Projects Mild custom '51 Pontiac Chieftain

Hi, Just joined and found this on your "51 Pontiac Chieftain . I have a 1952 Chieftain with so naturally I started reading and read your post on cleaning up the reflectors on your lights. You might try Behr Ultra Pure White and read the post " https://slantsix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=527657&hilit=Sherwin+Williams#p527657 ". Hope this helps.

 

Thank you!

 

I pulled the radio out again because it wasn't playing well- noticable on sibilants and high frequency where the sound goes all "crashy". A sign the high voltage is too low, caused by one half of the input to the transformer not working because the breaker points in the ******** are failing.

Cleaned up some connections and gave the ******** a bit of percussive maintenance and it started working properly.

254 volts. That's better. A little high because the input wasn't bang on 12 volts.

Manual says at that point 245 volts. Dialed the supply to 12.0 and tested again, got 248 and 203 so that's fine.

Being as I had it all apart, the tone dial is supposed to be painted, but years of being dialed meant the paint was half worn off.

Painted it black again, then once it had flashed dry took a folded paper towel dampened with isopropanol and wiped the paint from the raised sections of text.

Cleaned the rest of the chrome up at the same time. It'll never look great but it sure looks better.

Wrangling it back into the car is always a fun task because it's so large. Still, it went back in and worked properly for the afternoon then went back to what it was doing, despite having run for about 5 hours on the bench without trouble.
Ordered a new ********, that'll be in sometime before January, hopefully.

In the interim it's starting to look like fall, which is really odd for here. Usually all the trees skip turning brown and just drop all their leaves and needles while still green in the space of about a week. Enjoying this while it lasts.

Phil

 

I love your thread. I am always learning something new. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

Out and about, making people smile.

Foggy this morning! A lot of people without lights on, too.

Merry Christmas!

 

Radio is on the bench again.

Replaced the points. Got good B+ now. Tested the rest of the circuit because it doesn't sound great. Got 3 bad tubes. Ordered some more, that should get us playing music again properly.

Also sat and mused about altering the tone circuit, as the factory design doesn't really do a whole lot. I'd like to be able to kill off the b*** because a lot of music these days has too much and floods the speaker. Shall see once the replacement parts show up.

Phil

 

It's always the simple things. A bad 12SQ7. Nobody looks remotely surprised.

Radio is now back in the car and working better than ever.

 

Dern clock ran for a week until I got in and set it. Then it didn't want to go any more.

Pulled it out, stuck it on the bench and powered it up and it went ahead and started itself and sat there running. Frustrating nonsense.

Adjusted the points spring damper and the points timing. That's about as good as it's gonna get.

Set it and plugged it back into the car. Shall see if that continues to run over the next few days. Clockwork is so much fun. Electric clockwork even more so.

Phil

 

Is there ANYTHING you can't fix?

 

Plenty of things. Clockwork just requires patience and a magnifying gl***.

 

Sometimes even less. When the clock in my '51 Ford quit running several years ago, all it took was trip to the clock repairman. After sitting there for a couple of days, he finally got to it and could find nothing wrong with it. So I picked it up and reinstalled it and it hasn't missed a beat since.

He did charge me $35.00 for "storage", though.

 

Welded a new exhaust rear section up and fitted it.

The previous one looked ok but the air seems to roll in a circle caught by the bumper, and then up over the trunk. With the front windows open I would sometimes get the smell of exhaust in the car.
This one ain't so pretty but it is functional and now no more exhaust in the car for sure, tested. Guess that stays.

Phil

 

Looks like you may have problems with it rubbing going into driveways as it sticks out so far and seems too low. Unless it is just the camera angle. Sure looks like a fun driver.

 

The whole car catches on bumps and rises. Lowered car life!

 

The starter motor gave out a couple months back. Haven't been driving the car at all.

Finally found a replacement from Snap Rebuilders in Utah. It's a modern gear reduction starter, natively 12V (the reason the original starter burned up is that it was 6V). It has a machined adapter to fit this engine.

I need to tidy up the wiring, it's just loomed with white fabric tape right now because I had to change the wiring to fit.

Sounds weird but reliably starts the engine now, so that's good.

Phil

 

What a cool car , thread and car guy!!

 

how funny-i've always had good luck running 6 v delcos on 12--good to see you surface again BTW

 

For some reason it would just burn up the brushes (and then the additional heat damaged the armature wires). When it worked, it worked well, but it wouldn't work for long periods of time without filling up with sooty dust and slowing to a grind that made a lot of sparks and heat.

Phil

 

That is weird, I have been running a CJ3A Jeep on 12 volts for 35 years on the same 6 volt starter with no problems.

 

we are luckier than phil--BUT he has the cool injun!

 

I need to pull the engine at some point, for sure. It might get a bit of snake oil in the interim but the front and rear mains are leaking real bad, mostly from sitting up it seems.

A little undercarriage rust protection is fine but I'm starting to rust protect the highway...

 

Have you tried to find another Pontiac straight-eight to rebuild? It would give you time to keep it on the road before you dive in, and you could take your time with it's rebuild-because honestly you may encounter some minor challenges along the way., can't say-never worked on one.

 

I have also heard relly good comments with the use of Right Stuff for front and rear main seals. So it may be worth the money and effort to drop the pan only and change out the seals and pan gaskets and use this sealer. Just a thought, you might check into it before a full engine rebuild.

 

I’m not usually a “fix-in-a-can” guy but I tried Blue Devil main seal stop leak on my Stude pickup and after two applications, it worked. My Stude has a ‘59 Pontiac 389 and had been sitting dormant in the back of a warehouse for over 50 years. I got it running but it leaked from the rear main seal, not a little drip, a bunch. I had planned on pulling the engine eventually but I thought I’d try the band-aid first. After the first bottle of Blue Devil, it improved quite a bit. I changed the oil and filter and added a second bottle and it improved even more. It leaks a little, but I expect old cars to leak a little. It wasn’t the pan gaskets because the bottom of the pan had rusted through in a couple places so I had to replace it and sealed it up well. I have a rebuilt engine and trans ready to go in but the old one just continues to run well so I keep putting it off. Worth a try.

 

You know, every time you post about repairing your radio it takes me back to when I was about 10-12 years old. My Dad was a Mechanical Engineer but he loved electronics and he would repair old radios and TVs on our kitchen table. He had minimal equipment but he, like you, would methodically troubleshoot and usually find the problem. I followed along and he explained what he was doing as he went. We would take the tubes to the local Thrifty Drug store and test them on the tester in the far corner of the store. Popular tubes were stored in the cabinet beneath the tube checker. Boy, imagine that nowadays. We also built HeathKits together, the last one was a 6 band AM FM Shortwave radio that we had to take to our neighbor for final tuning. Unfortunately, that was the extent of my interest in electronics, I leaned more toward the mechanical. These days I can do the wiring required for my cars but I rarely get inside of the components. I sure do enjoy watching you do it though.

 

Good to see you back at it, Phil. I've got a complete rewire needed in my wife's '48 Streamliner, and am leaning toward keeping things looking correct-ish. Have you checked out Ton's Performance? They've got neat products. Cloth wiring with all the various colors/tracers, asphalt loom, spark plug kits of any color, cloth or silicone, etc. I just used one of their kits on a Nova and it came out really nice. We even got one of their ceramic spark plug boots for a problematic cylinder with inadequate header clearance.
https://tonsperformance.com/

 

Had the mica ever been trimmed down in the commutator? I've seen a spec somewhere for how far below the contact surface it was supposed to be. The manual even advised using a jigsaw blad to carve them down by hand. I've had one high-mileage Delco starter that was toasting the brushes and commutator, and it had tall mica--basically flush with the contacts.

 

Some good avenues there to follow. I might drop some of either of the stop-leaks in as I have a few miles to cover before I can lift the engine.
I didn't have anywhere to put another Pontiac engine right now, otherwise a rebuild of a spare would be a possibility - however this one is the original to the car so it ultimately would need to be the one to be rebuilt. It does have a noisy big end and the valve guides have seen better centuries..
I enjoy the electronics in radios, it's a fun thing to fix, particularly as you can enjoy the results afterwards. Methodical is the way to do it!
I had seen Ton's, yes. They've got some real nice stuff, far too nice for this car. Especially under the hood. This car gets filthy dirty from being driven. If I had a car that was brought out special and kept real nice, I would absolutely doll it up! This, well.. This is practical. Especially now as I can get in and punch the ****on and it starts right up.
Now the old starter is out I can put it on the bench and take some time over it. There's a very very good chance the commutator is well out of spec, and that matches the behavior. I can definitely check.

Thank y'all for the excellent feedback!


I've pulled the looming tape off, that means now I can redo the wires that are too short. Bought some new tape so that'll go back together and look nice again.

Phil

 

Had a little time this afternoon so made a start on redoing the wiring. Put in a new wire for the alternator battery voltage sense.

Made up a new solenoid wire. I'll get that finished up later on.

Phil

 

Finished the wiring up.

Looks nice and tidy. I'll buy that. Alternator voltage sense wire must've had a poor connection because now it's holding a steady 14.0 volts. Before it would wander between 14 and 15.

Bought some Blue Devil and dumped that into the oil pan; went for a run to get dinner. Shall see how well it works.

Phil