1940 Oldsmobile Barn-Find Restoration by Erndog

2 minute(s) of a 39 minute read

Update: a couple days after getting the engine running, my boy came home from college for the weekend. Of course first on the agenda was having him "try" to start the engine. Boy, was he excited and happy! After basking in the purr and glory of success, the inevitable was next. He got in the passenger side, I behind the wheel (he doesn't have 3-on-the-tree experience) and we proceeded to see if she rolls. The previous videos tell the story. The enthusiasm has definately returned! Of course, now he is no longer willing to sell me his headache project. Now he is constantly asking, "what's the next thing we need to do?". Yes!!

Shortly before getting the engine running I decided it was time to find out why the engine seemed to get so tight occasionally that I frequently had to put oil into the cylinders to free it up. Before any real rpm caused damage. Turned out that the oil pump had never picked up a prime and wasn't oiling anything. I have never experienced that before, but filled it with oil and tried again (after trying the vaseline trick, which didn't work). Worked great after priming. Thank God for assembly lube. I bought a complete exhaust setup for Jonathan off of eBay. Very nice stuff, except the engine-end flange had to be trimmed down to fit into the manifold. After we did the initial drive I dropped the old system and replaced it with the new one. Turns out that the old muffler had about a 6" diameter hole on the topside. That explains the throaty volume. The new one sounds much better. I think we will tackle putting in the new windshield gasket and wiper gaskets next. That should stop the little water intrusions during rain storms. After we know it will stay dry in there we will redo the door panels. We have done one and it came out nice, but did not install it because of moisture.

I did get him behind the wheel and he did very well. He was grinning from ear to ear and obviously very proud!