1921 Oldsmobile Model 46 - I ask myself, Why?

[Bloo]

It should be fine for now, but I think eventually you will have to bend the pipe. In the longer term, oil will damage a coolant hose and make it soft, weak, and quite a bit larger. I once had a Ford with a missing draft tube. I substituted heater hose just to get it on the road. The hose needed changing every now and then until I found it a proper draft tube.

 

Keep us posted on whether it solves the leak. I'll bet it will.

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Bloo (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

On 5/25/2023 at 1:54 PM, Bloo said:

It should be fine for now, but I think eventually you will have to bend the pipe. In the longer term, oil will damage a coolant hose and make it soft, weak, and quite a bit larger. I once had a Ford with a missing draft tube. I substituted heater hose just to get it on the road. The hose needed changing every now and then until I found it a proper draft tube.

 

Keep us posted on whether it solves the leak. I'll bet it will.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. I tested out the new vent system and it works great. No more oil leakage issues.

 

My plan is to run what I have for the summer and work on a final solution this winter… and maybe new kingpins too. 
Scott

[Stude Light]

The top on this car had a few tears so I wanted to get them patched up. This was the worst one.

I started by cutting a pice of material out of the old top from my Studebaker that I had saved for a future pattern. It is the exact same material that is on the Olds.

Next. I taped it to the inside over the tear and outlined it with duct tape, which is the only tape that would stick at all.

I then applied two coats of Barge Rubber Cement to both the top and the patch.

After allowing them to dry, I pressed the patch in place. The color match looks worse in the photo.

By doing it this way you avoid extra glue where you don’t need it and it makes for a much neater job. And a shot from the exterior…

I repeated this in a few other spots with small holes.

 

I took the car on a 60 mile drive today - 30 in the day and 30 at night. Runs and drives great and the original lights and added spotlight work really well. I use the spotlight as my “high beam” which helps to see those green eyes along the sides of the road (deer) giving enough time not to hit them. 
 

I did notice this little ticking sound coming from up front when I got up to a little over 40mph. I discovered that, since I still had a shield off that covers the rear cross member and starter, the wind pressure was walking the starter bendix back into the flywheel so it was ticking along the gear teeth. No damage but something I’ll fix tomorrow.

[Stude Light]

I’ve been pretty quiet on this post because I’ve just been driving and enjoying the car. It is a great driver and has a ton of torque especially when you open up the extra set of air inlets and jets on this two stage Ball and Ball carb - it sounds like a quadrajet 😁.

 

Besides the engine working fine, the steering and brakes are really nice. Although it’ll go faster, I keep it 40-45.

[Stude Light]

After about 300 miles of driving I decided to pull the plugs for a health check. The doctor says that the patient is doing well. Oil sample also shows good health. I'll keep driving it until the snow flies then will probably address king pin wear, although it tracks and steers quite nicely.

 

[nickelroadster]

Those plugs look really good.  I think you have it adjusted just right.

[ericmac]

Will this be your Old Car Festival entry this year Scott?

[Stude Light]

On 8/27/2023 at 7:58 AM, ericmac said:

Will this be your Old Car Festival entry this year Scott?

No Eric, not this year. The theme of the show is Indiana built cars and, although I've had it there before, I thought the 1923 Studebaker would be the best fit. 100 years old this year AND built in Indiana. The Olds would have been a fun car to take though.

Scott

[Stude Light]

Took the Olds on a nice road trip today with my wife, Sue. We went with some friends to an apple orchard for a picnic and some apple picking. Prior, we took a tour of the local area although one of the Model Ts got a flat tire (12 minutes to  change out). I drove from home so the entire trip was just shy of 100 miles.

 

 

The car ran really well. I cruised around 40mph with the ambient temperature peaking at 92 degrees today and humid. Coolant temp ran around 170 degrees.  My only issue was the starter bendix would gradually migrate back to the flywheel and you could hear it bouncing off the teeth so I would pull over, shut the engine off and restart which would throw the bendix back out. I’ll pull the starter and fix the friction device on the bendix before taking it back out - easy fix.

[Stude Light]

There was one other issue that a friend pointed out. When the engine is revved up the entire distributor does a little jig. It reminded me of one of those dashboard hula girls.

 

Since I managed to catch a cold, I didn’t feel like crawling under the car to work on the starter so I pulled the distributor and made a shim to remove the play in the mount. I measured the parts up and surprisingly they were pretty round with only 0.005-0.006” play on the OD so I used 0.002” shim stock and made a spacer.

Since I had the distributor out I wanted to replace the 102 year old condenser as it looked like my points were just starting to pit a little. I cut the old one apart and, with a little modification, the modern one sandwiches in there perfectly so the housing makes a good ground. I used some carbon conductive grease to ensure good conductivity over time.

 

Reassembled and I didn’t even screw up my timing (I did mark the rotor position before removal).

Edited September 7, 2023 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[EmTee]

Just beware that the modern condenser will not last 100 years.  They certainly don't make them like they used to! 

[Stude Light]

Took the Olds out to the Orphan Car Show put on by the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum in Ypsilanti, Michigan. It’s always a unique show as there are only defunct brands (unless you have a Corvair, which are allowed as they were made locally). 
 

I was joined by friend @rustyjazz1938 who brought out his 1922 Olds Model 47, which is also V8 powered.

 

My 7 passenger 1921 Model 46 (122" WB gray car) has the Northway designed 246 cu in engine that this post describes. In summary it is a two piece cast iron engine with the split line down the center and detachable heads with only 2 main bearings. The engine design dates to its introduction in 1916 and it was last built in 1922.

 

The 5 passenger Model 47 car (115" WB maroon car) was designed around a 4 cylinder engine but, being unconstrained in design and spending at the time (this was when Durant was still running GM and before Alfred Sloan put the brakes on all the ill advised spending), Olds decided they should design their own V8 which would fit under the hood. 
 

They tooled up a new plant to build the engine which was loosely designed around the Northway. It retained the 2-7/8” bore but the stroke was shortened to 4.5” yielding 233 cu in and rated at 63 hp vs the Northway’s 58 hp. Crankshaft was identical except in stroke and it used the same fork and blade rod design. The big difference was that the crankcase was an all aluminum casting with cast iron cylinders bolted on and a detachable head. The bolted on aluminum water pump housing was integrated into the block design requiring disassembly of the front of the engine to service it. It also used a two main bearing design (yes, aluminum bearing caps).  For some reason, this engine used a fiber crankshaft timing gear and a steel cam gear instead of the other way around.

So, now you have Oldsmobile building two totally different V8 engines on two assembly lines with practically the same horsepower*. They sold both engines in 1921 and 1922 and Sloan finally stopped the madness after 1923 when Olds dropped the V8s and went to 6 cylinder cars. We found four common parts between these two engine designs - generator, primer cups, breather vent cap, throttle/ignition timing jackshaft at the rear of the engine.

 

*I think my heavier Model 46 will easily out accelerate the Model 47 (sorry Rusty) so I’m not sure where Olds got those horsepower ratings.

 

It was great having both cars side by side. The spectators enjoyed hearing the story of the two engines and listening to them both run. Thanks for a good day Rusty! 

 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[rustyjazz1938]

@Stude Light Scott, it was indeed an excellent day and a great show! Always glad to share the oddity of the early Oldsmobile V8s!

 

I think your statement about power ratings might be a bit off, I've dug in the GM archives and found proof that the Model 47 engine tested at the rated 63.5 Horsepower on a dynamometer. No further information on test conditions or what the setup was (fan? Water pump?), so perhaps the rating could be a bit optimistic.

 

Based on your acceleration statement, and I politely question your baseline for the statement, I think the only course of action is of course to do a couple of drag races to make a data driven decision in true engineering fashion.

 

Happy Motoring,

 

Rusty Berg

[Stude Light]

30 minutes ago, rustyjazz1938 said:

@Stude Light Scott, it was indeed an excellent day and a great show! Always glad to share the oddity of the early Oldsmobile V8s!

 

I think your statement about power ratings might be a bit off, I've dug in the GM archives and found proof that the Model 47 engine tested at the rated 63.5 Horsepower on a dynamometer. No further information on test conditions or what the setup was (fan? Water pump?), so perhaps the rating could be a bit optimistic.

 

Based on your acceleration statement, and I politely question your baseline for the statement, I think the only course of action is of course to do a couple of drag races to make a data driven decision in true engineering fashion.

 

Happy Motoring,

 

Rusty Berg

Rusty,

My bold and pompous statement on acceleration was based solely on opinion with absolutely nothing to back up my claim 😁. Yes, a race is in order!

 

 

[dibarlaw]

Rusty:

 Good to see your 1922 Olds is making friends. I would have loved to check out the engine when you were parked next to me at the motel last year during The Old Car festival.

[TexRiv_63]

13 hours ago, Stude Light said:

Rusty,

My bold and pompous statement on acceleration was based solely on opinion with absolutely nothing to back up my claim 😁. Yes, a race is in order!

 

 

Video is required or it didn't happen.

[Stude Light]

I had to go digging a few pages since my last post. Sorry, no races with the Model 47....yet.

 

One of my many winter projects includes working on the 1921 Olds. If you had followed this thread, one issue I mentioned is the transmission had a lot of gear noise in 1st and 2nd prior to my ownership and that really hasn't changed. I've driven many 1920s era cars with straight cut gears and this car is really loud comparatively. I primarily drive in 3rd so it isn't much of a problem, but I would like to improve it. During the rebuild, I went through the trans and it didn't look too bad inside and the bearings also felt good.

 

Step one was to pull out the transmission back out. Not too hard of a job.

 

@rustyjazz1938 has a 1922 Olds Model 47 and that transmission is very similar but has a flat plate clutch and a torque tube off the rear. Well, he happened to have a spare unit AND was also storing a spare transmission for another friend, Aaron, who owns a 1923 Olds Model 43AB (another flat plate clutch). They both offered parts if I needed them. I disassembled those two spares and put them in my ultrasonic tank for cleaning.

 

I marked all the parts and laid them out for inspection

 

All the gears and bearings are common. The only differences are in the shift towers, housings and input shafts. As far as wear, each part has pros and cons. Although I wouldn't typically mix and match gears that have not worn in together, I'm going to try it on this unit and see if I can get some improvement.

 

I decided to purchase new bearings to replace the original New Departure 1210 and 1307 parts. New Departure joined with Hyatt in 1965 and then stopped making automotive bearings in 1986, so I turned to Timken for replacements (6210 and 6307). I figured two bearings for $50 was worth investing in since I had everything apart. Interestingly, these are metric sized bearings. I just received them and you can feel that they have zero play as compared to the used ND ones that have just a smidge of axial play.

 

Edited January 9 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

Literature on the Model 46 is few and far between and its predecessor, the Model 45, isn't much better. While at Hershey this past October, I found an illustrated parts list for the Model 45B which is close to being the same car as mine.

The book has a nice cutaway of the transmission and verified that the thrust washer (part 716T), found in one of the spare transmissions, is indeed supposed to be in there. My transmission did not have a thrust washer. It also verifies that the gaskets I made are supposed to be present under the front and rear bearing covers (important for stack up and measurement for thrust washer)).

The thrust washer I found was badly worn so I decided to reassemble the transmission input and main shafts with the new bearings and gaskets and measure the gap between the input and output shafts where the washer goes. I did this by installing a dummy washer that was a bit thinner but would ensure the two shafts were not interfacing on a radius. I then indicated off the input shaft and used a dead blow hammer to move that shaft fore/aft in the bearing (it's a line-to-line fit in the bearing). The thickness of the dummy washer plus the indicator movement gave me the gap I was looking for. I figured I would use this distance minus 0.020" for a washer thickness.

I have some EDT-150 stock and can make a thrust washer from it. EDT-150 is like a 4140 steel in a slightly heat treated condition. Based on my simple file test it is similar in hardness to the worn washer. That shafts are really not that hard either.

I'm thinking that the primary root cause of the gear noise was the movement of the input shaft causing the gear mesh between the input shaft and counter shaft to move off of centerline. Once in 3rd the transmission is very quiet as the input and output shafts are locked together (no relative movement across the thrust washer either). Now I'm wondering if I still mix and match gears to get the ones with the least gear face wear. In my past life I was a development engineer for manual transmissions and saw first hand how minute changes in the gear face microgeometry made huge changes in noise. Looking at how crudely these gear faces are designed and machined, I don't think it will make much difference in mixing gears and think I will still go with the least worn ones.

Edited January 10 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[chistech]

On 9/20/2023 at 10:00 PM, rustyjazz1938 said:

@Stude Light Scott, it was indeed an excellent day and a great show! Always glad to share the oddity of the early Oldsmobile V8s!

 

I think your statement about power ratings might be a bit off, I've dug in the GM archives and found proof that the Model 47 engine tested at the rated 63.5 Horsepower on a dynamometer. No further information on test conditions or what the setup was (fan? Water pump?), so perhaps the rating could be a bit optimistic.

 

Based on your acceleration statement, and I politely question your baseline for the statement, I think the only course of action is of course to do a couple of drag races to make a data driven decision in true engineering fashion.

 

Happy Motoring,

 

Rusty Berg

Sounds like the “Mongoose” and the “Snake” twenties style!😁

[Stude Light]

Machined down the EDT-150 to give a tolerance fit for the ID.

Made the width 0.011 based on the end play I measured from above. Made a spare washer too. Everything fits very nicely.

While I had the trans apart, I was looking at the rear output housing since it has the occasional oil drop back there. The output shaft has a significant clearance to to the housing and there is no seal. The stationary housing has a spiral groove that is supposed to push oil back in the trans?? Really?! Maybe if it was rotating and there was a tighter tolerance between parts.

I added a small drain back slot in the bottom grove (pictured above) since the terminus of the grove is at the top of the housing. I wanted to add a slinger but there is just no room so I just cut a small slot on the output shaft but I doubt it is tall enough to do anything but it was worth a try. If it slings at all it will end up in the slot I added the drain back slot to.

I made some new gaskets, so with the new washer I can reassemble the transmission and reinstall it.

Edited January 31 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

I started reassembling the transmission. First you install the reverse idler gear set which in this transmission is two gears “keyed” together.

Then the shaft goes in to support those gears. I added a little sealant (Permatex The Right Stuff in this case) to the shaft where it presses into the case then install the cotter pin. Next goes in the countershaft assembly which has to be manipulated a bit to fish it through the top of the case.

I again applied a little sealant to the shaft interface to avoid any leakage. First to the bore where the shaft will come through and to the opposite end of the shaft. This keeps the sealant out of the gearbox.

Drive the shaft in and wipe up the extra sealant that was pushed out. The Welch plug you see on the right covers an access hole that allows you to drive out the shaft supporting the reverse idler gears.

Add the other cotter pin.

Now for the output shaft assembly. You must install the first/reverse sliding gear and second/third sliding gear and fish the output shaft splines through those gears before driving the bearing into the case.

I used a dead blow hammer and drove the bearing flush with the case, then installed the speedometer drive gear, rear housing gasket (coated with Permatex High Tack), and the rear bearing housing. The rear housing has a boss that pushes the bearing farther into the case. To avoid breaking this cast iron housing, I worked around the bolt pattern turning each bolt about a quarter turn until the housing was flush.

Now the input shaft. First install the new thrust washer which has a bevel on the ID of the side that interfaces with the output shaft. It’s is important to check that orientation. I added some sticky engine assembly lube on the interface between the input and out put shafts and on the front and rear bearings. I again used a dead blow to set the bearing flush. Then installed the front bearing cover gasket and cover itself. This has the same feature that insets the bearing into the case and I used the same bolt tightening technique. I also added the output flange.

Positioning the sliding gears in neutral, holding the output shaft stationary and rotating the input shaft, you can feel some resistance which means there is a little preload on that new thrust washer. If I repeat this process while pulling outward on each shaft the resistance between shafts is gone which means that there is just a very slight load on that washer induced by the oil film on those bearings.

 

My original intent was to have some clearance (free play) on this thrust washer but I actually like this setup better. Load is almost nil and as the case warms up it will expand and create a couple of thousandths clearance I was looking for. There is only relative movement between the two shafts in first gear, second gear and in neutral with the clutch engaged.

 

I’ll pour some gear oil in and install the top cover/shift forks next.

 

 

Edited February 2 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Mike "Hubbie" Stearns]

Love it. Great detail. Mike

[Stude Light]

I left off on assembling the trans. Time to install it but first I had disassembled the throwout bearing and built up the "support ears" with a little weld where they were worn from the fork and reassembled it. I packed it with the stickiest grease I could find which was wheel bearing lube. 

The bearing mounts to the cone clutch and pulls it out from the potted flywheel. It slips over the end of the cone clutch.

It is held in place by a special tapered nut. Here is a side view shot of the nut installed without the throwout bearing in place.

Bearing installed on the clutch.

Then the tapered nut installed and cotter pinned in place.

I decided to reset the four clutch cushion buttons which helps with modulation on a cone clutch by having the fours spring loaded buttons start engagement. You set them to have about 1/32" - 1/16" of spring movement (or clearance between the stop nut and housing with the clutch engaged as shown below).

Now it was time to put the trans in. It was just me and my jack. 

I just positioned the jack under the car and pumped it into position. After a little jockeying in place, I slid it home and bolted it in.

After installing the driveshaft, speedometer cable and linkages, it was time to reinstall the starter. Up in the post somewhere I was mentioning that the starter Bendix would gradually walk into the ring gear while driving and you could hear it bouncing off the gear so I needed to fix that first.

 

 

 

Edited March 1 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

The issue on the starter Bendix..

 

The Bendix has a little friction device that is supposed to keep the gear from walking around on the course acme threads. It has to have enough friction to keep it from walking, but not too much, otherwise the speed/torque of the motor won't throw it into the flywheel to start the engine. This Delco starter design has the Bendix pulling into the flywheel - the Bendix gear rests in front of the flywheel and then is thrown rearward into the flywheel ring gear when the starter is engaged.

The Bendix assembly has to be removed to remove the starter from the car.

You can remove the gear from the acme threads by removing the left hand threaded nut which is staked to the end of the hollow Bendix shaft.

Here is the friction pin and spring in the assembly. There is a little hump in the shaft just to the left of the spring. It normally rests on the other side of that hump and the spring pressure is supposed to keep it there until the starter motor spins up and slings it over the hump. Once the engine starts, the Bendix is thrown out of engagement rotating on those acme threads and the friction pin/spring ends up on the other side of the hump again.

It turns out that my spring was really weak so I went over to Advanced Electrical Rebuilders (https://www.facebook.com/AERrebuild/) and Jason Smith hooked me up with a good spring.

When I reinstalled the gear on the Bendix shaft, I just used some Loctite on the left hand threaded retaining nut instead of trying to re-peen it in place. I reinstalled the starter and the car was ready for a test drive.

 

Recall the whole reason I reworked the transmission this winter was to try and reduce the 1st and 2nd gear noise.

After a test drive on a 65 degree February day in Michigan I found that replacing the transmission bearings with new ones, adding the missing thrust washer and installing the best looking gears from three different transmissions made about a 50% improvement, which isn't saying a lot. Actually, most of the noise is gone on the drive side (when accelerating) but as soon as you float the throttle or drop throttle it is still pretty loud. With the rather crude straight cut transmission gear design and lack of any clutch damper (which is found on more modern cars to eliminate gear rattle) it isn't too surprising. The good news is that my starter Bendix no longer walks into the flywheel. That was my biggest issue while driving last summer as I would start hearing that little gear clash and would have to pull over, shut off the engine and restart to throw the Bendix back into place. The trans noise was just a nuisance during launch from a stop as you drive this car in 3rd gear from 5 mph to max speed and it is really quiet in 3rd. At least I know everything is right inside the trans now.

Edited March 1 by Stude Light (see edit history)