Projects All Studes, All The Time

I built myself an adjustable carrier bearing hanger. The holes are drilled on .375 and .562 patterns, so you get 5 positions total with .188 increments. On a 20" long front shaft section this works out to around a half degree per setting.



In the car I think I will likely end up running it in the middle position. My joint working angles are 2.5, 3, and 1 with my phases done correctly so I'm only off by .5 degrees total. All of the U joints should be happy too. I might see if I can drop those front two values down a bit, but this might be my best baseline.

Once I am happy the spring perches will get some heavy tacks (temporary), then maybe some new U joints, a bearing, and maybe even some paint before a test drive around the block.

 

One more picture for good measure. Hopefully back on the ground soon enough...

 

I had one like that back in the day, Ryno, but I have no pics of anything. The digital camera wasn't invented yet. It sure wasn't as nice as yours, I'll say that. Mine was blue like your interior, with a black convertible top...6V...6 cylinder...three on the tree. I've forgotten how beautifully understated the body was. I graduated to a '62 with a 259, three on then tree, which was a bit more of a thrill than the '59. It was black with a black top & a red & white interior. I love then wheels on yours. Keep up the good work!

 

I got it out of the shop and out for a short test drive today.



It apparently needs a bit more fender clearance in the front...

 

I got started on the fun yesterday.



Mostly ended up using the heads of a couple different bossing mallets to roll between the tire and fender with the help of the floorjack and wooden blocks to get the height / clearance set right. The red chunk of UHMW (I think) did the final sizing. Roll against the tire and glide against the fender. Seemed to work pretty good. Need to get a bigger heat gun on the job to keep the paint from cracking though.



Rear will need some help too. When the axle articulates away from the body it swings on an outward path shoving the sidewall right into the flange.

Could have gone with a 195 / 225 tire combo and maybe been just a bit higher...but it really has the look I want right now. Could probably pull it all apart and machine around 1/4" off of the insides of the wheels, but beating on a painted car with hammers is apparently more my style.

 

Chassis on jackstands with the rear end off the ground. Jack under diff. raising tire into fender a bit at a time rolling / gliding the plastic in the gap. Occasional help from a bossing mallet if the transition start to get out of shape.



And a real heat gun works way better than whatever embossing iron or hair dryer you borrowed from your wife.

 

FWIW, Studebaker went to one-piece driveshafts in all cars by 1958, before the Lark was introduced in '59. And yes, to do so all the transmissions got longer tailshafts and the transmission tunnel enlarged slightly.

jack vines

 

@PackardV8 you are saying this car should have a 1 piece shaft in it? If so I wonder what the story is on how this 2 piece got in here. Either way way it seems to be working pretty good now. Need to put some U joints and a bearing in at some point then work up the courage to get up above 30 with this thing.

The glovebox never wanted to stay closed, so I attempted to fix the spring steel clip by straightening it in my vise. That went exactly as well as I figured and it broke. So I bent up an extension piece and welded it in. Works mint! Small victories.

 

Perches welded back in and paint is drying.

 

Yes, Ryan, your Lark would originally have had a one-piece driveshaft. Most likely, at some point, someone swapped in a truck engine and transmission, as those never went to one-piece driveshafts.

When customers bring me a core Studebaker engine, I tell them only the teardown will confirm what it is now as opposed to what it began life as. I'm still pissed at the good SDC member in Seattle who sold me a 289" core engine. On teardown, it had a 259" crank swinging the 289" pistons. With that crank, it would have had 5:1 compression.

jack vines

 

Rear end and driveshaft are bolted in, and I even put shocks back there! Made some adjustments to my carrier bearing hanger so it at least has some ability to move fore and aft in the car. Basically a bronze washer between it and the chassis and a rubber cushion on the bolt. I will probably redo this whole thing again at some point but it seems to be OK for now.

Spent some time under the hood getting this thing to run right. It has a bad lean bog on throttle tip in. It ended up being a bent linkage that was causing the accelerator pump to have about 1/3 of its stroke. Bent it back into shape and now it actually gives proper fueling.

I can't get my dwell reading on my timing light to make sense. It kept telling me 17 degrees which can't be right. I dropped the gap way down to .012" and it said 19 degrees. The only think I can figure is that it's computing it like it's a 2 stroke or a v16, so for now I just set the gap to .016-.017".



The distributor was really loose and probably on the retarded side, so I gave it a little bump. Seems to snap pretty good now, although a quick road test just revealed I still have a mid range dead spot. No tach, but it seems like above 2500-3000 rpm it really started to pull. My base timing is set at 12° and runs up to around 44° at 2500 rpm. It pulls a steady 19-20 inches of vacuum at 650 rpm idle. More base timing? Lighten up the springs and get it in sooner? Not sure how much total timing this stock supposedly rebuilt (rattle can rebuild?) 259 will take.

Anyone have spark plug suggestions for this so I can get a good reading?

The coil was glued to the valley pann, so I need to figure out where to mount that. It also has a homemade PCV with a cut-off road draft tube. I should probably convert this to a proper PCV off of a later cars, or just go back to road draft is my current thinking.

 

Note to self..."though shalt not hot rod the family cruiser"... at least not until real road testing, lights and wiring, seatbelts, emergency brakes, etc. have been completed.

 

The 12 degrees initial is twice the Shop Manual recommended 6 degrees, but it will work well IF you then restrict the total centrifugal advance to no more than 36 degrees total. The 44 degrees you're seeing is way too much if that's the centrifugal. Are you disconnecting and plugging the vacuum when checking centrifugal? Given your problems with the dwell reading, how confident are you in that timing light?

What is the engine serial number? All the late engines had bolt holes on the rear of the intake manifold for a coil mount.

jack vines

 

Jack, vacuum advance was disconnected during the timing setup. I borrowed another timing light and am trying to track down a dwell meter or a multimeter with duty cycle function. I also should check the damper to make sure it's actually marking TDC correctly.



This is what I was basing the setup on, but looks like I misread what they meant by "total", which must be at higher rpm under a light load. Either way mine has more centrifugal than it should have. Is this just a wear thing? All I know is once it got a few RPM's in it it really wanted to pull. Tall tires, 3.73 gears, and a 3 speed are not helping my case though.



Engine number...dates to 1955 I think? It's not a 224 is it? The seller stated it was a "rebuilt 289", which it obviously is not and I knew that ahead of buying. Pretty sure I measured stroke but I better do it again to make sure it's 3.25 and not 2.81.



Here is what the intake looks like. Must be earlier since it's missing the bolt holes / bosses for the coil. I've got a zip tie holding it in place for the time being.

Maybe I should start cleaning up a 4 barrel intake, or see if I can get the Edmunds 2x2 setup from my neighbor...you know so I can mount my coil correctly.



Today's evidence that I lost my mind was a pair of QuickTime Studebaker scatter shields showing up on my doorstep. They are marked way down so I figured now is my chance to get one. And if one is good 2 is better. This will allow me to use an "off the shelf" flywheel instead of having to spend big money on a custom Studebaker pattern + Pontiac ring gear flywheel + early Pontiac starter. That last bit may or may not be fully true (never got that far) but it sounds good anyways.

 

The bad news is your serial number indicates a '55 Commander 224".

The good news is that a 259" or 289" crank will drop right in. The 259"s are thick on the ground for cheap, but pistons are not. The 289" cranks are dear these days, but much better choice of pistons.

Good deal on the QT bells. From whom did you buy them?

jack vines

 

@PackardV8 I got the bellhousings right from Holley. Probably only 1 or 2 left then they are gone.

I will have to measure the stroke again on the engine in that case. That would explain it being sluggish down low though. Now I'm curious as to what my transmission and overdrive actually are, especially with the 2 piece driveshaft that came with the car.

You are not kidding on the 259's. I think there are 2 in the shop, plus 3 others at my disposal right now.

I got a good deal on a 289 crank but that's pretty rare these days. If anyone has some junk ones that need to be welded up I'm looking. I've got a scheme involving a welded and ground crank, some different application rods, and some custom pistons.

 

I confirmed the stroke is 3.25 and that TDC is reasonably close to right on the timing marker. I think I could make out a 040 on a piston, so my assumption here is that someone build a .040" over 259 using a 224 block at some point.

 

Probably because 224" pistons have been NLA for years.
jack vines

 

Dick Datson promised a 900 hp 200 ci engine using a 232 block & 224 crank with twin turbos at about 85 lbs if boost I think. There are few if any stronger block/crank OEM combos Than that one by Studebaker.

 

Ahhh. The little sewing machine... . In past days, they worked real well w/a gmc supercharger. . Nothing wrong w/them.
Marcus...

 

Look at what Smokey Yunick was doing with his 209 Blown SBC at Indy back in the day.

My numbers put a 3.375x2.81 201 cubic inch Studebaker at a conservative 275-300 horsepower. That's assuming you can make 1 lb/ft of torque per inch and spin it out to 7500. Add some cubic dollars for getting the heads to work with the tiny bore, some more rpm, compression if you can figure out how to get it, boost, custom rods, pistons, cam...

Fun to think about but pointless in reality.

Shrink it down to a SCTA legal sub 184" in the footsteps of the Salt2Salt guys and others...now we are talking. There are a few Pintos, Vegas, and Corvairs in various classes that could use some good competition

Back in reality land... yesterday we got the turn signals working and traced all of the brake light wires to where they go. The next step is get them down to the brake light switch. Then I can get a bit more adventurous on test drives and leave my immediate neighborhood.

 

It is all fun to think about but you are getting stuff done a bit at a time and getting another Strugglebuggy back on the road. I have 4 dead ones in my yard that I think about.

 

Good Stude V8 heads flow approximately 200 CFM which equates to about 380hp NA max. A 289" theoretically will make that at about 6250 RPM, a 259" will have to turn 7,000 RPM and a 224" 8,000.

jack vines

 

I spent some time going through wiring and getting brake lights, the horn, and turn signals working this week. Still no headlights or taillights though. Backed off the timing a bit too.

Friday night we took the car for a test drive aiming to hit at least 55 or 60. That went well, so I took it up to 70 and even hit 80 at one point.

Brakes work good, but probably could have gone to a slightly smaller bore master cylinder. Driveshaft is happy. Lots of body roll with no rear sway bar. Warm oil pressure seems to suck, so I need to get a real gauge on there. I also have no idea what oil is in there, pump condition, bearing clearance etc. Steering is 'tight' but its must be something in the box or column that's tight. It immediately has friction when you turn. Steering box adjuster has been backed off, kingpins are pretty loose, so it really should be sloppy overall.

Overall happy with the drive, just lots of little things to work on and look at.

 

I hooked up a gauge and hot oil pressure seems to hover around 10 psi. Seems a bit low to me... Will this be ok long term?

Anything that can be checked or messed with in chassis? Is switching to 15W40 oil going to help anything?



I got the bent up stock hood secondary latch straightened out and welded in a better stop to keep it further back and not able to clobber the grill surround.



This will hit / catch on what will eventually be a SS striker plate which should be mostly hidden from view when the hood is closed. Later larks had the latch catch sideways to deal with this issue if I remember right, but hopefully this is a good solution too.

 

You’ll know if the hood smacks you in the face.

 

I keep a slotted tennis ball handy for that damned hook.....

 

My 64 Cruiser safety catch faces 180degrees opposite of yours and hooks onto the front edge of the latch assembly below. I've never owned an early Lark but plenty of 62-66's and they are all the same. It looks like that square hole might be intended for the hook (or not). If that was my car I'd try to find another early car and see what they look like, yours doesn't look right to me.

 

@RAK the 59's and 60's face this way. Smashes right into the backside slope of the grill housing rubbing off the paint. We looked at a bunch at the Studebaker International meet and all the early ones are this way.

I can flip it backwards, but the square hole would need to be opened up as well as adding a latch bar down there, plus a little tab to release the hook.

I think this will be good compromise setup. The paint already is not perfect, so if this does not work how we want I will cut up the core support and make it perfect on the redo / repaint years from now.

But...I'll take another look tonight at flipping it before I make it permanent.

 

Hot 10 to 12 psi at idle is about normal.
Years ago, I learned a trick. Castrol GTX oil helps keep the pressure up a little while hot. Don't know how it works, but it does. I watched it do the same on a supercharged, 465" big Chevy years ago.
Plus it works great in the world of the flat tappet Stude cams. I put over 93,000 miles on my 259 in my 59 Lark wagon running just the GTX. I ran the 20-50 grade, as I have no idea how many miles that engine had on it before I bought it.
Jack knows the car, he's seen it.

I know this subject is old, but you CAN go longer with the driveshaft. I'm putting a one piece shaft in my Conestoga. You just need to go to a larger diameter. A quick call to a reputable builder to confirm.

Mike