Hot Rods 308 Hudson 6 for Early RODS ???

This thread has given me reason to dig into the files and find the old 8x10s of a Hornet sedan I restored in the '70s. My bro-in-law pulled this car out in front of a '66 Mercury doing 65mph outside Ft. Wayne, IN, and it got Tee-boned two days after these photos. This was the first place my 7X and Twin-H manifold set-up was installed. I saved the wheels and manifolding and it went on other cars.

 

I'm really not sure which it is, I suppose it could be either, my guess was just that maybe somewhere when this was just someone's transportation the threads for the plug hole got stripped out and this was the cure. Car hasn't really been touched since 1963. I got as far as finding no spark from the coil and haven't had a chance to work on it since.

 

OutThere, thta was an AWESOME '53. Even NOW, I am sorry to hear that a great car like THAT got T-boned!!!

 

RustyNewYorker, I actually used 8 of the non-foulers in a '75 Dodge van where I was changing plugs every 3,000 due to oil issues (you know).

A friend said they would retard timing, but the damned thing ran just as well, and plugs didn't get blacked out anymore. My point:

If that alum.-head Hudson was somebody's work car (like my '75 Dodge), the adpapter (or non-fouler) may not have done badly at all. So, how can somebody TELL if it was just an adapter or a non-fouler (moreover, would it make any diff. in performance -- 'cept for HI-perf)?

My non-foulers were steel and actually had a pretty narrow HOLE at the bottom 'bout half the width of a #2 pencil, pretty narrow!). Amazingly to ME, the SPARK still ignited the fuel-air mix fine!

Now, on the other hand, if that is just an ADAPTER, I'm guessing it was only to compensate for the stripped thread in the alum. head. And -- again I guess here -- the HOLE where the electrode is exposed would NOT (NOT) be narrow, as on the non-fouler apparatus.

Hell, I don't know if I helped any at all, or at least MAYBE an idea about two alternative possibilities. I sure wouldn't toss the head for junk. Seems to me somebody could Heli-arch that stripped area & it could be tapped back out to stock after any burrs, etc., were taken care of.

Best o' luck, buddy.

 

A FABULOUS HUDSON HORNET thread that will be a reference for H.A.M.B.ers for years to come.

Hope to welcome future comments to it whenever someone visits and has a question or wants to show their Hudson innovation.

Until then, production at the Hudson factory seems to have stopped, the lights are flickering and the old smoke stack is coming down.

 

I've been re-energised by this thread. I dragged out the old Flow Quick to see if it would still calibrate, hunted up the Hudson cylinder fixtures, and actually may get back to testing these old behemoths once I get caught up.

I was set up to flow test these engines with some real numbers - when the economics turned south - I just dropped the whole shebang. The engine we're running is just a sound rebuild using the best parts we had on hand. The best we could do at the time; bored with new pistons, crank turned with new bearings, and valvetrain reworked with new valves and guides.

My greater ambitions have arisen again. So, a huge thanks to all who've posted here so far.

Hud

 

GROUP HUG! ( uh . . . NA-A-A-H-HH !!! LOL)

Seriously, there is something SPECIAL about these orphaned INDEPENDENTS! You really have to RESPECT Hudson engineers for pulling a rabbit (albeit, a finicky one!) out of a hat & setting the stock-car world on its ear. BUT!!! I was pleased to find out that EARLIER Hudsons weren't just for getting from one place to another.

SOUNDS like a Hudson 8 could have given the Graham "Blue Streak" or the Pierce or Packard 12 a pretty good run -- WHILE dusting 'bout EVERYTHING ELSE!

 

StillOutThere, I feel sad seeing the Hudson smokestack that went up about 1909 going down in pieces (I assume that was in the later '50s?).

Sort of like seeing the old (HUGE!) Packard plant all boarded up & with weeds growing everywhere.

ANYWAY, it is GREAT to see so many people EXCITED about Hudsons. GONE, FORGOTTEN? I'd say NEITHER!!! LOL

s'been a cool thread. I learned stuff I NEVER even dreamed of!

 

Seeing that stack come down is sad but great picture. I have never seen it before. I still think a hudson motor in a rod could be pulled off to look cool and go fast. Its size and weight would be my only to concerns. My hands are full with the hudson I am building so someone else needs to do this say in a 33 hudson coupe?
Dave Hitch

 

Prior to '34 the big Hudsons were all built using the old engineering principles which is to say they had very massive deep drawn frames, very heavy steering boxes, differentials, transmissions, some wood in their bodies. The '32 and up Terraplanes and '34 and up Hudsons were "modern" cars of all steel bodies with newer engineering principles and would be much more practical rod material and are usually what you see used as a basis for rodding.

Which is not to say that a beautiful '32 or 33 or earlier Hudson could not be used however the great rarity of those cars is going to draw the ire of the restoration community and there are some custom bodied cars that are best left stock because they qualify as genuine big "C" Classic cars worth big bucks. But if you were to find a damaged or rusted out production coupe or sedan and wanted to put it on a new or home built street rod frame and install a Hornet motor, the restorers would have little to quibble over.

The primary high dollar true Classic Hudsons are the 1929 cars with custom coachwork by Biddle and Smart (limos and phaetons) and 1931 Sport Roadsters (boattails!) with body by Murray.

 

Pretty beat up $1000 on "that site" No restorer is going want this thing!


Bang the metal straight build a chassis invest 15K and it could be bad ass!
Dave Hitch

 

Still Out There, you know yer Hudson stuff (along with a couple of toher guys here!) !!

Lotta FUN, VERY informative.

 

I'd read that the Terraplane (though it replaced the Essex) WAS certainly sturdier made, but I did NOT know that the PARENT Hudson brand took the same route, same time.

Hence, Hudsons & Terraplanes were well-reinforced, all-steel bodies & frames, even a year or two before Walter P. committed BOTH Chrysler & DeSoto to the tank-like AirFlow.

 

The AirFlow, BTW, was venerated (and vindicated) because people REALIZED the AirFlows were safer cars -- LTHOUH the general public didn't wanna BUY them.

They were FURTHER vindicated when Edsel Ford took cues & made his new Lincoln Zephyr all-steel & following AirFlow hints (THOUGH, Edsel's engineerins rightly TOLD him the AirFlows had been TWICE as strong as anything they'd ever run up against in REAL life. (Just as an example: Walter had a cinematographer FILM an AirFlow running off a VERY high cliff, tumbling over & over, landing upside-down. Then a crew -- on camera-- runs the car back on its feet, the official driver gets back in & drives away.

Point? The AirFlow may have FLOPPED, but SAFETY was going to be a selling point in future cars!!!

 

I SHOULD also have underscored the POINT that Hudson/Terraplane's efforts toward making cars sturdiervery probably had a leveraging effect on what happened with the all-new Zephyr and later cars.

(Wood played a steadily LESSER role in contsruction, for ONE thing!)

 

This would appear to be a '33 Terraplane by the skirted fenders (32 were still open like '32 most cars) and it is not a '34 because that is a new body style. If those front fenders belong to this car then it is not a Hudson because the Hudson fenders would be longer for a longer wheelbase. The '33 Terraplane Six and Terraplane Eight were on the same 113" wheelbase so it could have been either engine originally in this car. The hood would have been louvered on the Six and would have had four doors each side on the Eight. They only made 5window coupes. There was no 3window. This is a PRIME body for street rodding. BUY IT.

In '32-33 the company's slogan for these cars was "In the air its aeroplaning, on the sea that's aquaplaning, but on the land, HOT DIGGITY DOG, that's TERRAPLANING!" Terra of course is Latin for earth - like "terra firma".

 

I hear what your sayin but it would look bad ass fenderless no hoods ect I am over the restored crap!
Dave Hitch

 

While there was some wood in the half-year model '32 Essex body and a quite heavy antique style frame and mechanicals, the '32 Essex-Terraplane which was new for the second half of the year had the advantage of the all steel body and thus had a much lighter steel frame and much lighter weight mechanicals. Therein was its reputation as a "land flyer" Terraplane or a lil' hot rod if you will.

 

You bet Dave, but at some point without fenders I hope it stays with a Hornet motor or a Hudson or Terraplane grille for some identification because if it is just the body shell channeled over a new frame with a fiberglass '32 Ford grille or whatever, everyone walking past it is going to think it is just another Ford or Chev or Plymouth when in actuality it is a really unique piece; it is a Terraplane. If you and they study the sheet metal stamping on this car they will find that Hudson went to more trouble with their dies and the stampings are more crisp than any of those other manufacturers.

 

Oooooooh,,that's my kinda junk right there. I respect the survivors, but that particular Terraplane has Hornet Hot Rod written all over it.

Hud

 

KNOW whic one you MEAN, Hudsonator. 30 years ago, guys would say, it's TOO far gone. BS. NOW, it's PRIME pickings for a rod!

 

BTW: THIS seems to be the thread that won't quit. Sorta like the Energizer Bunny. I frankly hope it NEVER quits.

I've ENJOYED hearing from guys who love Hudsons (& Ess./Terraplanes) ANDaren't afraird to SHOW their excitement!

WHAT GREAT CARS THESE WERE! (even though reg. production ocmes to and END -- witness Oakland/Pontiac).

 

Just putting the grille shell pic together with the yellow coupe body pic in hopes somebody gets excited enough to bring that coupe home and get it out of that intersection! The shells were the same '32 and '33 Terraplane and they show up often on evil eBay so this should not be difficult to find..... Who is going to put some meat on the bones of this thread and build a 308-T-Plane?

 

308 Terraplane! COOL! But doesn't that roofline need to come down 3 inches er so?

 

Jimi, if you are putting up YOUR $1000 then YOU get to decide the roof height.

 

Got the Hudson! Don't got the twin h.....anyone wanna donate one or trade for a sbc?....nah i didn't think so.

 

AirFlow running off a VERY high cliff, tumbling over & over, landing upside-down. Then a crew -- on camera-- runs the car back on its feet, the official driver gets back in & drives away.

In those days, injury from the roof collapsing in on the occupants was seen as the most important factor in safety.
They were, as we now know, completely wrong.
If the driver were in that car, he's be killed instantly when the car hit the bottom since impact between the victim and the car interior causes almost all fatal injuries, and making the car "stronger" increases the speed of the impact quite a bit. If the car does not significanty deform, its impact speed is 100% of its prior speed, and the driver's face hits the steering wheel, dashboard, etc. at 100% of prior speed - and dies.
A car that is severely damaged in an impact (without intrusion into the occupant's actual space) is much safer, as seen in the late 1960s development of "crumple zones" which collapse to slow up the impact to the occupants.

 

An Airflow is a Chrysler or DeSoto of the '34-38 era. None of the Hudsons or Terraplanes from '32 up paid any particular attention to roof reinforcement. The '48-54 Hudsons are unitized bodies - Hudson called it "Monobilt" - but the roof is one big turret steel stamping with no reinforcement whatsoever - just the framework around the edges at the rain gutter or front/rear glass. Those late stepdowns will "oil can" just like, well, an oil can.

 

I don't have a spare motor but I do have a twin H intake and carbs I would let go to ya Pm me if you are intersted.
Dave Hitch

 

PANIC: You are absoluetly RIGHT, bubba. THIS is a lesson just re-thought & re-learned in NASCAR (after the tragic losses of Kenny Irwin, the youngest Petty and, of course, Dale, Sr.).

You made a GOOD point. And, as you say, the engineers BACK THEN in the mid-'30s actually thought making a car stiffer EQUALED passenger/driver SAFETY.

SO damn many design aspect have changed on cars since then.