What's wrong with my Rear Support Plate?

RL Chilton

[size=4]Why is it that my Rear Support Plate does not have a bolt hole to hold the pointer?[/size]  

Is that plate from an earlier Step Down?  Or later maybe?  Surely not '55-'56, as I thought the mounting hole for the starter was different on those engines?

53jetman

Russ   -   The pointer is cut into the support plate opening.  To my knowledge Hudson never provided a separate or additional "Pointer" to be attached to the support plate.

Edwardjohnsr

My 53 Hornet has a separate pointer that is bolted in place.  However, I believe the early step down engines did not have one.  By the way, I have removed mine because it tends to get in the way when changing the clutch fluid.
Ed

RL Chilton

Jerry-

No, they have them . . . at least in the manual it's shown that way and my sedan has one.  But the support plate in the convertible does not even have the threaded hole for the pointer, which made me think it might be an early one.  I don't know if the '48-'49's had them or not.  Haven't checked an early stepdown manual.  

Ed-

Thanks for the info.  My car's are Hydra-matic, so no clutch fluid, but that's interesting about it being in the way.  

53jetman

Well I guess I should have said I have never seen a support plate with the "optional" ?? pointer  -  my '54 is as near original as any I have seen, and it does not have a "Pointer", nor is there a threaded bolt hole to place one.

RL Chilton

Walt made a comment on the other forum and said that it is an early  plate.  The pointers didn't come out until '51.  Not sure what the story is on the '54's?  I guess they didn't have one.  

onerare39

The 54's have them.  This is the numbers matching 308 out of my 54.

Glowplug

My 53 Wasp, 54 Wasp, 54 Super Wasp (2) 308 rebuild candidate all have pointers installed

RL Chilton

Typical Hudson, apparently.  Some had it, some didn't.  

SuperDave

My 49 8 does not have one, (The six and  eight rear cross members are the same) but has the hole that is used for brackets to hold the overdrive and shift cables. I suppose one would bolt on. It's just not all that important. I adjust my timing "By Ear" to the needs of the engine, fuel, altitude, temperature etc. etc.. I'm sure my timing is going to be different than someone else's.. The number of degrees isn't important..

Per

I agree with SuperDave.  Many years ago, Tom McCahill (who did road tests for Mechanix Illustrated), recommended the following procedure:

Find out which way the distributor rotor turns.
With the engine warmed up, adjust the idle mixture screw (or screws) to get smooth idling.
Loosen the distributor hold-down bolt enough so you can turn the distributor by hand.
Turn the distributor in the direction the rotor turns until the idle slows down.  (Retarding the timing)
Turn it the other direction.  Notice that the idle speed increases, then stays its fastest speed. (Advancing)
Very slowly turn it in the original direction until the idle gets slightly slower.
Tighten the hold-down bolt.
Drive the car and see if there is a little ping going very slowly in third gear and accelerating.
Speed up and see if the ping disappears when you reach normal engine speed.
Make slight further adjustments if there is too much ping, or no ping.
If it is too advanced, the engine will fight the starter.  

Tom said that this approach would usually give better results than basing everything on timing marks.
This is the procedure I use.

Per

lostmind

I've never used a timing light on any of my Hudsons . Always used the method described by Per

RL Chilton

The reason I brought all of this up was that I was trying to set the timing with my light (that's when it became obvious that not only did we not put the pointer on the plate, but that there was no hole).

 Truth be told, I've always set timing by ear, as well, although not as good a system as Per described.  I wanted to double check my instincts and I had a visual area of concern.  The timing was quite advanced when the car wanted to run properly.  The line was beyond the viewing window, which is something like 9 or 10 degrees Advanced (at idle), but she seemed to run pretty well there. Randy had told me to set it at TDC when I inquired about it back when I got the cam.  I thought maybe something was wrong, but I guess it's just because we have Randy's big cam in there.  There was also a small chuffing at idle that I couldn't get to quite go away, but again, I assume it's the cam-- it is very much like a lope, but different sounding than a V-8.  If you accelerate the engine at all, it goes away and sounds really strong (runs strong, too).  So, needless to say, using the light basically did nothing for me, except tell me that she wanted to run really Advanced. There is no pinging and no hard starting and I'm pretty sure I'm in the ballpark.  Just for grins, I did a Compression check, as Ken U suggested.  The thought was maybe a valve was sticking just a little, or the lifter was a little tight.  All cylinders are right at 115psi, though, so that theory was negated.

After the fire, I'm just more overly-cautious now than I was before, and probably over-thinking it (typical).