1921 Oldsmobile Model 46 - I ask myself, Why?

[Stude Light]

9 hours ago, TexRiv_63 said:

That needs 600 wt. steam cylinder oil.

 

That was my thought too, although the owners manual recommends a heavy motor oil or light gear oil as the input shaft is drilled with a felt filled passage that oils the throwout bearing and the heavy gear oil is too thick to make the journey. You can see the exit hole in the spline on top in the photo that would flow into the throwout bearing. I’m inclined to pack the throwout bearing with a stiff high temp grease and just use 600 wt in the trans.

[hidden_hunter]

Cadillac tells you to mix grease in with the trans oil, I assume olds would have done something similar 

[Stude Light]

Transmission all cleaned up in the ultrasonic.

 

I did find one issue. I'm not sure how it got spread but a little red wrench and a vise and it was back to normal. It may have been why the trans was making some extra noise as you can see where the gear was rubbing a little.

 

All painted and assembled with new gaskets and felt oil wick.

 

[MikeC5]

Nice work!

[TexRiv_63]

17 hours ago, Stude Light said:

Transmission all cleaned up in the ultrasonic.

 

I did find one issue. I'm not sure how it got spread but a little red wrench and a vise and it was back to normal. It may have been why the trans was making some extra noise as you can see where the gear was rubbing a little.

 

All painted and assembled with new gaskets and felt oil wick.

 

Seem like a very small transmission for the era, but I have no real concept.

[Stude Light]

6 hours ago, TexRiv_63 said:

Seem like a very small transmission for the era, but I have no real concept.

3 speeds and reverse. A sliding gear transmission is a more compact design than a synchronized unit. Other than the huge input shaft it is similar to other transmissions of the era that I have worked on. 

[nickelroadster]

You are getting right on this job.  I am impressed with your speed.  I have a 1916 44 roadster that is currently under restoration.  A couple of minor points.  This engine was jointly designed by Northway and Olds and made by both of them.  Northway also built Oakland and Cole V-8s which were completely different engines.  The model 47 233 inch engine has some similarity but was not exactly reverse engineered from the earlier 247 inch  one.  Olds mobile had just spent five million dollars on Special machine tooling for the 233 in 1921 but after 1923 sold it to Wills Saint-clair for a million dollars when Mr Sloan decreed what kind of cars all the units of GM could build.

[hidden_hunter]

On 4/14/2022 at 9:52 AM, Stude Light said:

I did find one issue. I'm not sure how it got spread but a little red wrench and a vise and it was back to normal. It may have been why the trans was making some extra noise as you can see where the gear was rubbing a little.

 

what are those forks? 

[Stude Light]

9 hours ago, hidden_hunter said:

what are those forks? 

Those are the shift forks in the transmission. The go into a slot or groove along side the gear and are attached to the shift rails that are moved by the shift lever. They push and pull on the sliding gear to move it into and out of the selected gear. The one that was spread out a bit had a very sloppy fit in the groove and I surmise was getting impacted by the gear teeth making added noise. The forks are covered with black oil in the top part of the photo so are a bit hard to see - circled in red.

[Stude Light]

On 4/16/2022 at 6:14 PM, nickelroadster said:

You are getting right on this job.  I am impressed with your speed.  I have a 1916 44 roadster that is currently under restoration.  A couple of minor points.  This engine was jointly designed by Northway and Olds and made by both of them.  Northway also built Oakland and Cole V-8s which were completely different engines.  The model 47 233 inch engine has some similarity but was not exactly reverse engineered from the earlier 247 inch  one.  Olds mobile had just spent five million dollars on Special machine tooling for the 233 in 1921 but after 1923 sold it to Wills Saint-clair for a million dollars when Mr Sloan decreed what kind of cars all the units of GM could build.

To be transparent, some of the early work was done before I started the post so it may seem a bit faster than usual. I figured I would just post in the order I got the initial work done to help tell the story - consider it like binge watching a show so you get to see episode after episode without the week wait in between. We have since caught up with reality.

 

Regarding the engine, I believe Northway worked with each manufacturer independently on their specific design which is why Cadillac, Cole, Olds, and Oakland all had different V8 designs. It was my understanding that Northway had the higher level of design expertise and led most of the design though.

 

Instead of "reverse engineered", which may imply making a replica design, I should have said they used the Northway 209 engine design as a basis to independently design their own aluminum block V8. The parts in the 233 that are basically copied are the general layout, the crankshaft design (although a bit longer crank throw), the bores and the pistons (which are identical). They kept the short engine design with no bore offset requiring a fork and blade connecting rod and carried on with the two main bearing design. They made some serious design flaws (in my opinion) with keeping a two main bearing design in an all aluminum block. There is a lot of bending stress going on with only two bearing supports and, using a flat-plane crank which has an inherent 2nd order vibration, is more likely to fail the aluminum vs cast iron. Aluminum in the 1920s was fairly porous and dirty compared to today's aluminums. They also used a resin gear on the crankshaft driving gear vs the camshaft driven gear which would cut it's wear life in half. The water pump design on the Olds engine is horrible as it uses an all aluminum housing that likes to corrode but worse, you have to pull the radiator and front of the engine off to adjust the packing. It had some flaws with the exhaust manifold and cross over that was picked up with early durability testing but the fix didn't make it into production until 1922.

 

The 233 had some improvements which includes the use of a flat plate clutch vs a cone clutch. It is an easier engine to assemble - primarily getting the pistons in the bores. It also uses a torque tube connecting the engine/trans to the rear axle housing which gets rid of some torque wind up in the frame and body - less clunking. I'm sure the engine was also lighter and it was rated at 5.5 more horsepower.

[hidden_hunter]

2 hours ago, Stude Light said:

Regarding the engine, I believe Northway worked with each manufacturer independently on their specific design which is why Cadillac, Cole, Olds, and Oakland all had different V8 designs. It was my understanding that Northway had the higher level of design expertise and led most of the design though.

It's interesting looking at all the different variations on how they're same same but different for a lot of the design, it looks like they had a basic core design and then modified it based on what the brand wanted - some more successful than others 

[Stude Light]

Next project is the distributor drive shaft. It is driven off the cam, via a gear to a short splined shaft that fits into a female splined fitting at each end that allows for some misalignment. My shaft splines were very worn and there was a lot of slop in the drive system. While the engine is typically only driving in one direction, the firing frequencies sets up pulses in the output rpm, so that slop can influence the timing. 

 

Since I only have a lathe, I reached out to my friend @rustyjazz1938. He offered to make a new part as he recently picked up an indexer for his mill 👍. He did a fantastic job, starting with turning the shaft on two centers

After finding a small end mill with the approximate profile, the indexer came into play. 13 teeth.

The new part is on the left and the old part on the right.

 

And a big THANK YOU to Rusty for solving big problem....and he claims not to be a machinist - ha!

[Stude Light]

I need to work on replacing my engine mounts and the leather for my cone clutch but now I'm tied up taking an online Flight Instructor Refresher Course. I normally take a weekend in-person course but they weren't being offered and the on-line course takes a lot more time. So progress will be slowed for the next week or so.

 

Notice the buttons on the cone clutch (leather removed). Those are spring loaded from behind and adjustable. They help provide a level of clutch modulation so it isn't such an on/off switch.

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

Okay, finally got my other time commitment resolved. I did get these in the mail:

So, everything is over at the engine machine shop and he says he'll start work on it in about 6 weeks - I'm not holding my breath. 

Machine work needed:

• Bores need to go over 0.020" to match pistons
• Rod end bushings need honed to match oversize pins
• Balance rods, pistons, crankshaft and flywheel
• Valve guides knurled and reamed
• Valve seats reprofiled
• Resurface the lifter adjusting bolts
• Resurface heads

I cleaned up the heads and applied some JB Weld on the pitted areas around the water jacket ports which will provide a better sealing surface after they get resurfaced.

[Walt G]

This is so interesting to follow and SO WELL EXPLAINED so we can understand what the process is. Thank You

Walt

[Stude Light]

On 4/24/2022 at 7:53 PM, Walt G said:

This is so interesting to follow and SO WELL EXPLAINED so we can understand what the process is. Thank You

Walt

Thanks for the kind words Walt.

[Stude Light]

I started on the clutch. First I needed to find me some cowhide. I decided it best find a tough mean bull for the best wear characteristics

I won't get into the graphic parts to get him to look like this

Actually, I got this tanned hide from @rustyjazz1938as he did his 1914 Studebaker clutch not long ago. This hide is 2 tenths of an inch thick. Luckily, I was able to use the leather from the old clutch as a pattern to use to make a new one. If you don't have one to go off of, you can open your Dyke's manual and there are instructions on cutting the leather pattern.

 

First I laid out the old leather and traced it, then tried to correct all the waves and bumps and keep a consistent width.

 

After successfully cutting out many gaskets with my little X-Acto knife, I figured I would give it a try. It actually worked pretty well. Maybe a bit slower than some leather shears but very accurate.

Wrapped around the clutch hub - I'll trim some off and leave about 1-1/2" to taper the two ends and glue together. The leather is rivetted to the hub and I plan to put two rivets through the tapered and glued section.

I'm not sure what the best adhesive is for leather, so I'll do some research and experiment.

 

BTW - the rough side goes out and the smooth side (hair side) goes in and lies against the clutch hub you see. Now, all my leather belts (older cars, belt lathe, belt drill press) all require the smooth face to be against the pulley surfaces. This is to keep it from slipping. If you do this with the clutch and put the smooth side out it will grab and be like an on/off switch - I had to think about this before believing that the rough side is out. This way you get a little slip before engaging.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[ericmac]

On 4/25/2022 at 9:26 PM, Stude Light said:

I started on the clutch. First I needed to find me some cowhide. I decided it best find a tough mean bull for the best wear characteristics

I won't get into the graphic parts to get him to look like this

Actually, I got this tanned hide from @rustyjazz1938as he did his 1914 Studebaker clutch not long ago. This hide is 2 tenths of an inch thick. Luckily, I was able to use the leather from the old clutch as a pattern to use to make a new one. If you don't have one to go off of, you can open your Dyke's manual and there are instructions on cutting the leather pattern.

 

First I laid out the old leather and traced it, then tried to correct all the waves and bumps and keep a consistent width.

 

After successfully cutting out many gaskets with my little X-Acto knife, I figured I would give it a try. It actually worked pretty well. Maybe a bit slower than some leather shears but very accurate.

Wrapped around the clutch hub - I'll trim some off and leave about 1-1/2" to taper the two ends and glue together. The leather is rivetted to the hub and I plan to put two rivets through the tapered and glued section.

I'm not sure what the best adhesive is for leather, so I'll do some research and experiment.

 

BTW - the rough side goes out and the smooth side (hair side) goes in and lies against the clutch hub you see. Now, all my leather belts (older cars, belt lathe, belt drill press) all require the smooth face to be against the pulley surfaces. This is to keep it from slipping. If you do this with the clutch and put the smooth side out it will grab and be like an on/off switch - I had to think about this before believing that the rough side is out. This way you get a little slip before engaging.

Scott, I just found this thread and am most impressed with your work and progress. Scott refers to himself as a perfectionist and having seen some of his work, I agree...and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.  

I would talk to Andrew Larder (owner of Larder's upholstery for those of you outside the central Michigan area) about leather adhesives.  Likely, he could steer you in right direction.  

I will be following along with interest!

Eric 

[Stude Light]

I took a detour to get some other projects done but will get back on the Olds soon enough. You may be interested in one of the side jobs...

 

[Lahti35]

Very interesting, I've seen these kits but never an in depth review of their use. Nice work!

[ryan95]

I played with some nickel plating not long ago. The kits look fine, but you can do the same for much less if you have some sort of DC power supply, a nickel anode, and not too many other supplies. Most of the hard work is in the polishing and prep work. I decided to save diy plating for parts that don't need to be that pretty, like hardware or fittings.

[Stude Light]

It's been over six months since my last post on this project. You haven't missed anything because between work and working on several other projects (mostly not mine) the 1921 Olds has been sitting. I did work on a few interesting cars though:

1909 REO Model D Touring (went to Old Car Festival)

1911 REO Model H Truck

1939 LaSalle Sedan

1953 Olds Deluxe 88 Original NASCAR (got to "race" the 1952 Hudson Hornet NASCAR)

 

Back to the project....I left off on the clutch. We'll have to get back to that in a bit. Since winter is coming in Michigan, I needed to start on some work I needed to do outside - the engine mounts. Recall the photos I posted earlier. If not here you go.... 

 

This is the three mounts and the pieces that fell out after unbolting.

Scott

[Stude Light]

Next step was to make up some repair pieces. Lots of bend and fit, bend and fit iterations.

 

To attach these to the car, I decided to drill into the frame and use spot welds. I clamped everything in place and then got them MIG welded in each spot and also took care of the cracks. Thanks to my friend Aaron for all the welding. This will never be a show car and just isn't worth investing the time and money to remake the frame so I thought that this would be the best solution and it all gets covered up with the engine, so you'll really never see it.

 

The left rear mount already had a repair on the bottom which was still in good shape so I left it as is. I mention this as Aaron would give me heck if I didn't and people thought that weld was his 😉.

 

 

[zdillinger]

Nice car! Did you happen to pick this up in Charlotte, MI by chance? 

[Stude Light]

7 hours ago, zdillinger said:

Nice car! Did you happen to pick this up in Charlotte, MI by chance? 

No, it came from the collection of the RE Olds Transportation Museum. It was being deaccessed as the Museum has a really nice 1921 Model 46T (sister car). I was concerned it would be purchased and used as a parts car so I bought it and decided to make it into a reliable driver.

[Stude Light]

Next step was to grind the mounts flat. Seems simple enough but how do you grind each surface flat to the others with a hand grinder? I started with the front mount, used a steel straight edge and marked the high spots. I would grind a little at a time until it was flat. Next I had to make the rear mounts flat and level to the front mount. So I took a piece of 2" angle iron that had orange primer on it, laid it flat to the front mount and worked (scraped) it across the rear mount. The primer would mark the high spots and that is where I would grind some off. I had to repeat this process until the primer was marking the entire surface. It worked pretty well.

 

Next, I had to carefully measure the hole locations. Luckily, I had a spare assembled engine to measure off of (mine is still at the engine rebuilder). When I first marked the locations I forgot that the engine was missing the gaskets on the timing chain cover. I caught my mistake and added the extra 3/32" before I started drilling (the gaskets add 3/32" of distance between the frond and rear mounts).

 

Once I had everything located and squared up, I drilled the holes. That was easy until I got to the left rear mount, which is located under the steering column. To make room for a drill, I would have to remove the steering gearbox and column which was going to be a pain so I took my "close quarters" drill and had enough clearance to get about a 1/4" hole drilled. After that, the drills were too tall. It takes a 5/8" bolt so I either cut down a 5/8" drill AND grind the shank down for a 3/8" drive drill chuck or find another solution. Well, step drills are really short, so I bought a step drill and I ground off the 11/16" and 3/4" steps so the 5/8" diameter was the largest one. I was drilling through about 7/16 inches of steel and I would be into the larger diameters before the 5/8" diameter made it through so that's why the other diameters had to go. It worked fine.

 

 

The finished product should last another 100 years

 

The car is ready to receive an engine now. 

[Walt G]

thanks for taking the time to photograph and show us the process. Great stuff  !!!!

[Stude Light]

Back on the cone clutch finally. You will have to go up a few posts (April 25th) to where I left off. After cutting the leather to overlap you have to taper each end so they lay flat against each other and keep the common thickness. I used a very sharp (new) disposable utility blade to start, but be careful not to cut too much material off. This initial cut was maybe 1/4 of the material that needed to be removed - mostly near the thin tapered end. Then the work starts...scraping the leather. I tried a sharp wood chisel but settled on a razor blade and holder. It's amazing how tough leather actually is. It took quite a bit of scraping and fitting to get it right. In retrospect, I should have done closer to 2 or 3" of overlap instead of the 1-1/4" I ended up with. On the other hand, I didn't have to scrape near as much.

I again fitted the leather over the clutch hub but raised it up the cone about 1/2 - 3/4" so it wou;d be a snug fit when done. I marked it then applied Barge cement to each end. I used two coats since the leather is so porous. About 15 minutes between coats.

Can't hardly even see the glue on the leather after the first coat and that stuff is pretty thick.

It is now like contact cement so I lined up my marks and clamped it together for about 20 minutes

After it set up a bit, sure enough, the leather was a nice snug fit over the clutch hub.

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

The rivets were staggered around the hub. I decided to add one along the bond line so there were two holding in that area (red arrow).

The rivets were another issue. You would think it easy to find some flathead, 3/16" diameter, 5/16" long semi-hollow brass rivets. After some searching on eBay, I found some that are for a Harley Motorcycle clutch pack (p/n 8232). They are 11/32" long but the correct diameter and flathead with a slight countersink design. Compared to what I removed the heads are slightly smaller diameter but they should do the job.

I have found that my air chisel works great for setting rivets so I found a tool I never use and used a cutoff wheel on it.

Then I chucked that piece in my vintage 1923 Dalton lathe and machined the end down. I added a very slight counterbore that keeps it from walking off the rivet.

Next I slid the leather over the hub and used a sharpie to mark all the holes on the back side of the leather. I used a 13/64 drill bit to drill through the leather since it is similar to rubber and the hole always ends up smaller than desired. Cleaned up the little bulge on the inside (smooth side) with a deburring bit.

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

I ended up using this tool to countersink the rivet face side of the leather. It is 1/2" diameter. The tool works pretty well. I played with the depth and fitted a rivet until it looked about right. I would guess almost half of the leather thickness is what I removed.

To buck the rivets I started with a tapered punch.

This got it starting to flare out.

Then used a piece of heavy bar stock to finish it off.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

Finished product. ALTHOUGH, I need to soak it in Neatsfoot Oil before final assembly.

[Lahti35]

Nice to see you back on it... Keep up the good work!

[Mike "Hubbie" Stearns]

Looking good. Mike

[Jim Nic]

I just picked up a new purchase. It is a 1922 model 47. It was the one that has been for sale for a while in Flint. It is running and driving well. It is an older restoration probably from the 1970s with lots of cracked lacquer. And I really like the car and don’t wanna do any damage to it. If anybody knows any history on it, I would appreciate that. The previous owners father bought it as a used car in 1943 and it is very original in general. Recently, the water pump was rebuilt  and the gas tank removed and cleaned and sealed. Other than that I don’t know much. 

[Stude Light]

On 12/3/2022 at 8:58 AM, Jim Nic said:

I just picked up a new purchase. It is a 1922 model 47. It was the one that has been for sale for a while in Flint. It is running and driving well. It is an older restoration probably from the 1970s with lots of cracked lacquer. And I really like the car and don’t wanna do any damage to it. If anybody knows any history on it, I would appreciate that. The previous owners father bought it as a used car in 1943 and it is very original in general. Recently, the water pump was rebuilt  and the gas tank removed and cleaned and sealed. Other than that I don’t know much. 

I am familiar with the Model 47 and have a number of photos of that particular car. That car has the Oldsmobile designed aluminum V8. You may want to follow the thread below or PM Rusty at rustyjazz1938 as he has done extensive work on his Model 47 and has in-depth knowledge.

Scott

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

As I'm waiting on word from my engine rebuilder, something I'll elaborate on later, I'm looking around at anything else I need to clean up and it looks like the starter and generator are the last couple of accessories I have yet to get to. I pulled the generator apart along with a couple of other engine parts I never cleaned and decided to drop them in the ultrasonic tank

I just use the purple Simple Green HD cleaner and water. It doesn't clean off rust but gets rid of old paint and grime.

Tip of one of the fan blades shows 1916 date. That is when Oldsmobile first introduced this V8 and they probably overbuild the number of fan blades so just used them up in later years.

The commutator only had 0.005" of runout but was worn like a thread spool about 0.030". 

That cleaned up nicely. Afterwards I polished it 320, 400, 600, 800, 2000 (not shown).

I gave the armature, brush holder assembly and stators to David Woods from DW T Works. He has a "growler' which will test the armature. It induces a magnetic field that excites the coils and checks condition for shorts/opens. He'll also test the stator and brush holder.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

Slight digression but interesting if you need coil, generator, starter work.  David does top notch work. I challenged him to make a new dual coil box for the 1905 half scale Baby REO which matches the original full scale "Mama" REO Model A. The challenge was to make it as small as possible (closest to half scale) while using contactors that we can service. He came through - designed/manufactured the box, made special coils to fit, correct capacitors, properly potted, everything documented - pretty impressive work (see next post below).

I could do another post on these two cars if interested. It's a great story!

OOps, I'll try to stay on topic.....

Scott

Edited December 3, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[HarryLime]

Oh please tell the Reo story. I saw the Baby back when Dick Teague owned it . Yeah , that was a while ago .

[Stude Light]

The starter cleaned up nicely and had no real issues so I just reassembled it and painted. What a massive chunk of iron and copper. I really didn’t feel it was that important to re-nickel the brush holder and band so it just got some paint. Again, not a show car and unless you crawl under the car, it’ll never get seen.

[Stude Light]

I finally got my engine back from the machine shop! Just in time to work on it this winter.

About the machine shop.....

I had planned to take this Oldsmobile engine to Reichert's Machine Shop in Owosso, MI. They rebuilt the engine in my 1939 LaSalle and was in business for quite a long time, focused on race car engines. Well, like many machine shops....they recently closed. So, I found another shop nearby which is Roger's Crankshaft. They are an FAA certified repair facility for Merlin crankshafts (P-51s) but, like a lot of places that do good work, are under water with work.  I had them thermal clean the block and mill the heads but they were booked out to far for any other work and my block wouldn't fit on their boring machine since the centerline of the crank is quite a bit higher than the bottom of the block (unlike modern engines). This would force them to have to put it on another machine and try to modify it to accept the block then hone it 0.020" oversize.

 

My friend, Rusty Berg, had used Hart's Machine in Cecil, Ohio for a 1922 Oldsmobile V8 (different engine, with an aluminum block) and was quite satisfied with their work so recommended them. So, I picked up my engine from Roger's and took it to Hart's several months ago. Hart's is typically booked out too but they said they were able to get my work done before Christmas. Let me tell you, Cecil is in the middle of nowhere Ohio and boosts a huge population of 146 people but they do good work.

 

Hart's did a great job on the engine and I felt they were quite reasonable in costs.

• Bore & hone the block
• Bore rod ends for larger wrist pins
• Knurl and ream the valve guides (yes, I used the old method of knurl and ream rather than having new guides made and replaced)
• Grind valve seats
• Gap piston rings
• Balance crank, rods, pistons, flywheel
• Final clean all components

Cost was $1300...i think that was pretty cheap.....especially nowadays.

 

I had forgot to pull all the casting plugs so I drilled and tapped them for 1/4" x 20 threads and used a slide hammer to pull them out. Being a plumber in one of my many past lives, I used a fitting cleaning brush to clean out the bores.

I poked around the entire block and found a casting inclusion but after poking around it with a hammer and punch, it turned out to be a real flaw....and a hole into the water jacket.

I checked the other side and no problem there. I took a small hammer and punch around most areas of concern and this was the only area with a problem. I think between having a very thin casting here (flaw) and 102 years of rust it resulted in a hole. The good news is.....today we have JB Weld.

 

My next move is to install new stainless steel casting plugs then prime the block. I have used Indian Head shellac in the past on these casting plugs but was considering using Permatex The Right Stuff on these. Any suggestions/advice on a better sealant?

Edited December 23, 2022 by Stude Light (see edit history)