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Pierce-Arrow Travelodge travel trailers were built only as 1937 models, rather unimaginatively termed Model A (19′ can), Model B (16.5 ft can), and Model C (13.5 ft can). See recent trailer thread. I have a Model A that was at Redmond Meet in 2006 with decently-but-not-perfectly-restored interior, needs paint. Will try to attach pic. A total of about 500 trailers were built over probably only a 5-month period–at least 149 A’s, 261 B’s, and 100 C’s per known highest serial numbers. List price on a ‘A’ was the same as TWO new 1937 Ford or Chev coupes.

George

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Hi Tony,

McCord 5788 is for Stude 8, Models 92 and 93 only, per my 1940 McCord catalog. This is NOT listed in the Studebaker section, but only in the numerical lists at the back of the book (what they call Section B-1).

Victor 954 is Pierce 8, 1936-38, per 1945 Victor Master Catalog. Presumably the steel side goes to the aluminum head. I’d think that gasket would work for aluminum heads even if on earlier block.

Victor 736 is Stude President 8, 1929-32 (1945 Victor catalog).

Our own Parts & Service Directory shows Fitzgerald 911-PA for 1929-35 P-A 8 [iron heads] and 911-PA-DE for 1936-38 [alum heads].

Happy holidays, all!

George

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Clay, By no means do I consider myself a ‘guru,’ but I have a Model A with a decently-but-not perfectly restored interior that awaits exterior restoration. Look for the big 2-tone blue one among the pix of the 2006 Nat’l Meet in Redmond, OR.

The INTERIOR is the greatest determinant of value: how many original fixtures (heater, stove, icebox, lamps, etc) are in the offered Travelodge?

Travelodges are delightful to tow–you hardly know they’re back there, largely due to independent suspension (no axle, tubular leading arm for each spindle and 1/4-elliptic spring for trailing arm.

Their greatest problem is electrolytic corrosion between the steel frame and the aluminum skin (resulting in deterioration at the bottom of the skin) which were separated by what we call tarpaper today. This can be dealt with…

Feel free to email me at my Roster address (see e-Roster in Members Section) for more info. Don’t be dismayed when my spamblocker sends you an automated msg–I clean out the limbo box half a dozen times a day.

George

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Doug and I talked tonight. My e-mails may be in his spam trap. My e-mail address in the paper and online rosters IS correct. Thx, George

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Just before the national meet in Temecula this year, I ordered five new Bedford 700 x 17 tires from Lucas for my 1934 8-cyl Silver Arrow, and also ordered five tubes from them at the same time. After the old tires and tubes were removed, I spent the better part of a day ‘dressing’ the interior surfaces of all five wheels, and ensuring that the rubber band around the rivets was in good condition and properly positioned. The inside of the wheels was as smooth as a baby’s bottom! I supervised the installation of the new tires and tubes at my usual local tire store, where they know I’m picky but accommodate me anyway (a tip to the tire installer works wonders). They used a proper amount of tire talc and spread it around thoroughly in the casings. I put very few miles on the new tires before driving to the meet. Itinerary both directions was through the Mojave Desert, with temps up to 110 degrees.

Had TWO flats on the return trip, one near the town of Mojave–at 110 degrees or close to it, and the other a day later south of San Jose at about 80 degrees. As originally planned, we spent the first return night in Bakersfield, where I sought out the oldest tire dealer in town and bought a 16-inch truck tube (all that was available on a Saturday) which seemed to fit the wheel better than the 700/750 x 17 tube furnished by Lucas.

We closely examined both failed tubes, orienting them to the respective wheels, and found no rough spots on the wheels that could have caused the tube failures. We determined that both tubes had developed small longitudinal splits immediately adjoining and parallel to the bonded seams–leading me to deduce that the Lucas rubber is too thin. I ended up replacing ALL the Lucas tubes with 16-inch truck tubes, which were substantially heavier then those from Lucas. I’ve since put at least 500 miles on the replacement tubes, more than half of them in 90-100-degree weather, without incident.

Accordingly, I will NOT use Lucas-furnished tubes in the future, but will stay with locally-procured 16-inch truck tubes. BTW, the Lucas tubes had NO manufacturer or country of origin marked on them, only the size. I am VERY pleased with the Bedford tires, however; even the two that suffered flats survived that trauma without damage, and they were certainly inspected thoroughly.

George

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Mika and Tony,

I’ve had five Pierce and one Paige water pumps re-engineered by our member Jerry Washburn in California–three of those pumps have been in service for 13-14 years without problems. Jerry is a retired Master Machinist and has been a good friend for 35 years. He has done pumps for a number of PAS members. Jerry replaces the bushings with sealed bearings, then machines out the housing to accept modern seals from the Grainger (a major industrial supply dealer in the U.S.) catalog. When he finishes, there is no more packing and the grease cup is strictly decorative–no more water pump grease, and no packing to tighten every so often. He charges about $300 USD (plus shipping) to re-engineer an 8-cylinder pump if there are no complications, such as an eroded impeller. Reproduction impellers are available. Cooling seems to be a recurring issue for most prewar cars, and this process helps a great deal to make your car reliable in that area. You can probably get a similar process accomplished in Finland.

Tony, e-mail me for latest phone numbers and hours for Jerry if you are interested in having him do your Stude pump–by the way, he has a 1928-1/2 President 8 roadster.

George

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Getting bolts loose: If you get a bit of movement, work each bolt back and forth just a few degrees, adding penetrating oil. Don’t try to unscrew more than a very few degrees without working it back towards ‘tight.’ The range of movement will slowly increase. PATIENCE!

Oil filter: Perhaps others who have used the Burr Ripley filter conversions can comment, but I think that is the way to go, since you will not have to re-form the existing lines or make new ones–which you’d have to do if you put a generic replaceable-element canister on. By the way, if your replate those oil lines, they should be polished nickel, not chrome.

George

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Really can’t help you with the wrist pin issue (haven’t had mine that far apart) except to say that whatever a competent engine builder determines is an appropriate means of securing the wrist pins should be OK. This is one area where we should embrace more modern technology!

George

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Bob,

For replacement gears, first try Then & Now Automotive in Weymouth, MA (AKA Antique Auto Cellar, best known for fuel pump rebuilding–see link). Clearance of oil pump end plate should be 0.002 (mine was 0.012 before machining inside surface). The two matched pump gears are more critical than the upper drive gear; the slop in the (upper) drive gear really doesn’t have much effect, in my opinion.

The drive gear is accessed via the square cast plate attached with 4 bolts and located at left rear of engine underneath manifolds. Oil pump is driven by a vertical piece of 1/2-inch square tubing (available at hardware stores) which, believe it or not, dangles from the drive gear assembly by a cotter pin! The oil pump drive has a tapered tip above the square section that fits into the square tubing to permit ‘threading’ the pump drive into the tubing.

Originally, the oil pump was secured to oil pan by 6 studs and nuts. I strongly recommend replacing those studs and nuts with cap screws to make it MUCH easier to ‘thread’ the tapered tip of the oil pump drive into the square tubing should you need to do so later when the pan is on (I found this out the hard way). Be careful–3 of the 6 threaded holes are blind or closed, so ensure that the cap screws are not so long that they will break the cast aluminum pan. I put flat washers under the heads of the cap screws and use Permatex #2 on the threads of the cap screws.

George

http://www.maritimedragracing.com/then_and_now_automotive_part.htm

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Tom, thanks for the kind words. I want to reinforce what Dave has said a couple of times now about using GL-1 (non-hypoid, straight mineral oil) in a Borg-Warner overdrive, which for P-A owners will be only the 1936-38 cars. I now have two Willys-Overland Jeepsters (’48-’49) but the one I’ve had for 28 yrs will soon go elsewhere. The Willys Owners Manual AND Shop Manual are very explicit and emphatic about using GL-1 (straight mineral oil) in the trans & overdrive (lube can migrate between the two) BUT say to use hypoid (extreme pressure–EP) lube (= today’s GL-4) in the differential.

The B-W overdrives were also used in Packard, FoMoCo, Studebaker, and almost all other OD-equipped vehicles (I’m excluding Columbia 2-speed axles, as I know nothing about them), so the GL-1 is THE lube to use in any B-W OD and its transmission.

VBR, George

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Tony, bear in mind that metallic paints before World War II had very finely ground metallic components or ‘flakes.’ You may have seen the incorrect coarse-ground metallic (very obvious) in the maroon 1940 Cad 75 convertible sedan often shown at Ironstone Concours in Murphys. BTW, I’ll be at the Ironstone Concours Saturday; if you’re going, pls track me down. A good place to start is at the PAS NorCal canopy. VBR, George

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Tonight I was looking for something else in a binder I set up for my Series 80 with copies of individual authenticity information pages from old PAS Service Bulletins. I failed to pencil the PASB number and page on this one as I usually do, but one pertinent paragraph reads:

“Standard material used on [Series 80] open car tops was ‘Pantasote,’ a trade name for a black coated fabric similar to modern vinyl but not as good. The options were a type of canvas material called Haartz cloth, generally in a tan color, but other colors were available on special order.”

The next paragraph pertains to interiors: “Leather used for interiors was usually black (standard), with tan, red, blue and green as options. Actually, colors other than black and tan were rarely used.”

Comment: A few years ago Eric Haartz (same family company — http://www.haartz.com) — began to reproduce ‘Pantasote’ and may still be offering it. I obtained some free samples from him for consideration for use on my 1922 Paige 4-p touring (that top is still not done), and the one sample that matched perfectly the original top on my Paige had an inside surface of a cavalry twill.

George

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Metro Moulded Parts items are often (not always) on eBay at deeply discounted prices (compared to Metro’s online catalog) by a seller whose eBay ID is dodgeboy

Suggest you use ebay’s earch engine using ‘advanced search’ then ‘by seller ID’ to see what dodgeboy is offering at any given time.

I don’t know if his rubber parts are seconds, but the ones I’ve bought have been very satisfactory.

George

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Tom, I hope someone corrects me if I’m wrong, but following is information received from former member Roy Judd several years ago on Pierce-Arrow’s use of B&L headlight lenses 1921-1928:

• 1921 Series 32 9-1/4″

• 1922-1925 Series 33 9-1/4″

• 1924-25 Series 80 8-3/8″

ALL THE ABOVE DO **NOT** HAVE THE WORD ‘STAR’

• 1926 Series 33 9-1/4″ STAR

• 1926-27 Series 80 8-3/8″ STAR

• 1927-28 Series 36 9-1/4″ STAR

• 1928 Series 81 8-1/8″ STAR

All P-A cars 1926-1928 used B & L STAR lenses, which have a flat center panel and the “star” logo at the bottom. The ‘STAR’ and non-‘STAR’ LENSES are interchangeable if the same diameter. The judges may spot whether STAR or non-STAR is appropriate for a given car.

Your 8-5/16 lens may actually be a nominal 8-3/8, and your 9-1/8 lens may actually be a nominal 9-1/4. On the other hand, B&L made similar lenses of different sizes for other makes of cars during the period.

George Teebay

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Bill, about 10 years ago I had M&S rebuild my 1936’s rear shocks. Both leaked substantially after 10 miles on the road after re-installation. I removed them and sent them back, and M&S re-did them without an additional charge, but I had to eat an extra two ways shipping for the re-rebuild. When I called them to tell them I was sending my shocks back, they said they do primarily Fords….

I would NOT use them again. Paul Johnson seems pretty happy with them, but he’s in their back yard, as it were…

George

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Hi Bill,

I’m on the road till Thurs nite. 802053 is an early Series 80: They skipped a lot of numbers, probably to make it look like they were selling more. 801001 thru 801250 were the first 250 cars, then the 251st was 802001. So this is about the 300th Series 80 built.

The Factory Number 312894 makes no sense to me either. Series 80 engine numbers began with ’80’ like the serial (chassis) numbers, and were close to serial numbers. For example, one of mine is 803376-803379, and the other is 807739-807761. I suspect the Great State of Illinois may have assigned a number to a cylinder block, which was not numbered (the crankcase bore the engine number). Other interpretations welcomed!

George

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Thank you, Paul! Most helpful! You’re the best in the bidness!

George

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Superb! Thank you, Paul! Great job!

If it’s feasible to add the flags to show new content in the section boxes on the left side — especially (or maybe only) in the Member Pages portion of the boxes — that would let someone accessing the site see that there is indeed new content before navigating to the Member Pages.

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Hi John,

I can’t speak with authority on the 1932, but on 1933-34 the steering column rubber plate and those for the pedals and the gearshift-handbrake go ON TOP OF the carpet.

VBR,

George

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I knew that car (identical to, and with serial and engine numbers very close to those of my 1924-production 1925 80 5-p sedan) and I inspected it closely 10 yrs ago, when it was owned by Jim Callahan of Oakland, CA. He acquired it from Wayne Sheldon, then of Livermore, CA, a nickel-age collector. When I saw the car a few times 1996-98 including the P-A display at the 1996 Silverado Concours, it was a 15K-mile original car from Harrah’s. Although the fenders had been repainted, it was otherwise ALL original, right down to the very decrepit fan belt. Callahan sold it to a Japanese gent in the Los Angeles area, who reportedly had it “restored.” THAT CAR SHOULD **NEVER** HAVE BEEN RESTORED.

It was on eBay two or three times a couple of years ago but did not sell during those auctions. When I inquired about the reserve after a no-sale, I was told $125K, which was probably 400% of what it might have been worth. I have not seen it in its restored state other than in eBay pix, in which the nylon in the upholstery was gleaming! So I suspect the rest of the “restoration” may have been to a similarly low standard.

I urge that if anyone is interested, he or she should personally inspect the car or have a very trusted and Pierce-competent agent do so.

George

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