delivered good quality in 24 hours - it doesn't get better than that.

You can still see many cars from those early years at the Larz Anderson Museum. Here's a link to a QuickTime panorama. It might take a bit of time to load, but then you can click, drag, and see a number of the old cars on the lower floor of the museum. The Andersons bought cars before 1900, only the best and biggest, kept them all. http://larzanderson.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/LA-Collection.mov We still get some of the older ones at meets at the museum. Here are some from the Studebaker club meets in 2006 and 2007. Same lawn, same building as the 1948 pics.

What is the maximum "legal" inside diameter for the Al-fin drums? Practically speaking, how big can they really be used? I've got four of them on my replica 1932 Studebaker Indy car project with knock-off wire wheels using custom hubs, '63 Riviera backing plates in front, '60 LeSabre backing plates in the rear (see thread in Speedsters section of forum). One of the drums is approaching 12.100" diameter. Anyone have some spare drums?

The buildings in the background are the Larz Anderson Museum in Brookline, Mass. It's a great car museum, only a few miles from downtown Boston, worth a visit if you're in town. They still have car shows on the lawn most weekends, spring through October. See http://www.larzanderson.org.

The 57 lb flywheel got dragged off to the local auto parts shop for resurfacing. The recessed surface makes it slightly more difficult to do, but not significantly - they charged $60 to grind it, including the surface where the clutch case attaches, to keep the spacing correct. Apparently, the car that the engine came from had been parked many years, so the clutch disk had glued itself to the pressure plate. The lining was torn off the disk at some point. I cleaned up the mess with a flat scraper, then sent the remains of the disk and the pressure plate with case to Ft. Wayne Clutch. The 20 lb assembly went into one of those US Postal Service flat-rate boxes: "If it fits, it ships!". I've sent starters and generators this way, too, an inexpensive way to move heavy parts. The people at Ft. Wayne Clutch did a great job rebuilding the pressure plate assembly and re-lining the disk, plus new springs, and returned the parts in about 10 days. I've been thinking about lightening the flywheel, but I think I'll try it the way it is. The transmission is a 3-speed Borg Warner T85-1B with R5 overdrive. I may need to modify it to be able to lock-out the overdrive/freewheel at times.

It looks like a very nice car. You can post on the Antique Studebaker part of the this AACA forum and at the Studebaker Drivers Club forum (www.studebakerdriversclub.com). Be sure to include your location and contact info. If the car is basically drive able as is, you might get $10,000 on a good day.

In the absence of welting, a layer of 3M "Super 88" electrical tape will prevent squeaking between sheet metal pieces. Trim it so it's about 1/4" in from the edge and it won't be seen. It comes in black. Don't use the cheap tape for this. The Super 88 tape is fairly thick (.0085") as tapes go and sticks well. If you want to really hide the tape, the 3M Type 35 tape comes in 10 colors, is 0.007" thick. You may need to go to an electrical supply house for the colors; the Super 88 tape should be at Lowe's, Home Depot, etc. See http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/EMDCI/Home/Products/Catalog/~/All-3M-Products/Industry-and-Professionals/Electronics-Electrical-Supplies/Electrical-Commercial-Industrial-Products-Catalog/Electrical-Tape-Mastics-Special-Use/Vinyl-Electrical-Tapes

On projects like this, even the small parts take a lot of work. To operate the throttles on the four Stromberg EX-23 carbs, the factory mounted short arms on the throttle shafts. The arms may have been a standard Stromberg part in the 1930's, but also remember that Stromberg, a Bendix subsidiary, was located in South Bend, Indiana along with Studebaker, so special parts would not have been too difficult to get. The carb arms coupled to stamped-steel links and then to another arm located on a 1/2" diameter shaft running the length of the engine. See the photos in post #21 of this thread. Using the old photos I had, plus a visit to one of the original cars, I drew up the arms and links in my TurboCAD program. The throttle shaft arms were machined for me in China by a friend who makes parts there, but I made the other parts here. I created a solid model for stereolithography 3D printing of the carb arm and had one made by Shapeways.com in acrylic plastic. The acrylic master was used to make a silicone rubber mold and a then a bunch of wax masters. These were mounted together, dipped in a plaster mix several times, then investment cast in silicon bronze at a local art foundry. The foundry shook them out of the plaster, tumbled them for surface finishing, then I had to drill several holes, machine a clamping slot, and tap for the 10-24 clamp screw. The silicon bronze turned out to be easy to machine, fortunately, as I only have a small mill. The blanks for the links were laser-cut from 16 gauge (0.060") steel sheet by a nearby shop. Blanks were about 2.5" long x 1/2" wide. I made a simple die from 1/2" steel bar to stamp the double bends in them using my little 12-ton hydraulic press. Two stamped blanks were then spot-welded together to make each link. Arms and links then went to a local plating shop for zinc plating with clear chromate overcoat for corrosion protection and to make the silicon bronze parts the same color as the rest of the parts. Now they look like the Studebaker factory engine parts used in the 1931-33 races and the engines being developed for the 1934 race. I still have to make the special throttle shafts from 1/4" brass rod. Cutting the .060" slots for the throttle plates and threading one end will be tricky. Each throttle plate got two tiny screws to hold it in place; I haven't yet figured out how they peened over the ends of the tiny screws to keep them from loosening. I have some extra carb arms and links for sale if anyone needs something like this. I always try to keep a bunch of things progressing in parallel so that in case I hit a barrier with something or get frustrated on a part, at least something is getting done all of the time. There is still a lot to do on this car!

So, Jon, have you got one of the Stromberg P-17939 Float Fulcrum Screws in your stock?

Be careful what you wish for: you can get a new stainless steel copy for "only" $575. http://www.americanarrowcorp.com/html/product_details.php?nav_id=4&cat_id=1&product_id=133 Or, you can get a bronze one, chromed, for only $460.00. http://www.1933buickregistry.com/products/1934-1935-buick-lady-hood-ornament-bronze-b406-chrome-c406

The Studebaker President models with 337 cu in engines in 1932 and 1933 also used a Stromberg EE-22. There were fewer than 5,000 of these cars and not many survived, so finding a carb may not be too easy. Perhaps the Float Fulcrum Screw, Stromberg part P-17939, was used in other carbs, as well. See the attached diagram of the carb from the Studebaker parts manual. The part numbers shown are Stromberg numbers. The crossover list shows the Studebaker part number for the screw as 179406. You might try The Carburetor Shop to see if they have the Stromberg part number, (573) 392-7378 (8-4:30 Mon-Thurs central time). Good luck!

I like the idea of some not-too-strong cleaner, like Pinesol or a citrus-based product, directly applied or diluted somewhat with very hot water. Use a scrub brush with nylon or other non-metal bristles. Don't use a stainless steel scrub brush because that can also cause stains. Wear elbow-length heavy rubber gloves and safety glasses to keep the stuff off your skin and out of your eyes. Strong detergents and grease removers like Purple Power or even Simple Green may eat into the aluminum or leave it stained. While oven cleaners and other things with sodium hydroxide may take off the carbon, then will rapidly etch the aluminum. There are also industrial cleaners like ZEP-a-lume (truck/trailer wash) will clean and brighten aluminum, but be sure to follow the directions and dilute it a lot because it has hydrofluoric acid in it - very dangerous to skin and eyes! A cast part is never going to clean up like a part stamped from sheet or machined from billet. The big dishwasher at the transmission shop, as Stevemo suggests above, sounds like the right thing, and you don't get exposed to hazardous chemicals. As a final step, you can use some Brillo or SOS pads with their built-in soap to polish it up. I should have thought any decent boatyard in Rhode Island could link you up to a soda blasting company, if you need to go that way.

Try Dan Yurga in Jackson, NJ, seven tree too 364 5619. Also, Then and Now Automotive, Weymouth, Mass., 781-335-8860.

The bezel is actually thin brass with chrome plating. When you find one, it may need to be replated. It should be the same as the 1941 cars, so you can expand your search a bit. I don't have the parts catalogs in front of me, but my first guess is that the M5 windshield garnish moldings should be the same as 1941 and 1946 Champions, though perhaps different paint colors, i.e. same 6 digit code followed by different X number. I can check catalogs next week.

Eaton Detroit Spring can make a new spring for you. They claim to have correct dimensions for almost any old car. It's probably best to replace the other side at the same time so the car sits level. They recently made a 4-spring set for me, good quality, fair prices. Ask for Mike Eaton when you call.

Try posting your request over at Studebaker Truck Talk: http://www.network54.com/Forum/23885

Restoration Specialties has a number of 7/16" bumper bolts with oval/football heads. See http://www.restorationspecialties.com/

I could only find one partial picture of the Dictator dash decal. Anyone have a complete photo plus dimensions of width and height? A water-slide decal isn't too tough to make. I've done a bunch of them, like the 1941 instruments and clock. What are the dimensions of The President badge?

I got some work done on the frame for the cockpit skin. The frame is made from 1x1x1/8" angle iron, based on photos of the 1932 cars at the factory and some photos I have taken of the real cars over the years. Since the restorations of the existing Indy cars were done 30-40 years ago, I haven't found any recent photos of the cars with the aluminum skin off. I have a couple of photos of the 1962 restoration of the #22 car, done at the Studebaker factory to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Studebaker company. The cockpit skin is a hoop of aluminum skin with aluminum angles at the bottom to snug it down tight to the frame rails, pulling it tight against the angle iron frame and the cotton webbing attached to the angle iron. Of course, the skin was formed to curl up for the top of the dash and outward to give space for the steering wheel. This will be work for the English wheel and planishing hammer. I copied the dimensions as well as I could, tacked the pieces together while they sat on the chassis, then finished the welding and ground down the lumps and bumps. I had welded the angle iron hoop for the dash and steering support on the garage floor so that I could get the 20 degree tilt of the dash and the inward slope of the legs correct. It was a brain-numbing task to get all of the angles and dimensions about right. In most cases, I think my parts are within 1/16" to 1/4" of the actual cars. Some bolts through the frame rails will secure the skin and angle iron to the chassis. It feels very stiff, even now. Even so, I would hate to be in a roll-over accident in one of these cars. I had a CAD mockup of the instrument panel, printed it out on 8 sheets of 8.5"x11" paper, and taped the bits together to see how the dash will look. I need to make a few adjustments for actual sizes and shapes, but it's close.

I'll apologize for highjacking Art's thread a bit, as we digress into talking about the rest of the bearings in these engines. For the cam bearings, my parts catalog shows a set of 6 bearings used on each engine. There is one part number set for early engines into 1931, e.g. for Model 70 Commanders having engine numbers before C-7737 and also from C-7793 to C-8729. Then there is a second set for 1930 Model 61 and Model 70, after engines A-9150 (Dictator) and from C-7737 to C-7793 and after C-8700. The third set covers all 250 cu in engines from 1932 on. Described in the book in this way, I have to assume that they were all machined bronze sleeves to be pressed into the block. I haven't actually seen a set. The front and rear cam journals were 1" wide, the middle four journals are 5/8" wide. I.d.'s range from 1.748 to 1.935". The bores in the block for the cam bearings range from 1.880" to 2.066" at the front end, so the bearing sleeve wall thickness is about 1/16". I have copies of the full-size machining drawing for the 1936-37 block, as well as the drawings for the cam, pistons, wrist pins, and miscellaneous other parts. The block drawing (187136 for 1936-37) is about as big as a bed sheet. Later blocks moved the water pump to the front but kept the same cam bearings and many other parts. I did see a number of notes on the block drawing for drilling and reaming holes "for service only". I think some of these are the 5/16 holes for a dowel pin that goes through the crankshaft main bearings. The issue with having some company like King make reproduction main bearings is that there are a front, center, rear, and six intermediate bearings multiplied by different parts for 3 groups of years multiplied by the various size possibilities (standard, .005 under, .010 under, .015 under) - that's a lot of bearings! Does anyone have a crank drawing or bearing drawings?