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'51 Chieftain


PhilAndrews

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Bloo:

Had the head off, it had a little corrosion that was causing two valves to hang up when the stems got warm and free up when the guide caught up to their expansion- the valves are stainless so have a different coefficient.

Head gasket is perfect, the deck and head are both totally flat.

The manifold.. is not. It's now flat along most of its length, with the center 2 exhaust ports sitting back a bit, one intake runner being a fraction off (come back to that), originally the rear section of the manifold had a warp.

 

Cevensky:

Yes, but not the proper ones so the seal they form isn't as good as it should be. I think the mixture is getting funky on pots 5 and 6.

 

 

Yes, I need to get the manifold properly decked. It's a case of finding a decent shop to do it- those are few and far between here. So, until then I can take the gap up with gasket and it's going to have to be a compromise. 

 

 

Phil

Edited by PhilAndrews (see edit history)
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Weather was nice Saturday and I had a bit of time so I started on the roof.

 

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There's a lot of real estate. I really need a machine polisher.

 

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Finished up later on because the sun was getting a little warm. Cleaned all the chrome up. 

 

Getting better.

 

Phil

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Tail light question. Will a 1950 lens fit a 1951/52 housing? It looks like they're the same diameter but the 51-52 lens is significantly more domed.

 

My tail light lenses have had it and I'm looking to see if I can get something that is either correct or very nearly correct until I can find the correct lenses. 

 

51-52 lenses seem thin on the ground but 49-50 lenses are fairly easy to find.

 

Phil

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52 minutes ago, PhilAndrews said:

Tail light question. Will a 1950 lens fit a 1951/52 housing? It looks like they're the same diameter but the 51-52 lens is significantly more domed.

 

My tail light lenses have had it and I'm looking to see if I can get something that is either correct or very nearly correct until I can find the correct lenses. 

 

51-52 lenses seem thin on the ground but 49-50 lenses are fairly easy to find.

 

Phil

i believe the lens diameter may be the same, getting bigger on 53-54 chieftains, and bigger again on 54 star chiefs.

 

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8 hours ago, pontiac1953 said:

there is several listings on ebay for pontiacs 1952 taillight lens

Yeah, but a lot of them have seen the same amount of sun.

 

I was looking at reproduction ones. There's a few offered in glass, which will hold up much better to the sunshine down here than plastic. But, they're all '50 fitment.

 

Phil

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On the car, the redone lens looks significantly better. I need to get some more lacquer.

 

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Cleaned up the overflow pipe for the radiator. Need to flux and solder it in place.

 

Also decided to hook up the strobe again and found that cylinders 1 and 8 are firing at the same time. That'll be the distributor cap definitely no good then.

 

Phil

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Okay. I was once told there are no stupid questions, so here's one.

 

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The manual states "remove the drum", however 60 years of rust and nonsense have occurred. It looks as though the hub and drum are two separate entities but I don't want to be fighting to remove things in the wrong fashion.

 

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I've never had to pull this series of brakes apart before. I've had ones with separate drums, drums that are hub integral and these don't give too much clue.

 

Phil

Edited by PhilAndrews (see edit history)
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hi phil, the front hub and front brake drum are an integral unit, only because the lug bolt shaft has splines long enough to bite into both parts, when i needed 1/4" longer lug bolts to keep 100% lug nut thread contact while using a 1/4" wheel spacer, i went to NAPA auto parts store and bought them, the bonus was the new lug bolt splines were only long enough to bite completely into the hub but not the brake drum, now my front drums will slide off the front hubs by hand, just like the rear drums always have.

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Edited by pontiac1953 (see edit history)
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6 hours ago, PhilAndrews said:

I'll stick with the hub and drum coming off together, in that case. I just prefer not because that's dirt ingress where it doesn't need any but I guess pull off, wash out and repack is not too much trouble.

 

Phil

will be easier to handle, repack the bearings with the drum out of the way. i'm changing the front inner and outer wheel bearings to the better tapered roller bearings i bought.

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On 11/23/2019 at 6:42 PM, PhilAndrews said:

Cleaned and re-greased and reassembled. However, top adjuster locknut is seized solid.

 

That's on the to-do list. At least I know why that brake was so poor.

 

Phil

 

Just curious, have you checked the shoe adjustment from the adjustment screw first? Sometimes that's enough before having to do the anchor pin adjustment.

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18 minutes ago, Summershandy said:

 

Just curious, have you checked the shoe adjustment from the adjustment screw first? Sometimes that's enough before having to do the anchor pin adjustment.

 

I did, and I had too much gap at the top of the shoes. I needed to get the anchor adjusted. 

Mostly because it looks and feels like that hadn't been touched for a long time and when the brakes were "redone" they just tried to take the slack up in the lower adjuster.

 

Phil

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Is it just not starting now? When I first got my car I had cleaned/rebuilt the carb among many other things. It was pretty gunked. Also rebuilt the fuel pump, parts were breaking down in there too. I could start the car and drive around the neighbourhood. The next day it wouldn't start. I had made sure I changed the fuel filters...both of them. I found that odd. The carb was getting fuel so I tore the carb down again. It was full of crap. I cleaned the carb again, started and went for a spin. Same thing the next day. I figured there must be an issue in the gas tank. It looked like WWII in there including the sending unit that was seized. The sending unit had the sock cut off maybe for better flow. New fuel system and I haven't looked back. I also now know why there were 2 fuel filters in the system. One before and one after the pump tsk, tsk...

 

 

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No, it starts and runs but as it gets warm the valves are tightening up and getting stuck open. It's storage and previous owners that's caused that. I just need to pull the valves, clean them and their guides and that should remedy this issue.

 

The fuel that was in the tank was cloudy yellow from storage though. Ethanol likes to suck the water up out of the air.

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