VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 Finally - Engine going back in the 1929

well been a while, but i did go pick up the starter and generator. was a  short wait, only about a week and a half. but as always they did a great job. both look great. 

first up was the starter...

put on a NOS switch, cleaned it up and panted it. they bench tested it and ran great, plenty of torque.

next up was the generator, put it in and lined up the belt and tensioned it

when we were prepping for start up a few weeks ack, we noticed there was some coolant in the water pump. Problem was it is the new sealed water pump from The Filling Station, so it did not make sense. 

we cleaned up the coolant, only a few drops and moved on.

while installing the starter and generator i went back and checked, and notice that there was a little more coolant in the water pump trough. i noticed some coolant on the front of the head, and a spot around the water outlet. tightened it up and bam leak gone.

went out last night and figured i would give starting a chance... 

did a once over on the engine, checked fluids, cables, wires, etc... then went to drop in battery and noticed the ground wire was hanging ?!? rolled under the car and realized that the battery cut out was fired and melted !! guess when the starter was arcing it caused excessive heat and melted the casing on the cut out. i know the battery was warm when i pulled it.

had to order a new switch, they are rated for 500A 12Vdc

Bummer! It's always something!!

Ever onward! Dean

Actually...

If it's rated for 500 amps @ 12 volts,
it'll still only handle 500 amps @ 6 volts.

Amps are amps regardless of the voltage, and the rated amperage will be dependent on the size of the components.
To make it handle 1000 amps would require the components to be larger.

well the replacement battery cut off came in, so got it installed.

hoping to have some time later this week or this weekend to try to fire it up, attempt #3

went out last night for fire attempt number 3.

did my once over, and installed battery, and then tried to fire spin the engine to pump gas to the pump, then carb. i primed the oil pump via drill wink. and the thing could barely turn over !! i can crank it by hand and it is a little tight, but i expect that on a freshly rebuilt engine. starter is fine and works great, they tested it and i bench tested it. i had to remove all spark plugs to get the thing to turn over.

so wondering if maybe the battery got fried ? burned out a few cells or something ? it is a Red Top Optima 6v, and this thing usually slings the motor around like there is no tomorrow. it stays on the tender and says it is fully charged, on a meter I get 6.4 v all day.

unfortunately i do NOT have a spare 6v battery around anywhere :( think i will call local auto store and see if they can load test the 6v.

Somewhere I read that way back when it was not unheard of to connect a "pony" engine to the newly built engine to loosen things up . If it were mine i would just give it a 12 volt boost for a few seconds . Once it runs for a minute or two I am guessing all it will need is the 6 volts. That is what I did after rebuilding my 32 engine.

It is common for newly rebuilt engines with new rings and honed cylinders to take some extra power to turn them over on initial attempts to run. Once the cylinders smooth out a little gets much easier to turn over. I have used 12 volt battery with 6 volt starter or jumped from 12 volts in the past. As long as the 12 volts is applied to the cranking starter all will be okay. 12 volts on the ignition system is also okay for a short time. I am sure I will have to do that when I try to start my freshly rebuilt '32 engine.

I had Dad on the starter while I helped out with the crank. :-)

It worked!

And yes, we only had to do it that way once.

I will get the battery load tested, and if test good i will try to jump it and see what happens.

can i connect the 6v up as normal, then run jumpers from the 12v battery to the 6 v battery or should i just connect the 12v straight up ?
do not want to ruin anything else :/

We used to jump straight to the 6v battery.
We had one engine weld the points before we had a chance to run the starter, so after that we had one person engage the starter first, then the second person attached the last of the jumper cables while the starter was cranking.
Prevents the full 12 volts from going to the ignition system.
Probably only gets 9 or 10 volts that way.

took battery to get load tested, unfortunately no one locally can load test a 6v battery, everyone has the new auto testers that only do 12v. me and the guy played with the system and no where could you change it to 6v, so the battery would not load test because voltage was too low.

did try the battery back in the car, still can NOT spin the engine with plugs in it. if i jump it with a 12v then it will kick and spin over. going to get a new 12v battery this week. and try again. was able to prime the fuel pump, but took several rounds of 10 cycling (6v battery ONLY and no plugs)

You can buy a very basic Load Tester at Harbour Freight or even Napa I suspect. I have a cheap Harbour Freight style and a professional one from the 1960's I bought off Ebay.

This style is basically a voltmeter that shows your battery voltage 1)with no load connected and 2)with a heating element connected to the battery to produce a load. The loaded and unloaded voltages are compared while the "load" is connected for 15-20secs.

You could do the same type of test yourself with a voltmeter and electrical devices on your car - say 30sec with headlights or 5sec with starter and see if the battery voltage drops significantly with the load attached. With a good battery, your voltage will slowly drop the longer the load is connected. If the battery is bad, the voltage will drop significantly and suddenly. This is easier to watch with a voltmeter with a needle rather than digital but either will work.

tinkered with the car some last night, mainly on spinning the engine over.

note that the 1930 is NOT home currently, it is actually out in Texas on Display at a Trade Show. It is being used for a NEWly formed Company as part of a promotion campaign, it will be featured on the company's NEW t-shirts to promote the company :)

on to the 1929 remember all is relative, and relative in to how I perceive it

had the battery load tested and it passed, but said it was in last quarter of its life. battery code date is 07/14 (Optima Red Top 3 Year)

spinning it by hand with plugs in it is a little harder than spinning the 1930 with 1000 miles on it, you know when you hit a compression stroke on any cylinder, especially if spinning slowly.

took the starter OFF tore it apart, made sure everything moved freely, was lubed up, and brushes seated and were free to move with armature

spun up starter on bench with (1) 6v battery, it spins up steadily, not an instant torque and spin. (2)12v battery, spins up fast and hard, way faster on torque end

installed starter back on car with plugs installed and attempted to spin up (1) 6v will spin engine till it hits compression stroke, which is not even a quarter or so turn, can NOT spin it past a compression stroke (2) 12v will attempt to spin engine but bendix gets stuck out and stops, tried various shim thicknesses and the same results. have to loosen starter to get bendix back in to try again.

strange thing is that with the plugs removed the 6v battery can spin over engine slowly, and bendix never gets stuck ?! maybe it is not kicking it out hard enough ? as noted i was able to slowly prime the fuel pump and carb via this method. took about 4-5 cycles of 10 seconds each to get the fuel pump full of fuel. remember New fuel line so has to pump from tank through line to bowl :)

Ordered a NEW Optima 6v Red Top today, should be here tomorrow. NO ONE Locally within 25 miles says they have one in stock, called everyone around. 2 Local Parts store can have one to me next day. rest say approx 5-7 days, probably drop shipping from manufacturer. either way i will check the Production Date to validate when it was made. Easy to do on an Optima !

messed with the car a bit this weekend...

got in the NEW optima 6v, did a test and same issue on the car as the other.

went through and double checked the timing and settings, reset the valves cold.

did a few test Chipper recommended, i have a strong snappy spark, easily jumps and snaps 1/4" + gap with a strong blue flame. **POP** also pulled plugs and spun over engine to validate plugs were firing and sparking. so know i have FUEL to Carb, FIRE at the Plugs, and Air all around.

installed the battery and would kick the engine about a quarter turn and stop at a compression. so i set up the riding mower 12v 525CA battery with some jumper cables and ran it in parallel with the 6v, only connected it when i hit the starter and disconnected as soon as i stopped. engine would spin over and rotated with plugs, etc... so made sure had fuel in carb, timing rough set and tried to fire it up, nothing. tinkered for a few hours, no avail.

went out monday evening and tuesday evening tinkered around, same ordeal. about an hour or two each time.

this morning went out and went over everything one more time, and then connected batteries, and after about half hour, the engine actually kicked and sputtered for a brief second. waiting a few seconds then hit it again, and tried to fire, once more and it started up, ran for about 10-15 seconds then died off. unfortunately had to pack it in and head to work. so i know it will now fire and everything is really close. figure if i can get it to fire and run, let it run for a short time and warm up and set in.

unfortunately did not have any time to work on the car last night, had an update meeting for hte upcoming AACA Grand Nationals... trying to get all the ducks in a row as the meet is about 30 days out !!  

did have some time this morning to go out and tinker. i put in the 6v battery (was on tender all night), turned the key, hit the accelerator pedal a few times, and then hit hte starter switch. it turned about a quarter turn and stopped (compression). grabbed the 12v off the tender, jumped it over to the 6v, hit the starter and fired right up. rand for a minute or two, died when i tried to accelerate the then engine slowly. know timing and all is NOT perfect. hit hte starter and fired right back up. let it idle for a few minutes and get up to temp. smell the paint, oil, and lube burning off and out the engine. 

short video of this here: 1929 Chevrolet International AC - Engine Rebuild Fire Up 02

wondering if my rebuilt oil pump is working: 1929 Chevrolet International AC - Engine Rebuild Fire Up 02 Close Up​​​​​​​ 

after warmup went in and adjusted the valves, tried the 6v alone but it can not spin through a compression stroke, jumped the 12v and fired right up.

1929 Chevrolet International AC - Engine Rebuild Fire Up 03


If i have time tonight will fire it back up and tweak the tuning some, get it in a happy place.

timing was rough set per VCCA info:

Points: .018"
Spark Plug Gap: .040"
Timing: 18 DEG BTDC
Float Level: .75"

I will also hook it up to my old school meter, and see what the RPM and Dwell are.

Looks great!

And runs great!

Looks to me like your oil pump is working fine.
What did the oil pressure gauge read?

PS
Now that you have it running, and you are able to restart immediately after stopping,
I don't think any bearings are TOO tight.
If they were, the engine would be even "stickier" and harder to get rolling at restart.

That said, if I were you I'd wait on the next start up until you can run it steady for at least 20 minutes and run at a good fast idle.
Maybe around 1500 RPM. At least 1200.
This is to throw more oil up to the cylinder walls and wrist pins during a critical time of break-in.

As long as the cam in the distributor isn't significantly worn, I wouldn't bother with looking at dwell at all.
Dwell and point gap are interlinked and one changes the other.
Just make sure your point gap is right (you've already done that) and that will take care of dwell on it's own.
And of course check timing AFTER any readjustments to point gap.

Nice work!
And nice car!
Wish mine looked like that.

distributor is a complete rebuild by JYD :) first time it has been put to work.

You are good to go with just setting the points to spec then. :-)

decided i was going to do a test...

last night i dropped in the NEW 6v Optima and hit the accelerator a few times, and hit the starter button, car spun over and fired up, slow idle then settled in once warmed up.

went out this morning, and decided to try the OLD 6v Optima, it spun quarter turn and stopped, i hit it again and spun around slowly, then car fired off and was running. 

let the car idle and warm up a bit. then adjusted the idle down and settled in around 350 RPM or so per my meter. still ahs a slight hesitation if you hit the accelerator, but will work that out when i have time to tinker more.