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Ken - I checked out Brillman and ordered a set of correct wires from them. Not a bad price. Most kits that I would have made myself would have incorrect boots ('54 Juniors didn't have boots on the plugs) and incorrect color wires. So I figured might as well get it correct.

Mike - thanks again for the contacts!

Tobs - Thanks for the info. I'll give it a good look over and see what I find. Hopefully between checking for leaks and replacing the plugs/wires, I can get the engine running smooth again. I was a little disheartened that it was running so rough when it seemed to run fine when I put it in the garage for the first time. But maybe the guy I bought it from buttered it up or something?

JW - I'm pretty sure the oil I got should work then, but I'll need to confirm. It's NAPA brand, made by Valvoline. It doesn't say anything about hypoid, but does say it's meant for GL-4 and GL-5 applications, and "extreme" pressure.

Ernie - I totally forgot about Seattle Packard until Mike reminded me about it. Next item I need I'll check with David Moe and see if he's got it.

-Kevin

Quote:

You should be fine with that oil.

How's the repair of the roof going? Did I miss it?

Joe - Still in process. I talked to another friend who is far more experienced in welding and has the right equipment. We're going to spend a couple hours on Monday starting to put the new header in. The old is out and the new one almost ready to go. It's not a fun process.

In the meantime, I decided to tackle the other things that I knew needed to happen....fluid changes, gaskets, trying to get the car running smooth.

Once the header is in and done, then I can get a windshield and gasket ordered and proceed from there.

-Kevin

Kevin, I don't know if you've seen this but it has some good information of the frame work for the 24th series, maybe helpful.
youtube.com/watch?v=YGYYcL1IqdI
Wes

Wes - that was a very informative video, thanks for sharing that. I actually learned a lot from it.


Not much done on the car yesterday. I'm waiting for the new spark plug wires to come in, but I did go ahead and replace the old spark plugs.

The old ones looked pretty bad. The ends of all of them were pure black. Lots of crud around the necks of them too. I blasted out any debris with air before I removed them, then carefully removed the plugs and vacuumed around the holes to be sure there was no debris left.

New plugs (Autolite 308) went in and torqued to 25 ft lbs.

-Kevin

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She lives again! Even after plug replacement and new wires the car ran incredibly rough. We went through and double checked everything, following the timing instructions in the Service Manual. Compression stroke on #1, align damper to 6 degrees before TDC, rotor in the right position, check all plugs to be sure they are in the right order, etc.

During our look-through we noticed the contact on the top of the rotor (the part that contacts the lead coming from the coil) was bent over somehow. We straightened that out, cleaned all the contacts, and loosened the distributor so we could adjust it.

Fired it up and with a small twist of the distributor it smoothed out and was nice and quiet. Idle speed is right about 450 RPM, and confirmed the timing with a timing light.

With the engine running smoothly we decided to test the transmission, so we placed the gas can we were siphoning from in the trunk, shifted the tools on the floor so my friend and his son could sit on the bare floor, and I sat on a plastic crate. Transmission worked great, but then realized I had almost zero brakes so I'll be looking into that next. Driving up and down the gravel driveway was uneventful and very satisfying.

Sorry, can't upload a video so a picture will have to do.

-Kevin

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Awesome! Those are the best kind of drives. Glad you got it smoothed out.

Kevin, my hat is off to you! Excellent way to review a problem finding and fixing it. Too many times people take the shotgun approach and just start replacing any and everything hoping to hit the target.
Good going!
Wes

Not much progress this weekend unfortunately. At this point I'm at the mercy of my friend's schedule to tackle the rust repair and welding. He has all the equipment and knowledge, and I want to be sure it's done right. So in the meantime I did some cleaning on the underside while I had access to the lift.

I scraped more caked on grime from the steering components (I'm amazed at how much is on there) but there is much more to do there.

I then turned my attention to the rear axle. The surface rust and general filth has always bugged me. So I cleaned it all off with a wire wheel (every surface of the rear axle and the diff housing), prepped it for paint, then primed and painted with semi-gloss black. I took care of the leaf springs and a few other spots while I was at it. Nothing special, but at least it looks better now. Eventually I'll do the whole underside, but that's a lower priority.

-Kevin

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