unimogjohn

Don, what a fantastic car. I LOVE that engine! It is a work of art for sure. So you have a carb and vacuum tank for each side? The car looks great, it must be a real eye catcher going down the road. The 23 goes like the wind, it is a very light car and the big six really pushes it. I only have rear mechanical brakes and very tough to stop at speed as they lock up, but you are still going fast, sometimes it is a real pucker factor. Steering is pretty nimble too, but like all cars of this era, she does not really like to turn at speed, just wants to go straight. She likes to run about 45. We have only taken her on short runs of around 10 miles, but this summer took her on a run of 45 miles, we went 44 and then got vapor lock during the heat of August in downtown traffic. Took a while to figure out what had happened and then it was getting dark so loaded her back on the trailer. Now I know to pour ice and cold water on the vacuum tank if it happens again. Lesson learned. You and all our forum group have a great Thanksgiving.

I am sure Don will not mind, here are just a couple. Sorry they are when it was on the trailer coming back from its final trim work.

It is Wednesday, November 25th. I have been told to leave the Avanti alone and get ready for the holiday and a weeks worth of company. I did sneak out for an hour this morning and applied heat to what is left of the fitting, and then used an easy out. I got the easy out pretty tight and the stub was not budging. I do not want to break off that easy out. Now that would be trouble. I will let it soak for another day with Kroil on it and try again. If that does not work I will drill and retap. I will try and remove the little plug on the back so I can stuff something in to the oil gallery to catch the brass debris. Anyway, that is the plan. Not much of a report, and no progress today. Bummer.........

Don, and post pics of the Caddy too! Usually the vacuum tanks just need a good cleaning as the varnish tends to build up around the needle/seat area, kinda like hard water on a faucet. Yes, I choked at the bill from ReNu, but running with a plastic 2 1/2 gallon jug on the running board really did not look too cool so after six months of fussing around just bit the bullet. Kinda like I am doing on the Avanti right now.

JB, thanks for continuing to look for the speedo cable for me. I am down to two missing pieces, the cable and the McLaughlin Buick radiator badge. I did have four missing pieces, but got four NOS McL/Buick hub caps a month ago, and just got the gas gauge mechanical for the inside of the gas tank. My gas guage goes from 1 to 13 and then when full it says GM SIX so I believe the tank to be approximately 16 gallons. I have never filled it completely so I really do not know. Hope that this helps you.

Don, what a beauty. Now that is a great looking car. Re the gas tank, I had mine 23 tank done in MD by a shop that is licensed to do the ReNu process. Not cheap by any means. Mine had previously been coated, but it had failed and the tank was rusting between the coating and the metal. I also had several areas that needed welding and patching. I think it was around $700. They did a great job, and I need not worry about it again. Re the wiring, on the 23 all I had was the delco wiring diagram. I bought the cloth wiring, shielded cable, and terminals from Road Island Wiring. i just followed the diagram and ran the wire. The wiring is pretty simple and are usually straight runs. I also had them make up new pos and neg cables for the battery as mine were original and badly need some repair. I sent the old ones to them and got back perfect copies. I did have to do some research on how to route the wires, but basically used the routes that are on my 28 Buick and pictures from other 23s, and also advice from forum members. I just went circuit by circuit. Worked out great. Keep us posted on how you are doing. The pics are great. The first couple of pics are of the gas tank before, you can see the rust leaking from the bottom of the filler and also from the seams of the tank. The last ones are of the finished tank.

Don, the engine looks great. Was it running when you got it? Pls. post pictures of the entire car so we can get an idea of what you are up against. Just finished my three year restoration of a 23 McLaughlin Buick, took almost eight months for me to get the engine unstuck. Now I am trying to bring the Avanti back to life. So continue to plug along and keep us updated.

It is still Tuesday, November 24th, but now PM. Thanks all for the advice, all are good. After talking to Greg, he recommended that I try the easy out and if it does not back out easily, he said to drill it out and retap. He also said the gallery can also be accessed via a little plug on the side of the block, he said I could vacuum or fish out the bits that fell. I will heat the area good, and then use more Kroil, and the easy out. Will keep you posted. Well, the rain held off so removed the front seat (thanks First Born) and was able to get under the dash a little bit better. I removed about another four inches of wire. This is what I have found out. There is a bundle of white wires (grounds) all going into two larger white wires (grounds), one of the wires in the bundle shorted and burned. Turns out it was the ground for the tach, and a new ground wire installed outside of the bundle so the tach is still working. No other wires were damaged. There is a yellow/black wire that is bad and was melted by the large red wire next to it in the bundle. Reading the electric diagram it is goes to the alternator. It is not live. The big red wire goes from the battery, through the solenoid, to the amp guage, and comes back to the alternator via a large black wire. I think I reported that a wire was broken in the alternator so maybe this was the cause of the original overheating/short problem. Wires that go in the alternator are now all white so they must have been replaced at some point, will have to do some more tracking from the alternator back to see how those lines are now terminated. I also notice that the wires going into the regulator are also white. So it looks like the charging circuit was the burning problem and wiring was replaced, but not with the right color wiring. Bottom line is that the bad wiring has been replaced so I do not have any major electrical issues at this point. It is just making sure that this circuit is complete and functions so I do not burn out the alternator when it goes back on. The alternator was working before the little tab pushed back into the case and then broke off. More investigative work later. I am going to remove the alternator wire bundle and take a look at those wires. Hope that this all makes sense to you.

It is Tuesday, November 24th. All is not good in Avanti land today. Was not going to work on it today, but the rains have not come yet and thought I would do a little, simple thing on the engine. When I was at Reedsville talking to Jon Myers and Greg Cone (Greg is restoring a 63 Avanti from the ground up) and both told me to look at and replace if necessary the rubber line that goes from the rear of the engine to the firewall. This line is for the oil pressure gauge. Both said that if it was still original then they would replace it as heat and time were not good to the rubber. So with such expert advice I decided to buy a line from Jon at a discounted price of $12.50. I figured, why not, every other piece of rubber on the car has been rotten. So I went to replace it this AM, something simple to do before the rains come. The top fitting came away just fine, the second fitting at the engine would not break loose and someone had rounded it. So I figured the next thing would be to just remove the fitting where it goes into the engine block. So I put a wrench to it, applied just a little pressure and the darn thing broke where it goes into the engine block. Darn, shucks, etc. I have asked Greg for advice before proceeding. He is a master at these sort of things. Also it is a good thing I was going to replace the line as it just crumbled when I tried to move it to one side. Here are some pics. Never a dull moment working on the Avanti.

Ernie, thanks for the offer on the electrics diagram. I have a copy in my shop manual that I am using. The problem is that the previous owner pieced in some new wires into the previously burned wiring, so the color scheme does not always match up. It is Monday, November 23rd. Cold and raining here today in VA. I did get out before the rain started and used the power washer for the last time. Now that the alternator is out I was able to get behind it and clean around the timing chain cover, and some of the areas that I missed before. So I am now done with all the power-washing and now am using small tools with Fantastic and Simple Green to hit the little places. I am not going to do a lot of repainting of the engine bay. I like the look of it being 46 years old. I also just received an email from Dan Skidmore (He advertises in Turning Wheels) that the radio is done. Dan reports that it works great. He said he had to replace a few things in the radio, a new speaker, and give it a general clean, lube and tune. The cost with shipping will be $145, very reasonable in my book. I will post pictures when I get it back. It is a standard AM radio. This is it for the day. Probably will not post for a couple of days as Thanksgiving is approaching, and there is a lot to get done on the farm before winter sets in. But I am hoping that I will get calls about the supercharger and alternator being done sometime this week.

It is still Sunday, much later in the day. I do not know why this car calls sme. Maybe it was the weather forecast for two days of rain starting tomorrow. I decided to stop pulling apart wires, my back feels like a pretzel. So decided to see I could start taking out the some of the hard stains on the top of the car. You might remember that I spent a couple of hour on the rear deck with pretty good results. The roof turned out to be a bit tougher, the stains were really in there good. They will require additional work, but some came out pretty good with rubbing compound. I think the rest may need come more aggressive work, maybe wet sandpaper. The paint is from the early 70 and anything I do will not hurt it more than it is. Here are a couple of before and after pictures.

It is Sunday, November 22nd. Wish I could report a lot of progress, but the wiring is so fused together it is hard to remove the melted tape and burned/melted wiring. I have to go very slow so I do not damage the other wires in the bundle. It is a little tough to get at it also, working from the underside of the dash. Right now it looks like three wires are fried. Two of them have been bypassed previously. It looks like they all go to the amps gauge or at least on that side of the instrument panel. In addition to all that several wires are just off their terminals, I have no idea where they go yet. They have even pull out a couple of dash lights for some reason. All the gauges are working with the exception of the clock. My immediate goal with the wiring is just to isolate and repair. The long term goal is to replace the harness. I think I have worked on it about three hours today, and made about 2 inches of progress. I will just keep picking away at it.

Ernie, did you just get a new Avanti? It is Saturday, November 21st. A fine day, the green hornet is alive. My trusty helper, Avanti owner, and bride helped me bleed the brakes. It only took about 15 minutes. There was only one burp out of the left rear, other than that all the rest were solid streams. So we had a nice firm pedal with the car still on jack stands. Throwing caution to the wind we put on the new tires and hubcaps, lowered her down, and started her up. Pressed on the brakes, yes, a good firm pedal, and put it into reverse. With a little lurch she found reverse, I backed her into the front yard. She actually stopped! So we took a few pictures, started it back up and moved her back to the front of the garage where I could continue to work on her electrical system. We did not drive her today as we have no alternator, therefore, no water pump. So maybe the first drive on the road is next week? She looks great with her new tires. Over the next couple of days I am going to concentrate on the electrical system under the dash.

It is Friday, November 20th. ROAD TRIP! About 11 hours worth including a stop for breakfast and a late lunch. We had a good time in Reedsville, PA talking to all the vendors and participants. Got to meet Jon Myer and his wife Betty. He said that he should have the supercharger done next week; it was being painted today. Yahoo! The show was relatively small, certainly no Hershey, but at least everything was Studebaker. Some Avanti parts, but really not much. We arrived a little after 10 PM, and I would guess that there were a hundred or so folks looking around. Honestly, prices were not cheap, you can buy the same parts new from any of the online vendors. I bought a few things from Jon and a couple of others. There were some used Avanti parts there too, but they cost more than new. So not much of a choice there. But we had a good time, the scenery was great and the roads good, and not very much traffic. All in all we had a great time. Here are a couple of pics to include what we bought, about a $100 worth.

It is Friday PM, November 19th, and lots and lots of rain. Coming down in buckets. A good day for a road trip. So with my trusty lab Shadow we headed off to get the alternator rebuilt. The shop was about an hour and a half away. But it was a nice ride in the rain. Also thunderstorms led the way. Met Bill the owner of the shop, and we had a nice talk about old cars and parts. Spent about 30 minutes just talking shop. The alternator will be ready sometime next week. He will totally go through it, replace all the bearing, and check everything out. It will be a good as new, and another piece of the car done. I did not ask about the cost, I enjoy being surprised, and besides I have no other good option right now. Heading to Reedsville, PA tomorrow morning with my trusty co-driver and Avaniti owner, Alice. We are looking forward to it. Will be a good time. I will take the camera along and will post a few pictures on Saturday.

Just happened on this thread, so thought I had a couple of pics of a Packard convert and Cord convert with side mounts that I took a couple of months ago. I have no idea as to the age of the cars, all I know is what you see in the pics. Hope they are interesting to someone. I believe the cars are original. Both were equally very impressive.

Just happened on this thread, so thought I had a couple of pics of a Cord convert with side mounts that I took a couple of months ago. I have no idea as to the age of the car, all I know is what you see in the pics. Hope they are interesting to someone. I believe the car is original. It was very impressive.

It is Wednesday, late PM, and very dark. November 18th. Finished most of my farm chores, and was able to adjust the rear shoes and the parking/emergency brake. Put some lube on the lever in the car, and she became smooth as silk. Tomorrow, rain, so off to drop of the alternator. Oh, the main wiring harness turned out to be for a Lark, so it would not have the ground for each circuit or the correct plugs. So we will see what we can find in Reedsville, PA on Friday before I bite the bullet for a new harness for around $500.

Vic, I ran up and got my "Seventy Years of Buick" book. It looks like some did and some were finished flush. However, the ones that had the flush look, looked like restorations. To be sure I think I would try to find an original factory photo. The NY Library has a factory pic, and it looks like that it had the little flap on back. 1928 Buick Model 58. Coupe - five passenger. on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Gary and Stude, thanks for the info. It is Wednesday morning, Nov. 18th. Just a quick update. Did some calling locally to several Avanti owners, and they told me of a rebuild shop in Strasburg, VA, which is about an hour from me. Talked to the owner, and he said that he does rebuild the Avanti original alternator and has parts on hand. So will be heading to Strasburg tomorrow morning. Bill's Starter & Alternator‎, Strasburg, VA‎ - (540) 465-2575‎. I do have the correct alternator, here are the pics. I also put in another call to Jon Myer. Talked to Jon, and he said that the supercharger was on the bench. He remarked that he had never seen a charger that was a dirty as mine. Hummmmm, somewhat like the rest of the car. It looks like I will not get away with a service. Oh well, it is only money. I doubt that I will get much done on the car today, just too many farm chores to do. Heading out now to pick up two big rounds of hay in the Unimog truck. Just love taking her through the woods and pastures to load the hay and come home.

No, did not adjust the rear brake shoes. Did not think that I had to do that before they were bled. Will adjust them tomorrow AM. Yes, I did the furthest back first and followed the proper sequence. I have fluid coming out of each cylinder when I open the nipple. I just need extra help to press on the brake pedal to see if anything comes out under pressure. I just may have to re-bleed the master first. I might have gotten air in there. Ernie, could not find that alternator number on a Google search, also looked at 74 Corona/Corolla also, and the alternator I saw had a different rear end and were not like your picture. Am going to look at Reedsville on Friday. If I cannot find anything I will head down to my local Carquest parts store, they seem to be the most helpful around here. Also it looks like Studebaker-Intl wants about $180 to have one rebuilt. My heart is in the 1920s, but just got a bit tired of being run over and trailering my girls everywhere.

Larry, the first pic is for you so you can see how I redirected the hoses. It is Tuesday, November 17th. Not too good of a day. Started on the Avanti at about 9:30 AM, quit for lunch around 2 PM and gave it up at 4 PM. Another long day, and very little progress. I started with the bleeding of the brakes, a lot of air in those lines, but thought I was getting all the air out with the vacuum pump. Did the bleeding on all the lines twice, used about 3 pints of fluid, and she still goes to the floor. Nothing is grabbing. Alice, my trusty helper, left this morning for a couple of days in Baltimore, so I am on my own. I really need to see what is going on so gave it up for the day and will wait until she comes home to pump the brake pedal. I will have to think a bit and try to figure out what is going on, I have no leaks anywhere. Oh well, four hours shot. Included is a pic of the new brake tubes. I did not put on the rest of them as the car really needs to be on a lift for me to get the rest of the brake lines. The rest look good, much better than the rears were. So then I decided to finish painting the rusty frame rails, etc. Got that all done. In total we spread about 1 quart of paint on everything we could see from the mufflers back. Included a pic of the frame that you can see from the rear fender well. Then I decided to take a look at the wiring under the dash. I started pulling off tape and separating wires. I still have a lot to go, but success is measured an inch at a time. In the pics you can see the main wire that is fried that I am following back. Not a lot of room to work under the dash. After a while I gave up on that and decided to take a look at the distributer and the points. The points do need to be replaced, oxidization on both sets. I have another couple of sets so will replace them next week. Then I just happened to look at the wiring going to the distributor from the coil and another wire that is coming from the dash to the coil, both were hard as rocks and cracked, showing the wiring under the rubber coating. So I cut off the end and made new attachments for now. Seeing so much damage to wiring I started looking at each of the wiring bundles and followed them to the horn, lights, etc. They all looked OK. Then I decided to look at the alternator wiring. The wire marked "field" looked funny, then I realized that it was just stuck in the housing and not connected to anything. So I pulled the plastic housing off and could see a broken wire. So the "field" wire was not connected. Just another thing. I do not know if I can repair this myself, the wire is small and tucked inside the housing. So I pulled the alternator and it is sitting on the porch. Have to figure out what to do. So that was my day, not really a good one to be sure. I cannot believe how abused this car is, everything is about shot. My 1920s cars were not even this difficult to get going. Well, tomorrow is another day, going to continue on the wiring, and will decide what to do with the alternator. Maybe I will just take it to Reedsville, PA and see if I can find a replacement or someone who can rebuild it. Here are the pics of today's work.

Vic, I still have the original top on my 1928, model 29. Yes, it is a canvas material with an overlay of embossed rubber material. It's embossing is long grain cobra. Bob's Automobilia and other sell it, but of course, it is of different construction from what I have been told. Here are a couple of pics.

Larry, took your suggestion and moved a couple of the fittings to have better angles, so now no interference issues that require tie wraps, so cut them off. It is Monday, November 16th. Give me a brake! Front brakes that is. Worked all day on them. Greased the new wheel bearings, put in the two rear seals into the rotors, installed the rotors on the car, installed the new brake lines, and finally installed the calipers. The kit is an excellent product with very good fit and finish. Only had two issues that required a bit of rework and extra time. One, the hole in the metal tab that the holds the end of the brake line to the solid line was too small, so had to get out the Dremel tool and make the hole larger so I could put in the C clip to hold everything together. This took about an hour to do as I had to remove the brackets from the frame. Two, then the wheel nut goes on further than the old set up so the hole for the cotter pin is further in and the pin would not engage the tabs of the nut. It would have been helpful if the kit contained a couple more washers to extend the nut out. So I went looking through all my old parts and did not find any washers large enough. So took a cotter pin and bent the head at a 45 degree angle, this was enough to catch the togs of the nut. So it will stay there, and we should now be ready to go. Done for today, had some farm chores to do to. Tomorrow I will attempt to bleed the brakes, adjust the rear shoes, and the emergency/parking brake. I still have some painting to do under the car too. So it looks like a busy day under the car again. I will be glad to get out of under it, I am tried to getting up and down about a 100 times a day. I hope to have the tires installed on the car tomorrow too. If I get everything done then it is coming off the jack stands. May even take her for a short ride around the driveway. Called Jon Myer this morning re the supercharger, he was not in, expected a call this PM, but did not get one. So will call again tomorrow. I also included a pic of the dash with the radio out. Hopefully, I will get under there and check out the melted wiring and make everything insulated and safe. I did fix all the wiring on the engine side of the cowl by re-taping and pulling melted wires apart. I may take the front seat out to get better access, we will have to see how it goes and how extensive the problems are. Heading to Reedsville, PA on Friday AM, Alice and I will drive up, spend a few hours and then head for home mid afternoon.

Ernie and Stude, thanks for the tips. I take your advice seriously. It is Sunday, November 15th. It has been a long working day, but very nice, 72 degrees, just right for working on cars. I got going this morning around 9 AM and worked until 4 PM, almost none stop. Just have to take advantage of this weather. First thing I did today was to let out the parking/emergency brake cable. Once that was done the drums fit easily, and I was able to put the rears back together. I did make sure that I cleaned the spindle and drum to make sure everything was clean and free of any grease or dirt. I declare that the rear brakes are done except for bleeding and adjustments. I then decided to replace the two transmission coolant lines to the radiator. Boy, they were on tight, but got them off and the new ones on. The old ones were pretty bad and their rubber casings were age checked and cracked. I do not think that they would have lasted too much longer. Next I put back on the idler system with its little plastic bushings. It works great now, not stiff like before, so I am ready when the supercharger comes back. Speaking of the supercharger, planning on called Jon Meyer tomorrow to see how its rebuilding is going. I have not heard a word. It was 1 PM and still lots of daylight, but I was starting to fade. I pushed on and started with the front brake kit. It actually was a lot of fun to heat up the collars and put them on the spindles. They went on easily and gently tapped them in, not that they needed much. Did not even burn myself or set the car on fire. I have included pics of the collar, the before fit before heating, and then after heating and installed. I then tackled the caliper mounting brackets. I used red Locktight on all the bolts and torqued them per the instructions. I was successful with the installation and decided that I had better do farm chores and feeding of all the critters before they started beating on the fence line. The mounting brackets look pretty good in the pic. Tomorrow I plan to continue with the front brake installation. I do not know how much I am going to get done as we have 12 tons of lime coming tomorrow. Alice will spread it around the pastures with the tractor, but I am the official loader. I have to load the bucket on the tractor by hand, and let me tell you, 12 tons is a lot of shovel fulls. My back is hurting already.