Projects 53 COOP (Studebaker) gets a major makeover

Do wonder in situation like this if you could move the steering rack towards the drivers side and the adapter back towards the passenger side the same amount so it stays central so it end up as per picture for a better angle on the steering shafts. Just a thought.

 

What you really need to do is have shorter steering arms if you can, this is how someone solved the problem. Ya I do realize that you have got to keep the Akerman principal correct.

 

I remember reading one of my Studebaker books about the original roof line that Bob Bourke designed had height added so that a man wearing a hat could set in the seat without the hat hitting the headliner. Bob's original roof design is very much like the "Gentleman's" chop.
An early hemi and a 53-54 CK is such a natural pairing!

 

I think that a guy in NH, Smart Rods, Manchester, NH, did chop one of these, I think that plastic glass was used for the back window. I think that this guy would give Norm from Rochester, NH a run for his money.

 

Being able to wear a hat in one's chopped car is important:

 

So, it started as a tall T. It has a gentleman's chop. What does that make it?

 

I chopped it 1" to make room for the power window motor on the rear quarter windows:



That makes it a "SILLY" chop.

 

I had both shoulders done a year apart, last one done 2 years ago. I can work overhead for an 8 hr shift with no pain. And I'm 71.

 

Mike, what rearend are you running on the one with Wilwood brakes?

 

Winters QuickChange.
Hung on early Chevy truck arms, and a wishbone centering device.




Mike

 

Guess who's back.....My shoulder will not be operated on, just physical therapy for about another month. Unfortunately, function is kinda curtailed. Getting my arm up to work above is difficult. But the doc says that, since I'm not in pain, I guess that at my age (77) I am not a good candidate for successful surgery. CRAP!

But then again, I'm still lookin' down at the grass lookin' up at me.

So I'm back on the Stude, but kinda in a light duty way for now:

A fairly easy mod is replacing the bolt-thru-the-frame single master cylinder with a disc/drum 1" Corvette unit.

Studebakers were like other cars of the 40's with a combination mechanical clutch linkage connected thru the pedal pivot of the brake master cylinder. The 'Vette cylinder is both wider and mounts in the more modern flange bolted arrrangement, so I had to design a bracket to be welded to the side of the frame and make the clevis/push rod line up with the center of the MC:




Nothin' fancy, so I don't think I needed a lot of pictures. It felt good to get back in the shop to cut, grid, weld, do something once, do it agin, etc. You know the drill.





As for filling the master cylinder, I am going to do a trick I did on 33 COOP, i.e., drill a small hole between the two reservoir chambers and tap holes thru the side of both chambers that will allow me to pump brake fluid into one chamber, flow it thru to the other chamber, and out to a catch bottle under the other chamber. That way both chambers will be known to be full once fluid comes out the second hole. Then cap the fittings until next time it needs to be checked.

Se ya fer now.

By the way, my wife got me an Eastwood Mini Metal Saw for Christmas. That little snot cuts thru 1/4" steel like butter and makes a really smooth cut.

 

I used a Wilwood remote master cylinder on the wagon above.
That puts the reservoir up on the fender well where it's easy to get to. It's a small plastic one so it not too obtrusive and in the way.
I also had to make an adapter plate to weld to the frame similar to the above bracket.
I made a "Y" section of brake line and used a single reservoir. The "Y" pipe spits the fluid into the two sections of the master cylinder.

Mike

 

I did something similar. I could only find in-progress pictures, final assembly changed a bit.


Hand made bracket to bolt up to the original 1962 Volvo master cylinder mounting holes.


I chose to use both reservoirs. That way I could find out which end was leaking now - I eventually replaced almost all of the previous owner brake system

NOTE: The pressure operated brake switch was CRAP - It failed in less than 2 years - Also, it takes a fair amount of brake pedal pressure to light up the brake lights - not ideal in Phoenix traffic. I now use a mechanical brake light switch on the brake pedal linkage.

Russ

 

My focus changed to another area of the drivetrain: How to shift gears?


With the shortened steering column, the lever at the base of the column now resides behind the firewall. I thought it would be fairly simple to use a cable shifter, so I purchased a Lokar shift cable kit. Unfortunately, the radius that the ccable can be bent was fairly large, so the space in the cabin occupied by that system would have been too intrusive and difficult to route to the transmission. Instead I came up with a pretty conventional shifter rod system with one unusual twist (no pun intended): an intermediate bellcrank:


This is my initial mockup of the bellcrank. The pivot bracket for the bellcrank is a piece of ubing bolted to the sheet metal of the transmittion hump, which doesn't provide much stability, but gave me the confidence that the system would work. However, the length of each of the levers was questionable, because I only had 5 of the 7 positions working within the range of motion:



However, as this pic shows, with a more stable base for the pivot (still in progress) the full range of the shifter positions now is realized:



Now I will work on enclosing the system, which will use a rubber bellows to seal the linkage penetration of the cabin environment.

Back to you soon with more progress........

 

Thanks for the inspiration. I need to work on my 54 Stude.

 

Carrying on with the completion of the shifter linkage....

Oh, but first, I left out a pic of the master cylinder piping on the other side of the frame, where the distribution block resides:



Now, in order to seal the shifter linkage inside the cabin from the linkage down to the transmission, I needed to build a sheet metal shroud to which a rubber bellows seal blocks off air passage:







A lot of engineering-on-the-fly went into it, but it was worth it not have to snake that cable into places it just didn't want to go. I tried the mock-up Vintage Air GEN II Super and it all clears, and the shifter is not visible when sitting on the bench seat.

Well, next step is to mount the A/C so I can get the mock-up back to Street Rods 2 Go. Thanks, John.

 

I agree with Studegator about the slice, here's my version of reducing the headroom. Done in '06, leaned the windshield and surround back about 2.5/3.0", on this coupe deleted the vent glass and thinned the A' and B' pillars. "Bonneville" in mind went with M/B headlights... dyno dave

 

^^^^^^. @Dyno Dave

Roof Looks Great! Gorgeous, even.....

I really like the grille opening mods and the MB headlights.

Ray

 

Ray, thank you for your very favorable comments about the Studebaker coupe, I thought the result looked "Very Fast" just sitting there. My prints here at home appear much cleaner than the scanned one I posted, sorry about that ! dyno

 

@Irishjr , saw a photo of the T Coop at Jalopyrama today, reminded me I hadn't seen an update for a while for the Stude Coop.

 

Hello again from my garage. It's been a long interlude without a post. Sorry, there's been a lot going on in the old geezer's activities, but not enough on 53 COOP!

With all of the Covid stuff, I have been blessed to be really busy with my "retirement" job as a design consultant for the firm I worked for in Ohio (now located in Indiana) on a fairly complicated screenings and grit removal system on a combined sewer overflow tunnel pumping station in Toronto. It has generated a lot of $$ for Studebaker parts, etc., but left me short on time to actually work on the Studebaker.

That being said, I have started on the exhaust system and the cooling system. For now I'm gonna show what I have accomplished on the latter:

I decided to forego trying to use the stock Stude radiator, mostly because it sits too low and has no room in the bottom tank for cooling lines for the transmission cooler. So I bought an aluinum radiator of about the same size for a Mopar and had the bottom outlet changed to a vertical elbow to clear the crossmember. I am moving the radiator back toward the fan, so I can raise the top inlet higher than the thermostat and still clear the hood.





Which then brings me to the thermostat housing and connection to the top hose. The '51 to '54 331 Hemi has the thermostat in the front of the intake manifold. This places the thermostat fairly high, especially higher thann the '56 to '58 Hemis that use the crossover at the front of the cylinder heads.



Long story short, I decided to make my own thermostat housing.

Notice how it sits at a 20 degree angle down at the front? So first I designed it in CAD:



Then, using a friend's mill, I started cutting away anything that doesn't look like a thermostat housig:





After machining the main body, I mocked it up using a piece of a 1-1/2" sink trap fitting:



Then, with my grandson looking over my shoulder (he was in Maryland from Denver after not being able to visit for 1-1/2 years due to the Covid), I made the outlet tube on the friend's lathe and mill. I then had a local shop TIG the two parts together. Finally, I rounded off the corners, made a gasket, and put it in place:







Here you can see how the hose now rises to the radiator (the way it needs to be). Note also how I had the radiator shop trim the front outside corners of the tank to clear the hood:



Well, I guess that is enough of a treatise on making a thermostat housing. I promise I will post the progress more frequently. See ya back in the garage......

 

Nice!

 

Incredible work!

 

So now it's back to the exhaust (I know I'm bouncing around). I actually have one side done to the baack of the differential and the other side just started. I am doing it all in 2" 304 SS and have been welding it up from straight pipe and elbows. I'll be posting some pics soon, but I thought I would show a tool I just designed and built to help join pieces of the tubing. I have had some issues with making good joints and positioning them correctly so I can tack weld them. Here is a drawing of a clamping protractor I made:


Here are pictures of the two ways of using them, clamped on the inside or the outside of the bends. They are infinitely adjustable from straight to over 90 degrees. I will probably make anothe 2 or 3 to make it easy to finalizing the position along the full length.





I haven't found anything like these in the tool market. I think they will work very well for most applications and should work for a wide range of exhaust tubing diameters.

 

My neighbor across the back alley is currently building a header for his very non hamb friendly car on YouTube under "Throttle Stop Garage". Look at his clamps.

 

Damn ya! Now I can't stop watching THROTTLE STOP GARAGE!

So here are a couple of screen captures from his videos:





Those might have been OK, but what I built will probably be better for holding two 2-feet long pieces of exhaust pipe in a stiff relationship to one another.

Another hardware store visit and I now am building three more just like it for even more flexibility in fitting up the pipes.

 

He said later in the comments that those were probably going on Ebay. They only worked for certain applications. Foil tape was suggested by a pipe fitter, and might be worth looking into. Pipes have only got to be in position long enough for some tack welds.

 

Here's my clamping protractor installed on the passenger side tailpipe, behind the axle. It makes temporary, rigid connection. I have to mark and trim the joint and then tack it in place. I'm satisfied.

 

@Irishjr , any progress to report?

 

That jig is brilliant/simple/cool as hell!