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I have a shiny repro cap that looks great but doesn’t have a vent. I had to punt to create a vent. In the pictures you can get an idea of the elaborate vent system built into the original cap to prevent spillage out the vent. If gas burps up through the tiny center hole it lands in a little circular depression that then let’s it drain back down into the filler pipe. That area is vented via the large circular holes seen in the outer inside of the cap. Clever but elaborate. If anyone is operating with a repro cap and has experienced any fuel starvation/vapor lock issues check to see if you have any vent in the cap. Also, in the original cap that hole can be plugged (my original was). It could also possibly screw up the KS fuel gauge because the alternate path to vent as fuel is drawn out is to pull through the KS sending unit vent pipe. “Ask for the time and he tells you how to build a watch……..”
Peter, thanks. I think the Olds headlight lens may fit ’36-38 Pierce. 33-35 are bigger. I bought a park lens from you a few years back so I have 3 original glass now with one split in two. I used super glue to put that one together and it and one of the plastic lenses is what I have on the car at the moment. The closeup of the turn signal posted a few months ago is of the broken lens. At some point I will put in tbe good glass.
As a side note, I left one of the plastic repro lenses in the Clorox for a couple months and it did some surface clouding of the surface without doing much for the yellowing. It appears that plastic lens cleaner will polish the cloudiness back off, but longer soaking not looking like a good idea.
I purchased a repro SS hood center hinge from Irv Blonder many years ago. I imagine that stock was depleted many years ago but you could check with Dave Murray just in case. It didn’t work directly, I had to do a lot of grinding to make it work, the flange legs were too long and I burned out my Dremel cutting them back. I have the original which is surface rusted and would need to be rechromed. Alhough a better design it didn’t work too great either despite having no apparent internal damage. John Cislak has parted out several cars and he may has something better, but I could send mine if it is better than what you have.
My hood was already unscrewed from the center hinge rods when I bought the car, but I assembled it back on by myself on the car, rather than try to coordinate and manhandle it with multiple people installing the whole assembly onto the freshly repainted car. Think of four ushers trying to drop a casket into a hole with 1/8″ clearance without hitting the sides. I attached the center hinge with the attach rods, archer and tail of the arrow first after carefully measuring and adjusting the distances from the body to the radiator shell. I then placed each hood top panel with sheets between the body radiator shell and hood panels and then screwed the top panels to the attach rods. After checking the fit and movement of the top panels I propped the top panels up a bit with so e foam and placed the side panels into the valley of the fenders with thick blankets to protect the paint and raise them enough that the piano hinge rods would clear the radiator shell. It had taken serious bashing and penetrating oil to get those rods out in the first place and I didn’t want to do that with the freshly painted car, so instead of the original piano hinge rods I bought SS all-thread rods to replace them. I cut a taper in one end and cut a screwdriver slot into the other (front end). I then jammed two nuts on the front end and used a drill driver with a socket to turn the rods. Tricky to get started but once the first pair of loops were engaged the threaded rods turned themselves in slowly and methodically. When it was almost all the way in there wasn’t enough clearance for the socket so the last 6 inches or so I used a slotted screwdriver bit to finish driving it in flush. Theoretically it shouldn’t be a heroic effort to remove the side panels if required in the future. It is a lot of screws on the center hinge!
Interesting, besides actually having a parts catalog with drawings! I am guessing that open cars had them because with the top down it is actually possible to see something to the left and right. I just got my next attempt at a rear view mirror, just wide enough to frame the small rear window. I wanted a wide angle convex but since my car is a club sedan with blind rear quarters it wouldn’t have done any good anyway.
I sometimes inevitably end up having to navigate through frenetic multi lane freeways (I-80/I-5 Sacramento) and staying in the RH lane isn’t a comfortable choice with all the merging and exiting going on. I have a 3.58 rear end in the Packard and 65 mph isn’t a problem in traffic. I am keeping the Pierces 4.23 rear end and will probably stay below 60, it may not be going that direction.
Paul, your car’s mirrors are interesting, the pictures I took show that besides the dual interior mirrors it has sidemount mirrors (which I assume are original) and a mirror with a long extension mounted to the door hinge. This seems like a clear case of so not being satisfied with rear visibility!
Paul’s sidemount mirrors are offset to the outside of the covers unlike most that are mounted centerline to the tire, clearly an attempt to improve the view from a sidemount mirror. However, now that I can sit in mine with fenders on and a tire sitting in the well it looks like the windshield post might block the view of the sidemount mirror, and maybe explains the extra door hinge mirror.
My first experience driving a ’30’s car was ferrying a friends ailing and partially stripped Packard V-12 30 miles on four lanes without any mirrors. I discovered I couldn’t see behind to change lanes even sticking my head out the window because of the body being wider at the back than the front. Fortunately I had guys caravaning in front and back that could block for me when I had to change lanes.
I have sidemount mirrors on my Packard which are not ideal but indispensable. I know some find them useless but mine are mission adequate with a lot of head bobbing. A convex on the RH would be a help.
I checked bolt depot, they show course but not fine thread and no pointed end. The pointy end could be a help, I remember struggling to get my toe board screws centered and engaged with regular flat heads.
I ordered mine through Summit racing because the shipping was much less and they have a local retail store. After slipping one month per month they say the estimated ship date was a few days ago. I doubt it. Meanwhile I found that the worn out Denmans won’t fit in the sidemount well let alone getting covers over them. I started looking for Lester’s as they are smaller than any of the others, presumably the dimensions of the original equipment tires. I ran into the same issue on my Packard years ago. Lester’s aren’t available anywhere either, and I worry with the shortages they may never be produced again. I bought four barely used Lester’s on ebay for the sidemounts and now debating whether to use them for the 4 regular road tires. My Pierce is currently sitting on the 35 year old worn Denmans on the front and seriously undersized 650-17’s on the back bought for the Packard sidemounts before I found the Lester’s. The 650’s require about 1.5 inch thick foam around them to fit the sidemount covers. That may be what I have to do. I would end up with emergency only “space saver” spares.
Researching the shortage issue I found there has been a supply chain issue that started before the pandemic that all tire manufacturers are dealing with. It was primarily shortages of carbon black and a lesser extent rubber. It got dramatically worse with the invasion of Ukraine as Russia was supplying about 65% of the world’s carbon black. Not too surprising a boutique mfg like Coker has problems competing with Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear etc for materials.
I suspect that 700-17’s may be low on Cokers priority because so many people with cars using 700-17’s like to put on bigger 750-17’s for V-12’s, so there is more demand and higher profit margin on 750-17’s. My personal experience on my Packard was it handled better on the narrower Lester’s than the Firestones that are on it now, so I really don’t want to put an oversized tire on the Pierce. The increasing width of lower pressure “balloon” tires adopted through the thirties was determined to be a factor in the increased problems with shimmy, which, based on previous posts, Pierce’s are prone too.
I have a similiar problem but I am logged out in less than a day. I think the site is supposed to keep one logged in for two weeks? Before automatically signing someone out.
By coincidence a you tube popped up with some guy on a rant about US regulations allowing red turn signals and a single filament bulb for both turn signal and stop light. In other words the turn signal flashes the stop light bulb so if you have the brakes on it is flashing that side bulb off and on while the other side remains lit constantly. That is how I set up my Pierce so that I didn’t need to add extra non original lights low on the bumpers. I followed a nearly new pickup truck that uses that scheme today.
In Europe it apparently is required to use amber for turn signals and red for stop and seperate the functuons, supposedly because people are confused by colors and amber means turn and red means stop regardless of blinking. Like other prewar cars our Pierces used amber for the stoplights to distinguish them from the red tailights.
I used a red LED bulb for the stop/turn as it seemed more normal in today’s traffic, and the red LED overpowers the amber tint of the stop light lens and looks red.
I soaked one of the park lenses in uncut Clorox bleach for a week. It isn’t like new but it was making a difference. The lens on top is original glass, the middle is the plastic soaked in Clorox, the one on the bottom untouched. Maybe soaking for a month or a year.
It is a gem, a very original car! Thanks again for your help through the years, the pics I took have been very useful. I’ve had mine for only 31 years, but finally have it to the point I can move it under its own power.
He was apparently trying to clear a fuel line on a White steamer.
A friend has a Stanley and we were trying to get it going a few years ago. The pressurized fuel system atomizing the fuel and shooting into the combustion chamber is truly a very dangerous system. We had a fire going underneath the car and barely got it out. As often reported, Stanley’s never had a boiler explode but caused many accidents getting the fire going.
Jay is very lucky and we hope he fully recovers quickly. No doubt he is in a lot of pain.
Looking good, great work as usual! Plus building a boat at the same time!
I wish I had an answer, maybe someone out there does. I did mine a few months ago and have a definite ridge where the paint meets the chrome. I don’t know how that could be avoided, perhaps minimized by keeping the paint very thin near the edge.
Could possibly clear coat over the chrome but doesn’t seem like a good solution and of course wasn’t done that way originally.
Mine was stripped and chromed decades ago but it had enough surface rust that I only had it ground and polished where the chrome shows.
As you know, having the whole shell chromed was a factory option. I think the standard painted shell was done to accentuate the length of the hood and avoid breaking up the lines with vertical surfaces.
I was surprised to learn in the Pierce literature that painted shutters were actually the baseline standard and chromed shutters were a $25 option. Since very few ’35’s seem to have had painted shutters, I speculate that they were usually chromed and used as a sales sweetner, “I’ll throw in the optional chrome shutters for free!” Sort of like the heater “option” in later years.
I have done the buffing on post-modern cars but those are more of a UV sun exposure problem dulling the outer surface and I haven’t seen much yellowong,on them. These repro lenses have been wrapped in newspaper sitting in a closed box for 29 years and the surfaces are perfectly glossy. I did a half hearted scrub with plastic lens compound on a small area of one of the park lenses but saw no difference.
I assume that with it not being a sun exposure phenomena the inside is yellowed as well and a mechanical scrubbing of those complex prism shapes would be very difficult if that worked at all.
I think the question is whether this is just at the surface and something can react with it or whether it is something that goes through the entire thickness and probably irreversible.
The Oracle (internet) has a lot of answers saying to use bleach, rubbing alcohol, toothpaste, hydrogen peroxide, or even acetone (which I ma pretty sure will make a much bigger problem).
Fortunately I have a set of glass lenses but these plastic repros are my backup in case I break one. I may try bleach.
Maybe there is a setting problem on Peters device? As I start to type this response it is doing automatic spell check including caps at the start of sentences and when I type “I”. Just now because the term Startix has been used before it incorrectly corrected “start” to “Startix” and I had to go back and fix it. I think it illustrates how impossible it is to make these sites work to all the time to everyone’s personal druthers. If I knew how I would disable spell check entirely on my phone for all applications, as I spend more time forcing it to use the,words I intend rather than what it “thinks” I should use. It has a really hard time with “babbitt”, insisting it should be capitalized. But that is just me and my phone.
Another thought, if the ’32 had 15″ diameter drums instead of the 16″ on my ’35 you may be able to still get asbestos linings from Kanter.
Several years back Bill Lyons chased down a supplier of brake linings with a lot of good info on what type of lining is a reasonable match for friction characteristics and softness. You should be able to find the thread on this site with a key word search. It is important do get an appropriate lining material as the standatd modern linings are too hard and can be dangerous, they alternate between grabbing and fading. I had mine relined by a local ship (Reno Brake) who had an appropriate material in stock, they do a fair number of vintage car brake relining including Pierce. They are all the way across the country from you though, so maybe not helpful.
I assume the smaller one on the top of the picture is from the 836A which looks the same as my 845 and as Paul says mounts the smaller park light and horns. Unfortunately I have no knowledge of the larger one on the bottom. Perhaps from an earlier year?
One of the problems may be getting much feedback since traffic seems to have dropped off so low. Frankly I have been perplexed by the complaints. Before there were lots of complaints about the limitations of the old sight. I am as curmudgeonly as most aging old car F!#*s and don’t like updates, but like all web site changes it takes some effort to learn the new quirks. I think the issues with the old sight have been addressed and the new sight has worked quite well. As I have said before the ability to search and download the PASB bullitens is huge. If you have more features to deal with the website gets more complicated. Just look at the Packard PAC sight. I am hoping any changes are minor navigation tweaks and not another wholesale revamp. Given the reluctance of so many to learn the last revamp it seems it might result in another big drop in traffic. Being the first one to comment on this post after it has been sitting there for two days illustrates the point.
I will be interested to see, if any one responds, just what is so difficult about this site compared to any other site’s navigation? Certainly there is probably room for minor improvement, but everyone should keep in mind that differant isn’t the always the same as better.
