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I’m not sure how to interpret the detail in the circle, presumably the oil gallery fed by the oil pump is the channel at the right perhaps rotated at 90 degrees for illustration purposes, i.e I imagine it is a horizontal channel cast in the block. At any rate the problem could be the piston is stuck in the closed position as shown in the illustration without access to push on the front side. It would be difficult to pull out to see if it is free or stuck. Perhaps someone has a dissasembled a piston and could take a picture to see if there is some way to get a hold of the backside of the piston with nuts and springs removed to try and pull out.

If it is stuck perhaps a generous soak sprayed into the back side with rust cutting penetrating oils such as Kroil could loosen it.  Perhaps additives in the oil such as Rislone, seafoam etc to work on the deposits from the oil side and temporarily use a light vicosity oil to reduce the excess pressure when running, just start it and run briefly at idle once a day to work the oil in. With 90+psi pushing it would probably come loose very suddenly, if that is the problem of course.

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Did you check that the oil pressure regulator piston wasn’t stuck closed so it doesn’t allow any oil to bypass? I’ve had a pressure regulator on a brand X stuck on a burr the other way with 0 oil pressure.

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Thanks Bill, that explains it. The original owner of mine must have had problems with it and tried to modify it before giving up and installing a manual choke. In my box of parts when I got it was a manual choke bowden cable and a bracket on the air cleaner to mount it. The car was from Wisconsin so choking a pretty serious issue! It also had a gasoline fired Southwind heater. My Dad had a block heater for his Studebaker to keep it warm all night when we lived there in the ’60’s.

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Interesting idea, never heard of these but looking at the website it doesn’t appear they are viable.  Quoting from their website:

Unlike some companies that recommend using their compounds in small passenger vehicles, we know from extensive testing, suspension dynamics, and a variety of other elements of physics that you cannot guarantee success or improved performance. Having produced Counteract for over 25 years, and working with large manufacturers and suspension specialists, we have only been able to achieve a 74% success rate in passenger vehicles. From our research and testing, the largest culprit in the passenger vehicle segment that prevents the product from performing at its best is due to the soft suspension of most cars.

Elsewhere on the site they say it has worked on “classic” cars which of course is a general term which nowadays means any car with a body shell more than 20 years old. They say it has worked because of their  stiffer suspension, which makes me wonder what “classic” era they are talking about. 1910’s?

At any rate the installation and removal process looks to me like it is for tubeless only (which doubles the curiosity about what classic cars could they possibly be talking about?) Modified hot rods or race cars with bone shaking suspensions?

Thanks, it is pretty interesting.

I got my tires back and balanced with a lot of small weights, a bit crazy but at least they are on the car now.

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Yes, never heard of Martin tires, must be even narrower than Lester. I just managed to get one of the sidemount covers installed, the overcenter buckle clips would not close over the Lesters, I had to make little extension clips to add 1/2″ length for them.

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I wonder if Pierce increased the well width for “36-38 or changed the snubber? Or maybe the snubber I have isn’t original to the car, although it definitely fits down correctly to the well. It just pushes the tire too far out to the side when bolted down.  I currently have 700-17 Firestones on the road wheels of  my Packard wih Lesters in the sidemounts to fit the covers. The Denmans I was using to roll the Pierce around on were the first set of tires I wore out on the Packard, then a set of Lesters, now Firestones. I measure the max inflated width of the Firestones at about 8 1/8 wide and the Lester’s at 7 9/16, about a 1/2  inch narrower. The width of my ’35 845 fender well is 8 7/8″, my Packard is about a 1/2” wider. The issue on the Packard wasn’t fitting it in the well, it was the sidemount covers wouldn’t fit over Denmans or Firestones. Lesters are also a bit smaller in diameter.

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Just did a comparison of the max width of the Lester off the wheel, no inflation and the one on the wheel fully inflated. It was only 1/4″ difference, which surprised me it was so little. Although when I was trying to fit an old worn Denman in the well (bare) it wouldn’t go in at all but could be forced in deflated to about 10 psi.  Deflating might be enough to make it work, but seems just leaving off the fancy chrome plated snubber would be more straight forward. I lean a bit towards function over form.

There isn’t much doubt how sidemount covers got tossed back then. It’s suprising my car still had them, no way they were installed on the bald 7:50-17 spare that came with the car.

Thanks for the suggestion, Jim

 

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There are probably other better ways but here is how I did mine. I believe the ’36 body structure configuration is basically the same as the ’35 but widened and some added reinforcement. I built a truss out of 2×4’s and supported the body at the firewall via the threaded sockets that the radiator support bars screw into. At the back I supported it via the rear door hinge screws.

One of the worries was that the only longitudinal support holding the bottom of the body in position when it is off the frame is the large hardwood rail along the floor. That is made from multiple pieces finger jointed together and even if they look okay the old cassein glue might have lost its adhesion. On mine the worrisome joint was in the rear door area and there was some rot and the finger joint was probably bad. I drilled a small vertical hole down through the finger joint, dammed up around the joint with plastic and caulking then poured epoxy down into the joint. I then added metal doubler plates to the side of the joint screwed across the joint before I lifted the body. I had the same issue with my ’36 Packard but its bottom wood rails were completely toast and I replaced those with all new ash in situ before removing the body with a similar wooden truss. The Packard was done without a handy 4 post lift using bottle jacks and jack stands.

The picture is probably confusing. There is an outer truss attached to an inner truss structure with castors. The outer truss was fixed and high enough that the frame would clear the body  after dropping the frame away from it. After the frame was rolled out the lift went back up to support the inner truss on the castors and the outer truss was disaasembled to drop the body down.

 

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It was a few years ago when I was digging into this. I relied mainly on using the Summit Racing site that has a good search function for a lar ge vaeiety of mufflers. They often list the basic design type and I recall many were steel wool. At the risk of saying 200% of what I know, I think the glass packs and and other fibers such as steel are generally straight through and by themselves have limited sound absorption, popular with hot rudders. The Pierce mufflers were also straight through but were perforated tubes inside the outer tube. They were 3 differant lengths to attenuate different frequency ranges, the idea being to get effective sound absorption wi5h minimum back pressure. Many mufflers use internal baffles to get the sound absorption in a more compact unit with more back pressure.

I used a straight through for the #2 from Summit, but the only source I found at the time for the very long 3 ft last muffler was Waldron.They are custom built and at the time took something like 6 months to get.  Hopefully they are doing better now. Waldron had a choice of how much sound absorption, quiet or more hot rod. I chose the quiet since it is a Pierce, but in retrospect would have gone for the less quiet relying on the triple muffler concept to keep it quiet. I imagine the difference in the two sound absorptions is the amount of baffling being employed.

Another reason to use a muffler insulating wrap is Pierce often ran the fuel line down the same side as the exhaust,, sometimes on the inside of the frame rail, bad for vapor lock.

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The original Pierce mufflers were “asbestos lagged” using a layer of asbestos inside to reduce heat transfer. I dont think available standard mufflers have any insulation, but I  believe the exceptions are straight through glass  packs that use internal glass or other fibers for sound absorption.  That is what I used for the short #1 under the fuel pump to provide a measure of insulation to reduce the fuel pump heating. The original multiple Pierce mufflers were straight through designs to minimize backpressure. I plan to add muffler wrap to the mufflers or under floor insulation as I found out years ago on another car that the wood flooring and carpet is not enough insulator without “asbestos lagging” on a hot day. My wife had to keep her feet off the floor because it got so hot.

Note that without asbestos lagging there is no such thing as an exact authentic replacement.

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I never noticed any residuals of the animal cassein glue in joints I have pulled apart. I think it soaks into the wood and is not water resistant.  40 years ago I used resorcinol adhesive to glue joints in replacement wood, it is one of the strongest,  most water and rot resistant glues but requires accurate joints. It is what Howard Hughes used on the “Hercules” (“Spruce Goose”) wooden flying boat. It seems to be very hard to find now, so on my recent ’35 project I used epoxies which are still much better than the original casseins and more forgiving of joint inaccuracies.

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I think it was Macs Ford parts but might have been Snyder’s. I recall measuring what the lengths of each quarter would be  to determine that they could cut them and ship them straight to avoid having them rolled up or left long for a ridiculous oversize shipping charge. I had to call and talk to a person to get that arranged.

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I used regular Labmetal to fill pits in a spare wheel for powder coating. It came out fine, no high temp cure cycle needed. I didn’t want to use Hi temp since I didn’t think my wife would be keen on me baking chemicals in the kitchen oven.  The specs say it can go to 350 with one time 20 minute exposure to 425. My powder coater indicated many used JBWeld also. They use Prismatic powders that have a cure temp of 350, but said they go to 400.

The stuff is hard to work, being very thick and harder than body filler for sanding.

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I wish I had known about these decades ago, would have been a big help. It’s irritating how even with a tight drill jig a drill can still manage to wander off center.

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Let us know what you find out, good luck!

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Yes, I would check with them first. I did the conversion to pneumatic cylinders, it took some scrounging and head scratching. First choice is to get an original working. The question probably being whether yours or one of the two people above have a good enough zinc motor casing that isnt too screwed up. Maybe the motor of the 1930 was common enough to have more parts around. When I called David Ficken about mine his first question was what year Pierce?. When I told him ’35 sedan, he immediately said that motor is unique, only used on 34-’35 Pierce and a rare Buick model and he hadn’t run across any parts in 30+ years. He indicated he could grease mine up and it might work for a couple weeks but that I had already done that. I should note that  my motor looked perfectly fine but it didn’t have enough oomph to make a cycle. Part of it was also I am at about 4400 ft elevation so there is less vacuum to work with. My Packard’s won’t cycle anymore but started working on a trip close to sea level.

The 6volt electric is probably the most practical but I was concerned there wasn’t enough space in the cove above the windshield for it, I would check that out. I dont know if the electric is compatible with the configuration of how it fits and drives. My ’35 is a single motor driving the passenger side via a push rod and gearing rather than two seperate motors.

My pneumatic cylinder scheme started out to be trying to use the pneumatic cylinder as a simple booster to help the original Trico system  tapping off from it and still using the original valving. It didnt work, still not sure why. There was enough room to fit the cylinder in the cove but I had to go to an electric system controlling with solenoid air valves and limit switches. The Trico system is just there for the ride now. It was running so fast originally that I had to throttle it down for fear it would break the zinc gearing of the Trico system. Then it went to the upholstery shop and when it came back it didn’t work, they had bent the limit switching installing the headliner, and after I fixed that it still won’t do a full cycle, won’t do the full return. It is buried behind the fresh headliner and I don’t know why.

The best solution is Rainex, but I might move to a state with annual safety inspections and it won’t pass unless the wipers go back and forth, regardless of how ineffective they are when they do run properly.

 

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I had the long (over 100″) trim moldings made that go along the length of bottom edge from front fender along the running board bottom edge to the rear fender opening. They were one piece easily polished aluminum half oval with bullit ends formed. 3/4″wide seemed to be the right width (mine is an Eight if that makes a difference). They were made by L&L Antique auto trim. Definitely a side business and took several months with little communication, but finally showed up on my door step out of the blue one day. He is pretty affordable, but the biggest expense was overlength shipping, USPS in a 9 ft long PVC tube being by the far the cheapest.

I had to make a lot of little special clips to attach.

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That indicates 28th week (July) of 2019, a bit under 4 years old.

 

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What is the manufacture date code on the sidewall?

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Some more pics showing my ’35 hood hinges. The chromed or SS repro center hinge piece slides into the archer at the front and the tail of the arrow at the back. I don’t know if originally P-A used rivets to attach the center hinge rod to the top hood panels. I used SS screws and nuts to attach the top hood panels to the center hinge rods after the center hinge, hood ornament and tail of the arrow were installed. After the top panels I installed the side panels as noted. The screwdriver slot cut into the end of the side-to-top panel threaded rod is visible.

The pictures of fitting the center hinge rods (as shown they are actually curled and bent sheet metal that nests into the curled flanges of the center hinge, not just cylindrical rods) were taken while I was cutting back the flanges of the repro SS center hinge. The center hinge rod must be able to rotate over 90 degrees inside the center hinge between open and closed, basically with flanges pointing straight down in closed position and straight out in open position (as shown in the picture). My rods would not rotate that far in either the original or repro center hinges when tried off the car, so I did a lot of cut and try grinding to get the repro to work. There was no visible reason why the originals wouldn’t work, but of course they must have originally. There was a possibility the original would have worked when actually fully installed with the heavy panels forcing the issue but I didn’t want to take that chance. I have seen evidence on other Pierces of trouble with that hinge.

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