55 President comes home

[8E45E]

Upholstery....ya I'm really sad about the interior. it's all intact, but it's all really badly water stained. I'll doubt if it will come clean, but I'll try. I have to pull the covers off to replace the foam padding that has turned hard and crumbly. I had to do the same to my '56 president.
Mike Sal

I would actually try a foam type upholstery cleaner first, such as Studebaker's own 'Trim Kare'. Foam type cleaners won't over-saturate the fabric, and the foaming action should eventually lift out the dirt and stains with a few repeated applications.

Craig

[Mike Sal]

Once I get the fabric off the seats, I'll take a sample to the local "service master" place that cleans furniture & offices around town. I've had good luck using them in the past on nasty stains on auto upholstery. They have some pretty potent chemicals that aren't available to local yocals.

First order of business is to get an exhaust system ordered so i can drive it. Right now it only has about 2 feet of pipe sticking out each manifold, where he had cobbled something onto the old rotted off Y pipes. I figure i want a quiet muffler, as the exterior of the car is going to look a little rough for a while. No sense having a car that sounds as bad as it looks!

I hate it that it takes so long to get a build order from the museum. If the car had factory dual exhaust, I'd duplicate it, but I don't want to wait that long to get the exhaust ordered. As loaded up as the car is on options, it might well have had duals. I'll crawl under it to see if there's any evidence of extra hangers still there.
mike Sal

[Mike Sal]

I was spending a little time cleaning the interior of the car this morning & noticed that there is a significant gap between the steering column & the dash. A peek underneath reveals 10 spacers between the dash bracket and the steering column. 4 of them are still zinc plated & 6 of them are rusty.

Was this someone adjusting the steering wheel for a custom fit, or was this a 11th hour fix for a design goof when studebaker went to the 2nd series dash?
Mike Sal

[jclary]

I was spending a little time cleaning the interior of the car this morning & noticed that there is a significant gap between the steering column & the dash. A peek underneath reveals 10 spacers between the dash bracket and the steering column. 4 of them are still zinc plated & 6 of them are rusty.

Was this someone adjusting the steering wheel for a custom fit, or was this a 11th hour fix for a design goof when studebaker went to the 2nd series dash?
Mike Sal

My guess would be that it was to accommodate some rather short person who wanted to look over the steering wheel and not through it!

[Johnnywiffer]

It's my understanding that the major diff between the 1st and second series (Vista-View) Prez, since they are both the same displacement, was the 2nd series Prez had duals. I once had a 2nd series Prez HT and it had factory duals.

As a matter of fact, I have a "late" '54 Land Cruiser with "supposedly" '55 factory duals. They are pretty rotten now, so very hard to tell but that's the story. It was owned by a partner in a Studebaker dealership who bought it for his wife. I also seem to recall that the OEM '55 Prez duals were 1/4" bigger diameter than other series and other years.

All this is coming from a very foggy memory so please don't accept my blathering as fact.

John

[Mike Sal]

Warrlaw, did you get the message I sent you? Not sure if my notes are going thru or not.

Did get to spend a few minutes tinkering last night. it was the last night it'll be cool enough to work outside for a while. A new condenser & putting the battery in correctly (they had accidently put it in backwards the day they tried to start it when I bought it) let ole yeller fire right up. for having nothing but stubs for exhaust pipes out of the manifolds, it ran rather smooth. I ordered a set of exhaust for it yesterday from Parks Pipes. They seem to be an ok bunch of people & "mom" seems down to earth. I bought a full set from them for the '66 a few months ago also.

thanks,
Mike Sal