Found my exhaust leak

Since I did the valve adjustment the car has sounded like it has an exhaust leak. I thought it was the manifold gasket. But I was only 1/2 right. After driving the car for a while I spotted this:

Besides the visible exhaust leak there is also a pretty good oil leak on the engine pan. I think that is coming from that fitting on the oil pump. I lifted the car, re-seated the exhaust flange, and tightened it back down. That made the problem much better. I also snugged up the oil lines, I will have to check later to see if that has improved. Baby steps!

Troubleshooting a turn signal indicator

Back when I did the new wiring harness I said that everything was working perfectly. It turns out that was not correct. I did not realize at the time that the new turn signal switch had a light in the handle that is supposed to blink when the signals are on. When I discovered this, I found the light was on dimly when the turn signals are off. The light blinked (dimly) when the turn signals were on. My first thought was a bad ground, so I tested that and it was fine. So today I decided to try and figure out what is going on here.

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Oil change time

I have wanted to do this for a couple of months now so when I got a sunny warm day to work with I jumped on it

Everything is ready. The oil drain plug is 1″ on this car and I had to go into my packed-away tools to find a wrench that big.
This is the oil I have settled on. VR-1 10W-30. It has the ZDDP content good for flat-tappet engines and it is a good viscosity range for this engine. It can take almost 6 quarts with the filter.

This is the worst part of the job. The oil does not drain out of the filter housing so I have to pump it out. It is the better part of a quart.

Finally I have to wipe this sludge out of here. Some people say the partial-flow oil filter does not do much. They should wipe this mess up. After this it is just putting in the new filter and filling up the oil.

Oldest picture yet of the Studebaker

My mom has a box of my Grandfather’s pictures and letters. We started organizing it on Thanksgiving and we found a picture of the Studebaker dated 8/26/1952. The car was parked in 1953 for 30 years but it was still a daily driver at this point.

The car at this point looks pretty much like it did when my father started working on it. The 51 Stude bumpers are already on it. It is probably painted the same dark green but the paint is a LOT shinier. When we started working on the car the rear fender in the picture above was scraped and dented, that obviously happened after August, 1952. I have the trim rings still and two of the hubcaps that were on it then. The trim rings are stainless and in good shape but the hubcaps are pretty beat up.

The rear tires look just like the spare tire in the car (which is VERY old). I suspect that the same tires were on the car in 1984-85 when the picture below was taken and that one of them was used as the spare when new tires were put on.

I will have to keep looking for earlier pictures of the car. There is a family story about my grandfather trying to teach my grandmother to drive and her hitting a policeman. She never did get a driver’s license. I wonder if that triggered the replacement of the bumpers?