Sunday 23 November 2014

Meet Beau the 1941 Buick Sedanette

Being a glutton for punishment I usually have at least three projects on the go at  the same time. This Blog entry is about one of my other projects, Beau the 1941 Buick Sedanette, a true survivor with only 46,000 miles on him.


 I bought Beau out of Savannah Georgia, USA about four years ago, parking him in the shed and didn’t do anything with him until a few months ago. His 6 volt battery had died and as I didn’t have any other 6v batteries he just stayed under cover.  I’m sure I heard him pleading with me to get him back on the road each time I visited the shed, so decided I’d at least start him. It was about this time I received a phone call from the guy in Savannah who I bought him from, asking how I was enjoying driving him! I was a tad embarrassed to tell him I hadn’t done anything since he arrived in Australia. So the universe had spoken – ‘Get Beau Back On The Road’!  After I sourced a new battery, no mean feat as it is a long and skinny type used in that era, and poured a little motion lotion down his throat Beau fired up pretty easily, he really must want to get back on the road!
I ran him for about 20 minutes to make sure all his internals were well lubricated, and drive off any condensation by bring the engine up to running temperature.  Tested the lights and horn – indicators weren’t working when he arrived, but now the head lights didn’t work either, nor the horn - old cars do not like being neglected and not driven. I thought it was indeed good timing to get Beau on the road before anything else stopped working. I shut the engine down and head a drip, drip, drip coming from under the engine, I knew Beau had a leaking water pump seal and assumed it was that, but on inspection the leak was coming from the rear left hand side of the engine…… one of the welch plugs, (called Freeze or Core plugs in the US), had corroded through and the other two weren’t too far off either. Bugger!  Oh well, it was infinitely better, and less expensive to have happened in the shed than out on the highway somewhere. After working out what had to be removed from the engine to give access for their replacement, namely the inlet / exhaust manifold, I decided that if I was going to order the welch plugs and the various replacement manifold gaskets I may as well buy overhaul kits for both carburettors, fuel pump, leaking water pump, new thermostat, radiator hoses and ignition tune up kit -  points, condenser, rotor and distributor cap. There is a supplier in California – ‘Bob’s Automobilia’ who specialises in early and classic Buick parts, great range and prices.

I’ve been working on Beau on and off for a few weeks now, removing the various bits and pieces for overhaul of just to gain access to other bits. I brought the fuel pump, carbs and water pump to my home workshop as I have more tools at my disposal. The ‘Stude Gotto’ as we call the leased shed where my cars a housed has only primitive workshop facilities. The weekend I had planned to get stuck into the rebuilds had turned hot, damned hot!  43 Degrees C ,(about 110 F in the old money), way too hot to sit dripping sweat over a carb rebuild.



 If only I had an air conditioned workshop….hang on, the house is air conditioned and has a great work bench, AKA the dining table.. Eureka! So over the past week I have rebuilt the carbs and fuel pump, as the water pump is a bit more bulky and dining table is not the place to rebuild that. 















The Buick fuel pump also contains a vacuum pump
to run the windscreen wipers. Originally the factor used what looked like coiled horse hair or similar as an air filter. Not have any horses in the back yard, or any in the neighbourhood for that matter I had to find a substitute. 'Svenja'! have you got anything I can use as an air filter. We trotted down to her studio where she pulled out a handful of Dacron fibre, (the stuffing used in Teddy bears and other soft toys). It looked a bit 'plasticy' to me and I wondered if it would stand up the engine heat without melting, some 110 degrees C or 250 F. Only one way to find out so into the oven it went at 150 degrees C for an hour - No problems.




























Above at the finished carbs and fuel/vacuum pump. With inlet/exhaust manifold to clean up, paint and refit.

The hot weather has also slowed work on the Humber too, it just too damn hot to work in there. I must be getting old and soft ;-)

Tuesday 4 November 2014

Humber Speedster Project - Update # 6

I haven’t managed to get too much further since my last update in early September, other ‘life’ stuff getting in the way, and although I want to finish the Humber as soon as possible I don’t want it to become a chore. That’s a really good way to ‘lose the love’ and never finish it, I’ve seen many and bought some unfinished project cars over the years where the owner has just lost interest, and usually a lot of money also! Anyway on with the show;


Bonnet top frame with side hinge. 

Bonnet with skin template.

As I mentioned in the last update I chose to build the bonnet, (hood for the American readers), before the body as I thought it would be easier and give me some good practice. Boy was I wrong! With the various shapes, curves and hinged sections it really tested me out. Luckily I have an old 1929 Willys Overland that I can get ideas from, to see how the professional cars builders did it.
As usual there were some hold ups out of left field. The side sections need to be stiffened; this was done in the old days by rolling a ‘bead’ into the edges of the metal. This adds two right angles, (per bead), to the metal therefore reinforcing it. I had bought a bead roller a while back for this purpose but it needed a stand, and for me to learn how to use it. The fabrication of the stand was pretty straight forward. However it did lead to my wife having concussion and a broken Hamate bone in her wrist. I won’t go into details but just say the fulcrum action in trying to straighten a steel arm resulting in Svenja being catapulted up, and we all know what goes up must come down – in this case with a crash. I am really sorry sweetheart ;-(



The bead roller ready for use.
With the bead roller now usable I practiced, and practiced, learning a lot, the main thing was that I was pretty shit at it. Oh well practice makes perfect!

Aluminium practice piece

























The Luvax dampers rebuild was still ongoing, but as of this today I have one finished. 
The bees wax impregnated jute string seems to be working at sealing the oil reservoir around the worn shaft. From what I’ve read, worn shafts where a common problem causing oil leaks and damper failure. 
Soaking the jute string in melted bees wax.


As I mentioned before, they were a complete mystery to me until I stripped one down, cleaning the congealed oil out of the small passages was a pain I soaked them in diesel for a week and tried to blow them clean with compressed air, this was repeated several times before ready for re-assembly. Luvax Damper oil is no longer available, (no surprise there), so I used Studebaker steering box oil which should be a good alternative. I had a devil of a job getting the oil into the vane chamber, in the end I found I had to work the vane back and forth until all the air had been expelled, which took about 150 million times back and forth ;-) and it had to be slow, if you did it too quick oil became aerated and you had to leave it until the micro bubbles escaped out the filler hole. All in all a very time consuming process.

Coiling the string around the shaft ready for the gland nut.

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Humber Speedster Project - Update # 5

With the '47 Studebaker truck back on the road, and out of the workshop I was able to get back to working on the Humber. I had been tinkering with the front Luvax, (dampers), shock absorbers in the evenings but not much progress had been made. These were a mystery to me until I did some research and pulled them apart. The principle is quite simple with a vane fixed to a shaft that attaches to the front axle via an arm and link. When the up and down motion of the axle is transferred to the shaft, the movement of the vane is restricted or slowed by a heavy grade oil forced through small holes in the inner casing. The photos below show the various parts, also the rust holes I had to braze up in the outer oil reservoirs.


The pic above left shows the dampers complete with the arm before dismantling. The pic above right shows the rust holes in the outer oil reservoir.

This pic on the left shows the dampers components; the base plate that bolts onto a chassis bracket, the rotary vane housing, the vane shaft, the outer housing/oil reservoir, with holes repaired, and the sealing gland nut. (The shaft is made oil tight like steam valves with a stuffing box and gland nut). I intended to make my own stuffing from jute string, plaited to the right thickness, impregnated with bees wax and copper coat anti-seize.

The pic below shows the assembly sequence. The two recesses in the base plate allow the dampers to be assembled for left and right application, (I think!) I guess I'll find out when I start assembling them.









The pic on the left shows the vane in place. The amount of travel is approximately 35 mm












With the workshop now clear I could set up my combination Roller / Folder / Guillotine in preparation to start work on the Humber body panels. But of course nothing goes exactly to plan. The roller needed a stand to bring it up to a comfortable working height, and I had also acquired a bead roller that needed at stand as well. I've made up the roller stand but have left the bead roller stand for now as it won't be required until the later stages of the body is in progress. I'm contemplating fabricating some heavy duty castor's that can be fitted to the stand when not in use so it can be moved. I had to use the engine crane to shift it for now as it weighs about 500 kg.




I picked up the 1mm zinc annealed sheet steel a week or so ago ready to start rolling the bonnet, but then realised the bonnet was longer than I could fit in the roller, bugger ! After a bit of head scratching and beard tugging I came up with the idea of making up a frame to weld the sheet to, therefore giving it the right shape and added rigidity. I chose 5mm x 32 mm flat mild steel to make the bonnet 'ribs' from, and then another realisation - my roller is for sheet metal only up to 2mm thick, (bugger again), and I thought the bonnet was going to be the easy part! Well there was nothing else to do but bend them the old fashioned way using the open jaws of a vice and a cross pein hammer, tedious but effective.

The pic below is of the rear rib following the contour of the firewall bonnet ledge.




The pic below shows the string lines I had to run from the radiator to the firewall to give the curvature of the bonnet half way so I had something to go on when bending the middle rib.


     The middle rib curved to the string lines - now this was tedious to do! I swear I walked back and       forth from the Humber to the vice 100 times.


When the ribs were finished I stuck some news paper over the strings to give me a look at a mocked up shape of the bonnet, then stuck the cardboard side templates on to give an overall look. Apart from the sides not having the door openings cut in I was very please with the shape. I should have sat the mudguards on, but didn't think about that until after I had taken off the paper.



So as of today the 9/9/14 that is where I'm up to. Next Saturday I'm busy at the 'Studebaker of Australia' shop with the open house for International drive Your Studebaker Day. Sunday I'll be welding together the bonnet ribs and cross braces and hopefully skinning it with sheet metal - whoot!









Monday 1 September 2014

When fans get out of control !

On a bright and clear Sunday morning I was coming home from a swap meet in 'Fred' my 1947 Studebaker M5 pick up, all seemd OK until I got to within sight of my house - BANG !!  'That sounds expensive", I thought. I rolled to in front of my house and got out to see steam coming up from the bonnet, and green coolant pouring out from under the truck. I was right, it was expensive. One of the fan blades decided to catch on the edge of the upper radiator tank, bending, then slicing through thirteen radiator tubes. In disgust I just walked away, I wasn't going near that radiator hissing steam and spitting boiling water. Below is what I found the next day, and when I pulled the radiator out. I ened up having to cut the fan blade with a grinder to get it out !


Removal of a radiator from an older car is generally not a big issue, there is usually plenty of room to get at bolts and manouver it up and out. However, when an M5 pickup is fitted with a Cadillac engine, space is at a premium, especially with an aircondiioning compressor mounted on the top of the engine. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth I managed, with help, to remove the radiator and fan assembley. The realised it would have been much easier to have removed the front grilles first - arrr the blessing of hindsight!


I decided to change the original installation by replacing the viscous fan drive with a direct pulley drive, adding a fan shroud and not reinstalling the back up electric fan on the front of the radiator. My decidion to got his way was after much research and finding this sight on the net;   http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/engine/cooling_system_tech/   check it out, a lot of really interesting stuff about engine cooling, not as simple as sticking an electric fan onto the fron of the radiator.

Anyway, building fan shroud shouldn't be too difficult, should it ! It was definitely a two pipe problem. (this was a saying an old boilermaker I worked with used to use when I was an apprentice, (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth ;-)
Based on another one of his sayings, 'a pipe gives a wise man time to think, and an idiot something to stick in his mouth'.

Measureing up.

Taking shape.








Nearly finished.
The sealing tape in place just before installation.





It fits !!!!  Now just to hook up the hoses and test run the engine.

Before I did test a road test I chained down the left hand side of the engine by bolting a shackle through the engine mount conneting it to a fairly solid steel chain then welding the chain to the chassis. The large Caddy engine has a huge amount of torque and tends to lift up on the left hand side under load which had me concerned as there is only 20 mm, (3/4") clearence between the fan blade tips and the shroud opening edge - so far so good. The cooling of the engine seems to be working well - with an infra red thermometer it read 80 degrees C after a run.

Wednesday 14 May 2014

Humber Speedster Project - Update # 4

The last update was back in early March, and due to life and other things, (starting a new business and opening the Studebaker shop), getting in the way I haven't done much work on the Humber lately. However over the past week some progess has been evident - the seat upholstery has been finished, the head light buckets and rims polished, the grille was designed, cut and polished and the distributor rebuild completed. All in all an expensive week ;-)  but great to have those things ticked off the list. My initial (whishfull thinking) deadline to have the Humber on the road was June 30th this year, I can hear that deadline whooshing past already. My revised time frame is 'later this year' some time ;-)
The design was a collaboration bewteen myself and my wife Svenja, we think it turned out great.

It took a while to get from the first sketch, but it turned out great. My thanks to Ray & Lyn at LLEDO Trimmers - Murarrie

I have a sneaking suspicion I've created a rod for my own back with all that brass that will need polishing!

Heres'a good view of the new radiator core and rebuilt distributor.

Thursday 6 March 2014

The Humber Speedster Project - Update # 3

Welcome to the third Speedster Build Update, this one is mostly about finishing the seat up to upholstery stage, which it is now. I picked it up yesterday from the upholsterers with the foam in place as I had to sit it in the Humber to see if the foam was the right thickness and angle. I’m very glad I did, because the position I had calculated was about 150 mm (6”) too far forward.
Seat in position with mocked up sides.

In that position, I had full travel of the clutch and brake pedals, but was pinned in by the steering wheel. I had a sneaking suspicion I would have to lengthen the pedals while I was initially setting out the floor, not a big job really, just another one on the list.  I am very pleased about how the seat has come up, having absolutely no experience in building one. It is a little snug, but I was limited in size by the width of the chassis. I asked the upholsterer if he can shave a little off the side foam pieces, (well at least we won’t slide around in it ;-)
                                                                                         
Seat ribs in & reinforced with fibreglass, ready for ply back rests.
Although all the recent build time has been taken up by the seat, and running board mounted battery box, (photos in the next update), I have been farming other parts out for repair or replacement.  I want to do as much of this project myself, but there are some jobs I’m just not tooled up to do. The hubcaps were one of these items. Two came with the car, one in sound condition with bad chrome, and one completely bent out of shape and beyond repair. Luckily there is a metal spinning company not far from home so I had them make up a mandrel, (form), based on the good hubcap and made me up five new ones. Not a cheap exercise, but the only way around it – it would appear that 1932 Humber hubcaps are made of ‘Unobtainium’ and cannot be found.

Ply back rests and base in.

The other item I outsourced was the assembly of the radiator, definitely a specialist’s job. I had the top and bottom tanks and another lucky find in the parts boxes, a brand new radiator core!  The assembly of these wasn’t as straight forward as I had thought - isn’t it always the way! The bottom tank was full of cracks which had to be repaired, and the new core had to be modified as it didn’t fit either tank correctly. Phil from ‘Cor Cooling’ did a great job, and I’m sure it will work a treat and outlast me.



Final sheet steel sides will follow seat contour and will have entry cut away.















Forward view to under dash. Note technical supports for c/board template ;-)
















New brass hubcaps.




Another issue was the missing radiator cap and mascot. I figured these would be made out of the same material as the hubcaps, so after a week of scouring the internet in several countries I went looking for alternatives from other makes of cars around the same era. I should have realised Humber did not play well with others, therefore the size and thread on the cap only exists in the Humber world, in particular the late ‘20’s to the early ’30’s. So after having a new cap, (a plug really), machined up - what to do for a mascot? I then remembered a mascot from a car my father owned before I was born - a 1936 Chrysler Airstream. I had safely tucked it away years ago, but where?  After much searching I found it and fitted it to the new cap, a mix of class and sentimentality, perfect! Dad would have been pleased, he loved that old Chrysler.


As I now had five brass hubcaps and a brass radiator cap I started thinking about their final finish and decided against having them chromed and getting the radiator cowl and headlights re-chromed. My thinking was; as I was trying to make the car look like it was built between 1910 and 1915, brass would have used more than chrome, and would therefore help with the illusion of it being an older vehicle. Just yesterday I took the cowl and headlight buckets & rims to an electroplater who specialises in brass. They will strip off the old patchy chrome plating and I can repair any imperfections, then they’ll polish them.





















Saturday 1 February 2014

The Humber Speedster Project - Update #2



Today my boys and I, and a mate of theirs, drove to Toowoomba, about 2 hrs west, to the Darling Downs Veteran & Vintage Motor Club’s annual Swap Meet, their 42nd this year. I hadn’t been since 2012, so was absolutely blown away by the increase in numbers this year - not so impressed by the traffic jam that saw us cover the last 5 km to the Toowoomba Show Grounds in an hour!  Anyway, after we got through the gate, we had a short pow wow about who was going with who.  My son Liam, and friend who had travelled with us, are both Army mad, so it was decided they would troll the stalls looking for ANYTHING army, and Callum, (my other son, they’re 15 yo twins), came with me – Good boy, I needed a pack horse ;-)  I was on a mission this swap meet - I had a shopping list and some cash burning a hole in my pocket. I usually start meandering through the rows of car parts, brica-brac and other detritus from just near the entry, working my way uphill to the Vendors pavilion, but this time I went straight to the top, the Vendors shed. I wanted to score certain new items early then relax and peruse the old shit ;-) Besides, with Toowoomba Swap being pretty big, I wanted to get the uphill walking done first, before my legs started to make me feel old. I checked my list and headed for the various vendors - some were a gold mine, others struck out, so I moved onto the private stalls with trays and boxes of every automotive part imaginable. Here I found some new old stock parts that the vendors couldn’t supply. Callum and I tried to methodically cover as much ground as possible, and some other gems were uncovered and crossed off my list. We caught up with the other two who were very keen to show off their purchases, all military in origin of course, then they decided that all the boys would head off together, which really suited me. I work better alone ;-)  We agreed to meet outside the burger stand in an hour, so off I went and found my best purchase of the day, a set of front and rear mudguards – brilliant for the Humber, just brilliant! The ones I have just aren't right, too rounded for the look I;m going for.
After a long two hour drive home with all the boys asleep, we arrived home with our booty, as the pictures below show. The mudguards are perfect ! A couple of days work to get them up to scratch, but perfect for the job.

The seat taking shape.
The circa 1915 mud guards sitting in place.
The left hand rear guard.



My haul below - running board brackets, new front bump stop rubbers, two gas shock absorbers for the rear and the makings for the sparkplug leads. Oh, and some new old stock neoprene bushes for the front shocks. One happy camper ;-)
My haul ;-)




Monday 27 January 2014

The Humber Speedster Project - Update #1



I realized after mocking up the body in cardboard that I need to have the seat finished to be able to position in and get the right curve line for the side entry.  Easy ! I’ll just knock up the seat frame and get it upholstered later.  On reflection I found it wasn’t so easy - building a seat frame that will allow for the upholstery thickness, then be in the correct position on the car so I can reach, and have full depression travel of the clutch pedal AND be comfortable, AND be fairly snug, (remember there are no sides or roof on this car, so one will need some feeling of security!) Therefore the depth of the seat must be correct, the height of the seat must be correct, the height of the sides and back rest must be correct.  Are you getting the picture?!
I’ll have to admit it was really testing me…..where to begin, where to begin?  So I began by making the base by gluing together two sheets of 17 mm form ply, this would give it a good strong base, cut to fit the shape of the rear of the body. After this point I really only had a vague idea. OK, well I can't procrastinate any longer... I decided to cut the side panels, install them, then work out what to do from there ;-)  I marked out the coordinates on a sheet of form ply then ask my darling, talented and artistic wife to help me with the curvature of the sides. (I had a basic idea from looking at many, many pictures on the net of other Speedster seats, but just wasn’t sure of the right one to suit the previous requirements, and aesthetics).  I taped an electrical lead across the lines I’d drawn, then stood back – Svenja looked, then said try that curve there, that one a little deeper here, and Voila, a shape is borne!
Out came the trusty jig saw, (oh, by the way if anyone knows how to get these little buggers to cut a straight vertical cut let me know, will you? ;-) The shape was cut and tested on my son sitting in the ‘estimated’ right position – looked good to me. The shape was transferred to the other side and cut again. I had a little heart attack when I thought I’d cut it wrong then realized it’s a 3D shape - the rear curve goes inwards behind the occupants back/shoulder.
Kerfing; the trick to get wood to bend on slow or fast angles.  http://youtu.be/TYfRyt6OQkY   I made saw cuts ½” (12mm) apart, about a millimeter under the outter surface, about 12 in 6” or 150mm. These allowed me to mold the ply to the curve, with curved blocks behind them to keep them in place. A couple of the ‘Kerfs’ did break by my rough handling, so I taped them up and continued, these won’t be seen so it’s no biggie. 

The 1st side in place.

Kerfing detail


LHS rear section added.