T86 Transmission time

 Snow is here and filling my engine bay.

The poor Frazer gets pushed down the priority list nearly every time, but things are still coming together.
The engine is nearly all there now and nearly all painted.

New clutch and temporary oil pressure gauge

The oil filter is clean and has a fresh filter cartridge. The starter is untouched and seems to be working fine. I even put in a new clutch plate.

Plus bell housing and starter

The exhaust manifold that was on it has a crack in an awkward to get at location, so I'm working on fixing the other manifold that was in the trunk.

Original - see the break? 

Trunk sourced - You can sure see it on this one.

The manifold on the right has a bigger break, but it's on the flange - an easy to work on area.
I have never welded cast iron before - this piece seems to be cooperating well.

Pleasantly surprising results

Extra good casting or just lucky?

 I'm going to weld a steel flange (from the old exhaust pipe) onto the pipe I welded in and what's left of the flange. A little ugly, but a good fix I think.

My T86 transmission was caked in crud and was obviously leaking from every seal: rear main seal and 3 shift shaft seals. The inside was not very clean either. I took it all apart and changed the seals.

The part numbers for what I changed:

• rear main seal - SKF 15620, $13 from Napa
• shift shaft seals, 2 on the main transmission and 1 on the overdrive - National 340797, $3 each from Rockauto
• there is also a tiny seal for the overdrive solenoid - National 240698, $3 from Rockauto, I haven't installed that one yet
• clutch throwout bearing - Federal Mogul BCA 1562, $20 ebay

mostly together again

Despite all the sludge inside, the transmission seems like new. I didn't see much of any wear on the teeth and the bearings looked good, too.

Almost out of Rust-oleum Hunter Green #7732, satin of course

Getting it all back together was easier than I expected. A little more green paint and it fits right in.

So much better than it was!

I just need to clean and bolt on a few overdrive parts and fill with some gear oil to finish this up. My plan was to put the whole thing back in the Frazer and go from there, but Winter is making me want to do more stuff inside right now. Rebuilding the carburetor and distributor sound like good indoor jobs.

I was recently asked "Why?" by someone I love, and the only answer I could think of was "Because it deserves it."
This is a fine, old car that was designed and built by some of the best automotive thinking of its time (read "The Last Onslaught on Detroit" by Richard Langworth if you don't believe me). It was likely originally bought by someone returning home after WW2 and eager to start his life in a peaceful and prosperous country. It was driven many miles and maintained with resourcefulness for many years. How sad they must have been when their last overhaul ended badly. They did not give up on it completely though. It was not sent to the crusher. Instead someone collected parts for it in the trunk and held onto it. I don't know where Ron Hackenberger found it (Kansas?), but he saved it and kept it from harm for many years as well. I'm the caretaker now and I intend to drive it. And I'm having fun - why not?

Speaking of fun, there is a salvage yard near me that has some amazing stuff!

1954 Plymouth 2 door, someday...

 No dogs allowed, but a pretty good day out even so.

Old sneakers

Why do we spend time, money and extraordinary effort finding and working on bits (large and small) of rusty metal? Bringing an abandoned hulk or broken machine back from the brink is extremely satisfying, but surely there are more worthy goals.
Can't think of any right now though - look at what Paul brought me:

16 inch wheels for my '50 Dodge

Take a moment to appreciate the old tires before they head off to the transfer station. Set your time machine to the day some lucky person drove off with a brand new pair of "Wards Riverside De luxe" 6.00-16's. Makes me happy just thinking about it.

WARDS RIVERSIDE HI-WAY

WARDS RIVERSIDE DE LUXE HI-TRAC

B.F. Goodrich Safetyliner Silvertown 6.50-16

Oh well, there is no good way (or reason) to display old tires, so enjoy these pictures. Sandblasting, rustoleum and a nice new set of 215/85R16 radials is in the future for these wheels.

The Frazer progresses. I like to think that Joseph W. Frazer himself watched my car getting put together or at least that he saw it at Willow Run before it was shipped out to a dealership. He and Henry J. must have enjoyed seeing all the cars with their names on them. Just having a rusty one in my driveway is pretty cool.
The engine continues to come together nicely. The water pump is reassembled and the oil pump is rebuilt. I went ahead and safety wired the bolts for the main bearings. Probably not necessary, but the bolt heads are drilled for it, so I figured it was a good idea.

Oil pump in, time to safety wire the main bearing bolts

With some more help from KFOC I can reasonably say this engine is out of a late 1950 or early 1951 Kaiser car. You can see how someone carefully welded on the earlier front engine mount to the newer front plate. By that time Joseph Frazer was disillusioned and had pretty much checked out of his own company, so he probably didn't see this particular engine as it went down the assembly line. I think he would still approve.
Time for a little more paint.

And some green.

Time to install an oil pan, water pump and manifolds, and to start cleaning up the clutch and transmission parts.

I hope you had a Happy Halloween and that someone cute brought you holiday appropriate gifts.

Not sharing, just showing off.

Timing Chain, Piston Rings and dirt

The Frazer's engine is still coming together. I got the timing put together and I installed the pistons. My brand new crankshaft is identical to the old one with one exception - there is a step of about half an inch of extra material in front of main bearing 1. The result was that the flange of the timing gear was too thick. My solution was to grind half an inch off the bottom of my timing gear. This engine was produced for such a long time and for such a wide range of cars and machinery that I'm very lucky this was my only problem.

End of new crankshaft - see the extra step sticking out?

Timing marks are separated by 9 links - weird

Front end reassembled, but still upside down

The second issue I ran into was with piston rings. I found a complete set of NOS Kaiser Frazer original factory rings, but got into trouble as soon as I started putting them together. The original rings that came in the engine were a pretty complicated deal - Top ring was a single cast iron piece, Ring 2 was a cast iron ring with a spring that went under it, Ring 3 was a thicker cast ring with a spring under it and Ring 4 was also a thick cast ring with 2 springs under it. Each piston had  to have 8 pieces on it. The NOS K-F rings were different again, and have a total part count of 9 pieces per piston. Nine potential failures for each and every cylinder, yikes.

3 sets of Rings: old, used at the bottom, NOS in the middle and modern new rings at the top

I was ok with trying to use the old style, NOS rings, but either I was being careless or they were just poor quality because 2 of them broke easily as I was trying to put them on.
Back to the computer and  Carl Walck to the rescue with brand new, modern rings (6 total pieces per piston). Jeeps are more popular than Frazers, and use a lot of the same engine parts. I also got a set of head bolts and an oil filter.
With new timing chain, rod bearings and rings my short block is nearly back together.

Supersonic freeze plugs have been ordered (Dorman 555-031)

 I have a little mystery about exactly how to install 2 sheet metal splash guards behind the valve cover. I'm tempted to leave them out because they look like they could cause trouble, but I'm guessing they keep oil from getting shot out through the breather. If anyone knows how these are supposed to go in please educate me. They are not in any of the parts books or service manuals I've seen.

Mystery splash guards (?) where I think they go

 Water pump, oil pump, bell housing and clutch parts all need some attention

Water pump is looking good

Transmission and overdrive are dirty, but seem ok

Did I mention dirty?

The weather has been great and Freddie is hopeful we will do something fun for dogs. Sounds like a good idea, let's follow Olive!

Flathead 6 Continental style

The Frazer's engine is coming along. The crankshaft I bought on ebay is the right one, and I had similar good luck with the main and rod bearings purchased at extreme low prices.

New crankshaft and main bearings installed

Valves done

I am impressed with how this engine is designed. I'm used to the Mopar style flathead 6's, so I'm appreciating how Continental did it. The design of the rear main oil seal is especially interesting. I hope it works.

#1 cleaned up nicely

Always use genuine KF parts for best performance

I still need to get head bolts, oil pan, fuel pump (rebuild?) and a carb kit to get this engine running again. I will rebuild the oil pump too. Parts for these engines are pretty easy to get, but there are quite a few variations. Anyone know what this engine originally came out of? It is not the original engine for my Frazer, and I'm guessing it came out of a newer style Kaiser car - maybe '51 or '52?

The weather is cooling off here and the leaves are dropping.

Majestic '48 Frazer

'56 Dodge flathead 6 

 I painted the flathead 6 for my Plymouth Hemi orange (for fun), but I'm going to try to paint the Frazer as close as I can get to its original green. I have a couple of spray cans of Rustoleum Hunter Green (7732) satin enamel that I think will be pretty good.

Olive and Freddie demonstrate proper attitude

Remember the keys to happiness - dogs and trucks, preferably together.

Mistakes were made

Can't stop working on the new Frazer. Check out the cool hood ornament. It's from a '47 Ford. The Fords have a strip of blue plastic down the center, but mine has this crazy aftermarket spinner. Way cool!

Four bolts and the hood is off. One hinge is going to need a new shoulder bolt and spring to get it back together.

 That front panel in front of the radiator sticks up high in the middle and is very difficult to remove. There are a LOT of bolts holding it and it seems to function as the main support for the front fenders, too. The engine on this car has been out at least once and whoever did it before just cut the center section over the radiator out instead of taking the whole panel out. After they put the engine back in they welded that section back in. That might be easier than taking all those bolts out.

 But I persevered and got it out, and now my engine is out in the open.

 Another clue that the engine in my Frazer has had some major work are the words "Kaiser Supersonic" cast on the head. Apparently they didn't start doing that until later, so my '48 Frazer got an upgrade at some point in its life.

 Thirty three head bolts later and I can take it off.
 One bolt broke off, but I drilled it out and cleaned up the hole with a tap.

 The cylinders do not look bad. Only a very small top ridge to deal with.

 The person who overhauled this engine last time carefully put shims behind the bearing caps. They did a nice job with all except the front main bearing. The shim under that bearing completely covered the hole that provided oil to the number one rod bearing. This is the mistake that killed this engine. I wonder how long they were able to run it that way.

The Evidence - main bearing looks ok, but shims did not allow oil to rod bearing

#1 rod journal needs a polish for sure

 The whole engine is standard size, so I'm guessing this can be cleaned up. I will see what Nick says. Nick's Machine and Repair
Nick does great work.
These are not rare engines either, so I'll see what is out there on CL and ebay.
I was hoping this engine would be an easy fix. Have you watched those "Will it run?" videos on youtube? Seems like a good way to wreck a potentially good, old engine. I always hope that they have at least cleaned out the oil pan.
What this one definitely needs:

• crankshaft
• bearings - main and rod
• timing chain
• valve job
• rings
• oil pan - mine must have been sitting outside full of water

Not too bad.

Freddie made a puppy friend over the weekend. Hi Grommet! No generation gap here.