Studebaker Progress

The Studebaker came out pretty nice, it's a real survivor that I gently massaged back to life. This was due to my respect for the original build done in 1959, and also due to the fact that I couldn't afford the time or money to do a full restoration.

It drives very nice and goes down the freeway well. The car is very close out of the box, but I need to address a few small things. There's a power steering leak, and that's pretty much it! It runs right on the thermostat (180) and does not heat up at all. The oil pressure is very solid and the big cam sounds great. One thing I need to change is the distributor, I used a bitchin' old Mallory YL dual point that came with the car, I doubt it was ever installed. It is period perfect for the car but it has no advance built in, mechanical or vacuum. I had to retard the spark so it starts very easily but it runs a little poorly because it just wants more spark advance. I'm going to swap it for a modern electronic ignition.

Here's a few photos.

This is the 283 in the car. I took care to make the engine paint very nice, and paid attention to all the details as well. It looks great. The carb is an old Rochester 4 Jet and I tried to use period correct parts where ever possible. I was in a bit of a time crunch so I made the radiator hoses out of aluminum tube mandrel bends and tig welded them together. Check out the ancient electronic ignition on the firewall.

From this view you can see the lower radiator hose (also fabricated from aluminum mandrel bends) and the glass bowl fuel filter. You can also see the basically brand new Mallory YL dual point distributor, too bad I can't use it.All this stuff either came with the car or was scavenged from my stuff.

I mounted a pair of Stewart Warner mechnical water temp and oil pressure gauges on the column, along with a bitchin' Sun tach. The tach is a pretty rare piece from my junk pile, it's an FZ88N model that does not use an external sending unit. I got it years ago at a swap meet and it works like a champ!