I totaly agree. With the carb base level most engines have the tail shaft point down in that range of deg. On a Chevy it’s a 3 deg on a Stude it’s 6. Which seems wild to me but I guess as long as the u joints have complimentary angles it shouldn’t care one way or another. It will have a hood but would like it to look good with or without.
Driveline Operating Angle Calculator | Spicer Parts A quick calculator that comes in handy at times. Vibrations are hard on things.
I think most companies sorta had that figured out by the '50s or the carb mount would have been level with the block deck.
Chassis leveled and on stands, check! Sometimes you get an hour a day sometimes you get 5 minutes lol.
Would Studebaker truck engine mounts work for your application? They are about 2 3/4" tall from the center of the top bolt to the base. I have a pair that you can have if that would help. Otherwise if I remember right 2" box tube slips inside the mount castings almost perfectlybif you end up making your own. The 6 or 7 degree engine angle is pretty wild but can confirm that you are not crazy. I think most of it is due to the bell crank steering. I tipped the engine in my '54 forward but was only able to get to around 5 degrees. I know oil drain back is an issue on these engines, but I don't see why you could not level it out to a normal 2 - 3 degrees and then mill the intake level to the world when it's all said and done. Regarding driveline angles I learned a couple of things when dealing with the extreme Studebaker engine angle / 2 piece shaft on my wife's lowered and axle swapped '60 Lark. When you are dealing with 6 or 7 degree engine mounting angles equal and opposite (trans and diff parallel / "Z configuration") things can get funky in a hurry. The big thing is getting the acceleration and deceleration of the shaft to cancel out by the time it reaches the rear axle. This has to do with joint angle and joint phasing and NOTHING to do with what direction the angle is. The shaft has no idea of what up / down / sideways / car standing on its bumper in outer space is. All it knows is that when a joint is driven at an angle it goes fast / slow / fast / slow again every single rotation. Get your other side of the shaft to go slow / fast / slow / fast again to an equal degree and just like magic inputs and outputs will be matched. Therefore the angles just need to be equal to each other and a "W" or "broken back" configuration is an alternative approach to this. Uncommon in automotive use, but is used all the time on agricultural and industrial equipment. Angle is angle period. You can play with shaft phasing to get angles to add or subtract depending on what you need. 99.9% of the time we want these to subtract, but in a multi piece shaft that might not be the case. Once you understand this you can throw out worrying about measuring angles with the chassis level. Joint working angle is all that matters.
I’ll keep those mounts and tricks in mind! Thanks for the offer. They do make basically wedge shims to level a carb out or I have looked into milling the intake. I’ll cross that bridge when we get there. I believe the engines were also offset to the passenger side to clear steering. first time I’ve heard about the oil drain back issue I’ll have to go sleuthing after some info on that . Thanks for your comments
I think the drainback issue is due to the smallish drain hole in the back of the heads. I don't think it's much of a problem, but I've heard of it anyways. Probably part of why they seem to like to leak from the valve covers
Yes, the oil drain-back from the rocker boxes was thru a fairly small hole. & since a lot of Stude owners used the cheapest oil possible, & the longest drain interval, + often no oil filter, that little ~3/8"(iirc) drainback passage got plugged. Also, later in life, Stude *decreased* the oil hole to/from the rocker shaft. Didn't need as much as was designed in. Be sure you have the *proper* rocker-bushing-to-rocker-shaft clearances, or you'll dump too much oil into the rockerbox area, faster than it can drain. Crankcase pressure doesn't help drainback, esp at higher rpm, so hopefully you'll have good ring seal. At higher rpm, that oil pump can really pump... None of it is a big deal, unless you don't know about a few of the peculiarities of the breed. & *all* mfgrs had them, depends on each engine. & depends on how an engine is used, too. Marcus...
Good to know. Engine looks like it’s been rebuilt not super long before it landed in my buddy’s shop. Fingers crossed on all that. I’ll be making sure to check it all before firing it up.
Todays progress. I cut the firewall at the top and bottom of center, took @porknbeaner hack saw and removed the center of the stock center cross member and slid it in. well as far as I could get it. its hitting the bellhousing on the firewall. It needs to come back about 2.75 inches more and up maybe another inch. But mocked up with the wood blocks it looks pretty good! for shits and grins I bolted this together and measured from the center of the top hole to the top of the frame mount. 5.5” where is it currently mocked up? 5.5” how about that! the only interference I’m seeing so far is that bump above the hole on the back side that is touching in this photo. so close! Should work for mock up. Going to sit and stare at the firewall tonight when everyone is in bed and cut it in the morning. wash and repeat!
Alright so I got the firewall trimmed and the motor and trans back in the car, blocked up and the car stacked back together and set on the ground. Clean up and it’s time to pause until about mid January when I’ll have time again. At that point I’ll be fine tuning the placement and making mockups for real motor and trans mounts. so… pictures now? Sure. little look see with an empty shell to see how far off I am. Still needed to move back more. double checking radiator depths etc stuffed it in there until that bolt head on the back of the passenger head hit the firewall. These heads are off set at least an inch so there is a lot of room everywhere else. well except for a distributor cap. I’ve got that sorta figured out but for right this minute it’s not a priority so I just popped the cap off. You can see here that I need to raise the ass end of the trans up. That will get me an angle that will let a mechanical fan live right here. There’s more room than it looks like and not that different from the space I have in the 46’ fan to radiator. Still I’ll see what the new angle feels like and weigh weather or not to make the passenger side of the firewall pushed back and move the whole thing. looks like it won’t clear a hood but a quick check says it should 14” fan won’t clear the top tank. Went from won’t clear the cross memeber to won’t clear the tank lol. Might have to google “slim fit electric fans” one of the reasons I’m not just going straight to smashing the firewall is with the current engine mount design this is about as far back as it can go and not be in the steering box. I know hurst sold some mounts that place the rubber pad forward of the side mount not directly under it so if I have to move it back that will be the game plan. currently looks like the overdrive clears the floor but the top center of the trans is about an inch or so proud of the bottom of the floor board. Maybe closer to two towards the bellhousing/ firewall. All in all not bad at all. alright now it can sit and I can stare and plot the next move. Until then merry Christmas, happy new years and happy all the things. Hope you all have a good rest of the year.
You could cut down that 14" fan a bit so it will clear. I had to cut down the fan on the Belly Button for the same reason. Just cut the same amount from each blade and you'll be fine.
I think I posted a 6 blade 13” fan a while back. This chrome one is for a Chevy pump and doesn’t fit the Stude I was just using it to get a look. but I have considered cutting one down, any tips on doing that?
The way I did mine was to measure outward from the center to make sure all blades are the same length, then I used 1" masking tape to take 1" off the ends at a time. Tape the tips of the fan blades two layers of tape thick, and razor blade the excess so your tape has the exact shape of the fan blade, then pull up one layer of tape and move it inboard the width of the tape (1"). Now you just transferred the fan blade profile 1" inboard, and you can death wheel/grind/file that profile to match the original profile.
@Tim_with_a_T thanks that’s a clever trick! @Rocky for sure lol. I can hear them talking about how I made that LS look old already haha
I'm still betting that the carb pad is level when the shaft angle is right. If I wasn't so lazy I could measure one of the shed motors.
Me thinks it would make fitting a mechanical fan much easier. Unless of course you could mount it to the rad and use a series of U joints to spin it….. lol
@Six Ball what your missing is how extreme the rake on this car is. I would say it’s right in the 6-8 deg nose down ball park. Like you can see the transmission from behind the car if you were sitting behind it in a late model at a red light. So with the carb pad level with the car sitting on its wheels the radiator and carb pad/ fan face angles are like 12 deg apart. it’s a lot. I’ll figure it out. @dumprat lol That’s one way to do it. If I ever get really desperate I’ll call @BigJoeArt that guy builds cars the size of shoe boxes
OK, I was not thinking of the fan I was thinking of drive shaft/U-joint angle. May have the have a radiator that is 4 core at the top and 2 at the bottom.
It’s not that noticeable in person until you get the read 3/4 shot. Check out the running board angle here
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