Some more odd questions - '49 -

Unknown

I never did find out about these things on the '49. Some of these are kinda dumb questions, but I can't find where I put my oldest Motors manual to answer them for me.



- Aluminum head with spark plugs installed circa 1960? - anything I can do besides PB Blaster or ATF to make sure they come out as intended and I don't get the threads and stuff with them? I'm thinking there's a good chance for galvanic corrosion. I'd just as soon not wreck the head, my sources for a replacement are kind of limited just now.



- Do I need to drop the center steering linkage to pull the oil pan with the motor in the car? It doesn't look like there's a lot of clearance there.



- Oil - refill with SAE 30, no detergent stuff, etc.? 5 quarts?



- This may have the 1963 antifreeze in it; are there any obvious places to check where one of these is most likely to have suffered freeze damage?



I'm thinking change the oil and clean out the oil pan as needed, put some plain water in the radiator, look the hoses over good, put a hot battery on it, and as long as everything else checks out I can disconnect the line into the fuel pump and run it to a can, hotwire the battery to the coil since the keys are missing, and see if it will start up. Even if the hoses are iffy, I should be okay for a few minutes.





- There's two red indicator lights on the dash - what are they for? They're about an inch in diameter.



- can I remove the ignition switch without a key, so I can take it to a locksmith? Anyone have a blank ID # for Hudson keys, and does the door match the ingition or the trunk.. ?

[Deleted User]

dont forget to clean out the float screen while you clean the oil pan out.

if the plugs are having a hard time coming out, work them back and forth and add some oil as though you are tapping a thread.

the idiot lights are oil pressure and gen failure.

trunk/glove box and ignition/doors run separate keys. use briggs and stratton blanks to have more cut.

diesel engine oil is good. but my tip is not to ask about oil round here because everyone has their own pet theories... more than one way to skin a cat there.

[Deleted User]

Better figure 7 quarts of oil for your crankcase. Closer to 8 if you have a filter. Taking the pan off is a pain no matter how you do it, but if it sat for that long you might want to get out the nasty gunk in the pan bottom. The red lights on the dash are idiot lights. One is for oil pressure {closer to the steering wheel] The other is to indicate the generator charge. This is the one close to the clock. When they stay on, you have problems. A lot of guys get the additional below dash gauges to see EXACTLY what their car is doing-not have the only indicators as two red lights. As far as they ignition and keys are concerned,your ignition key and door lock keys are keyed alike. The way in which you find out the code for your ignition is that you remove the three ignition wires from the back of the assembly, then push the whole thing back into the dash. Upon removing the whole assembly, you will notice the plastic ring around the keyed portion of the lock. Remove the plastic collar by pushing it off the lock mechanism. Your lock will then have a slight crack between the lock cylinder and lockshaft. This area is the place where you look for the lock number. It's on the lock cylinder. Look very carefully and get a magnifier. It should say something like 'H 298" or something to that effect. That is the keying info so your locksmith can get it rekeyed. You will need to go to an older established locksmith as the new guys won't have the info on key patterns for the old Briggs and Stratton locks.. Same thing is true for the glove box and trunk key. Find that key info on the lock on the glove box after you remove the lock from the door. Ilco makes blanks that will fit B&S locks. It's getting real hard to find origional B&S key blanks anymore. Ilco numbers for the Hudson are: H1098X B24 and 1098X. Oh yeah a straight 30 wt oil is fine. I use Castrol but there are more opinions on what oil to use than stars in the sky. Good luck.

hudsonguy

pontiac59 wrote:

I never did find out about these things on the '49. Some of these are kinda dumb questions, but I can't find where I put my oldest Motors manual to answer them for me.



- Aluminum head with spark plugs installed circa 1960? - anything I can do besides PB Blaster or ATF to make sure they come out as intended and I don't get the threads and stuff with them? I'm thinking there's a good chance for galvanic corrosion. I'd just as soon not wreck the head, my sources for a replacement are kind of limited just now.



- Do I need to drop the center steering linkage to pull the oil pan with the motor in the car? It doesn't look like there's a lot of clearance there.



- Oil - refill with SAE 30, no detergent stuff, etc.? 5 quarts?



- This may have the 1963 antifreeze in it; are there any obvious places to check where one of these is most likely to have suffered freeze damage?



I'm thinking change the oil and clean out the oil pan as needed, put some plain water in the radiator, look the hoses over good, put a hot battery on it, and as long as everything else checks out I can disconnect the line into the fuel pump and run it to a can, hotwire the battery to the coil since the keys are missing, and see if it will start up. Even if the hoses are iffy, I should be okay for a few minutes.





- There's two red indicator lights on the dash - what are they for? They're about an inch in diameter.



- can I remove the ignition switch without a key, so I can take it to a locksmith? Anyone have a blank ID # for Hudson keys, and does the door match the ingition or the trunk.. ?

I've found that another great way to try to loosen corroded/rusted parts is the combination of oil (PB Blaster, etc.) and air pressure. Use a rubber tipped air gun and a good shop rag to act as a 'seal' around the area you're working on. If you can get the air to force the penetrant into the cracks, it can work like a dream.

Jon B

Worse comes to worse, you can simply substitute the cast iron head for the aluminum one. The cast iron ones are much easier to find. (Be careful to mate the correct head to your particular Hudson engine, though.)



Oil: I'd say, just throw a non-detergent 30 weight in for now, since the inside of the engine is apt to be gunky. As to the whole 'lack of zinc' controversy, I went out to my local friendly GM dealer and bought a bottle of "EOS" zinc additive (a bit less than $10) and dumped it in my crankcase. They advise it's only for pre-lubing engines, not for adding to your oil; my understanding is that they're 'covering themselves' because zinc is not goo for catalytic converters so they don't want to get in trouble with the government. (I assume you don't have a catalytic converter on this Hudson....right????)



One last thing: be sure the battery cables on this thing are for 6 volt, NOT the thin 12-volt ones like on your modern cars. More guys come to grief on this issue, because in the past some ignorant owner simply bolted on the wrong cable, and the current owner doesn't realize it's too small for the job.

Unknown

Well, I started playing today. Amusingly enough, I pulled on the hood cable, and it opened on the first try. Don't know why it wouldn't the other day, but I'm going to add a second release handle under the hood before I shut it again.



I am starting to wonder if this thing was prepped for long term storage to some extent. I pulled the dipstick out and the oil on it was so clean it looked like a fresh change. So I drained it and got a normal black color. Then I took a loop of wire and slid it in the hole. I pulled out some thick oil, but everything was pretty fluid - no real gunky thick stuff at all. I could slide the wire all around inside, I'm guessing the pickup is direcly ahead of the drain hole, since I would hit something metal and stop there. I have to think if it was loaded with thick gunk there would have been a lot more resistance on that wire, I've dropped pans with that kind of stuff in them before and it's like pushing through a good cold stick of butter. Not this one, no real resistance at all, except when I hit the pickup. Not sure how much I got out of there, I've been letting it drip for a few hours and haven't pulled the drain pan out to see what I got yet.



(Could be worse, the '50 Chevy I played with last year had like a quart and a half of water in the oil.. from condensation, apparently... still runs like a champ though - )



As for the plugs, they turned out to all be so loose I can turn them with my fingers, except one. That one, the #4, either has a weird plug in it, or the threads were stripped out at some point and it has some kind of insert fitted to it so an original plug can be screwed in - the plug sits a little higher and there is a second hex below the hex on the plug. The biggest problem I see here is just getting the crap cleaned out of the recesses so I'm not dropping seeds and little twig things into the cylinders.



The old battery came right out, I had no trouble with either of the hold down bolts. The neg cable is a woven type strap with a strange terminal on it - instead of a C-shape with one bolt across opposite the cable connector, it's more like a cable clamp with two bolts on the side the strap connects to. There's no question the cables are 6V, they're much bigger than 12V car cables. The old battery is a "Gold Bond" 145 amp with a rubber-like case - it's bone dry. It's kind of neat looking... I wonder if it's worth saving.





Next up will be to open the radiator drain and see what I get. I see nothing in the radiator, it's dry. The freeze plugs are all in the block and I see no signs of any freeze damage, so I am expecting to find it was drained a long time ago.



Everything on the carb moves like it's supposed to, none of the linkage looks stuck; it had the air cleaner on all this time, so that probably saved it.





Just for the heck of it I hit the brake pedal... it went right to the floor with no real resistance, and stayed there. Looks like the master isn't all locked up, at least.



So far, so good at any rate. I wish the frame wasn't so rotty in it, but the more I mess with it the more I think it would be worth fixing. I wouldn't be surrpised if I could have it able to be field driven without a lot of work.