Early 1920s Studebaker ?

11 minute(s) of a 173 minute read

Meanwhile all has not been totally stagnant on the cylinder head front. I now have received the "repair sleeve" for the damaged spark plug thread. All I am waiting for now is a new 24 -1.5mm tap and I can do the necessary thread replacement. The repair "sleeve" is 24mm on the outside and accepts an 18mm sparkplug in the i/d. It comes with a purpose made punch. after screwing the "sleeve" into the newly thresded oversize hole in the cylinder head the punch fits snugly over the four projecting pins. These are driven down through the thread locking the "sleeve" into place.  Hopefully this will be a permanent cure and will take the motor one step closer to running.

Every morning I will be out checking the mail box.

How's the length of that threaded insert? If it's longer than the head is thick it may need to be cut down.

Hello Mike.

You are quite correct it is longer than necessary and will require  shortening, The attached photograph shows the old failed insert next to the new. Not only is the new one longer but also larger in outside diameter. 24mm against the other's 21mm. Hopefully the extra will make the difference. The only logical alternative at this point is a NEW cylinder head which will add a whole lot more dollars to the cost. I am a big fan of the old policy of one step at a time, no matter how small that step may seem.  Having said all that, I would sooner it be too long rather than too short.

There is something about "as the Actress said to the Bishop" but we do not need to go there.

11-27-2017

Oops! we nearly slipped out the bottom!

Now that the Australian customs have carefully inspected it and found no possible threat to life or limb, the 24mm Tap has arrived and we can start the next step. The tap will "start" in the existing hole so I probably would be better off NOT drilling the hole out any further. All I need to do is to extract the Champagne cork out of the hole again. I had put it there to keep out any collections of homeless insects that may have liked to call it home. I will wait until I have discussed this with my "Technical Advisor" (son Steve) before rushing into tapping out the hole.

I may need him to "part off" the bottom excess from the "sleeve". Alternatively I can simply cut it off using my angle grinder with a ultra thin 'cut-off blade'.  

For "sticky beaks" trying to read my correspondence, The top document is the Historical Studebaker Register of Australia's list of Members, the second one with the official (Officious) looking heading is about a "speeding fine' telling me that it had just cost me Aust $318.oo for exceeding the 100 kph limit by more that 5 Kph but less than 15Kph. Expletive deleted!. This while driving on an almost deserted country road with virtually no other traffic, except an un-marked Police car travelling, out of sight, in the opposite direction!  Ain't Radar wonderful???

My excuse was that modern VW sedans have an electronic speedo and the calibrations narrow (come closer together) at 100kph making it difficlut to read the exact speed. That and that I would sooner be watching the road conditions than having my attention glued to the speedo and as a result, either run off the road or crash into another car!

Intending visitors to Australia please note.  It is a well known fact that we "Live in a Granny State*".

Bernie j.

* Granny State:- In that our governing politicians have the mentality of an; Extremely aged and feeble minded yet still dictatorial, Grand Mother!

11-28-2017

I have to be up bright and early tomorrow morning, I have a 9.00am appointment at the local Charity Shop's warehouse to look at their range of Antique "Mahogany" timber Bed-heads and Tables. Now all you clever people why would I want such a thing? I hope to have some photographs to show you later tomorrow.

Now for something different, from time to time I mention P.G.Wodehouse and the many books he had written during his lifetime. While essentially "English" he actually spent quite an amount of time living in America and many of his books referred to life in the USA.

I have one bookcase devoted to his books. I decided  a little while ago to start re-reading them. Not following any particular order but jut picking one off the shelf for my bedside reading. I have just finished "The Adventures of Sally" written in 1922 it covers a section of her life when she is mainly living in New York and gives us quite a good insite to life there in the early 1920s.
The next book again chosen at random is "the Inimitable Jeeves this one was first printed in 1923. My copy is a "Fifth Printing" which probably makes it around 1924/5. Most of my copies are hard cover printed by "Herbert Jenkins" making them mainly Pre WW2 and mostly from the 1920s.

As I am sure I have said many times already, "You do not have to be mad but it helps" Apart from anything else they do tell us something of the lives of the people who drove our cars when new. 

The observant among us will have noted that I do have several paperbacks on the bottom shelf.

I am always interested in hearing from anyone with early (1920s) Herbert Jenkins copies of PGW's books in good condition. There are still almost as many of his stories that I do not have. I can always buy taller bookshelves.

Yes! I have also posted the same thing on my Lagonda Rapier thread.

11-29-2017

I must confess that I have not encountered any of Sinclair Lewis. I have been reading and collecting PG Wodehouse books for a very long time, longer than I care to think about. I find that I can re-read his books a number of times and get something new from the experience every time. Most people tend to think only in terms of his Bertie Wooster stories which have been the subject of several TV series. But the Wooster & Jeeves adventures or perhaps more correctly "Mis-adventures" are but a tiny part of his out-put. Generally I like to read when I first go to bed, before turning out the light for perhaps up to an hour.  It helps to take my mind off the day's activities. Normally I will read almost anything that has printed pages. I have been collecting and reading PGW for 60 years or more. It is only recently that I have decided to re-read my way through my collection. Anyone who has made a study of his work will understand and appreciate how his stories tie in with the type of car that I am interested in. Despite the amonut of time he spent in the USA and how many of his books are based on life in America during the 1920's and 30's, it seems that he is not widely read by Americans. Having re-read that and having meet quite a number of Americans I can see that some of his (PGW's) humour could be lost on them.

12-1-2017

Back to the Studebaker (almost)

It seems that work on the Light Six must take a weather related break for a day or two. It really is crazy, as many of you know I work on the car in an open carport.

Officially December 1st,  is the first day of Summer in Australia. Our weather forecasters are yesterday and today issuing warnings of extreme rain and storms, with more than a months rain expected to fall during the next day or two accompanied by wide-spread flooding in low lying areas.

12-2-2017

Despite a "wet weekend" I am very happy that we live in Australia, even in the South-East corner which on our side of the Equator puts us nearest the "South-Pole" I cannot remember (in 80 years) when we last had Snow in Melbourne, our State Capital City and in Summer it is only rarely that the temperature climbs over 40 degrees Celsius. We built our home almost 50 years ago so we do not have air-conditioning but we do have heating that we run through Winter. We don't need a heated garage and I don't need Anti-freeze in any of our car's radiators. We don't need chains on the cars tires or special wheels with Snow & Mud tread tires. I do own an "overcoat" but again, I cannot remember when I last wore it. I bought it about 60 years ago when the cars I drove did not have heaters. I can drive the Lagonda with the top down 12 months of the year and enjoy it. We can drink excellent wine produced from vines growing in the Yarra Valley less that 20 miles from my front door. Normally our Policemen & women do not carry guns. If I need/want to go to the "City" we have a regular bus service every ten minutes. But rarely need to use it, we have a huge shopping "mall" just a couple of miles away with every kind of shop or service I am likely to need. We have an excellent Public Hospital (Free) about ten minutes drive away and the Doctor I see very occasionally is also part of the (free)  Public Health Service. Despite my apparent "old age" I do all the work, not requiring special equipment, on the Lagonda and the Studebaker myself. I am sufficiently old-fashioned as to prefer and enjoy Oxy-Acetylene Welding. I have three comprehensive tool kits (Spanners etc) Metric, BSF/Whitworth and SAE/Unified which covers just about everything I am likely to need. I am happily married for over 50 years and have four children (three sons and a daughter) and nine grandchildren. All this being so, you could say that if a wet weekend is all I have to worry about, life is rather good.

Oh yes! Following some fairly serious surgery 12 years ago I have been pronounced completely free of Cancer and my Heart seems to work fine unaided. We won't talk about my brain!  No! we do not have a Swinning Pool in our garden but we do have a "fish pond".

12-5-2017

I am currently looking at replacing the non-existent door trim panels in my 1920 Light Six. This is believed to be a very early car so I would be interested to see precisely how these were made and fitted. I have made one set but I am not happy that these would be excatly as original.

I would also like to see how the trim was applied to the rear of the front seat. I imagine that it was the same carpet as used on the rear floor. Was there any carpet used on the front floor or was this entirely linoleum?