Dale's Hot Rod Shop

I spent half of Monday and most of Tuesday getting the 259 to Run correctly at cruise speed. It would idle great, wide open throttle great, but cruised like it had a drunken hamster on the wheel.

Problem with reengineering engine parts is the r&d portion. So I turned the intake from a 180 degree design to an open design. I did this because my balance tester told me the right side of the carb was working better than the left. I knew it was not the carb it had to be my manifold design. I opened up the intake so all cylinders could draw from either side of the carburetor. This did the trick and I dropped jetting towards lean two sizes.

This made it run much better but it still was a bit rough at cruise speed. I had a idea it was the mechanical advance in the distributor. I robbed the distributor from the 1960 Champ. Installed it with a new set of points. Success it runs fantastic.

This project started as badly beaten work truck. The owners father bought it new, then other relatives used it into the 80’s it then sat the rest of it’s life. It came into the shop November 2014. The owner helped with the sand blasting, small parts cleaning, finding parts, and upholstery.

So the last cruise Cheryl and I went to the rear brakes started to hang just enough to get hot. I used early Cadillac calipers so I could retain my parking brake. Seems the slides on the calipers weren’t doing their job. So I pulled it all down lube the slides and adjusted the ebrake.

I removed the whitewalls to change the look of the truck.

Next I am putting a cooling fan on tranny cooler so the gauge will stop moving up to the something is wrong area.

I am thinking of selling the shop truck and build something else.

So the Studebaker 259 has an Edelbrock 650 carb sitting on top of a once 2 barrel manifold now milled into a 4 barrel. Edelbrock carbs are easy to tune unless you read their complicated manual.

I ended up with the heaviest piston springs and the second to richest primary rods and jets. I adjusted timing and air adjustment screws to highest vacuum. I backed timing off 2 degrees. Truck runs great.

So I took an old set of handlebars from a Honda CL360. I cut, bent, and welded them into a set of clubman bars. Now all that is left is to cut them to length and  paint them. Baked enamel is my preference over powder coating for handlebars.

 

I am going to try and post daily for a while. This week I am tuning the Edelbrock on the Studebaker pickup, on my slick 60,s I am removing the wide whitewalls, fixing the rear disc brake slides, and installing a larger tranny cooler. I am continuing to build a cafe racer from a Suzuki GS850, building a Model A roadster on a 32 frame, and getting ready to restore another old Honda SL350 motorcycle.