1921 Oldsmobile Model 46 - I ask myself, Why?

[Stude Light]

I enjoy a challenge and sometimes I take on a project just because it presents itself. The car in question is a 1921 Oldsmobile Model 46 Touring Car with a Northway Model 209 V8. 

Gotta love the stars on the hood 🤔

 

Short History Lesson:
Following Cadillac’s and Cole’s adoption of a Northway designed V8 in 1915, Oldsmobile began using a Northway V8 in 1916 in their Model 44 car. The engine is designated the Northway 209 and was a side valve design with a bore of 2.875 in and a stroke of 4.75 in, displacing 246 cu in. It utilized a full pressure oiling system with a two main bearing design. The block was cast in two pieces with the split line running down the center of the engine, top to bottom and utilized a detachable head. Horsepower was originally rated at 40 @2000 RPM. The 1917 Model 45 saw an improvement to the engine, which now developed 58 bhp. The horsepower would remain unchanged through 1922.

 

The 1918 Model 45A added 7 seat capacity to the touring sedan. The 1919 Model 45B was offered with a longer wheelbase of 122 in as a longer version of the 45A with the same side-valve Northway 209 V8 engine having the same 246 cu in displacement. This was called the Peacemaker Series. For 1920, the shorter wheelbase model was discontinued, and the longer 45B was available as either an open sided touring sedan or the closed body 4-door sedan that could seat 5-7 passengers and was now identified as the Thorobred Series. 

The Oldsmobile Model 46 appeared in 1921 and 1922 with minor body changes but mechanically unchanged using the same Northway 209 engine. Around 1100 total were produced those two years.

 

In 1921 Oldsmobile offered their short wheelbase (115 in) Model 47 with an entirely new Oldsmobile designed side-valve V8 that was somewhat reverse engineered from the Northway 209. The block was changed from a two-piece cast iron design to a single piece aluminum casting which had bolt on cast iron cylinders and detachable cast iron heads. The bore was 2.875 in and the stroke was 4.5 in giving an overall displacement of 233 cu in. Horsepower was rated at 63 @2000 RPM. This engine also utilized two main bearings but were now in the aluminum block. For 1922, the roadster body style returned along with the popular touring sedan and closed body sedan. 

 

1923 saw the cancellation of the longer wheelbase Model 46 car and the elimination of the Northway 209. By 1924 Oldsmobile dropped their V8s which were replaced by in-line engines and the division wouldn't offer another V8 until 1949.

End of History Lesson.

 

Project car:
Enough history, back to the project car. The car has over 70,000 hard miles on it and the original engine had been replaced at least once (same model engine but different serial number). It is a fantastic looking car.....from 50 feet or more. The body is sound and looks like it was a rattle can paint job. The top is weathered with a couple of tiny tears, but the bows and frame are sound. The interior looks like a 1960/70 vinyl replacement with plenty of gray overspray here and there. The biggest issue is the engine.

 

The car was used to give rides for many years. Not to offend anyone who may be reading this that was involved in the past, but the car was maintained and driven by people unfamiliar with pre-war cars and especially unfamiliar with early 1920s cars. Unfortunately, it was knowingly driven with a coolant leak into the crankcase…..they just drained the water out after each season.

 

Those that know me will tell you I’m a purist and a perfectionist but I’m not going to restore the car instead I'll just drive it as is but the engine needs lots of help which is what I'll primarily cover in this post. My desire for taking this on project was to prevent it from becoming a parts donor car and it is interesting as it's an early V8 and a 7 passenger car. Okay enough long windedness.

 

First steps are drop the pan and pull the heads.

Scott
 

Edited May 31, 2023 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

I skipped a step.....need to drain the oil. Had some similarities to marshmallow crème. 

[Luv2Wrench]

You might try that over warm brownies.

 

Wonderful car, thanks for sharing!

[Walt G]

I commend you for taking on this project and the  time and effort it will take to "get it right" mechanically.  Some viewers may look at it and think - but it is a 7 passenger car! - most like sport phaetons that are 5 passenger, have side mounted spare times, wire wheels and best of all a second cowl ( or at least second windshield bolted to the back of the front seat) . I think you have the right idea, get is sorted correctly mechanically and then drive and enjoy it.  Yes, personally I do like 7 passenger cars and even own one . Good luck and best regards for your new found happiness.

Walt

[TexRiv_63]

Great looking car, good plan to drive it as is. Looking forward to the sorting details.

[PartsAncient]

Thanks for your post.  I look forward to seeing your discoveries and remedies.

[Stude Light]

A photo of the engine before I got the heads off. 

 

And after pulling the heads I found the right side head looking like this inside. Telltale sign of a little coolant leak into the combustion chamber in cylinder #4 (rearmost cylinder on the right side). Looks like an old weld had failed at the undercut.

 

[Stude Light]

One observation.....the last time this car ran was July 2019. I'm surprised that the oil and water did not separate and stratify over the last 2-1/2 years but instead continued to be emulsified. It looks like the combustion chamber leak was rather small and was not the cause of the water in the oil. The real culprit was the water pump. It sits proud of the engine.

 

And occasionally you need to snug up the packing but if the packing leaks it runs harmlessly out the drain hole in the housing as can be seen at the bottom of the housing in the photo.

 

 

But if that housing is totally plugged up with dirt, oil and little metal shavings from the jury rigged way that someone drove the pump with a square plate of steel using the water pump housing to keep it centered....well, then the coolant just runs into the crankcase. At least that problem is easily solved.

[Mike "Hubbie" Stearns]

Good find. Mike

[JFranklin]

How did the water travel from the WP to the crankcase? It really is strange the oil wasn't lighter than water.

[J.H.Boland]

A friend of mine in London Ontario has it's twin, although a year older. He's had a lot of experience with those engines.

Jim

[ryan95]

I'm looking forward to following along. Nice car.

[Stude Light]

7 hours ago, JFranklin said:

How did the water travel from the WP to the crankcase? It really is strange the oil wasn't lighter than water.

The shaft that drives the water pump is driven from the front of the camshaft, so if any water escapes the packing seal on the water pump it would just flow into the engine. To prevent that, the housing of the water pump has a cavity with a lip between the water pump packing nut and timing gear cover and in the bottom of the cavity there is a hole drilled that will weep any coolant on to the ground. It's a gravity based system so assuming your front tires are not pointed at the sky, it should work - unless that weep hole is plugged up.

 

Regarding the emulsified water and oil, my guess is they used glycol in the coolant mix and that acted as a surfactant to allow the normally immiscible oil and water to emulsify.

[Stude Light]

Through the networking of friends that also have this collector car disease, I was able to locate someone with a spare Northway 209 that is kind enough to sell me a head (and any other parts needed). Surprisingly the engine is pretty decent inside. I thought it  might be rusted up inside and have scored bearings - not at all, just the normal wear you would expect and carbon sludge.

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

6 hours ago, J.H.Boland said:

A friend of mine in London Ontario has it's twin, although a year older. He's had a lot of experience with those engines.

Jim

Very cool. Not many of these around.

[Dan Cluley]

When you said the car was used to give rides, I realized why it looked familiar.  Sounds like a fun project. 

[Stude Light]

Out comes the engine

[Stude Light]

Switching subjects....what the heck is gravity? Perhaps a depression in the space time continuum. I think we often take gravity for granted and don't think much about how it affects our lives. You slip and fall and hurt yourself, do you immediately curse gravity? Our when you're taking a high speed corner and your tire doesn't wash out, you don't thank gravity for creating that normal down force on the tire patch. So where am I going with this?!

 

I want to recognize and thank gravity for being the only thing that was keeping the engine in this car.....

Edited April 4, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[J.H.Boland]

On 4/2/2022 at 8:10 AM, Dan Cluley said:

When you said the car was used to give rides, I realized why it looked familiar.  Sounds like a fun project. 

That '29 Reo Flying Cloud is a handsome car too !

[M1842]

Those motor mounts are enough to scare a person to death!

[hidden_hunter]

On 4/1/2022 at 11:44 AM, Stude Light said:

It looks like the combustion chamber leak was rather small and was not the cause of the water in the oil. The real culprit was the water pump. It sits proud of the engine.

Interesting how different a design they went compared to Cadillac’s of the time with the dual water pumps bolted to the side

 

Is that the original carb or would it originally had a Johnston? 
 

Is that the gen on the fan hub?

 

[Stude Light]

26 minutes ago, hidden_hunter said:

Interesting how different a design they went compared to Cadillac’s of the time with the dual water pumps bolted to the side

 

Is that the original carb or would it originally had a Johnston? 
 

Is that the gen on the fan hub?

 

The Northway designs between Cadillac, Cole and the Olds V8s were quite different from each other. The 1915 Cadillac did not have detachable heads like the Cole or Olds until 1917.

 

That is the original carburetor. It is a Penberthy Ball and Ball Model DV-14. It is interesting as it is a two-barrel with secondaries.

Yes, the Delco generator also supports the fan on its pulley.

 

 

[Stude Light]

Here are a few drawings of the engine. The first shows how the camshaft and crankshaft bearing caps are part of the left side of the block. You have to install the camshaft bearings, crankshaft bearings and crankshaft before bolting the two halves together.

 

Since the pistons bores are not offset and directly opposed, it uses the fork and blade connecting rod design. The fork rod holds the babbitt insert bearing while the blade rod rides on the OD of the insert bearing - steel on bronze. The picture shows how to measure clearance with brass strips.

 

It has a pressurized oiling system with an externally mounted pump that draws from the bottom of the oil pan and feeds the rear bearing (picture shows it feeding the front bearing but is incorrect). There is an internal tube that feeds the front bearing from the rear. The Main bearings are cross-drilled to the piston throws closest to the mains and then routed through another copper tube to feed the center crank throws. Those copper tubes threaded on the crankshaft also make nice carry handles 😁. There is also a small pipe that squirts oil on the cam gears and a pathway out the rear of the crank to oil the transmission pilot bushing.  The camshaft bearings rely on troughs that catch oil splash. It has an oil pressure adjustment screw that is adjusted from the side of the block.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

The timing gears are rather massive. The cam gear is of the Fabroil type, where a high quality cotton is wound and treated with an oil and compressed. It is held between two steel gear sides in compression. They used these to reduce gear noise. It's in nice shape and hopefully continues to hold up....it's only 100 year old fiber/resin technology.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[hidden_hunter]

11 hours ago, Stude Light said:

The Northway designs between Cadillac, Cole and the Olds V8s were quite different from each other. The 1915 Cadillac did not have detachable heads like the Cole or Olds until 1917.

 

Seems like such an inefficient way to run a business but I guess they probably designed it based on what the customers asked for 

 

The carb on the olds looks more modern than what caddy were sticking on their cars which seems to have drawn its inspiration from a toilet bowl

[TexRiv_63]

Very impressive engine tech for the times.

[63RedBrier]

I'll be following this thread!  I like the car and the history and rebuilding process behind it.  Great work, Scott!

[Stude Light]

Crank looks really nice after polishing up journals - some minor wear but serviceable. It is a flat plane crank with counterweights welded on.

Camshaft and cam followers also good - just some very minor surface pitting. Pretty heavy duty design

[Stude Light]

I have now fully disassembled the engine that came out of the car and the spare engine a friend has. The next step was getting the blocks cleaned and inspected - results good for both.  The pistons in each engine were a mixed bag with some broken rings, one with a crack up the side and one with a chunk missing from the skirt. None of the bores were scored though.

I picked one block to work on but my problem is I needed new bores and pistons for either block. I can get pistons made whatever size I want, but for this engine, the process starts with trying to find oversize rings for a 2-7/8" bore. That is not a common bore and available rings are few and far between. There was no need to go with all 3/16" thick rings like the original pistons.....I wanted 5/64" for the top compression and the 2nd compression/scraper and a standard 3/16" oil control. I reached out to Dave Reed from Otto Gas Engine Works (otto@ringspacers.com) and he was able to dig up what I needed in 0.020" oversize - that made my day. He has always been great to work with and very reasonable on price. So, I received those in the mail recently and contracted Egge Machine Co. to make me some new pistons that are 0.020" oversize (minus bore clearance) - so I'm in waiting mode for those. I also ordered new valves as there doesn't seem to be enough margin to grind them without coming to an edge at the top.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[hidden_hunter]

I had my rings made (he only charged something like $600), I believe the bottom may be an original ring (or at least very early) as they’re identical to the ones I replaced in my cad

[Stude Light]

The blocks cleaned up nicely with the thermal method. Block is heated in an oven at 500 degrees which burns off oils, grease, paint, etc. Then it gets bead blasted with steel shot. Then it is tumbled to get all shot out. Both of these blocks were full of years of old oil and carbon - it resembled grease that was permeated with black ink that permanently stained anything it came in contact with. The engine shop said each time it was quite the inferno in the oven for about 5 hours and each half block had to be done individually.

[Stude Light]

Since I'm waiting on parts, I have been cleaning everything up and painting. Luckily I have a good sized ultrasonic tank and power supply. Here is a shot of the trans and bell housing in the car - it is pretty grimy (no to be confused with our friend Grimy).

 

And now the bell housing (or clutch cover) inside the ultrasonic tank. I had to do one half at a time and then flip it over - it just fit. I did scrape off the heavy stuff first then just dropped it in.

 

It is pretty nice. It heats to about 200 degrees F and I just use the purple HD version of Simple Green that I buy at Home Depot mixed in water. 

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Lahti35]

Nice cleaning job, beats wire wheeling the junk all over anything within 10'.

 

Enjoying your thread, keep up the good work!

 

PS: I see we're nearly neighbors, I'm just north of Saginaw a few miles.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Lahti35 (see edit history)

[TexRiv_63]

On 4/9/2022 at 9:05 PM, Stude Light said:

The blocks cleaned up nicely with the thermal method. Block is heated in an oven at 500 degrees which burns off oils, grease, paint, etc. Then it gets bead blasted with steel shot. Then it is tumbled to get all shot out. Both of these blocks were full of years of old oil and carbon - it resembled grease that was permeated with black ink that permanently stained anything it came in contact with. The engine shop said each time it was quite the inferno in the oven for about 5 hours and each half block had to be done individually.

Is the black finish due to the carbon? Seems like these should have bare iron look after all the prep. 

[Stude Light]

I have to think it is from burning off everything into carbon. They weren’t nearly as dark until I applied a good coat of Boeshield T9 to prevent any rust. It dries into a thin waxy coat - great stuff.

[Stude Light]

5 hours ago, Lahti35 said:

 

PS: I see we're nearly neighbors, I'm just north of Saginaw a few miles.

You’re welcome to stop by. Just PM if interested. The block is at Roger’s Crankshaft in St Charles.

[Stude Light]

Based on feedback on the gear noise when this was driven in the past, I was expecting some missing teeth. It actually looks pretty decent inside. There is some pitting on the face of the gear teeth but nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Do you think the input shaft is big enough to handle all 58 horsepower?

Edited April 12, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[DonMicheletti]

With those straight cut gears, howl in first and second would be expected.

[TexRiv_63]

That needs 600 wt. steam cylinder oil.

 

[JFranklin]

3 hours ago, TexRiv_63 said:

That needs 600 wt. steam cylinder oil.

 

You can also add some flake graphite to help quiet the rough gear faces. Graphite was used a lot back in the old time days.