May14

Rust and Spite

by admin on May 14th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Posted In: Nash, Projects, Statesman

I believe now that these are the only two things holding this car together.

Anyway, now that summer has returned, my goal is to get this thing out of the garage. It’s been very difficult to work on in the narrow confines. My mother has graciously offered space in her driveway.

Now, I recall from the previous two towing attempts that moving a car with two flat tires is a pain in the ass. So to prevent this frustration a third time, I plan on getting some new but cheapo tires on there.  Of course, that means getting the old ones off. Whoever designed the Nash did not have flat tires in mind. As much as I like the body panel over tire look, it sure makes getting at them a royal pain.

However, I did manage.

Dead Tires

These tires will certainly never hold air again.

Having the tires out of the way allowed me a better view into the wheel wells, and quite frankly, I wasn’t pleased with what I saw. Both sides show extensive rust, both on the interior body panels and on the suspension components themselves. I won’t know for certain until I’ve pulled those parts out, but I suspect a lot of it is going to have to be replaced. I do see these parts often on eBay, but when dealing with such important components, I’m not sure how interested I am in purchasing sight unseen. We’ll see when I get to that point, I suppose. With luck, these things just have a surface coat of rust, and will clean up nicely.

Driver's Side Wheel Well

Driver's Side Wheel Well

Passenger's Side Wheel Well

Passenger's Side Wheel Well

Next step is to get new tires put on the rims and get this thing towed out of the garage. Will hopefully have the new tires by this weekend. We’ll see.

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May02

What? This isn’t a car update? Damnit!

by admin on May 2nd, 2012 at 5:37 pm
Posted In: Aquarium

It’s not all Nash all the time around here, obviously. What’s happening in that seemingly HUGE amount of time I’m not working on the car? Well, in all likelihood, I’m lazing on the couch watching Mythbusters or Family Guy reruns in my underwe… errrm… Watching Nova and Frontline in my three-piece suit.

Or, I’m pampering my fish. I recently upgrading my marine aquarium from a 20 gallon tank to a 40-wide (breeder) tank.I decided that I’d add a sump with refugium to this set up, as well. While I haven’t got that part completed yet, in anticipation for it, I found a reputable seller of Mangrove trees on eBay and ordered six of them.

Mangrove seedlings

Ordered six, got ten!

Now, mangroves are excellent filter additions, pulling nutrients out of the water that would otherwise be harmful to the fish and invertebrates in the tank. They can be placed either in the display tank or the refugium, or both, as is my plan.

Mangrove attached to support

Mangrove attached to PVC support

Basically, all you need to do is attach the mangrove to a support – I’m using PVC pipe here – and place it in either tank. You can see I’m using twist-ties in the photo. That’s actually a no-no, as they have no give, and if used for any length of time wouldn’t allow for the growth of the tree. I’ll be hunting down some flexible gardeners tape as soon as possible.

From what I’ve read, to get the awesome support roots people usually associate with mangroves, all you have to do is slowly move the mangrove up the support post as the roots grow, always keeping a portion of them out of the water. This simulates tides and promotes strong root growth.

Lots of awesome critters live in the unique ecosystems provided by the roots of growing mangroves, from shrimp to baby fishes and much more. In the refugium I’m building, I’m hoping to keep a self-sustaining population of copepods and beneficial algae growing, for additional biological filtering and potential meals for my fishes and inverts.

Mangrove in tank

Mangrove in the display tank

We’ll see how well this works. It’s my first time working with plants and salt water. Currently, I have one of the mangroves in the display tank, as show in the picture on the right. The rest are in the half-finished refugium. I’ve got the light cycles reversed for the two locations, so while the display tank lights are on during the day, the refugium lights are on during the night. In theory, this keeps oxygen levels consistent, and likely prevents pH fluctuations, as well, though I’m certainly no expert there.

Anyway, as I learn more about these trees and experience either success or failure, I’ll keep the blog posted. A mangrove forest in the middle of Fairbanks would be awesome. :)

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Apr03

It’s still being worked on… slowly.

by admin on April 3rd, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Posted In: Nash, Projects, Statesman

My apologies for the utter lack of updates in almost two months. I recently got a new job and I’ve been spending most of my time getting up to speed. Once again, I’ve found myself in the position of web-boy, something I swore I’d never do when I left pretty much the same position back in 2003. Oh, how things change.

Anyway, back to the Nash. I haven’t been to the garage in a while, so no new updates there. One of the last things I did, though, was bring home the carburetor so that I could work on it in my spare time. It was in awful shape, covered in layers of old oil, dirt, and rodent poo. A glorious mix of gunk.

Carburetor Before Image

Carburetor before cleaning.

Air Intake Before

A view down the air intake and more gunk. Lots of gunk.

Plenty of rust on there, as well. In fact, the throttle body was in such bad shape that it refused to move. No amount of force would get it to even budge. Knowing these things appeared on eBay with surprising regularity, I figured I’d bid on one to use for spare parts, and hopefully acquire a working throttle body. Winning bid: $51. Frustration avoided: Priceless.

The eBay carb arrived quickly, and it, indeed, had a working throttle body. For the price paid, I was pleasantly surprised to find a fairly decent amount of usable parts. Pretty much anything that was broken on the old carb was good on the eBay one. And vice versa. It was like the Bizarro World carb. The end result was a mixture of both.

Float Bowl

Float bowl of the original carburetor cleaned up.

The float bowl cleaned up nicely. The only problem here is that the gasket from the rebuild kit I ordered didn’t match the pattern of the float bowl. These Carter carbs have been around for years and subtle changes have taken place. I still need to track down a proper gasket for this.

Float Bowl Cover

Float bowl cover in place.

Still debating on which float bowl cover to use. For the rebuild, I stuck with the original. But as you can tell from the above picture, it’s not in the best shape. Neither is the one from the eBay carb, though.

And then… I didn’t take enough pictures. There are lots of little parts that go in specific places on a carb. Luckily, the rebuild kit I purchased came with an exploded view showing where everything goes. Plus, I took plenty of pictures during the tear down, and those helped, as well. Anyway,  the next one is the nearly completed rebuild.

Carburetor - Nearly Done

Not much more to do here.

So what remains to be done? The air intake still needs some cleaning. You can see it’s a bit rusty looking there. I’ll be using the one from the eBay carb, as it seems to work more smoothly than the old one. Still need the proper gaskets. Linkages need to be hooked back up, as well. Then I need to work on the air filter that sits on top. It’s in decent shape and mostly just needs a good cleaning.

Hopefully, I won’t keep you waiting as long on the next update!

Project Cost To Date: $2414.85

 

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Feb07

The Many Uses of Rope

by admin on February 7th, 2012 at 6:00 pm
Posted In: Nash, Projects, Statesman

One of the many things nagging at me on this project is the condition of the engine. Not just its condition, but its origin. With the wrong carburetor and fuel pump, it seemed to be a newer model than should be in the car. Another problem was a complete inability to get the cylinder head off. Answers to all of this came from a couple different directions.

When I realized brute (well, as brute as I can get…) force wasn’t going to cut it, I purchased an item off of Amazon that was simply labeled “Gasket Breaker”. Here it is in action:

Gasket Breaker

Gasket breaking in glorious action.

Now, this did do its job. All around the perimeter of the cylinder head, except in the back where no space was available, the gasket breaker broke the seal between the engine block and the cylinder head. What it couldn’t do was break the seal between cylinders or in the back. It loosened things, for sure, but not to the point I could get the head removed.

Enter one of the most bizarre suggestions I’d received in the SA thread for my restore project. From forum poster InitialDave:

With the head, does the engine turn? Could you put a piston to BDC, feed rope in through the plug hole to fill the cylinder, and then rotate the crank with a breaker bar to push the head up?

I was at my wits end, and willing to try anything. And the more I thought about this, the more it made sense. If you feed rope through the spark plug hole, as the piston rises, it will push that rope up. If enough rope is there, it should put enough pressure on it to force the cylinder head up, freeing it from the block.

As with many things in life, I may have over thought it:

Rope in engine

No, not dynamite.

I crammed rope down each of the six cylinders. This did help open up a larger gap up front, providing additional wiggle room. But…

Rear of engine

Rear of engine

The back of the cylinder head refused to budge. Saddened that this really cool idea hadn’t worked, I returned to the SA thread to report my failure. The response: Just use the rope in the rear cylinder. Of course, that made perfect sense. Since this was the area that was sticking, this was were I needed to apply the most pressure. After getting back to the garage, I gave that another go.

Cylinder head

Bingo! Score another round to the SA automotive forum!

With the cylinder head finally off, I could begin to evaluate the condition of the engine. I’ll be the first to admit that I have no expertise here, but that’s one of the reasons for this project – to learn these things. Quite frankly, though, even I know that rust = bad, and the interior of this engine has plenty. When I got the vehicle, it had no spark plugs, so the holes they go in have been wide open. Even with the hood closed (and it doesn’t close completely) there is still plenty of opportunity for water to get in.

Engine Rust

Rust and Oil, my favorites!

 

So there is certainly a lot of work to be done there. Some of the valves are stuck in the open or closed state, as well. Plenty of carbon buildup on the pistons to deal with, too. The cylinders themselves, however, look pretty clean. No scratches or pitting to be seen. I have to say that surprised me.

Other engine news and discoveries came from the Nash Car Club listserv. I posted a question about the year of the engine, since I haven’t been able to accurately identify it. A few responses told me where to look for the casting dates. This worked well for the cylinder head, which was cast in 1955 and thus not original to the car:

Cylinder Head Casting Date

Cylinder Head Casting Date

The engine, however, remains a bit of a mystery – most likely due to the corrosion and crude still caking the engine block making things difficult to read.

Engine Block Casting Date

Engine Block Casting Date

To me, that looks like 9-10-0. I’m not sure what that means. Possibly they used “0″ to represent the decade mark, 1950. But that’s just a guess, and one that is so far unanswered.

The next step for the engine would be to pull it out of the engine bay, but I have neither the tools nor the space for that right now. On the other hand, the rebuild kit for the carburetor arrived recently, so I’m going to be starting on that soon.

Project cost to date: $1913.85

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Jan23

Your Semi-Random Update Has Arrived

by admin on January 23rd, 2012 at 5:26 pm
Posted In: Nash, Projects, Statesman

You know, if I worked on this thing more than one or two hours a week, I might actually get something done! On the other hand, pretty visual changes were made this weekend. Of course, I’m still in the “remove random crap” phase, so it’s not like things are getting fixed, but, hey… progress!

From the engine compartment, I’ve removed the water pump. I suspect it has issues. Turning the shaft produces a lovely grinding sound. I’ll clean it up, disassemble it and see what can be done about that. I do see these occasionally up on eBay, so if worse comes to worse, I’ll see about picking one up there.

Water Pump

Dirty, greasy and broken. :(

Also removed the radiator this weekend. That allowed me access to the front of the engine, so I could start removing other components. The radiator seems to be in good condition. I’m going to clean it up and look for some place in town that can test it out for me to see if it needs any repairs. If not, then it just needs new paint. I’m surprised at how much space there is in the engine compartment now that its out. Getting it out of there has helped me further evaluate the rust. Of course, that’s not very good news, as this car is loaded with it. I’ll be getting my weld on soon, I hope.

1951 Nash Statesman forward engine compartment

Oh, the joys of rust.

Grabbed the numbers off the engine block. I have to admit my lack of knowledge here. I’m not exactly sure what they mean. Serial numbers? I always hear the phrase “matching numbers” in reference to cars. Supposedly, if they have matching numbers it’s an indication of authenticity. Unfortunately, the plate on the frame that would tell me if they matched is so corroded as to be useless. If they are like a serial numbers, and provide a consecutive count of builds, then the three-millionth vehicle would have rolled off the assembly lines several years to late for this car. By the end of 1951, Nash had only manufactured slightly more than two million vehicles.

Nash Engine Numbers

Engine from 1951? It is a mystery.

Continued removing other bits, as well, as I work towards cleaning up the engine compartment. It’s nearly there. Now I just need to get an engine hoist and stand. Well, almost. Still need to remove some extraneous bits. The fuel pump is still on there. Brake lines are still running around the frame, as well.  And that’s to say nothing of the suspension, front axle and steering. All in good time.

Engine compartment

Engine compartment as of Jan. 22, 2012.

Still plenty of work to go. Hopefully soon I can start making actual repairs. Then it will feel like I’m getting somewhere! No update to total project costs, as I haven’t purchased anything in a while.

 

 

 

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