1939 212" Splasher restoration

[Deleted User]

Hello!
I am starting the work to restore my engine in my -39. Most of the parts for the engine is check (they have almost everything i need and some more at kanter). As this is my first serious engine restoration, i have done some before, but mostly to get them running. So i appreciate all the tips a can get about what to do on the engine, and also tips on other parts that are easier access to and easier to service with the front end apart. (im going to go through the brakes, this is done some time as ancan see all the brake lines are new) My goal with this restoration is that the engine should look original, and run like original if not even better. The only thing i will be doing that is not original, is installing a pertornix ignition system, as the distributor is a pain to reach with the engine in the car, so i dont have to mess with points.

Also, what type of engine stand is good to use for the hudson six'es? As they are quite long and heavy

I will be continously updating this with progress, photos and questions.

[Deleted User]

Hello!
It is a 212" engine, sitting in my six (serie 92) that i will rebuild now. It is numbers matching with the rest of the car.
I also have a 175" engine that i will rebuild and have as a spare engine. But that will be a later project. But then i know it is not a bad idea to disect that engine aswell to see if anything is useable for replacement for eventually bad parts in my 212" engine.

Yes, i am from stockholm, sweden. And as you said, there are not a lot of parts here for hudsons, but for late 50's cars you hardly have to look here to find it. But i think the hunt for parts and the shortage of parts is a big part of the fun, as i need to restore small parts like lamp sockets and bolts aswell.

I have a ford aluminium radiator/cooler right now, because i had the original one restored last year and the guy made a really poor job, and i don't want him to correct his misstake in fear of that he will make some misstakes that cannot be repaired. So i am using the ford cooler untill i find someone who can restore my cooler to be as good as it can be.

The fun part about this car is that it has been standing inside from 1941 untill 2009 so it has not been running a lot. And there is no rust or anything that is directly looking bad. The reason i pull the engine now is that it has poor compression on 2cylinders and the head studs broke last time i hade the top off. So i thought that i would repair the studs and drive this summer, but i did not get it running in time, and now i dont feel like wasting gaskets for a few weeks of driving. So i will pull the engine and go through everything.

Yes, i will go through the brakes. It's a quick and easy insurance to know that they are good.

I dont want to do more to the steering than checking for visible damadge, as it is now, it works even better than a brand new car. Almost no free movement or play in the steering, if you touch the steering wheel the weels move straight away.

The in car heater is missing its heater. So this will be replaced, aswell as new bearings in the fan motor.

I am going to buy a restored generator, as my car had 12v when i got it, and i have ordered cables as close to original as i could find. With textile around aswell. So all electrical will be replaced during the winter.

RL Chilton

Rick, have you had any luck putting a Hudson engine on a conventional engine stand? I haven't. I even made a custom stand that was super heavy duty and it would . . . sort of hold it, but I wasn't comfortable with it. Best to have TWO cheap stands and put one on each end of the block.

Krille-
Sounds like a great project. Look forward to your future postings on your progress. Good idea with the 212, much better engine.

Uncle Josh

Go all the way to the main bearings. If the babbit is OK, check the clearance. You may have to take out some shims to get to the .oo1 clearance. I have had good luck with rod bearings as they have all been within spec so far.

A tip when you put rings in, is to get the lower one in first using a hose clamp with the winder housing ground off more or less flush with the rest of the clamp for a ring compressor, then install the upper rings and use a conventional compressor. Hold the compressor against the pin to prevent breaking the ends of the rings. Almost impossible to do with all rings since the lower one is about 1/3 rev off.

Also, the distributor is not a problem. Just remove it to work on it, remembering where the pointer is, and put it back when done.

[Deleted User]

I have a stand from swedish store called "Biltema" it is cheap parts, some things are good and some things are less good. It seems quite sturdy, but i am thinking about reinforcing it, at puting a adjustable support in the front that i could use when i am not in the garage to helt taking some of the load of the engine.

I don't think that the bearings should be bad, the engine was running when i got it, and it was running quite smooth, but not perfect. And as noone has done anything to the engine, i want to do all work and know the status on everything in the engine.

I'm attatching some pictures of the car as it looks so far. When everything is finished i will do a new paint job.

Last year i replaced the dash and the interior fabric. Now the dash will need woodgraining, and then i am missing temperature gauge and sender. After this the interior will be complete.
Evereything except the seats are home-made

Now i will start filling this thread with the most important thing of a restoration thread... Pictures!

[Deleted User]

As i did not figure out how to post a comment to each picture i will post it here, starting from the first picture. That is taken when i just got the car home (I drove it home around 1000km in 2 days)
The interior was eaten by rats as you can see on the second picture, and the dashboard was ruined, and made to look like a more 50's look. But sometimes you are lucky, when i decided that the dashboard had to go, i found a original dashboard here in stockholm around 20min drive from my home (the odds are not high)

With the new dash and original speedometer and clock in on the 5th picture.

The interior pictures did not get in order, but the first of them is taken when the seats came in, the second is what the headliner looked like before (I had started taking it down already) I had to change bag in my vacuum cleaner 3times for all of the rat shit on top of the headliner and in the seats, they had 3 nests in the couches.
The picture after is from the new headliner after installation, took me and my girlfriend around 15-20 hours to make and to install, so i recommend those prefab headliners that come real cheap. Costs like the material for making one own, but you spare all the work in making it.

Last picture is from when everything was finished inside. I am looking forward to when this winters work is ready to start driving again.

[Deleted User]

Hi Krille---If you trully want to rebuild this 212 engine then it should be done correctly. completely disassemble & send it out to be hot tanked (cleaned out) Then after you receive it back, have the top of the block trued up along with the head. Clean up the threads in the block & replace the studs (bolts) if possible. Replace the valve guides with new ones along with new valves, springs & keepers. Now comes the camshaft & bearings. You may want to have The camshaft reground & finding new camshaft bearings will be difficult, but necessary. While at the machine shop, have it rebored no larger than is necessary(no more than .40 over, then install new pistons & rings. Check with Geoff Clark of New Zealand or me if you need clearances. Good luck.---Cliff Minard
P.S. Dale Cooper of U.S.A. should have all the parts you need except cam bearings.

Jon B

Krille, the concept of a Petronix ignition is a logical one that many people have made.

However, please be advised that it is not necessary to work on the points when the distributor is in the car. Whenever I need to check or replace my points or condenser, I merely remove the entire distributor. I just remove the cap, detach one wire from the side, and remove the one bolt that holds in in place.

(That's necessary because of course, due to the gears at the bottom, the distributor could be replaced in any number of orientations.)

It is only necessary to make sure that mark the position of the rotor (after removing the cap) with chalk, in reference to its rotation. I also mark the mounting plate with "white-out" or latex paint, on both sides of the mounting bolt, so I know the exact setting for advancing / retarding the spark.

Uncle Josh

Alan, the oil will burn off in a few seconds. My experience is, that the rings are frozen in the grooves. Take iron rings, and aluminum pistons sittin around and corrosion forms Aluminum Oxide. Stuff grinding wheels are made of. I haven't found anything to dissolve it.
Having said that, RB Knox dumped a can of SeaFoam in his Hornet that we couldn't get started and next day fired it right up. Go figger.

Kdancy

Another thing to be sure and look for on the 212 rebuild, I would have the machine shop magnafux the block to check for cracks between the cylinder walls. I found one between #5-6 cylinder on the last one I rebuilt. The previous owner had already had the engine rebuilt and it had never been started and run.
Of course, I also found broken rings and shot bearings not to mention crank had to be turned and camshaft reground. But it did have a new set of pistons installed!

Uncle Josh

The bottom line is, you have to take it all apart and check everything. I recently went to help a friend start his 40CC8. When he hit the starter, it went 'clunk'. When was the last time it was turned over? Well, it ran 25 years ago, and had fresh oil. Well, you can monkey around with whatever penetrating oil you want but we're gonna have to take it down. He did and I did. It's a good thing it didn't start! I found.....

Missing parts in the 'rebuilt' carb - replaced from my stash
Pistons stuck, #7 really bad - driven out with the wood block and persuader
2 pistons with broken ring lands - replaced from my stash
.006 slop in the mains (removed shims to get to .001)
1 'round' lobe on the cam - new cam from Al Saffran
Missing phenolic cam washer - replaced with new
Badly worn cam gear - replaced with A NOS from my stash
Pieces of a broken something in a valve spring - who knows
A broken lifter - replaced from my stash
A broken tap in a stripped water jacket hole along with 4 broken bolts and
a leaky jacket plugged with tub caulk - New jacket from Al Saffrahn
Several broken exhaust studs - all drilled and tapped out
A stripped and re-tapped fuel pump mount
Clutch way out of adjustment - fingers now within .oo5
Clutch disk missing ALL corks and outer holes egg-shaped from heat, and disk .060 oversize. - core from my stash rebuilt by Ron Fellows
A screwed up double 'rebuilt' fuel pump wouldn't work- replaced with rebuilt single
An inoperable water pump - replaced with rebuilt
All the oil was jelled so it wouldn't even run out - removed with spoon and putty knife
A gallon of his Marvel Mystery oil and I've probably forgotten something.
New rings, and head gasket from my stash and all new gaskets from Dale Cooper

Hope you have better luck than this

Glad to say she's all fixed up and running great. He (Bill Gates) is an historical author, retired school teacher and part-time captain of the large tour boats on Lake George. Nice guy. He just got her up-hostered and she's in the paint shop

[Deleted User]

Last monday i got the engine out, everything still turns easy, so that is good. I have ordered one of those engine stands with gearbox, should arrive next week.

I was thinking about the mech. manual, does the 1940 manual also apply to 1939? (With torques, play and such things?)

Thanks a lot for all tips, seems that i will have a lot of things to do this winter, starting more seriously next week when i start to disassemble the engine and checking status on everything.

I will post some more pictures of the removal of the engine this evening.

[Deleted User]

As i said earlier, the engine is now out, and i have started to dissasemble the outside parts to make it easier to mount it in the stand tomorrow.

I removed the mg tags for the images, they where a bit too large to show up good.

All metal around is removed. Nad one thought is stuck in my mind. The engineers at Hudson have had a lot of smart solutions, but how do i adjust the valves hot when you cannot even reach the adjustments with the car in one piece?
http://www.classiccar.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/13/7729225c0aa3a8cc25c57ae6b63ed3.jpg

The engine is on its way out now
http://www.classiccar.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/ff/765ebaa0fe099ca7bd11f90abe7dad.jpg

I noticed that i forgot about the wire for the gear shifter...
http://www.classiccar.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/7e/5c526068cb1e7a1fbcc225d90c9e1c.jpg

The engine is out, it was not that hard with the entire front removed
http://www.classiccar.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/df/d30c5ce2b3236cf298409d3e686d5f.jpg

Gearbox and flywheel is removed for attaching the block in the stand. Which holes would be the best to use for hanging the engine in? (everything turns easy, maybe even too easy)
http://www.classiccar.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/ab/6801e238a2b23a2e8f9904dc9a342d.jpg

My garage is not that big, the blue lines separate the car places. So it is almost a parking-lot size for the restoration.

Next week will tell me what needs to be done, exept than whats planned to be done.
Is there any good and easy way to clean the cooling waterchannels in the block?

The only bad things i've found yet is the clutch, needs new cork and a new throwout bearing. (I have new plates that also need recorking, so if there is more damage it not all hope lost) And the waterchannels had a greenish slime coming out, i know that coolant can form this slime in contact with oil. So i think this is from the time i pulled the top and had engine oil in the cylinders and spilled a good amount over the rest of the block aswell. Other than that it looks good so far.

Is it safe to use paint remover on the block if it is washed thoroughly after? Or could this react in a bad way with the alloy in the block? (Outside only)

Geoff

To adjust the tappets you remove the right front wheel, and the inspection panel from the inner fender, and this gives access to the valve chambers.

PaulButler

Hey Kristopher,

I still have that nice grille waiting for you Glad to see you are still moving forward with your car!

One of these days we'll work a good way to ship stuff without breaking the bank