unimogjohn

Looks just like my 1928 Buick standard. They came with either a brass or pot metal carb, I have the pot metal one on my car, but the brass one in my spares. With that said, it could be from an earlier Buick, years maybe 26 and 27. Hope this help.

It is Wednesday, December 16th. First thing this morning I headed to the Post Office and sent off the distributor to Dave T. He should have it by Friday. In the teens this morning, but the sun is coming out, suppose to be a high of 40 degrees today. Glad I am working inside today. Decided to tackle the fuel pump. After two hours of study and fiddling I have the top half of the fuel pump apart. As suspected the rubber seal hat between the pump housing and the spring had failed, split almost in half. Why? On close inspection I realized that the previous re-builder (have documentation that the pump was rebuilt at a gas station) had put the pump together wrong. He put the metal ring that the spring is suppose to ride in on the lower pump stem and not on the top of the spring to protect the rubber seal. So the spring was able to easily cut the rubber as it had no protection from the movement of the spring. It was only a matter of time before failure. I believe that the car did not start when the re-build was done and the owner then gave up making any repairs. This was in 1997, he had spent almost $500 to get it running, but it was already too late. So when I got her running again, it was only a few minutes of running time before the seal failed. It was not too tough to take apart the pump top, I hope that it goes back together as easy. I had to use a bunch of different tools to get it all apart. Also I did use the Dremel tool with a little wire brush to clean out all the old fuel residue, it did a great job. Here are some pictures. Going to try to get the lower half split this afternoon. I took a big screwdriver to the two screws holding the halves together and could not get them to break loose. I plan on putting it in a vice, use my largest screwdriver and see if I can get them to move. I have them soaking in Kroil right now. Hope that I can get them loose without damage to the slot.

Byron, I took it to a local shop here in VA/MD who used the Gas Tank Renu process. Gas Tank RENU - USA They did a great job. I had lots of repair work to be done as the previous owner put in some stuff that lined the tank. Water got in between the lining and the tank and rusted it through in several places. So I had a lot of metal work that had to be done. It has a lifetime warranty, so I do get peace of mind. It might be an option for your tank, see if you can find one in your area. Be prepared on the cost, mine was $710. Expensive, but you get what you pay for. I have never used the other stuff, heard too many bad stories with the stuff flaking off.

and here are some picture examples. Fender Welting & Cowl to Fender Seals for what it is worth, it seems like the early teens and 20s cars did not have them. Neither my 23 or 28 had welting around the back fenders. I do not believe my fenders on the 28 had been off the car, but then you never know for sure. I added welting to give it a finished look, but left it off the 23. To each is own I guess. Forgot, lots of folks just cut an inverted V and slide the welting over the mounting screws/bolts. Over time the welting has a tendency to creep out between the two pieces due to friction and pressure. What I do is measure carefully, remove the screw/bolt, and use a paper punch to make a round hold. Yes, it might still creep, but still will be be held in place by the cloth and will not work it way all the way out. This is especially for the ends of the runs.

Thanks all for the additional information. We found the Petty signature, mystery solved.

Opps, may have spoke too soon. The wings are different.

Did a quick search on Google of hood ornaments and answered my own question. It is from a 1955 Rambler Custom - Farina Body Female Mascot. Now the second question, what is it worth?

A friend bought this a couple of years ago. He just liked it and paid pretty good money for it. Says it is not pitted, just needs to be buffed out. Does anyone have a clue what this is from? Or is it an aftermarket piece. Thanks, John

It is still Tuesday, only later in the PM, 7:22 to be exact. Keiser31, you been drinkin? Actually, you are right, the piece that drives the oil pump is on a separate shaft that is held in place by a round split pin, and there is significant play to allow it to wobble on the distributor gear shaft. Why? I really do not know, but have seen other pictures with the same deflection. The fuel pump....... You know I cannot leave things alone for too long. Had a few minutes so decided to at least open up the pump. Now that is one mucked up pump, it is a wonder that it worked at all. There is a lot of gunk inside the pump's primary chamber, and I am sure that the output chamber (that I have not pulled apart yet) will be just as bad. It is really interesting, if you let this stuff stay exposed to the air it will turn into a dust. My Dremel tool with a little brass wheel will clean up all this stuff. Well, the pump diaphragm looks fine, but it is the small rubber stem seal at the very top of the pump shaft is what failed, looks to be split right in half. No gas was getting into that area of the pump, but that area was full of oil. I am sure that it was also causing the pump some pumping issues as it had to work against the oil in a chamber that is suppose to be just air. Found a good rebuilding instruction site with lots of pictures on Bob Johnson's technical site. This looks like a doable thing for me. So will give it a go. Studebaker Drivers Club, Inc.® - R1 fuel pump rebuild proceedure - w/pics! Here are some pictures of what I found.

Paul, thanks for the nice message. It does encourage me to keep going. And the blog makes we do something almost every day so it keeps me focused. Stude8, yes, made my marks and took a picture. I will not move the car until that distributor is back in. It is Tuesday, December 15th. Alice drove her Avanti for the first time. Errrr, well, she steered it while I was pushing with the tractor. So the Avanti is in the Avanti garage. I am now out of the wind and rain, have lights, and can actually heat it a bit if I need to. Pulled the distributor. Very dirty and some of the wiring is frayed. I will feel better when it is rebuilt. It will be mailed to Dave T. tomorrow. I can see that I am going to remove some more components so I can just drop the new one straight down. All the wires and brackets sure get in the way. Pulled the fuel pump. The upper part of the pump is full of oil. All the fittings broke easily so it was not a difficult job to get it out. Took off all the brass fittings and cleaned them, and then cleaned the outside of the pump. There is really no wear on the long arm that goes to the cam. Tomorrow will take it apart on the kitchen table for a look see. I should have a rebuild kit in a day or so. Actually, won one on Ebay and then order another one from Jon Meyers. So I have a spare now. And yes, there is gas in the oil. So will change oil before we do a restart in a couple of weeks. I did change the oil when I got the car, but now it probably has an hour running on that oil/filter. But the oil is dirty already, so I do not mind changing it again. Here are some pictures of today's fun.

Stude8 and Ernie, ran out last night and clamped the fuel line, and I also checked the oil level, it is fine. It also had no smell of fuel in it. I have checked the fan and water pump for play, and both seem to be OK. I will not touch them for now, but will keep an eye on them. If the rain holds off today I plan to pull the distributor and fuel pump. I do have a pump rebuild kit coming, but hopefully I can open up the broken one and see what failed. Should be interesting. The distributor will go to Dave T. today or tomorrow.

Ernie, will do, and I do have that second spring. It is still Monday, now PM, December 14th. I am so happy, it goes into gear without killing the engine. Grab Alice and say, "let me take you around the yard in your Avanti". She jumps in, I start the car, OIL is spraying out of the front of the engine !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have a gusher. So turn off the car, Alice says "I guess we are not going anywhere?" As usual, I say yes, and frustrated I turn to the green hornet and smile a bit; she is not ready yet to hit the road. Stubborn little beast. The oil is squirting from the pressure vent line that goes to the supercharger from the fuel pump. I believe that this is suppose to be a vacuum line, not an oil line. I guess if the pump was to go, better now than later. And it was not just a dribble of oil, it was pumping it out. Here are pics of the results of the oil gusher. And I just got a call from John and Betty Myers; the supercharger is done. I asked them to throw in a fuel pump rebuild kit too. The rebuild as expected was $619 plus shipping, and with the kit, probably close to $700. I had budgeted $700 so we are good. However, this is the last planned expense for the "refresh". From now on, we are in the RED.

It is Monday, December 14th. Still under the weather, both of us, but the llamas wait for no man. They have to be fed, so dragged myself out of bed at 7 AM and started the Unimog and headed into the girl's pasture. Got out the tractor and pushed a big hay round off. The girls are happy now. But now I have to go up a hill and out the gate. Ground is frozen, but only a 1/4 inch or so, now there is mud, but the Unimog crawls up the hill in low gear slipping a bit, but I get her out and on the flat. The boys are going to have to wait. Now on to the Avanti, increase the timing from 12 degrees at idle to 26 or so, adjusted the throttle and kicker plate. The "green hornet" is moving, did not stall. Drove her around the yard and through a bit of mud, but she kept on going and did not die. Reverse works OK too. Really clunks into gear, but idle may be set a bit too high. I do have the vacuum to the distributor disconnected and plugged, if I left it unplugged the engine wanted to die. Just dragged out the dwell meter that I bought when I was 16 years old, it says that the dwell is 31 degrees. Ok Ernie and Stude8, what does this all mean with the way over advanced timing? Should I pull the distributer and send it off?

Yes, they are easily repairable, parts are available, as well as new repros. Snyder's deals with model A/T stuff, but they have the material. Product Search | Snyders Antique Auto Also LeBaron Bonney will also sell standard and make to order what you need. osCommerce

OK, I will go for the rebuild. Dave said that it included everything, bearings, cap, rotor, adjusted new points, condenser, etc. Factory new, show quality. I will send it to him next week. Tx for the comments/suggestions.

Ernie/Stud8/et al - Recommendation on distributor? Dave T. sent me this note: New Mallory Unilite electronic distributors available that we have custom made for us. They are $369.00 outright. or a $50.00 trade in on the Prestolite dual points. Other than the cost (a bit more than double), have you used or know of folks who have converted to electronic ignition? Worth the extra money. I am willing from straying from original on the basis of safety/reliability/performance. Thanks for all the opinions/suggestions.

Bernie, I bought all my wiring from Rhode Island wiring Rhode Island Wiring Service Inc. Take a look at their wiring and supplies. They have some wire specific to different electrical manufactures (ie Lucas, etc). They also have complete kits that you might want to talk to them about. With that said, I bought all my wiring and connectors from them for my 1923 McLaughlin Buick. I could not find any reference to color for the wires in my research so went with my gut feel based upon my original 1928 Buick. So I used solid red cloth wiring for the main power line going to the amp and ignition system; solid black for all grounds; a solid a black with yellow tracer for lights. You can use a different color tracer if you want to designate different systems such as the cowl lights, brake light, dash light. The electrical systems are simple for our cars, and are usually a direct connect back to the combo switch. I did not go with solid colors for anything other than the red as too many colors made it look too modern. Also they do have armored wiring and conduit where the wiring was usually exposed. Good luck, and hope you find that spring.

It is Sunday, December 13, cold, windy and sleeting. No work is going to be done outside today, good thing, as both Alice and I now suddenly have colds, headaches, etc. We are done for today. Stude8, yes I have a new vacuum kicker on the front of the carb, and it works great. It is hooked up just like in the parts diagram. At idle if the engine starts to stall it moves to increase throttle just a bit, when you close the throttle fast it pops out and slows down the throttle so the rpms just do not drop like a rock. I will have to take a look at it again when I drop the engine into D or R to see what it is doing. It could be kicking the throttle back and flooding the engine. Like you said, something to investigate. I am also going to jack up the car and look how the throttle valve stop rod is connected to the outside of the transmission. It could be that to make the old carb work (which was not an R1 or R2 carb) they also had to mess with/adjust the throttle valve stop. (see page 8 and 9 of the power-shift transmission section in the workshop manual) They really had to cobble the linkage to make the old carb work, and the transmission seemed to work fine when the new carb and old linkage was the same as the old car and old linkage. Here are a couple of pics. The first one is with the new carb with the linkage set up when it went to gear correctly. Notice that they used the second hole on the throttle plate to get it to work. It is incorrect. The second picture is how I set it back to stock. Notice the length of the control rod and how much I had to change it. Remember, the above was a month ago. Since then I have readjusted the linkage to have the little ball joint go under the arm, and adjusted the gap between the plate and the lever that goes to the transmission. A picture of that is in a post of the day before yesterday. Just more thoughts. Anyway, I think the problem is somewhere with this linkage and how it is set up both outside and inside the transmission. I do not mind dropping the transmission pan as was going to change the transmission fluid anyway, but was going to do it on a friends lift, and not on my back. And of course the kick mechanism could be pushing the throttle around when she starts to stall and flooding the engine too. A bunch of little things to look at. Hope that this all makes sense. And of course will check the timing again before I pull the distributor for Ernie.

Ernie, OK, you have given me my assignment for tomorrow.

Ernie, this is what I wrote on Nov. 4th "Decided to check the timing. After reading the manual it says that the timing should be 4 degrees at 750 rpm and 24 at 1600 for the supercharged engine. Mine is currently set at 8 degrees at 750 rpm, and does advance to 24 degrees at 1600 rpm." You need tell me what you want me to check again. Also, when I drove the car off the trailer in early Nov. I did not have this stalling problem, it seems to have happened when I put the throttle mechanicals back to the factory position, or perhaps junk got into the carb. Just do not know. I do remember being able to put it in D or R for a few seconds to get it to move (remember this was without brakes at the time) so the transmission was working correctly; the engine was not stalling out.

Stude8, talked to Dave T. and he agrees with you. I am going to pull the distributor on Monday and send it to him for a rebuild. Just one less thing to worry about. And not much money in the grand scheme of things, $150 plus shipping both ways, so call it about $175.

It is Saturday, December 12th. Ventured out to make the Dave T. adjustment on the choke, moved it two marks. It did restart fine a couple of times, but then when back to its old ways. So decided to check the vacuum advance module on the distributor. I used my little Mity Vac pump to check it. Nothing moved and built no pressure on the pump, you can just hear the air moving in and out inside the module. Just as a double check decided just to suck back and forth via mouth just to be sure. Yup, nothing, so Sude8 found the problem with the advance. Would that effect my stalling as soon as I put it into gear? Also, I looked at the main jets at idle, and yes, they are not dribbling gas into the venturi. So it looks like the idle and main jets are working correctly. Maybe then I do not have a dirty carb issue. Well, what is next? I know that the Prestolite distributor is not that great and the mechanical weights are subject to binding. So I think that I will call Dave Thibeault and see what he wants for a rebuild. I have never replaced a distributor before so will check the workshop manual before pulling it. At least I do know enough to make some marks and take a picture so I know the relative position it should go back in. However, that does not mean that I will reinstall it successfully the first time considering my track record of late. Suppose to be another storm tonight and tomorrow, so heading out this PM to get rounds of hay again. We go through about 26 rounds per year, and 250 small 60lbs bales just in case you were wondering. I do have to wait now until the ground is frozen to get the Unimog and tractor into the pastures, otherwise they are just too muddy and I just do more damage to the ground.

Stude8, the vacuum check should be easy, I will check over the weekend and report. I have not checked the vacuum distributer workings. I know the weights work, but I did have the vacuum disconnected and plugged when I checked it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Yes on the rotation. Number one on the distributor is the one just to the left of the back clip. It almost faces the engine at 12 o'clock. Make sure that you write down/diagram how it is now, and then how you change it. You will forget quickly how it went, and then you will not know your starting point, etc. Good luck and let us know how it comes out. If it is backfiring then he does have ignition and fuel, so she should go. Make sure that the choke is connected and working. The engine floods easily too, so just do not sit there and pump the button. If you see fuel leaking all over the ground, and coming out the intake of the carb, you have flooded it. Turn off the fuel, let it sit for 15 minutes and start again to start it.

Still Friday, only PM, and it got up to 30 degrees, yahoo! Ok, changed the little ball joint to go on the underside of the bar, so good so far. Made the adjustment with the control rod and the gap closed up. Actually, there is a screw on the underside that keeps the adjustment, or allows it to close a bit more. When the plates came together it was at the proper adjustment. I then adjusted the idle and the vacuum control for the throttle. Engine idled down to 700 nicely. See pics for new set up. So, put it in reverse, died; increase idle to 1000, put it in reverse, died. Oh well, we will live to fight another day. Sun is going down, it is windy and cold, snow tomorrow. Goal for this weekend, move the 1928 Buick to the Avanti garage, and the Avanti to the real garage. At least then I will not be working in Antarctica. Just got an email from Dave, the carb rebuilder, he suggested that I turn the choke adjustment clockwise two notches to see if that fixes the re-starting issue. So will do that tomorrow.