Greywolf II - "Dusty"

[w4rkry]

Subscribed, nice videos, very straight forward and informative.

[Greywolf]

Stage one of the wheel bearings was yesterday. The video took half of forever to upload, I went with a little better quality on it.

Bearings can be a nasty mess to deal with from all the old grease, but once done right it makes a huge difference. The front bearings will be next month, and the noise level in the car has been reduced about 65 to 80% just from doing the back ones. After all of them are done I'm going to go right ahead and replace the drive axles.

https://youtu.be/ovuC6ZyAxsU

[Greywolf]

Nuts - I went over the time limit to edit the above. That's what I get for watching my own videos!

I just wanted to be sure and add that I was going to replace the left spindle, so that it could be converted to castellated nuts and cotter keys - but then it dawned on me that it would be much better to convert the whole works over to Aspire spindles and brakes which are bigger and better.

That was part of the plan anyway from the start. Studebaker recommended that...

The right side spindle had a hole in it for a cotter pin, but the left didn't. The left brake drum also had some minor galling in the bearing race area too, not much but enough to bug me.

For many of the parts, I'll have to go to a scrap yard and rob an Aspire. But the next move will be to install new bearings, seals, brake shoes, and all of that business.

[Greywolf]

Something odd today, I messed up the speedo cable the other day checking the gearbox fluid level (Yeah - it was low) and I got the cable and installed it today.

It's pretty shameful how many missing fasteners and broken mounting tabs I found when I took the instrument panel out. There's a birdnest of unexplained wires in there too that needs cleaning up. When I got it all back together, I noticed right from the beginning of the road test that the speedo needle was now resting below the zero point in park, and it's off at least 5 - 10 MPH throughout the range. It's as if the mechanism inside the panel turned a few degrees from where it belongs, but I can't say for sure how that happened.

I'll take another look tomorrow, and if I find a fix I'll share it/LOG it here.


The R/T was almost 40 miles, I took a few wrong turns but didn't really care. There are a lot of back roads I need to re-learn. Dusty only makes rude noises now around 40 to 45 MPH, a whining sound that almost has to be the 5th and REV gear train.

[Greywolf]

Normally I would have posted a video about that, but it was unscripted and went way off track. There's a segment of it I need to do over. HOWEVER:

My notes on the speedo are this - You want to disconnect the cable at the transaxle first, so that you have room (slack in the cable) to slide the instrument cluster and it's cover out and reach the back of it.

- The socket for the cable at the transaxle will not turn unless the wheels are turning, but the socket in the Speedo will turn freely.

- The Speedo unit inside the gauge cluster is not calibratable to new tire and wheel diameters, and if it fails, it doesn't fail by dropping lower or misreading. It either works or it doesn't.

- THE CAUSE OF THE LOW NEEDLE was very simply that the needle is pressed on to the shaft on the front of the cluster. To remove the speedometer unit inside, you have to slide the needle off the shaft. It GOT BUMPED at some point during the removal of the cluster or the install - and the remedy for that is to pull it off, and then press it back onto the shaft in the correct spot.

But in all of that I developed a new issue - the TACHOMETER now fails to read at all, even though the fuse is good. Common sense tells me that the only big change that happened was when I disconnected the electrical connector on the back of the gauge cluster, so now I have a new troubleshooting scenario, but I expect a very simple cause for that too.

I also did a general cleanup with a trash bag and a shop vac, and removed the mystery device and about 4 or 5 meters of air hose that Studebaker and I believe is the air solenoid for a set of air horns/Trumpets that used to have a pressure tank in the back of this car.

Been an interesting one, today. Even if it was nasty hot in the midsouth.

*** I'll do a new "TAKE" for the video, and get that online soon

[Greywolf]

I tore out the dash panel today - and found a lot of things that are going to be made right.

Studebaker? You were 100% about the evaporator core. There was a whole new level of disgusting nastiness inside of there. I pulled off the fresh air blend door assembly to see inside, and there were even pine needles in it.

The carpet has to go - and the seats are coming out to be thoroughly shampooed. Something in the front of that car has a definite urine smell, so once it's back together I may borrow a seat from the blue one and have the seats from this one re-covered at a local shop.
I'll make a single attempt at cleaning them, and let them air dry in the sun. But if that's where the stink is coming from, they're going to be 86'd

The pivot bracket for the steering column wasn't even bolted down all the way, and the whole column is coming out tomorrow to find out if there is play in the shaft - or if the universal joint was just never tightened down when whatever "Fred" was doing to it happened.

~You don't even want to get me started about the nasty wiring hack job I found inside of it. Just push the big green "IT WAS GROSS" button, and let's move on.

Broken and missing stuff everywhere, it looked like an elementary school kid was using it for a clubhouse.

I don't need to go anywhere any time soon - so every bit of it that I can pull out and clean up is going to be done between now and July.

[Greywolf]

A bit late to add it - but here's the video:

[Greywolf]

~ and on the next day...

[Greywolf]

I got a little bit done today - I didn't consider it video worthy, but when it all comes together that will be a new vid.

Much of the dash is pulled down - the bothersome part where it was trashed above the fuse panel I'm still kicking ideas and methods around. I had to take the metal framework out to get a good look at it. The fuse panel door can be removed by carefully tweaking on a pair of plastic tabs on the back side...

I got the evaporator out, and the main focus was on cleaning it and it's ducting box up. I found my A/C O-ring seals and kit, so as part of it I took off the expansion valve and blew out the passages inside it as well, removing any old oil charge or possible condensation. Believe it or not - toy balloons make perfect caps to seal off the lines from contamination when the system is opened like that. The expansion valve now has a new O-Ring seal, and has been re-installed. You can get a whole bag of these seals for five bucks at any autoparts store, and they are a special composition that is green in color.

There was absolutely no way the evaporator could have been satisfactorily cleaned out between the fins without removing it - oven cleaner spray was employed to get it absolutely spotless (I expect the car will be lemon scented for the first few days after it all gets put back together).

Once again Studebaker was 100% right - the filth and grossness that was on it almost completely blocked off any air flow.

I also drained the cooling system in preparation for removing the blower box tomorrow. More dash parts have been cleaned up, etc, etc, etc...

It honestly reminds me of a very big model kit in many ways. I've been thinking about painting the metal frame parts under the dash just so they don't ever rust.

* NOTE: I'll have to figure out a fix for the far end A/C vents on the dash, they were frankly broken.

* SEATS, TOMORROW, NO EXCUSES...

T-8, and counting

[Greywolf]

It took me a bit longer to do what I wanted, but it's done. I'm still thinking about both the floor pan and what to do about a filter for the air inlet - but I have some halfway decent ideas.

[firebush357]

Got a lot of work ahead of you putting that back together again... Good Luck

[fastivaca]

I've taken the carpet to a car wash and given it a good high pressure spray down. Brought it home and laid it out in the sun to dry. It's amazing the crud that comes out!

Ian

[Greywolf]

You're telling me, it looked a lot like a miniature model of the Mississippi river with all the mud and goop running off of it. I finally hung it over a wide saw horse so that I could spray it and have all the stuff run right off instead of pooling on it. I can't really smell anything from it anymore, and I think I want to spray it with laundry soap, a bit of bleach, and water. Then I'll leave it hang for a bit and give it a final hose down.

Tomorrow morning while it is still cool I have to settle matters with the steering column, and wash the firewall down with a bucket of soapy water and a sponge. There are no drain plugs in the floor - so I'll have to use a shop vac to get the rinse water out.

I also still have to break down and clean the heater blower unit - but that's about the last of it all.

I find that once things are clean they usually go back together ten times faster than they came apart.

* I'll be doing some wiring work too, the radio wires are all going to be attachable after the dash is back in, rather than threaded through everything like an afterthought. And the voltmeter is going to replace the cigar lighter, I never did like electric cigar lighters even as a power plug in point.

[Greywolf]

The first evolution this morning was to wash out the interior - WASH! With a hose, a sponge, and a bucket of laundry soap and water...

*NOTE: I'm not really afraid to get some of the electronics a little wet as long as they can dry quickly and thoroughly. I used to do Avionics Corrosion Control, and cleaning circuit assemblies and chassis wiring groups wasn't a bit unusual.

And something interesting happened that I wasn't expecting. Because there were no drain holes and plugs in the floor, I had to suck all the water out with a wet and dry vacuum cleaner. Because all the dirt and funk was suspended in the water, it cleaned out a lot of stuff that I would never have been able to get out of it with a plain old dry vacuum cleaner. Even caked on mud, and rust flakes.

I also hosed out the fresh air channel under the vents in front of the windshield - and it has a drain on each side that lets water (and dirt) run out the sides on the inside of the fenders. Making sure those drain channels are clear is important so that you don't wind up with an aquarium at the top of your firewall!

So the rest of today is going to be about letting things completely dry back out. It should be 100 degrees f. all day long, and that should do it.

Once things begin to cool down towards evening (when shade falls on that part of the driveway) I have a bunch of electrical equipment and supplies I'm going to bring to the party, and take care of all the butchery that was done on the wiring.

During the day I can break down and clean up the blower assembly, and get a bit more done to the panel itself. Since epoxy, J B Weld, Liquid Steel - or whatever was gooped on the dash above the fuse panel are QUOTE: "Sandable and workable once dry and cured" I used an electric sander to get all of that junk off, But I'm not sure now that I can see the extent of it whether I want to try to plastic weld the damaged area because of the size of the damage, and the type of material.

The dash cover is a different composition than the interior panels, and I don't know if I have any of that around or if there is a part of the dash I can cut away to use as a patch and filler material.

[Greywolf]

More things are going on even as I type this in, but here's todays video.

I got a gauge hole cut where I wanted it, and what I'll put over the fuse panel I'm not sure even yet, but it ought to be something useful even if it's mainly covering up 'Ugliness'. I decided to wash off the heater/blower housing before I even took it apart because it turns out the dust on these things must be something I'm allergic to. It makes me itch just like fiberglass insulation, and God forbid I should rub it in one of my eyes...