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It's a busy weekend so I'm not even going to look at the valves. But I did get back in there and wire up the radio. The PO put in a pair of 4 ohm speakers under the dash. The original speaker up there was 8-10 ohms, so I wired the two speakers in series to get 8 ohms. Plugged the new "8 ohm speaker" into the radio and hooked up the antenna. The radio takes about 30 seconds to warm up, and the dial light is out, but it does come in eventually. It tunes very nicely and stations come in clear, but the volume potentiometer is pretty noisy. In my experience this often clears up if you spin the control enough, so we'll see. https://vimeo.com/83936996 Look for the Civil Defense triangles at 640 and 1240 
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Jan 11, 2014 22:50
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Today I installed a tachometer. I think it looks pretty decent: It's not wired into the light dimmer yet, so there's no lighting, but it does show RPM just fine. It indicated that my idle speed was set a bit low. The manual says around 800 rpm when idling in gear, but I saw closer to 400-500. I tweaked the idle a bit until it was around 700-800 rpm, it sounds nicer now too. Unfortunately now I'm getting a ticking interference on the (AM) radio when the engine is running. I'm wondering if in connecting the tach to the negative pole of the coil, I somehow jostled something and introduced a spark. Disconnecting the tach's wire from the coil did not eliminate the interference, so it doesn't seem to be emanating from the tach wire but from inside the engine bay itself.
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Jan 26, 2014 01:41
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Pham Nuwen posted:Unfortunately now I'm getting a ticking interference on the (AM) radio when the engine is running. I'm wondering if in connecting the tach to the negative pole of the coil, I somehow jostled something and introduced a spark. Disconnecting the tach's wire from the coil did not eliminate the interference, so it doesn't seem to be emanating from the tach wire but from inside the engine bay itself. Double check your shielding too, along with grounds. AM is super fussy to any of the above.
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Jan 26, 2014 06:51
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Double check your shielding too, along with grounds. AM is super fussy to any of the above. Well, it was gone when I drove the car a few hours later. Not sure what was going on. In other news, it did the annoying power-loss thing again. Looks like I haven't mentioned it in this thread yet, so here's the text from my post in the Stupid Questions Thread: quote:About 5 times now over the last month, I'm driving along and everything turns off. Engine goes off, all lights turn off, radio turns off. Turning the key off and back on does not restore electrics, at least not immediately. However, after sitting for 30 seconds or so, it will all come back. When it happened tonight, it was also after dark so I had my lights on, and once again it died as I was slowing to a stop, foot off the accelerator, braking.
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Jan 26, 2014 07:18
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Are all of those things switched? Obviously the engine is, but the radio and interior lights? Do you lose your headlights too (which I assume are not switched)?
Raluek fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 07:20
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Double check your grounds again. If anything looks suspicious, replace it cable wise. Also check your alternator/generator and voltage regulator. One thing to definitely look into is the 1 wire alternator. It has a built in voltage regulator and is a pretty painless install. BrokenKnucklez fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 07:27
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Raluek posted:Are all of those things switched? Obviously the engine is, but the radio and interior lights? Do you lose your headlights too (which I assume are not switched)? Radio gets power through the ignition switch, headlights do not. I don't remember now if the headlights went out or not. The dash lights, which are controlled through the headlight switch, definitely went out.
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Jan 26, 2014 07:30
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Pham Nuwen posted:Radio gets power through the ignition switch, headlights do not. I don't remember now if the headlights went out or not. The dash lights, which are controlled through the headlight switch, definitely went out. Hmm. If un-switched things are going out, either something is shorting somewhere, or you've got a dodgy connection somewhere upstream of both your battery and your alternator. Take a good hard look at your fuse box? Corroded contacts, cracked bakelite, old fraying wires. I'm not sure if the headlight switch gets power from the fuse box, though. Some headlight switches (like my Ford) have little fuses inside the switch itself. E: BrokenKnucklez posted:One thing to definitely look into is the 1 wire alternator. It has a built in voltage regulator and is a pretty painless install. I actually don't like 1-wire alternators. I think it's better to have the alternator self-adjust so that you get 13.8V at your battery and fuse panel, rather than at the back of the alternator. It's not that hard to run two extra wires to switched power and always hot. Raluek fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 08:11
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Still haven't figured out what's causing the electrical issues, but thank you everyone for the recommendations. It's done the shut-off thing once since I posted about it. In other news, it turns out the windshield wipers do work, and they are just the cutest little things. Each blade is around 6 inches long, so they clear off these two little wedges in the windshield, but it's actually sufficient for me to feel comfortable driving. I'm continually surprised by the visibility you get in this thing. It kind of makes sense... the pillars are tiny because who cares about crash safety, and the back window is this HUGE bubble, and there are no headrests on any of the seats, so I can actually turn and see about 360 degrees easily. The mirrors are terrible, but that doesn't matter so much because you can see who's alongside you much easier than in a modern car. Blind spots are almost non-existent.
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Feb 8, 2014 02:33
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Ok, I checked the timing tonight in the little bit of time I got before the light failed. Procedure involved removing the vacuum advance tube and setting the idle to 550 rpm. Goddamn that is a slow idle. The "Amp" light on the dash was lit, this thing was barely moving. Whatever, I hooked up the timing light and had a look. This is not my car, but the wheel looks a lot like this:  (ignore the white mark, mine has it on the line *above* "IGN", where as this guy has placed a mark somewhere arbitrarily lower) According to the manual, at 550 rpm with no vacuum advance, the pointer should be over the line directly above "IGN", as marked by the red arrow. In practice, I saw the pointer hovering around the point marked by the blue arrow. Am I correct in reading the timing as slightly advanced? Does it matter enough to adjust? I haven't heard any pinging, but as I mentioned the gas mileage is piss-poor, don't know if timing could account for that. Also, what's the best way to test a vacuum advance? I've seen people online talking about just sucking on the other end of the vacuum line.
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Feb 22, 2014 04:23
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Pham Nuwen posted:Ok, I checked the timing tonight in the little bit of time I got before the light failed. Advanced timing should give you better fuel economy, assuming no detonation. A mityvac is the canonical way to test vacuum advance, but vacuum will be high at idle. So check timing at idle with it both plugged and unplugged, and that should give you an idea of if it's working.
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Feb 22, 2014 05:08
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Raluek posted:Advanced timing should give you better fuel economy, assuming no detonation. A mityvac is the canonical way to test vacuum advance, but vacuum will be high at idle. So check timing at idle with it both plugged and unplugged, and that should give you an idea of if it's working. Yeah, the guys on the Studebaker forum said that timing should be fine. I ordered a little vacuum tester, I'm going to check vacuum at the carb and at the distributor end of the tube. Then I'll check if the vacuum advance is ok by either borrowing a vacuum pump or just sucking on tube to see if it holds vacuum. Today, though, I decided to check the compression since I had a whole afternoon to figure things out. It went very smoothly and I was pleasantly surprised by the results: Cylinder: PSI 1: 140 2: 140 3: 135 4: 135 5: 145 6: 155 Here's what plugs 1 (left) through 3 (right) looked like:  And here's plugs 4 through 6:  Plugs 2, 5, and 6 looked pretty rich, so I tweaked the idle mixture a little. Lacking a vacuum gauge, I adjusted the mixture about 1/4 turn leaner, which gave slightly higher RPM. In the process, I glanced at the manual for the carb and remembered that it has an adjustable main jet, which I really ought to adjust since that could be part of why I'm running 10 mpg. I also got the neighbor to stand on the brake while in drive so I could set the in-gear idle. I set it to around 550 rpm while in drive, which comes to around 700 rpm in park. It sounds pretty good and drives much better than before (the idle was pretty drat high before).
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Feb 23, 2014 06:32
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Turn the idle mixture lean until the RPMs peak (you'll have to fiddle with it a bit,) then turn it about a quarter turn rich from there, more or less, depending on how fine the idle mixture control is. Then set your idle RPMs. At that point, you're ready all the other intricacies of carb tuning.  (A common bandaid is to set the idle mixture too fat, to compensate for tip-in stumble from a broke-rear end accelerator pump. Don't be that guy.)
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Feb 23, 2014 06:54
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MrYenko posted:Turn the idle mixture lean until the RPMs peak (you'll have to fiddle with it a bit,) then turn it about a quarter turn rich from there, more or less, depending on how fine the idle mixture control is. Then set your idle RPMs. Well, 1/4 turn rich from peak RPM is... pretty much where I was before. I set my idle RPM after setting the mixture. I'll check it all again once I get the vacuum tester and can try to adjust it for the max vacuum. Apparently the process for setting the adjustable main jet is "wedge throttle at about 1500 rpm, then adjust the main jet screw to get the highest RPM possible". I could see an un-set main jet as a reason for getting 10 mpg when I should get closer to 18-20.
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Feb 23, 2014 06:59
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Pham Nuwen posted:Well, 1/4 turn rich from peak RPM is... pretty much where I was before. I set my idle RPM after setting the mixture. You don't want your idle mixture to be set at peak, because if you drive somewhere colder, or lower, or both, it'll be too lean, and stumble and run like poo poo. You need some wiggle room. (Unless you live in South Florida, where the climate is essentially the same every day, and the max elevation change is measured in single digits.) Alternately, you can set it to peak, and be prepared to fiddle with it when the weather changes. Old cars are fun. And ya, a mis-adjusted main can certainly cause that.
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Feb 23, 2014 20:35
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MrYenko posted:You don't want your idle mixture to be set at peak, because if you drive somewhere colder, or lower, or both, it'll be too lean, and stumble and run like poo poo. You need some wiggle room. (Unless you live in South Florida, where the climate is essentially the same every day, and the max elevation change is measured in single digits.) Come on, this is the bay area. It has rained like three times this whole winter. I think it went near freezing a couple times, maybe?
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Feb 23, 2014 23:54
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That's a healthy engine for its age. Carbs work best on voodoo and unicorn farts until you understand them. Sounds like you are heading in the correct direction. Can't wait to see more progress.
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Feb 24, 2014 02:12
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MrYenko posted:And ya, a mis-adjusted main can certainly cause that. Well, I adjusted the main per the instructions and found an increase of 200 RPM in the process. After running it at the new setting for a bit, I shut off the engine and checked plugs 1 and 2. They looked clean, not sooty, more like clean metal as far as I could tell with my little trouble-light. Drives fine now, we'll see how mileage goes.
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Feb 25, 2014 04:42
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This morning I was able to test the newly adjusted main jet starting with a cold engine. I think it was pulling away from stops a hell of a lot better than usual, with much less tendency to stumble when cold. Now I really need to find a better choke cable. The one I have now is just stuck under the dash with double-sided tape because it looks so cheap and crappy that I didn't want to permanently mount it. Can anyone recommend a nice looking choke cable+knob combination that's meant to mount under the dash? Edit: derp, meant choke cable. Pham Nuwen fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Feb 25, 2014 |
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Feb 25, 2014 18:55
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Pham Nuwen posted:Now I really need to find a better clutch cable. The one I have now is just stuck under the dash with double-sided tape because it looks so cheap and crappy that I didn't want to permanently mount it. Can anyone recommend a nice looking clutch cable+knob combination that's meant to mount under the dash? Choke cable? Quite a few to pick from for not a lot of scratch. They seem to have brackets, too. http://www.summitracing.com/search/part-type/choke-cables?SortBy=Default&SortOrder=Ascending&tw=choke%20cab&sw=Choke%20Cables
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Feb 25, 2014 20:24
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I filled up the tank 30 miles ago and the needle still points to F. I think, embarrassing as it may be, the un-tuned main jet was my big gas consumption problem. This thing could turn out to be a pretty good commuter if it gets the expected 18-20 mpg and I stick some radials and a dual master cylinder in it.
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Feb 27, 2014 06:02
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Just remember living with an old car.... is interesting. Luckily this one is pretty simple to deal with but there are a few tasteful upgrades that should be done which will help every day life. - disc brake upgrade on the front, maybe rears, but they usually more involved and your fronts do most of the work. Also I can't recall is it power assisted? That helps tremendously. I imagine there had to be some one out there with a list of parts to swap in. - I can't remember/too lazy... have you switched this over to solid state ignition? - upgrade the headlight wiring. A couple of relays, wire, and some fuses will help out.... big time. I know there's a couple more that I'm forgetting, but will help greatly in living with it on a daily basis and doesn't piss off the purists to much. Edit: http://www.turnerbrake.com this is the conversion kit for brakes. Its not like you can't live with drums... but this will greatly improve the stopping. BrokenKnucklez fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 15:35
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If you do any night driving you need to ditch the sealed beams and get some E code headlights from Hella/Cibie/Bosch with decent bulbs.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:26
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Here's a picture from today: You can see the after-market carburetor and air filter in there, both from Daytona Parts.
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Mar 2, 2014 02:02
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I'm considering putting the Lark up on Craigslist: 1. I've had fun with it and put about a thousand miles on since I got it almost a year ago 2. I'm not under any real pressure to sell it, so I could wait for a good price 3. It's a beautiful car from 20 feet but there sure are a lot of nice cars around that don't have nearly rusted-out floorpans. 4. It just doesn't do well on the freeway, it's pretty noisy and rattly at 65 mph; might be time for something which can cruise comfortably at 70. I'm going to list it at $7000, which is pretty ambitious considering what I paid for it, but like I said I'm not in any hurry.
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May 21, 2014 00:42
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Saw this at a car show this weekend, thought of you.  Sadly, a 350 swap. Also, forgive the scratch on my phone camera causing these all to come out kind of poo poo.
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May 21, 2014 02:22
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Raluek posted:Saw this at a car show this weekend, thought of you. At least they painted the 350 the appropriate yellow. drat good looking car, I could enjoy a nice convertible.
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May 21, 2014 03:26
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Pham Nuwen posted:I'm considering putting the Lark up on Craigslist: I know that feeling. There's that point with classic cars where you say "Well yes, this is enormous fun, looks good (girls like it), has, up to a certain point, exciting performance. It just isn't, by any measurable metric, a good car."
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May 21, 2014 09:48
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Well, the ad is posted, I mentioned that I might consider a trade for something interesting with a manual, that might have been a mistake since I've only had inquiries about trades so far: * 2002 Subaru WRX wagon * 1985 Trans Am 5spd w/ 49k on it and A JVC DECK HOLY poo poo Probably to be expected, I listed it high because I'm not in a hurry to get rid of it.
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Jun 4, 2014 21:53
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I let the ad expire while I was busy getting married. Put it back up recently, here's what I've been offered in trade. I'm going to see this on Monday, it's an auto so I'm not especially interested but he really wants the Studebaker and might buy it outright if he likes it:  Here's another, owner describes it as "Fully restored 1965 vw rag top show ready new 1776 engine new cluth and battery with all gages and oil cooler kits":       
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Aug 23, 2014 21:00
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I've never heard of a Mercedes Bend before? Apart from when one has an ugly meeting with a tree.
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Aug 24, 2014 05:03
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A beetle that has a 1776, a poorly mounted oil cooler (seriously, no airflow through that), twin carburetors, janky seats, and rotting rubber is not "restored" or "show ready."
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Aug 24, 2014 07:44
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Geirskogul posted:A beetle that has a 1776, a poorly mounted oil cooler (seriously, no airflow through that), twin carburetors, janky seats, and rotting rubber is not "restored" or "show ready." Just the person I was hoping would show up, love your beetle thread! Yeah, turns out this guy is actually in Sonora, which is like 1.5 hours away, and I've discovered via email that he's a moron so any possibility is pretty much gone.
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Aug 24, 2014 07:47
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What's with Craigslist/Kijiji people anyway? "Well, I'm trying to sell something worth thousands of dollars. Nope, still can't be bothered to spell things properly, and have it proofread by someone that isn't illiterate!"
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Aug 24, 2014 16:38
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PT6A posted:What's with Craigslist/Kijiji people anyway? Because they think their garbage is so awesome it sells itself.
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Aug 25, 2014 13:05
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Here's an oldish picture from when I was daily driving it, I finally got around to digitizing some of my film negatives:
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Oct 1, 2014 05:29
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As posted in the chat thread, I just sold the Studebaker. We talked, the guy wanted it inspected, so we did. Turns out the rust underneath was different than I thought... it's along the edges, while the center is quite clean, but the body mounts are all hosed up. The mechanic said there was so much body flex he couldn't open the door while it was up. He also said the rear end had been swapped to something Chevy, which explains why I couldn't identify it previously. The horn picked today to stop working, so there's that. After talking about it, we settled on $4300. I just paid for tags, and they're in the mail, so he gave me $4000, I gave him the title and the car, we'll exchange the $300 when I get the tags and can forward them on to him. This may have been stupid but eh, it doesn't make sense for him to try and dick me over $300. And if he does, gently caress it, it's $300. Feels good to have it sold after listing it for so long, but it's also loving weird to not have the car any more. It was a lot of fun to drive, but I eventually started craving a manual, and my wife would like something else, so away it goes.
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Oct 10, 2014 00:19
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Sad to see it go. You replacing it with that Opel GT?
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Oct 10, 2014 02:13
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Raluek posted:Sad to see it go. You replacing it with that Opel GT? Possibly. We're going to look at it on Sunday. If it blows our minds, sure. Otherwise we're not in a huge rush.
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Oct 10, 2014 02:18
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It'll be missed. So long lark.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:56
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