Projects 53 COOP (Studebaker) gets a major makeover

SO AM I!!!!!....

 

Have to love it when a plan comes together. Also have to say your stable of cars is just outstanding !

 

Thanks-

All Coupes, All Hemis:

26 COOP


33 COOP


40 COOP


53 COOP

 

Been back at it again. Finished up one side today. I'm not doing a body off or making all the mods finished like a show car. It's a driver and at my age (77) I might not finish the car if I tried to do that, so I am painting the undercarriage as I go with POR-15 and reassembling.



One thin.gk that worked out well, was the Camaro brake hoses matched up perfectly with the Studebaker connection point on the frame:



So now I can go down the road with at least half of the stering working:



See ya on the other side......

 

Switched over to the other side. It's going faster than the passenger side, as expected, because I only have to copy, not re-invent the wheel (isn't that appropriate)

Unfortunately, I have been busy on other stuff and finally am back on the 'Baker:





'Later, dudes and dudesses......

 

IrishJr, I have read this thread with much interest because I've been thinking along these lines. Really looking forward to hearing now it performed. I've been loosely looking for upper and lower control arms which would work without or little modification. Did you consider that was well? Also wondering how your spindle choice compared to the Studebaker when comparing pivot points and ball joint heights.

Great wrieup.

 

Wow! Thanks so much for documenting your build for us. What you’re doing is REAL HOT RODDING!

 

@Irishjr , hope you are doing well and have an update for us soon.

 

If I were doing it again, I might take a much different tack. You are right, the spindle height is quite different and a taller spindle might have been better (if there is one). I know that under a bounce the camber will be change much more to the positive (out at the top), so I hope that will not be a problem. I think that if I were using bias ply tires, that would be too hard on the sidewalls, whereas the radials are going to be much more flexible and keep the tread on the pavement.

The other thing is that the control arms are rotated forward at the center when looking down on them, The Olds that were done in the R&C article were perpendicular to the center of the car. Thus, the center pivot that Studebaker used, kept the tie rod parallel to the movement of the control arms, minimizing bump steer. I may end up with minor bump steer that cannot be corrrected, but it's a cruiser, not a hard cornering sports car.

I just couldn't bring myself to use a MII-style aftermarket front end.

I think I would look at a Ford Crown Vic bolt-on front suspension. Even the wheel bolt circle is same a the Stude, and they are very plentiful. I don't know the tread width, but it could work. But that will have to remain a fallback Plan B......

I have been so busy with my design consulting on wastewater equipment that I haven't had enough time to be 'Baker...ing.

 

@Irishjr, I'll have to go back and find the R&C article but you now have me really curious about the Crown Vic stuff. Regarding a taller spindle with options which allow you to find dropped spindles I was thinking maybe C10 or S10 truck, or possibly Granada...

From other reading I know a performance upgrade was to channel the upper control arms into the frame 1". A taller spindle may have the same effect.
My personal motivation is just to simplify future maintenance... ball joints are way easier to deal with than trunions and needle bearings and bushings....

 

@38Cents ,
I have the magazine. As I recall the photo captions had all the good info in this article.
If you need a copy of the R&C article, PM me your mailing address and I will send a copy.

 

Thanks! I tried to pm, and just not going anywhere. Address is [email protected]

 

Interesting read! Thanks... I have a section of frame I used to moch up a straight axle on my 59 lark... I think ill be setting it up to go through some testing.

 

Rather than Crown Vic, how about considering Jag front susp swap? Very easy swap and all self contained except the upper shock mounts.
Now back to the original programming....

 

Btttt

 

@Irishjr @38Cents @38Chevy454

All the suspension ‘options’ mentioned in above recent posts are wholly unsuitable for this project for a variety of dimensional reasons, the most obvious being track width.

The Studebaker wheel mounting surface to wheel mounting surface (WMS) width is about 56.5”. The Crown Vic is around 65” and the stock Ford wheels use deep offset to move the tire inboard, like front wheel drive wheels are commonly configured. The CV crossmember itself is cast or forged aluminum, has integrated motor mount pedestals, with a front mounted R&P steering unit. The stock Stude front frame rails are waaaay wrong to accept the CV xmember and would have to be completely replaced. Both the CV crossmember and steering rack would need to be narrowed. Further, when viewed from above, the Stude A arms are swept back vs the CV A arms being nearer to perpendicular to the frame. There are additional issues, but these alone suggest it ain’t a walk in the park for this application.

The Jaguar is configured better, but is also too wide at about 60” WMS to WMS. The Stude frame rails present the same problem mentioned above

I know this forum disdains frame clip swaps and in particular has rabid critics of “MMII” conversions. But for an example, a Fatman stub frame with suspension using MMII geometry could be fully installed in less time than it likely took to construct the pictured fixtures. And it will drive very well. But you are free to ignore all that and pick your own poison.

Ray

 

This build really brings back memories!
After the rust repair....the mechanicals seemed easy.

 

@Irishjr , any updates?

 

Boy have I ever neglected my garage.......

I have been doing the design consultant thing and tied up with deadlines.......

I gotta bring things up to date!

Well, I didn't do much on the driver side suspension. Instead, I've been in the engine bay.

Back over the December holidays, my daughter and grandkids were here from Denver. 17-year old Sam (my middle name and my uncle's name who died at Normandy) is a senior and has been accepted at Colorado School of Mines. HE WANTS TO BE A MECHANICAL ENGINEER! Whatta kid!!. So Sam says to me "I want to BUILD something. So we spent quality time out in the garage doing things he had never done before (his father is a home remodeler by trade, so he mostly has done things with wood, drywall, mud, concrete, nails, screws, and the like)

At least he knew how to measure:



So we made brackets and installed the radiator. First we filled the vertical "C" shape with a flush plate to give a surface to weld a 3/4" square tube with nutserts to hang the radiator and A/C condenser. The radiator is moved back from the stock location to allow it to be raised above the thermostat housing.

Sam learned about planning (and fixing wrong plans), cutting metal, MIG welding, installing nutserts, etc.





This is a Mopar radiator that I had the lower hose connection turned up to clear the rossmember:



So Sam went back to Denver (next month we are heading out there for his graduation). Oh, he did have some clutch time in 26 COOP to learn how to handle a manual tranny!

Next I had to cover a large opening to seal the intake to the radiator:



I think that covered it nicely:



Two pictures earlier, you may have noticed a big hole in the inner fender panel. That's where I had decided to mount the battery before I remembered the hole in the floor below the removable front seat cushion, where the heater core use to be. Good place for the battery! Now I gotta fill the booboo hole...

Well, I also needed to mount the A/C receiver tank and there's no really nice vertical surface to mount it on, sooo...

I am going to bury the bottom of it in the fender well. I found it hard to determine the oval hole location on the sloped surface., so I made a piot round with a 2" OD piece of tailpipe below, clamped it place, and used a calipers to scribe the oval for a piece of 3" OD exhaust pipe to be welded in place:





That is enough for tonight. Gotta launch the sailboat tomorrow morning. I'll be posting on how I am frenching the headlights next..... I'll be in touch.

 

So nice to see gas welding alive and well !

 

I know I gotta get the suspension finished up, but I guess I must have Senior ADHD. I'm working near the headlights. I have this idea on how to restyle the headlights. I wanna try it. Let's do it.

So where did the term Frenching come from? Got me! Anyway, I have never "frenched' headlights before, so here goes:

When Bob Bourke (under Raymond Loewy) designed the '53 Studebaker Coupe, they had conventional headlight rims with a slight eyebrow, and wanted them painted the same as the car color. However, the big shots wanted more bling, so they insisted on chrome plating the rims. many Studebaker owners painted them anyway, and that's what I did with mine back in 2010 when I bought the car.



But this is going to be a "full" custom in the vernacular from back in the day. Gotta be with frenched headlights. Besides, the high quality fit and finish of 1953 wasn't too good. Things didn't line up so well.

Besides, I wanted to round off some of the sharp edges around the headight and eyebrow.

So the first thing is to move the buckets behind the flange on the fender, so I can R/R or adjust the beams by removing the bucket from the back. A little metal removal of anything projecting out the front and silver soldering 4 #10 stainless screws to the flange was pretty simple. Problem solved!





Then Iblasted the rims and glued them in place with 3M panel bonding epoxy adhesive, followed by laying a layer of fine weave glass across the outside permiter gap, using West Systems epoxy:



You can see how the front lip has been rounded over. Now I will apply a little magic mud and primer. For now, that's where I am on the frenched headlights.

Out back I plan to cut down '56 Packard tailights with them also having rounded over metal edges, so they will aslo be "frenched".

Later, gater.....

 

So today I was kinda loafing out in the garage. It was abeautiful day, my sailboat Vesper was launched yesterday and I put the foresail on the roller reefing in about 12 knots of wind. That tired me, so I just played around.

The last paragraph of the previous post was what I played with. In order to fit '56 Packard taillights on a '54 'Baker, they have to be cut down. I had masked off where I thought I needed to cut a lens and that's been sitting there for aleast a year, so here goes...

I think this is going to look good:



Here I taped a bit of template cardstock to better mock it up:



The uncut lens is on trunk. I should have taken a picture with one next to the other to better show the difference, I think I am going to move the trim piec back about 3" to beter go with the extended fender.



OK, enough playing around. Back to the tasks at hand!

Bye for now....

 

Jim,
Just found your Stewed Thread and are loving it ! Brings back memories of my buddy and I putting a 331 Hemi in his old '53 back in 1961. A couple of high schoolers with hand wrenches, a hacksaw, and an electric drill. That is still amazing to me today how easily that all went together. She ran really well except the bad part was using the Fluid Drive transmission from the Chrysler and that was later changed to a Packard 3 speed.
Your lowering the engine was a good thing as our installation had no room for an aircleaner above the 4 barrel and we had to make room for one with a hood scoop.
Your fabricating is amazing as always and happy to see a Kustom among all your Hot Rods !!
Hope your healing continues as it's tough enough getting old when all is working right, huh ?!
Randy

 

Continuing on with the Packard taillights...

I don't know about you, but sometimes I can't stop working on a side track (and not getting something like the front suspension done) until I get it worked out in final form like I have it planned in my head. So about the Packard taillights:

I wasn't sure how to develop the smooth fit of the lens perimeter. Should I use a round rod to form it or perhaps somethin about 1/8" thick that I could later round off the edge in a "frenched" mode. Instead I came up with this formed #18 ga. plate fit to the curve of the front edge of the lens:





It turned out to be simple to make by single bend in the break and hand bending the rest of the curve. Then I added a couple of locating pins (#10 stainless screws silver soldered to the base and a stainless countersunk sheet metal screw at the top:







Then prop the assembly in place, mark where it should be tack welded to the end of the fender, and stick it in place:



By the way, note how I cut along the convex bulge of the top of the fender, just below the trim. This alowed me to pry the fender side out about 1/8" to match the widest part of the lens base.

Then I added a tab near the top to hold the assembly in place while I added filler sheet metal. This will be removed once I cut out the center portion of the curved plate for the LED light from Lambert Enterprises and add a sheet of acrylic light diffuser to spread the light out inside the lens.

Next, I decided to move the fender top trim back about 1-1/2" to keep it looking right. I just moved the curved sheet metal back and added a filler portion. Later, I will be relocating the curved sheet metal at the front of the trim back the same 1-1/2" and welding up the seam ahead of that for a smooth look.







I still have a little bit of filling in, but for now I am really happy with how it looks.

I have been dreaming of having a car that would look good with '56 Packard taillights. OK, so the '53 Stude fenders are not as tall as the packard, but I think it came out looking good. Here is a side-by-side of the two lenses, one trimmed and one stock:



Tomorrow I'll get the sheet metal filled in all the way.

G'night...

 

Hey, Irishjr;
Good idea on the taillights. Have you tried to move the little stude fender tip back to the Packard light tip, so's the fender would look like a stude factory piece? & of course, slide the stainless top along w/it. Looks to me as if the stude fender-top curve would be correct for the lens size you have. I think it would look good, & well proportioned. It would look a bit less custom. Tell folks that it *could* be a factory prototype instead of the std tail-light treatment. But you're not 100% sure... .
Marcus...

 

On the "cheap" (Government type's) 53's and 54's, BOTH, the headlight rings and the tail light housings...were "not..." chrome. They were painted body color.

Mike

 

Are those your daughters?

 

I kind of agree with you about how far to move it back, except I like how the leading end of the trim lines up with the leading edge of the rear window.



However it's only a bit of cutting and welding if I want to change it. I'll finish out the tip of the tailight surround today and see....

Thanks for the input.

 

Well I can tell you that after 20+ years, I still can't wipe the grin off my face......

 

I can’t blame you in the slightest. Probably couldn’t scrub that shit eatin grin off with a SOS pad and a can of Bon-Ami.