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Did you ever get the drive train reliable in this car?

I haven't driven it more than 20 miles at a time, keeping it close to home. I still need to go through the overdrive and I have a tick in the engine which I think is lifter noise. So far, the drive train has not failed me. It's been silly little things that have gotten my heart racing thinking it will not start!

8-5-17

I haven't driven the car since I painted the floor because I noticed the oil light was staying on when it was idling. I know some cars do this, but mine would not when it was cold. Revving the engine would turn the light off, but at a much higher RPM than usual. Oil was full, but it was time for an oil change so I figured I had better drop the pan and look for gunk clogging the oil pump.

Ordered an oil pan gasket from Ultramatic Dynamics which came fast.

I thought the pan would come down easily, just a lot of bolts to take off. Boy was I wrong! I had the pan flopping around, but couldn't get it off because there is a lip on the back that goes into the transmission. If you try to move the pan forward to clear it, it hits the balancer in the front.

After searching this forum, I found a link to a video a member here made showing what he had to do to remove the pan on his '47. It is nearly identical to what I ended up having to do. I'm so glad he posted it!

I found about 1/4" of gunk at the bottom of the pan. The oil pick up screen was clean until I popped the cover off. There I saw some build up in the middle. Got that cleaned off. Couldn't put it back together because it started to rain. I might as well stretch it out another couple of days and paint the pan while it's off. Hopefully the oil pressure will be fixed after all of this!

I wouldn't think a quarter inch buildup would be enough to reduce the flow significantly but at least you can be sure that it won't be the cause anytime soon. I think an extra mechanical gauge hidden in the engine compt might also be a worthwhile project so you know exactly what the pressure is doing at idle and at speed. The light could also be due to a tired or inappropriate sender.

Oil pressure light on at a hot idle but not at cold idle is a rather normal occurance.

Your car has the 3spd with overdrive..... I wonder if getting the pan off is as bad on the Ultramatic equipped cars? Did you need to drop the tie rod?

John

Having the oil light on after warmed up at idle is how it used to be. Now the oil light stayed on when cold. I'm hoping the cleaned pan and pump screen combined with 10w40 oil will fix the problem. I have the pan and everything bolted up now, but I haven't gotten to the filter yet. While under the car I noticed the big hole in my muffler and rear exhaust pipe. I've been trying to cut the pipe off in front of the muffler so I could put the exhaust on it from the '51. It looks to be in OK condition still. I'm half way through cutting the pipe, but the grinder is hitting the pipe before the wheel makes it all the way through. Going to try a multi-tool with a wood/metal saw blade on it and see if it will get me the rest of the way through.

Here is a link to the you tube series I watched about removing the oil pan. Everything was the same for me except I did not have clearance issues removing the big bolt on the rear of the clutch cover.

YOU TUBE LINK - OIL PAN REMOVAL

Well now I'm thinking I should have left well enough alone. Finally got the pipe cut. Rest of the exhaust came out easily because the bend that goes over the axle was so rotten on top that I was able to tear it apart easily.

Went to put the other exhaust in and hit a snag. I couldn't get it twisted and turned into place because of all of the bends in the pipe. I ended up cutting it in 2 places. Where I cut the pipe by the muffler, part of the muffler pipe was left and would not come off. I figured I would get an adapter to go over it and reduce it back to 2".

Went to the auto store and bought 2 2" exhaust couplers and a 2" to 2-1/8" and a 2" to 2-1/4" exhaust pipe adapter. Got home and tried the adapters...no good! The 2-1/8" was too small and the 2-1/4" would not go on even with some hammer persuasion.

Back to the store and the only other adapter option was 2" to 2-1/2". I tried that and it was really loose! Managed to get the clamp tight enough to hold it on, but I doubt it is going to keep the car quiet. Then to make matters worse, I went to tighten a clamp on the muffler side and it is too loose too! That one had a 2" pipe that I was able to remove.

That was enough today. Frustration really kicking in!

So I've been thinking and I guess the next thing to do is to cut off the doubled up pipe and put a 2" coupler on there. Then I'm wondering if the adapter that is going into the muffler is not going in far enough and maybe putting an extension pipe on the coupler will put enough pipe in the muffler to make it seal. I guess I'll have to look at it again when I feel like crawling under the car.

Many muffler shops have a tool to resize exhaust pipe tubing. I would expect there would be one in your area who could resize a pipe to fit over the existing pipe. They may be able to bend a new tail pipe for you too. Good luck. JWL