Technical Stude Pickup Warehouse Find

Tucking the front bumper in a bit made a big difference to the appearance of the truck. It's well worth the little bit of work to takes to do it! I trimmed a bit off the bumper to get it closer with better results than these lousy pics show.

 

I like what you did.
I’m going to do the same bumper treatment that I used on my previous Stude. It was easy and looked pretty good. I don’t have a bumper of any kind so I’ll have to start looking again.

 

I got the fenders and the bottom of the grille repaired today. Next will be adding the new frame horns. It’s not perfect, there’s a lot of little hammer and dolly work to do on the grille but for now it’s roughed in ok. It was fun figuring out how to make the little patch parts. Not as much fun welding them up - the wind came up, of course.

 

Looks so much better.
I just scored a cheap, nice, '56 Chevy truck front bumper for mine that will replace the og. unit. Sometimes I wish I had the ability to leave stuff alone...

 

I think that’s what I put on the yellow Stude. A neighbor was moving and gave me all the junk he took off of his ‘56 Chevy pickup as he customized it. A bumper was in the pile. I****umed it came from his Chevy truck but maybe not. As I remember, I turned it upside down and pie cut the center just a bit. I intended to make a valance but never got around to it.
It was a fun truck. 454 big block, big Isky solid lifter cam, 3000 stall converter, 8 3/4 with a 3.91 posi. It was supposed to be my “driver’s training truck” as I built my AA/GS Willys pickup nostalgia gasser.

 

Yeah, that's the idea I had. It does look good on the yellow truck and I like that it extends outward to better protect the fenders.

 

I decided not to do the new frame horns until I have a bumper of some kind. So I put on some etching primer, then some build primer. I kinda like primer spots on old cars.
But looking through my paint cabinet, I found a rattle can of Indigo blue metallic paint left over from my color experiments on my roadster. So I went ahead and sprayed the area then left it to dry. Today I looked at it in the morning sun and it looked silly, too shiny and too much metallic. So I knocked the gloss off with a fine Scotchbrite pad and it worked, good enough for who it’s for….

I’ll probably clean the frame and shoot some chassis black on it so it disappears..

 

Uh, yes you do have a bumper

 

Oh yeah. I met Budget36’s daughter at the local Dollar General shortly after the above post and picked up the bumper he had lying around. It looks like it’s in great shape. I’ll fit check it next time I put the Stude on the hoist. Thanks Mike!!

 

I also finally got the new 389 mostly together and painted. I like the Olds blue.
I just got home from vacation and the parts I ordered have all arrived so I can (hopefully) finish the****embly and move it to the cart/run-in stand.
I need to rework the carbs to make them into another TriPower and I have a few more little items to gather up before I can start it.
It’s mocked up in the photos.

I painted the oil pan with a medium gray metallic because I didn’t want to waste the expensive Olds paint on it but I still wanted it to look good. When I swap the engines, I’ll have to swap the oil pans. The pan on the truck is modified to clear the steering in the Stude.

 

About them Austins. They ended up with Rich in our Car Club Gasser Gang of WNY. Also there was some pictures and a small read about them in The Rodder's Journal. Thanx, They're Cool!

 

I felt like it was going to a good home. I hope he takes it to the next level, it’s a good solid car to build on and he seems like the kind of guy who will take it out and use it. I miss it, but it’s in the right hands.

 

I built this new 389 using a kit from Northern Auto. I upgraded the cam to the Comp Cams XE. They don’t specify the lifters or the exact timing chain and I didn’t question it. The timing chain was a name brand but not a roller chain and the lifters were from Melling. The chain was loose so I got a roller chain from Butler and it fit perfectly.
So I checked the lifters for finish and crown and they seemed fine but that voice in my head said, “get the premium ones with the EDM hole for extra oil” The voices from my wallet said, “they’ve sold thousands of their kits, if they chose Melling lifters it’s because they have fewer complaints”. Ok. So I mulled it over in the vast expanses of my head and decided to order Crower Cam Saver lifters.
I ordered them Friday night before going to dinner and they arrived just after noon Saturday. Good old Summit, amazing. I took one out and….. there’s no EDM hole. ?? I went online to see wtf, and didn’t find anything beyond great reviews. Also verbiage called them cam saver flat lifters. ?? So I dug out my straight edge and checked - they’re crowned nicely. Ok. I dug out my Crower paper catalog and found just a sentence or two describing a .0025” notch running the length of the body. Yep, they’ve got the notch. (A little hard to photograph)

I’ve always had good experiences with Crower stuff and they are known for innovation so I’m gonna run em.
They give good instructions for setting the preload so I set up for a fit check to verify the preload and geometry with the new Butler pushrods. Yeah, that’s right, no roller rockers just high performance long-slot stock style rockers.

Up pops the age old question: to soak the lifters in oil or not. My research seems to be about 60-40 against. I can’t see how it could hurt and I’ve always soaked em. I hate that clatter from the ones that are lazy filling up.
I’ll get some break-in oil and soak em. I’m not in a big rush or anything…

 

Exactly. Most said it was a waste of time, that they would fill up when you pre-lube the engine with the drill through the distributor hole. I’m mostly a creature of habit so I’ll do it my way.
I got my fuel pump and distributor parts today. Sneaking up on it.

 

Can’t wait to hear that monster roar!

 

SOAK 'EM!!

 

UPS dropped off my new distributor from RockAuto this afternoon. I also got a cap and rotor, Wells brand (never heard of them) but they have brass contacts and are black.
See anything missing here?

 

I've always submerged my lifters in a can and pumped them with a pushrod.

 

I read the thread about the big parts company folding up and under investigation. Several folks said Cardone was part of that and that their quality had been going down over the last few years. Well, it’s a Cardone distributor and it looks like their quality control group was taking a break when this one went by. No big deal, the advance weights were just installed upside down. Everything else is nice, gear looks good, no slop in the shaft. Pertronix apparently doesn’t make a “Stock Look” distributor for Pontiacs, at least I couldn’t find one. I used their Chevrolet version in my ‘56 Chevy and was real happy with it. So I had to go about it this way. It cost a little more but, whatever…..
I’ll paint it black and after the initial break in I’ll install a Pertronix unit and the required coil.

 

Me too.
While trying to do my rocker arm geometry check I grabbed one of the lifters and did just that, but it didn’t seem to fill up. No bubbles and still has full motion. I had to stop and do some other stuff but I’ll try again tomorrow morning and see if it will take oil like it’s supposed to. I might end up taking them all apart to check for contamination. Ugh.

 

Good catch!

 

I did a quick check of the rocker arm geometry since everything from the cam to the valves has been machined or replaced. The stars aligned and the sweep pattern falls almost perfectly centered on the tip of the valve. (Thanks Willy. He did all the machine work ) Nowhere near coil bind with the new springs and no retainer interference. I really didn’t expect any problems in those areas since it’s a small cam but ya gotta check.

Now I can finish*****oning up the top end and start on the carburetors.
I had planned to be in Bakersfield this weekend for the CHRR but I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather for the last few days and it just refuses to go away. I was hoping to comb the swap meet for some cool old aluminum valve covers….. dang.

 

My dad had a Stude PU of this era. He bought it from Atlantic Richfield (now ARCO). It had been the painters truck so it wasn't all banged up. It was yellow with blue fenders and they gave my dad a gallon of yellow and a gallon of blue in case he wanted to paint it completely in either color. He tasked me with scraping the 1/2 thick paint drips and spills out of the bottom of the bed. We ended up taking it off and standing it on end. After about the 3rd propane canister he made me use the old gasoline blowtorch. I really should be dead from all those fumes by now but I guess the SoCal smog has made me immune......

 

Yeah, the things we did when we were young, and survived. My first Stude truck was yellow. It was built and painted by a guy who worked for LA County. He used paint from his job, he called it Safety Yellow. It was a decent paint job but I hated the color.
And yeah, the LA smog was terrible back in the 60s. Made your lungs hurt some days, they told us to stay inside.

 

Man, one step forward and derailed again. With the lifters soaked and the rocker geometry checked, I installed the lifters and pushrods, then the rockers and balls. I washed everything carefully, gave everything a light coat of oil and put Isky RevLube on the critical surfaces. I had F1 qualifying on while I did these tedious tasks and didn’t realize that the rocker nuts that I so carefully cleaned are 3/8”. My studs are 7/16”. The new balls are 7/16” and the rockers are correct for Pontiac, so I guess they****ume that you have the factory bottle neck studs. Mine are full 7/16” like a BBC. So I guess I’ll order nuts and wait….. Frustrating.

 

Man, if it ain't one thing, it's 3 others... but perseverance furthers!

 

I shoulda looked into the nut bag when I got the Comp Cams rockers. I checked the balls and they were 7/16” so I****umed….

 

I got the valve train installed and adjusted per the instructions from Crower that came with the lifters. Now I need to get the engine off of the engine stand and onto the modified SBC dolly so I can install the flywheel and starter.
I’m waiting on a case of Comp cams break in oil from Jegs, then I can prime the oil system and*****on everything up.
I ordered a bunch of TriPower parts to freshen up the 3x2 setup but I do have a nice EP4B Edelbrock single 4bbl manifold and an****ortment of carburetors that I am thinking of installing temporarily for break-in.

 

I got a nasty cold the week before the CHRR and didn’t feel up to driving four hours to Bakersfield and sleeping in my car. It’s a shame because I had stashed some cash so I could splurge on some parts at the swap meet. I was hoping to find some cool old valve covers for the Pontiac and who knows what else. Oh well.
It wasn’t as much fun but I turned to my existing stash and got out some early M/T valve covers that I already had. They’re not the familiar ‘70s ones, I think they are the second generation after the ones that said “Thompson”. Maybe early ‘60s?
They looked much better after applying some good old fashioned elbow grease.

I got the oil filter adapter cleaned and painted too. I wasted a half a day getting a bunch of grease and four coats of paint off of that thing. Oh well…. It almost got up close and personal with my polisher but I don’t think it will fit when the engine goes into the Stude so out came the Duplicolor engine enamel.