Notes on Gearbox Lube

It has been a long while since I drove the '29 Hudson. Yesterday, I did some long neglected polishing of the brightwork and went for a drive. The car starts easily now, but hesitates under acceleration. I'm not going to do much about this now as it is still full of bad gas, but after tanking up with fresh, it will be time to see about adjustments.



The car seems to move in a very leisurely manner, not peppy at all. Part of this might be bad gas, but another part is the exaggerated delay when shifting. These old Hudsons have a lot of flywheel mass and lack syncrho rings so they will never shift like a modern car will.



Just the same, I notice a huge difference between the way the '26 shifts with its 29 flywheel, clutch & transmission & the way the '29 shifts with the same equipment. The difference between the two is the oil. I put regular 90w in the '29 whereas the '26 got a dose of Model A 600w.



The 600w makes getting into gear at a stoplight easy. Shifts need to be speeded up to avoid crunching gears. The '29 with its 90w is hard to get into gear without prolonged delay and the shifts need a great pause to allow the motor to slow way down. I have come to delaying sliding the lever out of gear until the last minute and then doing the quick double clutch just before selecting the next gear.



It works but requires more thought then it should and is slow, a process particularly harmful on hills. Happily, this Hudson motor pulls from much lower speeds than it used to!








Paul O'Neil

SoCal

1923 Ford Model T Runabout

1926 Hudson Anderson Coup
This discussion has been closed.