Projects 51 studebaker/hemi

Hello all'''
I posted a few pictures of my 51 Studebaker champion and thought I'd try to post what few pictures I got while building the thing...It's a done deal now and I'm driving it around on warm days(no heater yet)… I finished this build in about 6 months...It was a lot of grinding on a rusty screwed up frame... and getting the steering around the 354 hemi headers and oil pan…
What's funny is a gas tank for a 55 chevy fit perfect and cost $70 and the radiator is also for a 55 chevy and cost $120...cool the hemi just fine and fit perfect in the original location...

 

The frame was completely rusted apart behind the steering box and under the driver front of leaf spring pad... lots of grinding and welding flat on my back...fun fun… but enough of that stuff... we all start with a pigs ear. Heck it's 60 years old...

 

Nice job on the frame fix, I am glad my Stude frame wasn't quite so bad I assume you are going to stay with the stock steering. There was a factory bulletin on the frame cracking as well as the upper A frame mount also cracking (at least on the 53 and up frames)

 

Then comes the motor..1956 Chrysler industrial hemi...The guy I got it from had put adjustable rockers and the dual 4 setup on it...I kept the rockers and threw the dual 4 and water pump crap away...Must have weighed 200 pounds.... BBC water pump and Hot heads intake... I'd say the motor comes in @ about 500 or so pounds...The front end can handle that...
Course I lost the old trans and 2 piece drive shaft... Adapter plate and a turbo 400...Big Yay...Normal stuff I can deal with....best of all it Works

 

The one pic is the spring perch...Still glowing...haha

 

This is maybe of interest to some of you guys...I put 65 thru 69 mustang brakes on the front...Just used the Studebaker hubs...and rotated the backing plates to miss the kingpin spaced off the spindle about a eighth inch(to get the whole shoe contact on drum)...bingo 10.5 drums 2 inch shoes... seems like I had to turn down the spindle to fit the drum... used a stock master cylinder under floor with a hose and remote reservoir on the firewall(stole it off my quad runner). I can lock all 4 wheels if I want... I know it's a single but they made millions of cars like that... And if your old like me you had them too...ha

 

And guess what..you can go to autozone and get shoes wheel cylinders, springs etc...Now aint that easy... do all this in your garage and not pay a fortune on a disc brake setup you may really not need... Drum brakes work good... I mean how many 100 MPH stops do we make

 

This is a shot of the windshield wiper change over from the vacuum to 12 volt... It's a cable inside a tube with a little gear for the wiper shaft... it was a big headache but after screwing with it all day it ended up working very well and self parks...I still cant find any half inch wiper arms I like yet... that's the motor on the lower right

 

You can see where I patched the fire wall and covered where the defrost motor was...you can also see where and how much I set the fire wall back for the hemi... the bulge at the top left of the fire wall set back was there already... and that's exactly where the distributer went... I guess a few things went my way...haha

 

Here's a little before and after of the floor and trans tunnel... and a shot of the trans mount for the th400... the trans mount is just tacked... In the 2nd photo you can see the old vacuum wiper linkage still hanging... just more scrap to toss

 

I'm sure there are better ways to do most of the stuff I done...and I'm darn sure there are better welders... But welding on a rusted frame on your back in a freezing cold garage is tough... I ground on it and then welded it up... course I ground most of the welds back off and welded them again...and some of them yet again...haha I have now drove this bomb around for a couple hundred miles and nuthin big has fell off yet

 

The 1st pic is just some patch up on the fire wall and the inner fender..I cut the old batt box out and I've started patch welding up the old rivet holes... The next two pic's are showing how I notched the cross member for the reach rod... that's a 5/8 inch shaft I bent an offset in to miss the headers on the hemi... I cut threads and used solid heim joints on either end, for the pitman arm and the bell crank... as you can see it's tacked in for a trial run... those 1/2 inch plates on the old motor mounts are the new hemi motor mounts... like I said a few things did go my way...haha

Seems like I read something about that... These Studebakers seem to have a flimsy frame anyway...
I think this car had sat on dirt for a long time.. the underneath and frame were terrible... somebody had done a fix her up several years back.. welded on rockers and holes in the floor and trunk But when I got it the patches the welded in had rusted out again

 

Here is a first look at a mock up of the hemi... actually they are a small block mopar… I thought at this point, hey no problems with the steering or radiator.... Suprise

 

Then I put the heads on and things swelled up and got bigger... then when I put the headers on things got bad... then the starter made me have to get really creative....
That's when I made the offset bend in the reach rod and I had to bend the pitman arm, and cut the notch in the crossmember... The bell crank was connected to the reach rod with a tapered pin like a tie rod end... I drilled the taper out and used a 5/8 x 5/8 inch heim joint... luckily the bell crank pivot bearings were all good (no play)

 

Yes that's a BBC long water pump... it replaces this big monstrosity And it cost $40 and looks great

 

Here's the kinda finished engine bay... not perfect but mostly invisible once the engine is in...

 

At some point I realized I needed a accelerator pedal and something to get to about the middle of the motor and in line with the carb... so I thought this rig up

 

I'm sure by now a lot of people are thinking what a shade tree mechanic... But I tried to make things functionable and affordable and keep moving forward to have a cool rod... While I have done cars that needed to be, close to perfect, But almost perfect takes time... I finished this whole project in 6 months, including the engine.... It's way more fun driving it around than looking at a half finished project gathering dust...

 

i,for one,haven't heard a single disparaging anything!!-i think we are all very impressed,and want to see a burn out video!!

 

Looks f#cking great to me buddy. Keep posting .... I'm at the end already. Next please !

 

This is the end of the engine bay

 

The 2nd picture is after I cut the frame horns off... I then cut and welded up the nose sheetmetal where the frame come thru.... kinda looks like Daffy duck with his bill missing...haha

 

Shade tree mechanic my arse - you sir are a true gear head - great work and thought went into this car
Job well done sir !


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Once I got the engine bay welding and grinding done and was finally satisfied with the tunnel and floor boards welded in... I then used our friend on TV's product namely Flex shield… all those little gaps and holes in the welds vanished... the stuff is wonderful, and it sticks to anything...haha
Well then the gas tank and the trunk floor... Not many pictures, But the gas tank is for a 55 chevy, fit perfect and I even used the old filler neck and hose (new clamps)..Cost $70 on Ebay… I had to cut a hole in the top and use a diff sending unit... And I am using all the old gauges... gas sending unit @ 12 volts and temp gauge @ 8 volts...(using a transistor voltage regulator) $1.25... works perfect

 

Here is the new rear end... chevy S 10, 3.73 $200 at the junkyard... that's with everything, had good drums and good shoes and springs... all it needed was to drill new locater pin holes just inboard of the original ones on the spring perches... the s10 is almost 2 inches narrower drum to drum... which really makes it perfect as the Studebaker width was too wide... I have 8 inch rims with 235/60 R15's... and looks right

 

Oh yeah you really dont want the old dana rear end Studebaker used... that old thing had a 4.54 gear and was great for 85 HP... plus the brakes were a loser any way you slice it...haha

 

I'm sure any of you that have re-done a basket case like this thing know I have glossed over 100's of hours of little things that make it all come out OK... Like heating and bending the pitman arm until it misses the starter solenoid and the nut misses the frame... Or cutting down the Ross steering box shaft and being pleasantly surprised that it's actually a tube that fit a 5/8 inch spline shaft stub perfectly... just drilled a hole and drove in a roll pin...
Something else on Studebakers... every bolt on these things are fine thread(SAE) and they are HARD... I mean your sawsall blade wont cut it.... but they are sooo stinking hard they dont even rust... and they will come loose, just a little knock er loose,

 

Have to kinda jump forward and gloss over some things and get to my week end project, and that would be several week ends... now this is the old dash, of course missing the gauge speedo cluster and chrome... this was a trial run to see if it cleared the windshield wiper mechanism, and to get the steering column right and pray a 28 inch column would work(it did)