Graham’s Studebaker Blog

A little blurry. I’ve started the new pump seal in place by hand and with a little tap using a piece of wood to get it started straight.

There are times when I could use a shop bench press. Here the housing and seal are in my bench vice which works good as a press for small jobs.

Seal evenly seated. Sweet!

The shaft looks real good except for the area where the new seal will seat. You can just make out where the old seal ran on the shaft.

A little run around with a piece of 1500 sand paper followed by crocus cloth (using a wide shoe lace) and the shaft is nice a smooth for the new seal.

Here the smaller pin is in place to hold the pump outer cam ring from turning.

Type F automatic trans fluid is what I’ll use in the pump. I built a pump for my ’54 Champion and I used regular power steering fluid by mistake. In an earlier blog I showed a photo of the pump reservoir filled with pink foam. I had to drain the system (not a fun job) and refill with ATF. I used type F because I was also using it in my ’66 Flight-O-Matic. Seems to work fine. The folks on the Studebaker forum recommend other types of ATF if you can’t get Type F for Fords.

The instructions with the kit and in the shop service manual instruct the builder to be careful when installing the pump shaft so as not to damage the seal. With that sharp lip on the shaft there is no way to push it through from inside without damaging the seal.

It can be easily pushed in from the outside without seal damage.

I did install the pump outer cam ahead of time. Here I have fitted the larger pin into the slot in the pump shaft for the inner part of the pump. I tried to use ATF in the assembly process, but it didn’t work all that well. Although the ATF is an oil it isn’t a slippery lubricant. In fact, it seems to resist putting together tight fitting parts like the pump cam in the pump body. I ended up wiping it off to get part to fit. So if I was to do it again I would do the job dry and just flood the pump once it is together.

The inner pump rotor slipped into place over the recessed pin in the shaft quite easily and then I put the new rollers in place. The big and small ‘O’ rings are in place with a coating of ATF.

I put together the two pump halves and snugged it up with three bolts. I will do the final torque when I attach the two mounting plates. Here the pump flow control valve and spring is just going in. I torqued the nut with the a O ring to the recommended 35 ft lbs.

All cleaned up, sanded, and ready for painting.

Next, getting the engine mounted on the dolly.

New seal kit and pump kit.

Everything came apart easily except for the seal. I used a long drift and small hammer. It finally broke loose – see the raised lip – and then it came off easily.

The old pump parts looked really good so I wasn’t sure I needed the new kit. Just in case I got out my good calipers and checked the rollers. Turns out the old one on the right is about .003 smaller than the new one.

The new kit is on the left and the rollers are slightly further down in the used unit. So I decided to go with the new kit.

Time to give all the parts a good cleaning and then a blow dry with the air hose.

All cleaned up and blow dried.

I tipped up the spool valve to show a small bleeder hole. Behind it is a check ball and a strong spring. The air gun was able to blow out the cleaning fluid OK. Also there are holes in the side which can be used to blow out the fluid around the spring.

On the bottom right is a (blurry) snap ring and two tiny round cylinders. Easy to loose the small one. It fits inside the pump barrel and holds the pump cam in place. The other fits in the shaft to hold the pump gear in place.

One thing the kits don’t include are new bushings for both halves of the housing. The shaft is just shiny and I can’t see much in the way of wear so hopefully the old bushings will last for awhile yet.

Next I’ll attempt the assembly in the correct order!

I need an engine dolly so that I can access the back of the engine to install and dial in the bell housing. The block and bell housing are not a matched set from the factory so a dial in needs to be done to ensure that the transmission is directly in line with the crankshaft. If it isn’t the trans will destroy the engine-to-trans flex plate in short order.

These are most of the pieces needed to make up an engine dolly. Just some old project wood lying around, four used 4″ dolly wheels and some decking screws.

I used the edge of the floor mat in front of my work bench as a straight line to start from. The cross pieces on the bottom will hold the dolly wheels. They are each 26″ long. the two top rails are each 33″ long and are exactly 20″ apart measuring from the outside edge of one to the outside edge of the other. Using a tape measure and square I got everything lined up pretty close. I used a miter saw to cut the wood. That way I got good straight edges and uniform lengths. When all was square I put one screw through each top and bottom board – rechecked the measurements and squareness – then put two more screws in each corner.

Next I flipped the base over and started putting on the dolly wheels. I needed some big screws with large heads to hold down the four wheel bracket corners.

I’m putting the brackets right to the edge of the boards. To prevent splitting I pre-drilled for each screw. This piece of wood came from our old farm house when we did some remodeling. It is likely close to 100 years old and super dry and hard. Even with pre-drilling the wood was close to splitting.

Dolly wheels installed. I used two locking wheels on opposite corners to hold the engine from moving if I needed to.

Time to put the uprights in place. These will be mounting spots for the engine’s front mounting brackets. They are 4X4 pieces. The tops are 2″ wide with the rest shaved away at a 45 deg. angle. I needed a couple of pieces of wood for gussets to help hold the uprights in place. I also have a short piece of wood to join the two uprights. The uprights are mounted on the top 2X4 pieces and are kept exactly 20″ apart (outside edges)

Uprights in place with gussets and one long deck screw on the inside of each. The cross piece is 8″ below the top to make sure the front the of pan will not hit.

The rear cross piece and uprights will be fitted once the engine is resting on the front uprights and still being held up with the engine hoist. The rear uprights will fit along the pan lip near the rear of the engine. I will taper the tops of the uprights so that they fit inside the pan lip and rest on the pan bolt heads.

Next, moving the engine from the engine stand to the dolly.

The 5/16″ spacer in front and the correctly machined 3/8″ spacer behind. Big difference.

A little flat filing front and back to remove the machining lumps from clamping the aluminum too much. The machinist didn’t believe me when I said it was aluminum!

Pulley alignment looks a whole lot better.

The straight edge test proved the alignment to be pretty well spot on. The slight gap at the top disappeared when I test fitted the exhaust manifold-to-pump bracket.

Lower pulley and fan pulley in place. Still need final paint on the lower pulley. I will need to turn the engine some to align the bell housing so I’ll hold off on the paint until that is done.

The PS pump kit should arrive any day now. So that will be the next job.

First I needed to get a donor PS pump ready. I wasn’t going to test install a greasy, dirty used pump on my nice newly painted engine! Also pictured are a used PS reach rod, ram frame bracket and the pump bracket that attaches to front exhaust manifold screw.

Parts all nicely cleaned up. I will do a pump rebuild later and sandblast/clean and paint. For now I’ll just re-assemble for my alignment check.

Pump fitted and belted to the front crank pulley. I made sure the pump was in the correct position with all the flat washers in place (next to the manifold ) on the pump adjusting arm and lower pump mounting studs. But there are problems.

The crank pulley is pulling back on the belt. It needs to come out some. Another check of the parts book shows a special pulley for the Jet Thrust engines. The one I’m using (#533890) for standard V8s is different from the proper one #1557898. I checked with a few online Studebaker vendors for one, but no luck.

Regular Stude V8 engines used a spacer (#534294) behind the PS pulley to line up with the PS pump. I happen to have a used one so I put it on to see how things would look.

Now the crank pulley is too far forward. OK, I can work with this.

I held a straight edge across the lower pulley and checked the alignment difference with the PS pulley. The gap you see was about 3/16″. If I remove that much from the crank pulley spacer Then the pulley’s should line up nicely.

I’ll have to send the pulley out to be shaved before I can continue with the install of the intake and PS pump.

Here’s the cut down crank pulley. I put it on the engine but it didn’t line up. Somehow the machinist and me got our wires crossed. Instead of removing 3/16″ he cut the pulley back to 3/16″ so now it is too thin! As luck would have it I have another so I will take it out and have it done along with a rebuild of two king pins for the front end work I’ll be doing during the engine swap.

In the meantime the never-ending cleaning, sanding and painting goes on!

Tools for the job. Scraper to remove any paint on the edges of the gasket surfaces, paint thinner to clear off any oil, alignment studs, Perfect seal for the gaskets and thread sealant for the screws. And of course, an inch pound torque wrench.

Alignment studs in place. I needed a shorty on the lower left side of the block so that the manifold could clear the fuel pump housing boss.

I was able to coat the lower gaskets and stick them to the manifold.

But the upper gaskets are a thinner paper and wouldn’t stick. They did stick OK to the engine when helped by the alignment studs.

Water pump and manifold in place. All screws torqued to 200 in lbs including the two PS mounting studs in the top right of the photo.

Next I’ll have a go at test fitting a PS pump.

I needed to put some pin stripes on my Dodge hood to copy what the company did back in the day. I didn’t want to go back to the body shop and expect them to do it for free – even if they did a less than perfect job. So I thought I’d give it a go at home.

I needed to put contrasting black strips along the edge of the hood and up over the cowl. I wouldn’t want to try this free-hand. That’s what the professionals get paid for. Since the lines were to follow the hood edge line I thought I could do a passable job. First I ran a strip of 1/4″ green painting tape along the hood edge. This was going to be my base to work from. The black striping would follow the tape. I cleaned the hood, cowl and any area where the pinstripe would be applied with paint thinner to be sure there was no wax or grease remaining.

This is what it looked like part way through the job. I had run a 1/4″ black pinstripe along the first green strip. I then ran a second 1/4″ green strip next to the thin black strip. I used that strip to run the wider black strip. When the pinstripes were in place I simply removed the green tape.

I tucked the pinstripe under the windshield moulding, cut the tape between the hood and cowl and rolled the lips down and then I wrapped the stripes around and under the hood front lip. The wider tape was a bit harder to get in place. It didn’t want to fit into the curve on the cowl and it tended to leave bubbles if not pressed down as you went along. Not a perfect job, but acceptable for me. Job done!

Next – back to Studebakering.

In my last post I was busy stretching an old (likely 40+ years old) all cork gasket for the lifter valley cover. The elastic bands was my way of trying the get the gasket into the reverse curves.

I decided to use some Perfect seal on this gasket as well. The sealant wants to settle out quite quickly. I used a bent piece of coat hanger in my hand drill to mix it up each time I used it. I then coated the side that fits to the cover.

Here it is back on the cover and with its downside also coated with a thin film of Perfect seal. Hard to see, but there are new copper sealing washers on the hold down bolts. They are originals from Studebaker – still made with what appears to be asbestos and copper. I’ll use a 1/4″ socket drive with a straight handle to tighten things down. The manual calls for 3 to 3.5 ft lbs of torque. This way I shouldn’t get them over tight.

I hate trying to line up oil pans, lifter covers, etc when I have a gasket covered in sealant. I like it to fit were its going to stay. So I put in headless guide bolts in place to line things up.

Lifter cover in place. No problem getting the bolts started since the guides kept everything lined up. A bit of tape to keep things from falling into the engine and causing me to have to remove the valley cover or the heads – not my idea of fun. I also took the opportunity to fit brass plugs in all the oil gallery holes and fitted a new temperature sender in place as well. I will have to be careful not to damage it when it comes time to install the engine.

Last job on the block will be installing the water pump housing. Note the fuel pump opening has been blocked off. I’ll be going with an electric fuel pump from the start.

Basic tools needed to adjust the valves cold. 1/2″ wrench to turn the lifter screws, a 1-1/2″ socket to turn the crank using the crank screw, .025 feeler gauge (Intake) and a .027 gauge (exhaust- combination of two). I’m using two feeler gauges so that I’m not bothered with switching back and forth.

So as not to get mixed up I marked each valve rocker as intake or exhaust. There are any number of ways to adjust the valves cold. I chose to use the method suggested by Jim Pepper and recommended by Isky cams.

You do one cylinder at a time. Rotate the engine until the exhaust lifter is just beginning to rise – adjust the intake. Then continue to rotate until the intake closes – adjust the exhaust. I went around the block once and then a second time to make sure all were adjusted correctly. Again there are different ways to use a feeler gauge. I prefer to set them gap so that there is a slight drag pushing it in or pulling it out.

Next it was time to restore an old dried out cork gasket for the valley lifter cover.

Way too short to fit any more.

Here I’ve laid it on the bench on some paper towels and soaked with water. I covered it with a cotton cloth and soaked that too so that the gasket was wet top and bottom. I left it that way for a couple of hours. Quicker if you immerse it in hot tap water – not boiling water. Usually 20 minutes works fine.

After a good soaking I was just able to stretch it on the cover. I needed some extra help from a couple of rubber bands and a block of cork, from an old gasket, to get it to fit into the reverse curves. I’ll leave it like that till it dries. I’ll then add some Perfect Seal to both sides, let it firm up and then put it in place.

From here on things will be moving a bit slower. Summer and lots of other things to be done. I’ll post when I do get a chance to work on the engine. I’m keen to get the engine installed and run in.

The heads have two 7/16″ alignment pins to help with the head installation. The pins are all short pieces of thin walled tubing. Two of them double as passages for oil to return to the pan from the rear of the heads and two are blind holes up front.

One of the pins was missing and fortunately it was from one of the blind holes. I tried removing the piping from another set of heads, but I found it impossible. So I cut off a short piece of a 7/16″ bolt and epoxied it into the head. I used the threaded end so that the epoxy had lots of surface to grip.

My head gaskets are NOS and have suffered a bit over the years from poor storage. I used a scotch brite type pad to clean away the small spots of rust. I will use a gasket sealer to make sure I don’t get any leakage of gases, oil or antifreeze.

A Studebaker buddy gave me some Perfect Seal gasket maker to use. This is the stuff that Studebaker recommends in their original manuals to be used on the head gaskets. It’s pretty thick, but goes on not to bad with a cut-back disposable brush.

I put a thin coat of Perfect Seal on the side of the gasket that will be placed on the block. I was careful to get sealant into all the groves. As you can see I am using the thin style gaskets. From here I placed the gasket on the block and coated the other side also with sealant. I then positioned the gasket for a best fit with the block passages.

I rested the head on the alignment pins and moved the head up until it slipped in place. I then installed the 9 lower short and the 5 upper medium length cap screws – just a snug fit.

Here are my used lifters and rods. Each is marked so that the lifters fit back to their original cam lobe and the rods go back in the same lifters. I replaced the rocker arms with new ones so the mating of the rods isn’t all that important.

There is a sequence to engine assembly. You need to install the lifters and push rods before installing the rocker arm assemblies. I coated each lifter and lifter bore with engine assembly lube. Old toothbrushes are great for this.

Rods and lifters in place for the right head. I put a dollop of engine assemble lube on the top and bottom of each lifter rod – and on the top of each valve.

The rocker shaft is in place. It is a bit awkward to get the rocker shaft mounting brackets in position so the long cap screws can be threaded in by hand. Some of the push rods hold the rockers up because the cam lobes are at the lifting point. Once the cap screws are all loosely in place the rocker arm can be pulled down compressing the valve springs as needed. I also ran in the smaller bolts – two of which are for the valve cover hold-down nuts – before snugging down the four long cap screws.

Once the rocker arms are in place the heads can be torqued down. The manual calls for all the cap screw threads to be dipped in oil before assembly. This will effectively increase the torque by about 10%. The specs call for 55 to 65 ft lbs of torque. I first torqued the head at 40ft lbs following the torque sequence laid out in the manual. I then re-torqued them to 65 ft lbs and then went over them once again to be sure they were all still at 65 ft lbs.

Heads are in place and the valley cover is loose fitted.

Next I will adjust the valve lash – cold.