Congrats! Raced a '54 back in the day and always wanted to do one for the street - just lowered a bit and with "Twin H" ! Enjoy the hell out of it! Regards, Dave.
Find an old hacksaw blade and you see the depressions on the armature between the copper sections (not the big ones on the body but the small ones on the section where the brushes rub) break the blade off so you have a square end wrap the last part in tape and use it to remove the worn brass and crud from the depressions. Do it by inserting the blade into that space and carefully without nicking the tops of the copper section saw back and forth making that depression a tad deeper the object being to remove any copper that may be making contact between any two sections. Old timers like me that were mechanics and reconditioned generators used to have a tool that you mounted on your lathe with a blade and chucked up the armature but all it did was make the job easier. The material between the sections at the bottom of those depressions is mica (soft stone) and cuts fairly easy so it may only take a few swipes with the blade to remove any crud. When you are working you should be able to look into those depression and see cleaner looking almost white/grey in place of the dirt and crud that used to be in there. DO NOT get carried away and go way deep, the depth of the cuts should only be like 1/16" deep The main thing is that no displaced copper crud is connecting two of the sections right next to each other. Then when you are done wrap that area of copper sections in sandpaper and round and round until the copper is shiny and looks like new. This MAY clear up part of your no charging problems.
If my 69 year old memory is correct, a Jet was a NHRA record holder in the early 60"s. Could be wrong .
After searching the net, I found this record holder that use to be in Don Garlits Museum. Very Cool little car!
Nope, she is a super jet: Messed up, 1C is 53 Jet, 2C is 53 Superjet, 1D is 54 Jet, 2D is 54 Super jet, 3D is 54 Jet liner
When using a piece of hacksaw blade to clean out between the commutator bars try grinding the sides of the teeth a little first,it makes the process much easier.Wouldnt it be cool if you could find a 308" Hornet engine for that car!?
Yeah you need to grind the hacksaw blade flat so it goes between the armature segments. What you are doing is cleaning out crud and undercutting the mica insulation. The insulation must be a bit below the copper. Wrap the end of the blade with tape to make a handle.
The engine for the Jet series is a 202 flathead six. It was derived from cutting two cylinders off the block of the Hudson 8. I don't recall the Pacemakers having a flathead 8. The 202 inch six continued to be used in 55 in the new WASP, but that was the end of that engine. Good little engine.
Looking at the pics, I noticed CLIFFORD PRODUCTS. I purchased a lot of the internal parts for my Superjet engine from them. Jack was pretty knowledgeable back in early '90s.
I'm not sure I see the similarity with my taxi, but the first thing that came to mind when I saw that Hudson Jet sedan WAS another Austin, the A50 Cambridge:
That things pretty sweet! I'll try that out because with the new brushes it's only putting out 6 volts which i can live with but I'll try this out and see if it improves!
Took her for a spin this evening and I noticed that coming down a hill the gear doesn't put a drag on the motor controlling the speed, my overdrive isn't hooked up. Is there any correlation between the two? Does the overdrive need power to it to be engaged?
Overdrive cars will freewheel when the overdrive is engaged. It can be locked out for traffic driving and driving in hilly country.
This is true, but it's not the whole story. The part of the overdrive that allows the engine to "freewheel" is entirely mechanical. It's is operated by a lever on the side of the overdrive unit that lives behind the main part of the transmission. That lever is normally connected to a cable that is operated by a handle under your dash. If you want to shut off the overdrive for mountain driving, you pull the handle out. Push it in for normal operation of the overdrive. The electrical part of the overdrive system is all designed to operate an electrical solenoid that engages the overdrive when the time is right. So even if your electrical parts are not operating, you can still experience freewheeling as long as the overdrive unit is still attached behind the gearbox. As you suspected, the tranny can freewheel even if there is no power hooked up to the relay or solenoid. The good news is this: as long as the freewheeling function operates, the overdrive is mechanically intact. If it freewheels, but doesn't "work" when you lift your foot off the gas, you know that the problem is in the several electrical parts. I just returned from driving my Studebaker after installing a $600 used engine and tranny, which has a BorgWarner overdrive. I'm thrilled to discover that the engine runs beautifully and the tranny and overdrive do too. I got a bargain!
Well that certainly is comforting then! I have a couple of choke cable looking knobs under the dash that I'll have to investigate as well as taking a better look at the electrical o/d switch. And great to hear you got a deal! Too many people nowadays sugarcoat or lie about problems with stuff their selling
Got a little daring and drove about 30 miles today and it got me to come up with a pretty solid to do list. I need to get the overdrive going as I was doing 40 or so all day, clean carb possibly rebuild (sputters at WOT) along with a few other things I think it should be a great runner!
Boy, that sounds like the reason you will learn to love the overdrive when you get it working. It's effectively like adding another gear at the top, on cars that desperately need an extra gear for today's traffic. After my 30 mile test drive last night, I got a little daring too, and drove the car about 200 miles today. All is well, and I love my overdrive! I'll have to help you find the sites that I relied on when I was working on my overdrive. The Borg-Warner trannys and overdrives were used on lots of vehicles in the US for many decades, so there's a lot of help available, and not just from the world of Studebaker or Hudson. Nearly all the US cars offered them as an option, and the electrical systems worked about the same on all the cars that used them.
Here are some resources that should help as you work to get the overdrive system working: This one has a good explanation of how the whole thing is supposed to work: http://www.fordification.com/tech/overdrive.htm This site has links to PDFs with photocopies of several useful manuals for understanding and troubleshooting your overdrive: http://www.studebaker-info.org/Tech/transmission/BW-OD/BorgWarner.html I'm happy to be a resource for you too. In the course of building my Studebaker I had both the transmission and the overdrive units completely apart to check the condition of parts and to replace gaskets and seals. I did it all recently enough that I can probably help explain it all if you have questions. I can also help you avoid the mistakes I made! ( for example, if you disassemble your tranny, know that the synchronizer is NOT symmetrical, even though it looks like it is. If you re-install it backward, it will look and feel right, and shift through all the gears like it's IS right, right up until you put the tranny back in the car. When you tighhten the bolts that hold the tranny to the bellhousing, you will lock up the tranny and nothing will move until you pull it out again and reverse the synchronizer ring. I told you so!) I also have a T-96 transmission and overdrive sitting in the garage not fifty feet from my desk, so I can go snap a picture of something if you need a visual of where the various parts are. I also plan to disassemble that one and replace the seals and gaskets, so you wouldn't have to twist my arm to disassemble it and photograph something for you. Shoot me a PM or just post a question in this thread. I log onto the HAMB most days.
Wow from 30 miles to 200 that's wild! You got balls man. Seriously something to celebrate considering most projects never get off the ground. And thanks for all the help and links Im gonna spend some time going through all the info you got here and I'm fortunate enough that the car came with a spare tranny in the truck most likely blown but has the overdrive unit on it so maybe I'll monkey around with that just to see how it works. I also located the pull cable that connects to the tranny, just gonna grease it up and see what happens!
Fairly rare -- because they didn't make too many of them -- because almost no one wanted one. Looked like a squeezed '53 Ford. And you could buy a '53 Ford, that looked better and had a V-8, for less.
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