Technical Stude Pickup Warehouse Find

Looking good Bob, the valve covers came out great.

 

As you can see from looking at the linkage arms and the fuel inlets, these aren’t real TriPower end carbs. I know it’s blasphemy and “it can’t work” but I ordered repro end carburetor baseplates and tops and I’ve got 6 or 7 big bore Rochesters to play with to piece together a working 3x2 setup for this engine.
It is a hot rod truck after all. The center carburetor (the one that sees most of the action) is the real deal.

 

That’s what I’ve done for all my SBC 3x2 setups. Works fine. The new bases have the little arms and stuff that will make the linkage easier. Besides, I had my Bakersfield money burning a hole in my pocket. Lol
I’m surprised at how nice the old M/T valve covers shined up. That’s just my ancient bottle of metal polish and a bunch of rubbing. I was too lazy to dig out the buffer. It serves as a rack for a zillion rolled up extension cords.

 

Those valve covers are tasty!

 

I bought them at the Long Beach swap meet in probably the early ‘90s. I think I paid like $100 for them back then. I had never seen ones like that before, the early angled profile like the old Thompson ones but they had the M/T in the center like the cl***ic later model ones. The guy sold them because they wouldn’t clear his roller rockers. I guess Pontiac made some subtle changes to the valve cover surfaces over the years because they didn’t fit my later model 400 either. Turns out they fit ‘62 and earlier just fine (but still no roller rockers).

 

A little progress. I cleared enough room to hoist the 389 off of the engine stand and onto my cheapie Chevy engine dolly. While it was hanging I installed the freeze plugs and stuff in the bellhousing area.


Then I fit checked the early Pontiac to Chevy transmission adapter. It’s from Wilcap. Nice stuff. I did need to rub on the two top holes a little but the dowel pins and everything else fit perfectly.

The adapter gives me the four Chevy bellhousing bolt holes needed to use the Chevy stand. These stands are available locally for $45-$50, I can’t build one for that.


I cut off the Chevy side-mount brackets and added a short piece of Telestrut or whatever they call it. Then I made a set of adapters to fit the Pontiac side mounts. So now it’ll take either the Pontiac or a Chevy just by swapping the front brackets.

 

The scalloping on the side brackets above isn’t my artistic side showing, it’s to clear projections on the side of the block as you install and remove the brackets with the engine bolted in the back. Lol.
I ordered a case of Comp Cams break-in oil from Jegs because it wasn’t available locally. Well, two weeks later and the order status still reads “in process” so I called. Yeah, no word on when it will be available. Cancel….
It sounds like folks are having good luck with Lucas and I can order it at our local Oreilly. So I’ll do that tomorrow.
I’m going to put the Pontiac on hold for a little bit and do some stuff to my ‘33 pickup. (I’m waiting on TriPower parts anyway) I need to take it down to the frame and see if the frame is worth salvaging. Previous owners cut out the X, welded in some 2x6 crossmembers and scabbed on some random boxing plates. Sad.
I know of a bone stock frame available locally but I need to do an ***essment of mine before running out and buying another one.

 

What’s the story on woodie wagon behind engine? Full picture please.

 

That’s our ‘57 Morris Minor woody. It’s got a Morrison front end, a 215 Buick/TH350 and a narrowed S10 rear end. It runs and drives, it’s just apart for paint. I found a few little places that needed a little more body work, and then weather and health problems bumped me off of it for a while so I decided to work on something else while I waited for better weather. I diverted to the Pontiac engine for the Stude.
Sometimes, the near term goal is to get a bunch of parts that are ****tered around the shop (Pontiac engine parts) back into one big lump so I don’t start losing track of things. Lol

 

I like, nice. Buick 225 all aluminum as I remember. Problem years ago anti-freeze & aluminum not get along. Trust freeze plugs all good & modern anti-freeze. Something looks odd where roof meets windshield? Sorry steal your thread

 

Bob, where do you get your Pontiac oil pans from? I need one for my 60 Bonneville tri-power 389.

 

Yep, all aluminum and as far as I can tell there’s no corrosion issues with this one. I didn’t build it. They are cute, but with only 215 inches they have little torque, kinda doggy. If it so much as sneezes I’ll replace it with an aluminum headed SBC and a 5 spd.

I can’t remember exactly but either Summit or eBay. I only go to the Pontiac places like Butler for critical stuff. Fortunately, I don’t think Pontiac changed their oil pans as much as Chevy and Buick did.

 

In regards to the windshield/roof; it’s all stock Morris. I think what you’re seeing is an effect caused by the colors. I painted the cowl and around the windshield (dark green metallic) so I could put the windshield in and drive it a little. My wife didn’t like the color, so I have since stripped it and the entire cowl and roof is in black epoxy primer right now.
The Morris was supposed to replace our ‘62 Corvair Monza as her hot rod but we just can’t let go of the Corvair.

 

I stumbled onto this thread earlier this evening. Read the whole thing, it is the best reading on here!! That is a great pickup, glad that you are keeping it true to history.

 

Thanks and thanks for reading all that! This is such a great place to see what hot rod folks are doing around the world. I was fortunate enough to get an old shop truck with some history that I could put back in service. New posts will be slow coming from here because it’s running great and pretty reliable now. I’ll get the new engine running but it won’t be installed right away.

 

The Olds engine is look great .. The M/T valve covers nice ! love this thread