1962 Daytona J8 (62S-16390)

[M-Webb]

Nice car Pat. I am sure you can live without the hood padding. But maybe to just cover up the glue mess, could just as easily put a fresh one on and be more originally correct. Not sure where you get that stuff from, but would assume somebody carries it for Studebakers and other makes as well. Or maybe think of some other non-fiberglass material that gets used for 60's period cars that still would look vintage correct although not quite Studebaker factory correct. Myself, I would avoid anything too techie modern looking like silver foil looking stuff.

[pinehurstbob]

Studebaker International sells the hood insulation.
Bob

[62champ]

Been meaning to get a handle on this for a long time, but replacement of flexible brake lines has gotten off to a rocky start.

There is nothing on the current lines in the car that indicate if they are original or not. The shocks were factory original so I assume the flex lines are as well.

I wanted to start with the hardest, so I crawled under the rear of the car about a month ago and assessed the situation.

Removing the was the biggest hurdle. When I finally got a line wrench on the brake line nut, I could not get enough leverage to turn it being so close to the underside of the body. Got a screw driver up there to tap the line clip around so it could be removed and it broke in two.

Put in an order to a vendor for a brake line clip - out of stock and back ordered. Then remembered that are multiple parts cars at my grandparents old farm, so got away one weekend day and pulled one off a parts car.





With the line loose, I was in danger of rounding off the brake line nut (using 3/8 line wrench). Bought a little butane had torch to give it a little heater persuasion. About a minute in, there was a loud pop, smoke and the torch had been put out. The fluid in the line expanded enough to blow the rubber end of the flex hose out of the end piece.



At this point, getting kind of irritated, I decided to simply put a pair of vice grips on the brake line nut and not worry about screwing it up. I guess the longer wrench and more leverage, broke it loose almost instantly.

Anyway, new rear line is installed, lines bleed and ready to move on to the fronts.



And another glam photo . . .

[M-Webb]

Yeah, looks like those brake hoses were well past due for a refresh. That is on the list of things to do on my truck too. But not exactly looking forward to it as doing brake work always seems to be a messy and PIA job. Your car does look great and well worth the effort though.

That poor rusty Champ in the parts car pasture though...

[62champ]

That truck spent its life in Houston and was brought to central Texas in the late '70s. Because of the proximity to the coast, it already had see through floors when brought to that location. At this point, the rust is to the point where there is little to no sheet metal that anyone would want to mess with.

[62champ]

Right front line is on - getting up the courage to deal with the heat on the left front - thanks Texas . . .

Old line after I had broke the nut loose and got the clip off - nothing broke this time around.



Clip is still nice and shinny in spots from when it was put on back in October, 1961.



New line in place and locked in.



Old line was looking pretty crusty.

[62champ]

Talking to a friend on the phone the other day, I was sitting in the front seat and noticed the paint on the inside door jamb. Not sure if it was the person's first day, or they just wanted good coverage, but they layed the metallic silver on pretty thick.

[M-Webb]

Adds to the historical charm! But can you imagine buying any new car today, even the most low budget model of any make, and opening the door and seeing that? Conversely, when people put Pebble Beach ready paint jobs on their old cars and trucks with paint dabs and all that and then call it factory correct are not exactly really if they didn't also leave a few paint imperfections here and there. I'd have to say though, this would maybe be considered more than a few, lol. But hey, I guess a sloppy paint job can still be considered factory correct in some situations.

[StudeRich]

Those runs are not unusual at all, on Studebaker's they are very common in door jambs and door edges, sometimes inside the trunk lids, BUT, they never allowed this kind of work to show on the outside !

[StudeRich]

Good job !

I do not see a trace of chassis Grease on the top of that that upper King Pin rotator Bearing.
It is good to clean most of the excess grease off after a grease job, but it's about impossible to get it that clean.
So after the front end rebuild, a good grease job would be good making sure grease is coming out of that upper bearing.

[Warren Webb]

I'm sure the "new guys" were given the job of doing the inner section, gaining experience on how the paint responds before graduating to the exterior. My former 69 Barracuda had a few runs in the door jambs. Now all the painting is done with robots along with electrical charge eliminating the human factor.

[62champ]

Work continues on getting the new heater control valve where it needs to be - under the dash.

The old valve it out - the arm to actuate the valve moves back and forth, but looking at the inside of the mechanism, the actual valve moves just enough to notice - was impossible to pull open with the dash knob.





I noticed how neat the automatic control coil is rolled up. In my first '62 Lark back in the early 1990s, this would close the valve when it got too hot in the car, but then it would not open it up again - or at least I thought it was supposed to open it up again. I eventually learned to not run it full bore so it was less likely to close.

In the small heater hose from the valve to the core was the darkest, nastyest rust liquid I have seen in a long time . . . no telling how long it had been in there.



Going to flush the core until it runs clean before I put everything back together. Don't think I will be able to save the 'dum-dum' that sealed the hoses to the firewall . . .





The local Napa store said I can look through all their pre-formed heater hoses to find a couple that might work - will let you know what I found.

[StudeRich]

I have never seen a '62 to '66 Firewall that appears like the Heater Hose holes were cut into it after build, have dumb dumb to seal and No Grommet !

They all should be been cut on Cowl Panel Mfg. larger than the 3/4" Hose for the Grommets. That way they were plugged for the few No Climatizer equipped Cars, and grommet-ed for most with Climatizer. Then they could be Dealer Installed as most were, or Factory installed.

[M-Webb]

Those holes look punched to me, with lips. I don't think they were drilled or cut in later. Maybe they just ran out of the grommets for a bit and used dum-dum on some of them at times or certain period. Or maybe dealer installed it and didn't have the correct grommet so just used dum-dum.

And heaters were optional in cars too? I know it was for trucks as they were more for working and tough asses. But am surprised if that many cars were actually ordered without heaters. AC, of course, but heaters?

Nice to see the firewall support actually sitting on and bolted to the frame. I'm use to just seeing the floating ones in the Champs, LOL.

[mbstude]

Heater hose grommets were used on '63-66 models. '62's and earlier cars have a hole that's just big enough for the hoses to slide through, no room for a grommet.