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OH CRAP!! NOW WHAT?


Terry Wiegand

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After over 400 miles of absolutely perfect running, there seems to be a serious problem with the oil pump in the '16's engine.  One week ago today our insurance agent was out to take photos of the car since we have it all back together and drivable.  We are doing this because we are going to change insurance carriers.  Had the car out on the drive and started it up for Scott.  It just ran beautifully for 5 to 10 minutes and when I went to shut it off I noticed that there was no oil going through the sight gauge on the dashboard.  This scared the daylights out of me.  We are running Havoline 20W50 oil in the crankcase.  I do not believe that the heavier oil has anything to do with flow out of the oil pump.  I had a good visit with Gregg Lange about the oil pumps on these early 6-Cylinder engines.  These pumps are driven with a spring 'link' between the camshaft and the gears in the pump.  We are of the thinking that something could have happened to that spring.  I pay very close attention to the engine each and every time that it is started.  There have been no funny sounds coming from anywhere in the engine.  No oil leakage from the bottom of the pump.  The output line from the pump that feeds the sight gauge is out in the open with no evidence of any oil loss at the line connection.  The line coming out of the sight gauge feeds into the side of the oil pan and keeps the rod dipper troughs filled with oil.  Again, there is no evidence of any oil loss at any of the connections.  Gregg and I are of the opinion that the oil pan is going to have to be dropped so that access to the inner workings of the pump can be gotten to.  During the engine rebuild it was noticed that this drive spring had extreme wear on the one end.  We had a new spring made to the original factory specifications.  The folks who made the spring have been in the spring business for decades and know a thing or two about these things.  I don't know just yet what is going on, but the first order of business is going to be getting the oil drained out of the pan.  I want to pull the bottom plate off of the pump and hand crank the engine to see if there is rotation on the drive shaft.  IF there isn't, then that means the oil pan will have to come down to get to the inner workings of the pump.  I have enclosed a sectional drawing in full scale of the engine and the oil pump area in specific.  This has really bugged the crap out of me.  How can this engine go from one day running just perfect and then have something like this happen.  I will get to the bottom of this.  Stay tuned.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

AACA Life Member #947918

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wow isn't that an engineering marvel.   I would think they should have used some sort of a more positive connection.   I wonder if one of the tabs on the end isn't sheared off.

 

That weight oil in our colder climate would turn into corn syrup.

Edited by 1937McBuick (see edit history)
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Mr. McBuick,

 

My thoughts at this point are exactly as yours.  With over 400 miles on the clock, I just cannot see anything else but that spring link being the culprit.  Each end of that spring has a very tight bend to fit into the slots of the shafts.  I hate the thought of having to drop that oil pan, but it's the only way to get to the oil pump innards.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

AACA Life Member #947918

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Rock,

Not really all that unusual for back in the day.  Look at things this way - people actually drove these cars in the winter.  It was explained to me that if there was water formed in the crankcase from condensation, that water could freeze and lock up the oil pump function and possibly damage the pump and/or engine.  Mr. Marr was actually pretty sharp in designing these engines in my humble opinion.  The spring was designed to purposely be the weakest link to avoid the pump from damage.  Right now I simply am guessing that the spring could be the problem.  I won't know for sure until I drop the oil pan.  All I can say is I'm sure glad that this didn't happen in the middle of the Red Flag Tour running down the road at around 30 miles an hour.  Everything was as clean as possible on reassembly, so I do not think that any sort of blockage is at play here.  400+ miles of driving sorta rules that thought out.  

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

AACA Life Member #947918

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There is some encouraging news to report at this time.  I went through all of the photos that were taken during the engine rebuild and this one shows the pump shaft drive spring and the pump gears housing proper.  It appears that the oil pan will not have to be dropped to get at the problem.  It just seems to me that the drive spring is what is causing the issue.  I am going to get the oil drained from the pan so that the oil pump can be removed.  I am really glad that the pan will not have to be removed and break the seal that was established when the engine was set back together.   If you look closely at the ends of the spring, you can see the tight bend in the wire that hooks into each end of the shafts.  We will know right what is going on when things are taken apart.  More photos to come.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

AACA Life Member #947918

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I wonder 20-50 oil could be a problem, in view of the spring drive arrangement.   I run 15-40 in my 31 60 series and as soon as the air temperature drops into the 50's there is a distinct change in starter load which has me considering going to 10-30 oil.  Is there any information from Buick regarding oil viscosity recommendations from back in the day?  With modern oils you could probably run lower viscosity oil than Buick would have recommended.  I hope you have good luck getting this sorted.

 

Dave

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I looked at a spring,    seems when both ends are held and it's torqued in one direction the spring wants to shorten,  torqued in the opposite direction it wants to lengthen.    Was the newly made spring wound in the same direction as the old worn one?  How deep were the slots both ends of the spring fit into?   Was there any resistance/tension felt when the assembly was put together?  

 

Or maybe one of the spring tabs just sheared off.     

 

 Best thing is you caught it,  hopefully before any damage was done.

Silly thought but what if it is just a plugged line somewhere,   did you open any accessable connections starting closest to the pump out put?

 

We popped our pan off a fresh engine rebuild and found alot of sludgy type stuff.   Possibly from too much engine assembly grease???? 

 

Best of luck

Edited by 1937McBuick (see edit history)
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2 hours ago, 1937McBuick said:

I looked at a spring,    seems when both ends are held and it's torqued in one direction the spring wants to shorten,  torqued in the opposite direction it wants to lengthen.    Was the newly made spring wound in the same direction as the old worn one?  How deep were the slots both ends of the spring fit into?   Was there any resistance/tension felt when the assembly was put together?  

 

Or maybe one of the spring tabs just sheared off.     

 

 Best thing is you caught it,  hopefully before any damage was done.

Silly thought but what if it is just a plugged line somewhere,   did you open any accessable connections starting closest to the pump out put?

 

We popped our pan off a fresh engine rebuild and found alot of sludgy type stuff.   Possibly from too much engine assembly grease???? 

 

Best of luck

Interesting. Is there an up and down end on the spring? 🤨

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Mr. McBuick,

 

There is nothing silly about considering all possibilities.   A plugged line could possibly have a similar result.  The photo that I am posting here shows the condition of the inside of the oil pan when the guys at the shop started tearing the engine down to start the rebuild process.  As far as old engines go this one was relatively clean inside considering it was over 100 years old and had never been opened up.  I took mineral spirits under high pressure to the external oil lines several times to make sure that they were free from any gunky residue.  There has been no loss of oil from the oil pan and I think Ed is right on in his thinking about the spring.  What's that old saying - 'crap happens'.  I think it happened in this case.  I am just thankful that this did not happen on the tour and that there appears to be no damage done to anything internally.  I am also glad that the pan does not have to come off the crankcase.  I have talked with the folks at Action Spring in Tulsa and they have all of the data collected from the original spring that I sent them and they are ready to help us with a new spring and they suggested that maybe we should have several made at this time just in case.  Not a bad idea at all.  They will stand behind their product and work for us.  It supposed to be almost 60 degrees here Thursday and this is the day that I get things taken apart.  More information and photos later.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

AACA Life Member #947918

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5 hours ago, 1937McBuick said:

How deep were the slots both ends of the spring fit into?  From memory on my truck engine the grooves on the shafts are about 3/4 in deep.

Was there any resistance/tension felt when the assembly was put together?  There was some resistance getting the grooves of the two shafts, but nothing excessive.

 

Another interesting comment is if the old and new springs were wound the same way. 

 

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Nothing lower than straight 10w in cold weather,  not more than 30w in the heat of summer.   Larry Schramm is right too, you would have to use coal oil or 3in1 to find oil as bad as the old stuff.   No detergent,  no pour point modifiers, no synthetic,  just Oklahoma crude.   Take a 20s or 30s  engine apart for the first time and you see oil burnt onto the metal inside the pan, plugged pickup screens,  sludge and rusted out oil pressure control springs.   

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One thing to consider is too heavy of oil, in two regards. 1. Being the extra strain on oil pump and its drive system. 2. Many splash systems oil sooner and more thoroughly with thinner oils such as SAE 10. I noticed the troughs in the oil pan which indicates non pressurized rod bearings. Terry if there is one person on here that has gone over and above on an engine restoration that would be you. I am not here to object to any of your methods, merely to share a few thoughts with someone who has thought about this far more than me. 

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Don,  I can hardly blame Terry for trying nip a potential future problem in the bud. I likely would have done the ssme.  But by doing so he may have just created another problem.

 

Terry,  if you still have the old spring take some pics of the worn end(s) and post them.   

 

Until he gets this taken apart we are speculating on the possibilities.

It will be interesting to see what Terry finds.

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Don,

The original spring was almost worn through the wire in the bend on one end.  That was why it was replaced.  It has been talked about before when I was putting everything back together with regard to using synthetic oil.  The owner of the shop that rebuilt the engine for us advised me to stay as far away as possible from any synthetic oil.  He told me that with poured bearings in this engine a good grade of mineral oil was the way that I should go.  I look at this like going to my doctor - if I do not follow his advice, how can I expect to get better?  We paid a fair amount to have this engine rebuilt and I am going to follow the rebuilder's advice so that I will have a great running engine.  We had exactly that up until this problem.  The folks at the spring company told me that it is entirely possible that there could have been a small defect in the material that caused a problem.  Outside of the aggravation that this has caused, they are going to make things right if indeed this turns out to be the problem.  I hope to get the oil drained tomorrow so that the pump can be taken out of the pan.  Once that happens I will know immediately what the problem is and the fix can be undertaken.  You are correct when you say that there isn't much of a load on the spring.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

AACA Life Member #947918

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22 minutes ago, Terry Wiegand said:

You are correct when you say that there isn't much of a load on the spring.

 

I disagree.  There is both compression and torsional load on the spring.  May not be "much", but there is a couple of loads on the spring.

 

Let us know what it looks like and take pictures.

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Mr. McBuick,

By doing what you did with the photo,  you nailed it exactly where the wear was at.  I want to also point out that the wear was only on one end of the spring and both ends were formed exactly the same.  I am not really sure just what to think about that.  I would like to think that the materials that are available today are metallurgically superior to what was on hand back in the day, but I'm just not going to be able to know what the problem is until I can get the pump out of the pan.  You guys will be the first to know about that.  Dave talked to me about what they were going to do with regard to the rebuild.  He told me that they were going to set the running tolerances a tad bit looser so that there wouldn't be as much stress and strain on the rotating assembly.  What does that mean exactly?  I'm thinking it means about .0002" to possibly .0004".  This translates to being a little easier on the main and rod bearings.  I think that this is exactly why he told me that the 20W50 would be a great choice for the oil.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

AACA Life Member #947918

 

 

 

 

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My father... who was born in 1904 and ran cars from when he was 16 until he was 96, always used straight 30 in the summer and 10 on the winter, until 10-30 became available. Then he used that in the summer.  Now we are a much cooler climate than Kansas but it gets hot here in summer too.  He had 2 old Buicks, a 17, and a 27.  I think 20-50 is pretty heavy. We had a 50 Chevy and it had to start every morning to take us to school and he would put 4 qts of number 10 and 1 qt of kerosene in the cold weather. Never hurt the engine. It used some, but it would start at -40 in an unheated garage. Of course it was usually "plugged in" meaning an engine block heater. 

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Terry:  I had the same spring failure in my 1915 McLaughlin and had a local mechanic/restoration shop fabricate a replacement.  The shop thought the spring was silly and couldn't understand the rational or purpose of the spring connector.  Modern engines have a solid connection between the drive and the oil pump, they run at more speed and oil pressure.  The shop made me a solid tube with correct drives at both ends to do away with the spring.  I did not use it, however, if the replacement spring fails again...

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Now, isn't that interesting.  Here is another example of oil pump spring failure.  I really hate to say this, but I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that 20W50 oil is too heavy to be running in this engine.  I want to get the oil drained later today during the higher temp of the day.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

AACA Life Member #947918

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Terry- Think about it.  You said that 100yr old engine had never been apart.  Buick, back in the day, would have specified oil in the 10 weight to 30 weight range, there wasn't any 20 w 50 then.  So it ran all those years on crappy oils in that lower viscosity range and showed up in your garage in reasonably good shape, amazingly good shape for 100 years old and never apart.  Believe me, when the oil is behaving like 50, I.E. its 35 degrees or so outside and you are going to start the engine up cold, that stuff is like molasses and requires a ton of torque at the oil pump drive shaft to get it moving.  It is also going to be slow to work it's way into splash oiled bearing journals which is time the bearings may be starving for oil.  That oil won't behave like 20 weight until the engine is completely warmed up and working under load. 

 

I'm an old hard-headed mechanic and argued for years that thicker oil is just good business until I had an older mechanic convinced me the time it takes heavy oil to warm and flow does much more damage to bearings and sliding parts like cylinder walls than thin oil with decent oil pressure will do in hot weather under load.    That's your engine, don't let me, or anyone else tell you what to do with it, but that spring may be trying to tell you that you should re-think oil viscosity because when the oil is behaving like 50, the oil pump drive is taking a beating.

 

Edited by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)
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I'm no expert but, and in fact buy a lot of 20W50, and a lot of wild speculation and anecdotes follow but....

 

I would be running really thin oil in that car. Maybe even some of that newfangled 0W16 stuff in the beginning. 10W if not. Splash oiled cars have to run tighter clearances than pressure oiled ones to not make noise. Over on the VCCA forums, several of the four cylinder guys do not trust plastigage. They use the old tap-the-rod-sideways method, and will tell you the bearings will wind up too loose otherwise. I don't have a four cylinder Chevrolet, but I find that interesting. Back in the teens and 20s, it was fairly common to set an engine up too tight, and then "break it in", sometimes spinning a tight engine with an electric motor to "burn the bearings in". Modern wisdom says that damages the babbitt and it probably shouldn't be done, and that the babbitt machining needs to be right on from the very beginning.

 

14 hours ago, Terry Wiegand said:

He told me that they were going to set the running tolerances a tad bit looser so that there wouldn't be as much stress and strain on the rotating assembly.  What does that mean exactly?  I'm thinking it means about .0002" to possibly .0004".  This translates to being a little easier on the main and rod bearings.

 

My guess is he meant not really looser, just set up correctly from the beginning (to the modern way of thinking) so the babbitt doesn't get damaged during break in. That's difficult to judge without knowing the actual clearances and the journal sizes, and I'm not the person to judge that anyway.

 

The lessons here, I think, are that 1) The clearances are tighter in the first place than a pressure fed engine and 2) There is no pressure forcing the oil into the bearing. Runny is good if you want the oil to get in.

 

Splash lubricated engines did have a reputation for losing bearings due to bad lubrication at high speeds. I recall reading an article several years ago, I believe it was either linked or posted on the HET Club website, or the HET Public Forum, about the limits of splash oiling. Hudson, as you may know was one of the last holdouts with splash oiling. Supposedly their chief engineer said splash oiled engines start oiling instantly, while pressure oiled engines don't start lubricating until the oil pressure comes up. OK, that sounds a bit ridiculous today now that pressure oiling has won out. On the other hand, even today most wear in engines occurs on startup. That simple fact puts a little light on how splash-vs-pressure was still debatable in the 1940s.

 

The article, which I have gone looking for many times, and cannot find, spoke of a young engineer on his first job at Studebaker, probably back in the teens or 20s. This may have been the chief engineer from Hudson, or possibly one of the "three musketeers" from Chrysler. The story was that they had investigated oiling by putting a window in the side of an oil pan on a Studebaker Six. While watching it run, they noticed at higher RPM that the dippers on the rods would carve a trough in the oil in the dip pans, and the rod bearings would starve for oil. The implication was the rod dipper was "clearing a trench" in the oil, and when it came around again at higher RPM, the oil had not run back down level yet, so the dipper only scooped air. It sure seems to me that a lighter viscosity oil would run back down to level faster. I'm not sure, maybe it has more to do with the mass of the oil and it wouldn't matter. I am no engineer. If I had to bet, I would bet on the lighter oil running down faster.

 

12 hours ago, Oldtech said:

We had a 50 Chevy and it had to start every morning to take us to school and he would put 4 qts of number 10 and 1 qt of kerosene in the cold weather. Never hurt the engine.

 

Those had "squirt gun" oiling. The engineer I referenced above was not at Chevrolet, but the squirt gun solution seems squarely aimed at the problem I outlined above. It appeared in the mid 30s, possibly with the 216 in 1937, maybe a year or two earlier. It was last used in 1953. If anyone in this thread has not seen this Rube Goldberg solution, there are squirt nozzles in the side of the oil pan squirting oil across it, perpendicular to the crankshaft. When a rod dipper comes around, it goes through the stream and the squirt nozzle squirts oil into the dipper as it passes.

 

My first car had this squirt gun arrangement. I remember once floating the idea of putting SAE 30 non-detergent oil in it. A gas station owner I worked for did not like that idea at all. NEVER anything heavier than 20W in that car he said, although 10W30 would probably be fine, and use 10W in the winter. If the oil was too thick, there was a danger that the streams of oil would not reach the dippers and the rods would not oil. He may have mentioned the kerosene too. It does get cold here.

 

Did it solve the problem of rods not oiling well at higher speeds? Apparently not that well, as splasher Hudsons never used squirt guns as far as I know, and had a reputation for taking high revs fairly well. Chevrolet sixes not so much, especially when they got a little worn.

 

14 hours ago, Larry Schramm said:

There is both compression and torsional load on the spring.  May not be "much", but there is a couple of loads on the spring.

 

I'm with you. I also think cold 20W50 probably wound that spring up like a cheap watch.

 

I love 20W50. It is great stuff in pressure fed Chrysler products that specified 20W40 originally, and in just about any old pressure fed car that is not knocking, but loose enough it cannot hold oil pressure well in hot weather. I wouldn't use it in a splash oiled engine though, not ever.

 

48 minutes ago, Ben Bruce aka First Born said:

it is my understanding that multi grade oils perform as/at the lower number when cold, but do not "thin" as much at operating temps.

 

That is exactly how it is supposed to work in theory, with the caveat that SAE oil viscosity ratings are ranges, not specific viscosities. There is no implication that all 10W30 oils would be exactly the same. I think you could expect them to behave as advertised though today, with that one caveat, especially if you pick synthetic.

 

Back in the day, not so much. Common practice then was to pick a number in the middle of the range to get an appropriate substitute. That flies in the face of what the ratings are supposed to mean, but back then that was what worked. 10W30 or 10W40 substitute for 20W, 15W40 or 20W50 substitute for SAE 30, etc.

 

Also numbers with a "W" are rated at a lower temperature. That is how 20W20 was able to exist. It's a multi-viscosity oil!

 

I can't prove anything in this post. Your mileage may vary.

 

Edited by Bloo (see edit history)
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Terry,

I have to pull my horns in. With the spring waer you saw, I would have replaced it. Plus other reported failures too.

Now you have me wondering about the spring in my E-45. That is a car that has never been totally out of service in its life nor restored and is WORN. That is not to say it has not been worked on though - just maintained.

It would be interesting to know Buicks engineering philosophy about that spring oil pump drive.

 

Everything in an engine is stressed to some degree. The quetion is just, how much. If that drive had proven to be problematic, Buick would not have been retained for so long in their engine design.

 

What oil did Buick specify? The manual for my car says :HIGH GRADE, MEDIUM HEAVY MINERAL OIL ...VISCOSITY OF 62 TO 72 SAYBOLT AT 212 DEGREES FARENHEIGHT".

No problemo.

My dad told me how it was general practice to race an engine before shutting it down to splash oil on everything so there was a coating of oil for the next start up.

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1 hour ago, Ben Bruce aka First Born said:

Dave, it is my understanding that multi grade oils perform as/at the lower number when cold, but do not "thin" as much at operating temps.  Am I misinformed?

 

You can test the pour point behavior of multi-viscosity oil by putting some in an old quart saucepan and put it in the freezer for a few hours.  Pull it out and stir it with a putty knife.  Now put the pan of oil on the barbecue grill with a thermometer in it and heat it to 180 degrees.  Repeat the test.  I think you will find the cold oil stirs like molasses and warm oil stirs like water.   20 w 50 means not less than viscosity of 20 w when hot and not more than 50 when cold.

 

This is an edit so everyone can see I added something.  After stirring the oil in first the cold test, then the hot, just pull the putty knife out of the oil and observe how long it takes to stop dripping in each condition...

Edited by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)
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15 hours ago, Terry Wiegand said:

I'm thinking it means about .0002" to possibly .0004".  This translates to being a little easier on the main and rod bearings.  I think that this is exactly why he told me that the 20W50 would be a great choice for the oil.

 

Not to be the proof reader, but two thousands of an inch is .002".       .0002" is two ten thousands of an inch last time I checked.  Less clearance unless you are using very thin oil like 0-20 is hard on the engine and bearings, and probably even then.

Edited by Larry Schramm (see edit history)
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1 hour ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

I think you will find the cold oil stirs like molasses and warm oil stirs like water.   20 w 50 means not less than viscosity of 20 w when hot and not more than 50 when cold.

My understanding was that at cold temperature, it will perform like an SAE 20W would when cold, and at hot temperatures, it will perform like an SAE 50 would when hot. Obviously, it will be more viscous when cold than hot, but it will be more viscous at hot temperatures than a straight SAE 20W would.

 

Otherwise, what would the point be of having extremely viscous oil at low temperatures?

 

https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/204/multigrade-oil

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Going back to the Chevy comments. Revving a splash engine when cold was always bad. I have seen the 216 Chev with 1 and 6 both burned out from doing that.  The oil fed from the center and starved the end ones for a few minutes when cold. Yes, the squirter system was better than straight dip, but we digress. Buicks just have dip troughs and high revs weren't their forte anyway. The pressure lubed ones like the 27 could take a lot more. 

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