Projects Why is a `63 Avanti like a spittoon?

You remember the old story about the town drunk in the old west cattle town don`t you?
He went into the saloon and asked the bartender for a drink.
The bartender said "Pay your tab , I`m not giving you any more credit."
"But I haven`t been payed yet and I really need a drink. I`ll do anything for a shot of whiskey."
After pestering the bartender for a while he finally gave in and said, "ok I`ll give you a drink if you`ll take a sip out of the spittoon at the end of the bar."
The drunk thought about it for a minute and said"ok I`ll do it."
He picked it up and put it to his lips.
The bartender was watching this and felt bad for the drunk. "Stop, I`ll give you that drink if you need it that bad."
The drunk had already started to sip from the spittoon, "glug glug glug," the drunk continued to drink.
"Stop! Stop! I`ll give you a whole bottle, just stop!"
"glug glug, the drunk drank until the spittoon was empty.
"Why didn`t you stop I told you just to take a sip." said the bartender.
"I couldn`t stop, it was all one piece" said the drunk.
And that`s what happens when you start working on a 50 year old car. There`s nowhere to stop.

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When I bought a low mileage,(42,000) Studebaker Avanti a couple of years ago, I knew it had a few flaws and would need some work but it was a 4 speed supercharged car so I thought it would be worth it. It had an oil leak and low oil pressure.
One day,soon after I bought it, I drove it into my shop and put it on the lift. I was only going to replace the pan gasket and check the bearings to see if there was any damage because of the low oil pressure.
Here`s what I found.



Well, nothing to do but pull the motor and find out what is causing the low oil pressure.
The Studebaker V-8 engines have a few quirks that other engines don`t have. One is an external oil pressure relief valve located on the right side of the engine. I first pulled it out to see if that was the problem. Not only was the valve that is made with a spring and piston stuck, but somebody had managed to put TWO pistons and TWO springs in the hole.
According to the records I got with the car, it had only been driven about 300 miles since the motor was re-built in 1983. I guess the previous owners were afraid to drive the car because of the oil pressure problem.
After doing some research,I found the problem. There are two oil passages that run from the front to the rear of the block. They have a 3/8" pipe plug on each end, or should have. Whoever built the engine the last time forgot to replace the one in the back of the block behind the distributor. It`s located behind a freeze plug and if you don`t put it in the oil just runs back into the oil pan.


Nothing to do but completely rebuild it.


Now I wanted to clean up the engine compartment and paint it. Many cars have a black engine compartment, but the Avanti`s is painted body color.
Now I didn`t really like the color on the car when I bought it, but now I have to decide whether to just re install the engine or paint the car. Remember the spittoon?
Here we go.


Once I started to strip the car I found previous body damage. This is not unusual for a high performance `60 car. I`ve restored quite a few Corvettes and almost every one had some front end damage.



After removing several dozen sheet metal screws that the last "body man" shouldn`t have left in, I began the repair.




I only used fiberglass for the repair so it wouldn`t show up after it was finished.


Now the body looks great, but the bumpers need to be re chromed. And what about the stainless trim, it needs to be polished and new emblems? There`s nowhere to stop now.



And while I`m at it all of the weather strip is 50 years old and needs to be replaced.And what about the interior, it`s got to come out.




It needed some sound deadening and insulation since I have the interior out anyway. Why not pull the dash out and dye it. And I might as well replace the instruments with new ones. And why not replace the cheap vinyl on the instrument panel with real wood veneer?





Now is a good time to replace the wiring harness since I had to pull it out anyway.

I might as well add A/C while I`m at it.


Now that I`ve pulled all of the upholstery out , it will need to be replaced.
And that`s why a Studebaker Avanti is like a spittoon

 

Yep.Any old car or truck is a pain at times.Start with something simple,and the next thing you know,its all over the shop.Gonna be a good looking car when done.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

I once bought a set of wheels because they were cheap... Then had to find a car to fit them.

 

Its finally done the day you sell it.

 

Magnificent Obsession

 

Very nice work... it never stops right?

 

Oh but it is going to be one of the finest examples anywhere when you're done, Jeff. That engine bay looks gorgeous, the paint is perfect and I'm sure everything else will be when it's buttoned up.

Just don't make it too nice to drive!

 

We are all just prisoners here of our own device.

 

Cool -

 

"And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen...." Hyman Roth.

 

Glorious.

 

SA, what a great looking 60's car...fresh styling, sharp lines, mucho HP.

Chrysler's 331 HEMI has that same kind of oil passage arrangement where the inside plug (in about the same location) is hidden by another larger plug at the rear of the block. Woe to anyone forgetting to replace that plug, as you have found out....good detective work.

 

I love those valve covers.

My new old van's been the same damn thing. Wanted to put marker lights on it, had to pull the headliner out, it's old and dryrotted and I poked a big hole in it - well it started small and kept getting bigger - then up front I had to cut holes in the steel to get to the fiberglass top shell. One thing led to another, to another, I've swapped the whole dashpad out in it now, still have to fix the headliner, but got it back to driveable and I'm afraid to go start again - it needs tune-up work and looks like no one's been under the doghouse since the day it was built.

 

Beautiful..absolutely beautiful ! HRP

 

Is SPITTOON taken for a personalized license plate? Great looking rebuild. I can still remember the day when a a new gold one was in the showroom of the local Studebaker dealership. Bob

 

I always heard it was the snowball effect. You do one thing, it makes something else work/look bad, fix that, repeat, you know like a snowball going downhill, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.....

 

That's a beautiful spittoon!

WHAT'S REALLY AMAZING IS THAT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO REPLACE THE TROUGHS!!!!

 

If you're a real idiot, you can leave the 2 little freeze plugs out of the front of a SBC behind the cam gear and lose most of your oil pressure. How did I know that?

 

What an amazing bunch of work! That car of yours is a real piece of history WOW!

 

I found the exact same problem on my 365 Caddy motor.

 

Very nice work. Thank you for sharing your photos.

 

You know that hole in your hat shelf. Well I had a friend it the 60's that had an Avanti. He put a guy in the trunk and had him stick his head up thru the hole and it was a real bobble head. Looked funny going thru the Food Drive ins.

 

Wow, That's a really nice car!

Studebakers can make you stupid but I think you're starting to figure that out.

 

Great looking Avanti! Looks to be a late 63 with the black interior and wood grain. My Dad bought a red/black R2 4 speed new in 1964. Love these cars.

 

It is really a `63 but titled as a `64. (R4399) built May `63. Studebaker did that if a customer wanted a round headlight car in `64 because they still had unsold cars from the previous year. This car was actually sold new to the Studebaker corporation. I don`t know if it was used for advertising or used by an official of the company. Unlike many cars of this era, Studebaker kept all of their records and you can find out just about everything about these cars. I have all of the paperwork for this car and even have the inspection sheets from the production line.

 

I like everything you did to your Avanti! That is the sharpest one I've ever seen. Makes me get up and go out to the shed and work on my spittoon aka 62 GT Hawk

 

Wow, you have done one beautiful job on that car.
Back when those first hit the show room floor in the dealerships I convinced my mom that we needed to make the trip to Yakima from Toppenish (25 miles) to see the Avanti on display and also see the Monagram big T that was on display the same day at the hobby shop two blocks away. Seeing both cars was a thrill for a 16 year old and watching the salesmen at the Studebaker dealer flirt with my then 36 year old and new single mom was rather interesting in it's self and gave me more time to check out the car.

 

Great-looking car ! Being in the auto restoration business myself (I restore vintage British tin) , I've seen many cars fall into the snowball effect category . Sure turned out nice .

 

Absolutely beautiful! Top notch.

 

NICE Avanti. Very cool.
Ok, ok, how about this one....

Why is my T-coupester project like a dog turd on my front lawn??



Because they both fill my wife with digust and loathing...