I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)

ab348

uplanderguy said:

Along those lines, I have a fuel leak up at the connection of the metal fuel line from the fuel pump, to the carb on my Stude. Friend offered to put new gasket in. Didn't work. He found a crack in the line. It's a 283 Chevy. Part ordered from a vendor was too long, but he made it work, but it runs right along the right valve cover. I suggested it should be wrapped to insulate from heat. He agreed. Painted the foil wrap heat-resistant black. Still looks like you-know-what, and it's still leaking at the carb. Sigh. Everybody told my buddy "any place can fabricate that tube/line" but nobody was willing to. He got another filter housing and a different type of gasket so that's the next approach. Sigh.

Does your 283 have the brass fuel filter housing that threads into the carb with the steel line threading into it like many '60s and later GM engines do? Those were always troublesome. I assume the steel line is a flare fitting? Where does the gasket come in?

imidazol97

I believe @uplanderguy likes the Gen 10 Impalas. So do I.
I believe I saw one that was fairly early before they discontinued US production
and offered decontented Canadian models a week or so ago.

I was solid black. Did not impress me as the Granite Black I have on Malibu and Cruze.
It had the lower door guard but it was a true chrome appearance rather than a brushed
aluminum or something. It looked like a tape or wrap that I've seen.

AND it had the lines at the hip on the front door accented with a chrome tape that was just
as bright. It looked like a double pin stripe or old days, rather than the typical pin stripe
of a larger line with a smaller line 1/8 inch apart.
AND the same true chrome accented the rear line you see on the rear, a la 50S Oldsmobile
in my memory. A hocket stick shape accent with the short end angling up and then back.

tjc78

Hopefully you don’t mind the TikTok link but wow.. I really like this one. Odd omission of power windows but otherwise very well equipped

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTd3m1W1X/?k=1

sda

Very nice, it does have PL which is a plus. No reaching across the car to unlock the door. Our 76 Cutlass Supreme wagon had PL and no PW.

uplanderguy

imidazol, funny you posted that Impala as just yesterday morning I took this photo and posted it on my FB page, as an Impala I would enjoy. The base tires, and no sunroof, and the Premier which got the chrome trim on the doors which I think adds some bling.

uplanderguy

ab348, pardon my being a mechanical dummy (I admit it!), plus I'm frustrated by the whole thing now, but the fuel filter housing is pot metal according to my friend. The gasket goes right behind the bolt in the side of it. The whole thing is on the right side of the carb. The steel line is a flare fitting.

Honestly, I'm disappointed the way my friend ran the new line right up against the right valve cover. I suggested the heat wrap. Sheesh.

stickguy

It’s hard to get good free help these days isn’t it.

uplanderguy

If that was only the case.

ab348

uplanderguy said:

ab348, pardon my being a mechanical dummy (I admit it!), plus I'm frustrated by the whole thing now, but the fuel filter housing is pot metal according to my friend. The gasket goes right behind the bolt in the side of it. The whole thing is on the right side of the carb. The steel line is a flare fitting.

Honestly, I'm disappointed the way my friend ran the new line right up against the right valve cover. I suggested the heat wrap. Sheesh.

I looked at some pics of 283 engines and I can see now that the 2-bbl version has a different setup than what I thought. The housing may well be pot metal, not brass like on the ones I was familiar with. Many of the pics I found show a steel fuel line that runs at an angle from where it emerges at the front of the engine, above the intake manifold, to the carb, which would seem to solve the engine heat issue. Does the one you acquired look something like this?

https://www.inlinetube.com/products/che6401

uplanderguy

My friend ordered it from a place in Columbus so I didn't even look at it. It was longer than the original.

There's a '66 recently on Barn Finds, and here you can see how the factory routed that line up top:


Mine now has it running alongside the right valve cover, with a fairly-sharp incline up. I have a pic but I don't have my camera here now I see, and I'm too lazy to run downstairs to get it.

My idea to get the heat wrap there, and I painted it engine black. It looks like hell especially on a 27K mile car, but if it works I'll live with it. I obviously don't want vapor lock someplace, which the car has never had yet, but then I do put exclusively ethanol-free gas in it.

sda

Is it still leaking? I think taking it to an independent shop that works on older cars would be able to repair it correctly.

uplanderguy

Still leaking with new (ugly) line. Friend thinks the fuel filter housing must be warped slightly or something. He acquired another one from his carb guy and Monday we'll try that.

sda

I imagine a touchy subject, do Studebaker aficionados consider the Chevy based 283 better than the Studebaker 289? I realize the change to Chevy engines was done in the last years of production.

uplanderguy

The 283 is supposedly something around 100 lbs. lighter, which is good. My '66 sits really nice at all four corners. The front springs are the same number as the '64 with Studebaker engine, so that's a nice benefit.

The Studebaker 289 has been pretty well-written about, concerning how it's a sturdy engine, lower end especially I think. A friend has written in HCC that in his opinion it's America's best postwar V8. Stude V8's are oil leakers.

It's funny, I bought a '66 thinking the Chevy engine was a serviceability plus but it's really the only issue I've ever had with the car, LOL....carburetor (OK, it's an old car), this current carb leak and the line, fuel pump, water pump. I realize on a low-mileage car, that stuff still ages.

Supposedly, the Chevy V8's Stude bought were made by McKinnon Industries in Ontario and have Power Pack heads. I'm sure Stude bought whatever GM would sell them. The way it fits around the Stude steering presents an issue or two--where the fuel pump is is a very tight fit, and the air cleaner element is not the same as 283 Chevy--it's shorter so the hood will close! I bought three NOS ones from a Stude parts vendor still in the Stude boxes, a few years back, just to have them. They were cheap--maybe $11 each.

This stupid metal line (pipe, tube) from the fuel pump to the carb was listed by a Stude parts vendor but after I ordered it, they called me back to say they were out and not having any more made. No other Stude parts vendor had them either.

What's weird is both the first Stude parts vendor I ordered it from, plus the factory chassis parts catalog, shows a different part no. from '65 to '66. I have no idea what the difference would be.

Back to your original question--I have known a fair number of Studebaker guys who wouldn't consider a '65 or '66 because of the Chevy engines, on top of the reduced number of body styles.

uplanderguy

Here's what the line looks like now. I know, it looks like hell.

ab348

I suspect the steel line that he bought was the wrong item. The engine pic you posted shows a line like all the other original 283 pics I found. It should not be too long. As @sda said, a shop that works on old cars should have the smarts to make up a new steel line or modify the one you have to fit properly. A tubing bender and a flaring tool should be fairly common to find in such a place.

uplanderguy

Sadly, my buddy claimed even with the original tube, he couldn't find a place to bend a new tube like it...that, or places he called never bothered to even return his call.

texases

That is tight to the engine. In the past I've used Armaflex closed-cell a/c insulation on those fuel lines to reduce vapor lock. But there might no be enough room for that. I agree with @ab348 - someone with a tubing bender should be able to reconfigure that line to give it more space.

stickguy

I guess you are more concerned about originality, otherwise a holly intake and carb setup could fix your problems.

uplanderguy

The car is original paint and interior and 27K miles, so I do like originality. I had a dozen guys tell me I should go to dual exhausts when I replaced the original exhaust five years ago, but I actually found an NOS crossover pipe from a Stude vendor that still had the original Stude part no. label on it, so I went single for originality.

ab348

Maybe ask your Stude buddy network if any of them have any suggestions. Odds are someone will offer to do it for you.

fintail

I noticed this two tone aeroback in the background of a real estate listing, getting rare:



This 20s bungalow cosmetic fixer can be yours for only ~4x its 2005 bubble selling price.

stickguy

sitting at dinner tonight, a black 68-70 Charger drove by. looked very nice. did not get a good enough look at it to determine the exact year.

fintail

Another one from a listing photo (slow day today) - looks like the Bird might be a turbo by the wheels, and those Broncos are always desirable. Also note the laughable photoshop, a local realtor pastime:



The fun is in the back, a veritable junkyard hidden away - I wonder if this is a single male owner, I suspect most women (and many men) wouldn't tolerate this. And again, the photoshop:



Looks like Ford bits.

This one is up a mere 90% since 2017.

roadburner

fintail said:

Another one from a listing photo (slow day today) - looks like the Bird might be a turbo by the wheels, and those Broncos are always desirable. Also note the laughable photoshop, a local realtor pastime:



The fun is in the back, a veritable junkyard hidden away - I wonder if this is a single male owner, I suspect most women (and many men) wouldn't tolerate this. And again, the photoshop:



Looks like Ford bits.

This one is up a mere 90% since 2017.

I owned both; I liked the Turbo Coupe a lot; it was a manual. The guy I sold it to in 1998 still has it. I hated the Bronco.

andre1969

I gotta laugh, how the real estate agent or whomever put the filter on those house pics, to make the sky, windows, etc look more dramatic and appealing, and as picture-perfect as possible. But then, you see that pile of parts under the deck that's definitely rednecking it up. You'd think the selling agent would have told the owners to move those pieces out, at least for the picture, or cover it up with a tarp. Or hell, I'm sure there's a filter for that!

Personally, those car parts don't bother me in the least. My first thought is, oh, cool, another old-car fanatic! But, I'm wondering if seeing that isn't like nails on the chalkboard to a real estate agent?

andre1969

On the subject of Broncos, dunno if I'd ever buy one, but at the Carlisle Ford show the other week, there was a good showing of them, both the original and the new one. I always liked the looks of the old one (of course, how something is to look at, and how it is to live with are two different things!) , but I'll admit the new one is growing on me.

andre1969

This morning, doing a bit of internet stalking...look what I stumbled across:

That was from 2012. But, as of 2019, looks like they still have the two Town Cars:

ab348

fintail said:

Looks like Ford bits.

Well, owners of older Fords need to keep ample spares around.

tjc78

@andre1969 said:
This morning, doing a bit of internet stalking...look what I stumbled across:

That was from 2012. But, as of 2019, looks like they still have the two Town Cars:

Panthers are like Lay’s chips. Can’t have just one!

They have two of the best generation TCs there. Looks like an 88 to my eye and a 95-97

The one GM is a 98-02 and the other one from the first pic is most likely a 92-93.

RE: Broncos.
I wouldn’t mind an OJ model in Eddie Bauer trim.

fintail

There's an 87-88 Turbo in my neighborhood, looks like it well preserved, the guy (older guy I assume by the house) parks it outside which surprises me. I need to look inside and see if it is a manual.

Those Broncos can be worth real money now, these days where outdoorsy stuff is a huge social media show off fad and seen as a weird virtue signal by many.

roadburner said:

fintail said:

Another one from a listing photo (slow day today) - looks like the Bird might be a turbo by the wheels, and those Broncos are always desirable. Also note the laughable photoshop, a local realtor pastime:



The fun is in the back, a veritable junkyard hidden away - I wonder if this is a single male owner, I suspect most women (and many men) wouldn't tolerate this. And again, the photoshop:



Looks like Ford bits.

This one is up a mere 90% since 2017.

I owned both; I liked the Turbo Coupe a lot; it was a manual. The guy I sold it to in 1998 still has it. I hated the Bronco.

fintail

Makes me think of the Poltergeist house near the end where it is lit up. I don't know what is worse, the sky or windows.

This house is in an early 00s style mini-mcmansion tract development, I have to believe there isn't a HOA with that hoard.

andre1969 said:

I gotta laugh, how the real estate agent or whomever put the filter on those house pics, to make the sky, windows, etc look more dramatic and appealing, and as picture-perfect as possible. But then, you see that pile of parts under the deck that's definitely rednecking it up. You'd think the selling agent would have told the owners to move those pieces out, at least for the picture, or cover it up with a tarp. Or hell, I'm sure there's a filter for that!

Personally, those car parts don't bother me in the least. My first thought is, oh, cool, another old-car fanatic! But, I'm wondering if seeing that isn't like nails on the chalkboard to a real estate agent?

andre1969

About 4 years ago, on a whim, I looked at this place...
Probably the same filter!

fintail

They even do it to little wartime bungalows here, the lighting on the foliage doesn't match, and the sky, ugh:



I wonder if there's a filter package or software suite for realtors for this stuff. Especially amusing when one can see precip falling in the foreground, with a blue "sky" above.

https://youtu.be/X0dcZ66783k

andre1969 said:

About 4 years ago, on a whim, I looked at this place...
Probably the same filter!

andre1969

That got me curious, so I searched for it. Yup, looks like there's definitely software for it. And, if you'd rather not do it yourself, this company will handle it for you! https://www.realezphotofix.com/

Looks like they can even get rid of that unsightly Saturn VUE in the driveway for ya

fintail

As usual, my brilliant idea was capitalized upon years ago. The pic I posted of the Ford house is especially amateurish, the window cutouts appear rough, maybe someone had their kid do it.

I live in a weird hot market, and like perusing new sales and listings for the results of bidding wars, and to look into time capsule houses, or just to see how people live. Haven't seen too many interesting cars, but now and then there's something.

andre1969 said:

That got me curious, so I searched for it. Yup, looks like there's definitely software for it. And, if you'd rather not do it yourself, this company will handle it for you! https://www.realezphotofix.com/

Looks like they can even get rid of that unsightly Saturn VUE in the driveway for ya

uplanderguy

Probably, really, the last gargantuan Cadillac I liked, although couldn't deal with owning a car this large. This is a '71 Fleetwood Sixty-Special Brougham. Love that seating, and I like the space between the two side doors--throwback/'old skool'.

uplanderguy

Small thing, but odd the original customer didn't order those smallish, verticial lamps behind the rear door glass. They sure were advertised in photos with those, but apparently optional.

tjc78

Beautiful car. I’d rather have a blue or red interior but still very nice.

fintail

Why not a Talisman? Too extravagant? I expect the brocade was replaced by plush velvet velour not long after 71, to be with the style of the time.

Door space makes me think of the non-parallel B-pillar on 77-79 Fleetwood.

uplanderguy

Why not a Talisman? Too extravagant? I expect the brocade was replaced by plush velvet velour not long after 71, to be with the style of the time.

The Talisman with leather, I could like, but I've never seen a real one. There was a '74 Talisman in my hometown. That seating for four was a bit much.

But primarily, by the Talisman, the space between the doors was gone, as were the individual "FLEETWOOD" lettering on the fenders and decklid, replaced by scrolly script which was no-doubt less-expensive.

I remember thinking, upon seeing my first new '71 Cadillac, that it looked modern compared to the '70--that huge rounded windshield, those thin corner pillars, the cut of the front fenders and wheel openings. I still think so. On the big Chevys, it could be argued that money came out of the interior compared to the '70, but I don't think so in the Cadillacs.

andre1969

The '71 Caddy still has those two-piece door panels that the lesser models had, although the materials are definitely nicer. For instance, the lower part, IIRC, the whole piece was a padded, soft-touch plastic, so it was a lot better than those plastic slabs that had the rubbery armrests stuck on, and the spaces at the bottom where you could glue the carpet. But, overall still a very nice car.

That exposed screw head annoys me, though! On the plus side though, I guess, is that when something screws or bolts in, rather than snapping in, it's less likely to break, if you have to pull it apart.

ab348

uplanderguy said:

I remember thinking, upon seeing my first new '71 Cadillac, that it looked modern compared to the '70--that huge rounded windshield, those thin corner pillars, the cut of the front fenders and wheel openings. I still think so. On the big Chevys, it could be argued that money came out of the interior compared to the '70, but I don't think so in the Cadillacs.

Our friend Adam over at his Rare Classic Cars YouTube channel is still beating the drum about how that is the case though. He just did a couple of interviews with Wayne Kady who was a stylist (later on, head of styling) for Cadillac in that era who talked about how a new GM of Cadillac during that time was taking money out of the interiors. GM in general in that era began cheapening up their vehicles so it would not surprise me. Cadillac is perhaps a more extreme example in that their sales and hence production back then was so high that they were able to use less expensive trim (i.e. plastichrome pieces instead of chrome plated metal, molded plastic door cards, etc) and get away with it at least for a while.

I must confess that I find some of his recent stuff a bit tiresome. Early '70s Fomoco land yachts have never impressed me much, but he loves them. To each his own I guess.

andre1969

Sometimes, I think it's just a matter of what you're used to. With GM, for example, I never did care for those two-piece door panels. But on the plus side, they gave you an integrated armrest, whereas those Fords with the one-piece door panels had a bolt-on armrest.

Some of those Ford dashboards, like in the midsized and full-sized cars, looked like pretty nice designs, but they seemed to lack individuality. I have a feeling though, that might just be because I'm more of a GM fan than a Ford fan, so I notice the differences, sometimes subtle ones, across various divisions, while the Fords have this "corporate-ness" about them. But, a Ford fan might be just the opposite.

For instance, with the '72-79 midsized dash, it seems like they're all the same, although some have five big round gauge faces, while some have three big ones and a bunch of little ones. And, some of the parts are going to be of varying quality, but by and large it just seems like they'd change the easy-swap stuff.

But then, over at GM, their Colonades were juggling five different dashboards...Chevy, Olds, Buick, and two for Pontiac.

andre1969

Something else I just thought of, with the '71 Cadillacs versus '70. Didn't the seats get a bit smaller/cheaper? Just always think of the '70 and earlier as having those really high-back front seats, that were almost like a piece of living room furniture. For instance, this...

versus this...

Now I realize this isn't a fair comparison, because the trim levels are different. And sometimes it's hard to tell with factory photos like that, where the interior probably been pulled apart to get a better shot of it for the brochure. But the '70 seats just look thicker, taller, and more substantial overall to me.

Although, oddly, the bottom cushion on the '70 looks shorter than on the '71. But again, that could be camera distortion.

ab348

In Adam's most recent video Wayne Kady mentions the Cadillac seatback, coincidentally. He said that when the government mandated headrests there was some confusion internally on what they actually required, and the result was that Cadillac went with a taller seatback at first, which they later changed.

You can watch the segment here. It starts with a discussion of Cadillac interiors around the 14:49 mark.

https://youtu.be/ZSAzAIpj1cc?t=889

fintail

I like Adam's Fomoco boats, but I wish he had more 60s cars or more 80s examples. I also noticed a video where he was at a big pretentious suburban house rather than the unassuming 50s rambler he's usually at - maybe he has multiple places.

uplanderguy

One thing I hate about '69 and '70 Cadillacs is that the instrument cluster, wheel, and column are black no matter what the interior color is.

The pinnacle of Cadillac interiors, for me, is the '66 Fleetwood Brougham. Talk about high-back seats!

uplanderguy

andre, both those interiors you showed, '70 and '71, are Fleetwood Broughams.

I'll be back to this discussion, interesting for me, but we're off to see the 60th Anniversary big-screen edition of "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" at a theater about 20 miles north!

sda

I have also wondered about the different houses he has videoed from.