Will This 1925 Studebaker Firetruck Finally RUN AND DRIVE?

welcome back to vice grip garage today i'm going to take another run and get my 1925 studebaker once was a hearse now is a fire truck running if you watched the last episode we got really really close but we had some broken parts that just couldn't quite get there but i've got some new parts and i've got a lot more history on the old rig here that i want to share with you let's get started [Music] [Applause] [Music] i do apologize it took a while to get back on the studebaker but that wasn't because i didn't want to or a lack of drying if you remember our fuel make it happener that was on the rig well it wasn't making fuel happen in fact the needle and float assembly was damaged beyond repair so there wasn't much a guy could do there the great news is i might have found something here that could potentially work today now my friends call me chief black cloud but i'm not blowing smoke when i say i literally scoured the earth to find this thing months of searching i'm now a member of 8 362 studebaker clubs i have joined every online forum you can find i have probably three feet of student maker magazines i've called every junkyard in this nation i've searched online for probably three thousand gigamegapixels or whatever those measurements are i finally found this one here on some back page for sale thing it looked like a website from the 70s had a phone number to call left a message on a voice machine and got a call back a couple weeks later feller still had it so that was good what i started finding out was this was not the original fuel make it happener for the rig so that was making things more difficult what it needed to be is a ball and ball which this one here is problem is everyone that would find these really honestly didn't quite know what they were in fact this one came in a box with a tag that says what does it fit question mark so how i found this one was 15 to 20 hours of clicking links that went to photographs of fuel making happeners and finally found one that potentially looked like the unit that could fit on that 300 big six the great news is it's complete looks to be in fairly decent condition but i do want to clean everything up before we put it on the rig so i want to go ahead and do that now get this soaking and then we'll go fiddle on the truck while this is cooking if you found yourself wondering how does a guy know that this thing needs clean because clearly i'm not an expert on early 1900s carbohydrates here's why this is a magnetic rock does the thing on this guy here nothing this is actually a solid brass unit but it clearly doesn't look like brass so it's very tarnished and faded inside and out plus i could see quite a bit of gunk in the i guess would be the bowl here and whatnot so i'm just going to soak this we're not even really going to agitate it i might take a toothbrush and just gently brush this this is very very fragile as we found out from playing with the other unit so i've got to be really careful now normally if i've got a holley or an edelbrock or whatnot i just drop them into this barium and chem dip pail here and it's got this nice little tray thing you can just let her down and soak but this beast doesn't fit in that so i'm gonna find a five gallon pail pour this in there then we'll just set the parts in there and let them cook for about 30 35 minutes and then we'll come back and clean it up and put it back together easy this piece is super fragile with these weights and a tiny little wire on there there that fit much better by the who and way this is an excellent time to check the float in there because it should float and if you hold it under the liquid and you carefully watch if you see tiny bubbles coming up you got a leak in that thing and this one appears to be good i've been playing with it for a few minutes here and i'm not seeing anything so while that's cooking we could take a look at the truck here how it sits now and then i did a lot of research on this and i have some updates on some of it unfortunately while it was pulled down here we lost the roof here all the material that was on the roof we had everything strapped down as best as we could but we figured that was going to happen we tilted this windshield in we rolled the glass down to try to prevent the back glass from blowing out and that seemed to work thankfully but we'll have to put some material on the roof this also broke i think we can fix that fairly easy just drill some new holes and get some hardware in there kind of just have this setting in place i don't want to break the glass i should maybe tape it on temporarily for now took this off during transport but i got it back on the hood's like that because i got in here and did some measurements on the intake manifold just so i knew what i was looking for on the fuel make it happener and i think we're going to be really close one running board came off on this side over here and that's strapped up back over here but really that's all that happened during the transport thankfully now when i did a bunch of research online i do believe this was in fact a hearse initially and obviously it's a fire truck now and there's a couple clues that we'll kind of cover again as to why i think that but remember we have that letter from studebaker directly in the 1970s that said this exact serial number either was a school bus or it was a hearse and we don't see any indication that it was a school bus obviously we've got a full cab and everything like that so it had to have been a hearse now there were kind of two different hurst styles and all the research that i did looking at the probably like 21 to 1928 hearse there was another rig called a combination which really kind of looked like a suburban maybe a little bit classier and basically it was just a full body vehicle and those work great for hearse because they just stripped the interior and in and out the rear is where they did their work and the other one kind of looked like this and we could see here that it retained the truck cab and they just kind of had instead of a flatbed it was a different bed they set in and then it would have had the original running boards coming all the way back with the nice fender in the rear these were clearly produced after the fact these are not original running boards here so i strongly believe this was a hearse initially now moving on to some of the extras we could see an axe holder here this pail was left here for probably i don't know gloves hose ends hard to say we believe this was a hole cut for water or a pump valve or something of that nature these were definitely added on and what this would have been for is the fellers would have hung onto the running board here and just wrote on the sides of the truck looking at the pictures of the hearses none of them had these handles there was some scripts and decorations and things like that some of them even had a window produced back here but these handles were definitely for firefighting and i found a name back here it's hard to read rome quality i think is what that says so these were added in now remember these lantern holders or what i thought was a lantern holders and that was confirmed through research and a lot of you also reached out to me afterwards so this would have been installed here and a lantern want to hung off the hook and then this opens and closes on the bottom and that's what kept them squished in there and what would have hung here is called dietz lanterns there would have been one on each side so you had a firefighter hanging off the side then they would have jumped off the running board grabbed a lantern for search and rescue or whatever work they were doing at the time this here i also confirmed would have been a combination siren or light and same with over on this side i did follow the wiring off of that over there and that comes into the passenger side right there so the passenger would have been the one sitting in here running the oogadooga and the lights while the driver just focused on driving and you can also tell that that was clearly cut into the vehicle as well over here we also have the same kind of it was just cut or ripped in for pumps or something of that nature also interesting is coming off of the water pump is this water line that comes back to here that was dead ended that i would assume continued all the way to the rear i don't know if the tank would have been plumbed in or something like that but that almost gives me a thought that did they use the water pump of the engine to actually pump the water i don't know that's another mystery i have yet to kind of dwelve into but all in all a super super neat rig with tons of history and i've just got to see this thing running and driving under its own power and that's the goal i'm going to keep hacking away at this thing until we make it happen might not happen today but we're going to keep trying the other thing that happened we're going to have to address maybe today i got an idea set this up gently is there was an old fabric belt on here and when we tried to get it running last time i hadn't noticed it initially but it broke and got wound up in here so now we have no fan we do have the pump which is going to be driven off of here but we've got no fan blades we're going to have to keep that in mind we're either going to try to make something and if that doesn't work and we do get it running we're just going to have to keep the runtime you know down because it's gonna get warm luckily we got some technologies here kind of keep our heat in mind we've got new sparklators in from last time i am going to try to make a new coil wire because well look at it it's clearly leaking lightning these however the actual lightning hoses up here look halfway decent three have clearly been upgraded well probably two or three decades ago these are probably the older ones but they're still slightly pliable i'm not going to play with them a ton but we did hear this fire so we know that hopefully the points everything in here kind of nervous to even take this off okay someone crudely attacked that with a screwdriver so we're gonna try to clean that up and clean up this as well a lot of oil in there give us the best shot at this we're using this little jerry can right now which runs down to this fuel stop lever but we can plug that in just use that for fuel and remember we got this weird system here this comes from the fuel tank into this out of it and then would have went in right here i still i don't i don't know what what that is or why that's there we'll try to get it running just the way it should be and then i'd like to kind of clean you know let's clean that up also all these tires are flat it doesn't look like it because they're like 9 000 ply but we're gonna have to try to get some air in these i think when we pushed it back here with the tractor it was one ride i mean it was you know because they're flat spotted oh i think it just blew out my d4 but anyway let's go back and check on that fuel make it happener it's been soaking get that cleaned up and get that bolted in that's the first thing we got to do so jessica i need a new toothbrush so i've been scrubbing on this and it's looking a lot better if you remember what it looked like before now we're actually seeing some nice brass color working our way through it trying to get all the nooks and crannies out with the toothbrush just kind of gently scrubbing and then i'm also spraying in where i can't reach with the brush i'm going to keep working at this for about another 20 minutes or so just try to get it as clean as possible i need to be a little careful with how far i tear into this thing because obviously there's not a kit for it i don't want to break anything but these had numbers stamped on the side 140 and 100 so i figured there had to be a metering device of some kind and i'm glad i did because these this one's plugged solid and this one is really plug solid and this would have been i don't know the main jet i guess if you will coming from the bowl into the device where the fuel gets atomized and there's science and does all that stuff plug solid so if we would have just cleaned this up and throwing it on and wanted to run i got to clean these up as well well here we go it's all back together and based on what my peepers are telling my cerebellum i think we got a really good shot at this thing working there's one more thing we got to do quick before we walk back over to rusty acres as you can see here the old gasket between the fuel maker happener and the intake well it's not quite good i don't feel like spending four months trying to find one so we're quick gonna make one and we're going to use the old one as a template so we're not banging on our new to us fuel make it happener making a gasket for this is actually relatively simple especially when it's an easy shape like this i just run down the tractor supply and over in the tractor hardware section they have gasket material and rolls they've got the old school court kind and then the newer style that we're more accustomed to pick your flavor this is a little bit more high heat of course this is a little more squishy but kind of older technology you know cut a chunk out whatever you want you can lay this right on here and then take like a razor knife or something like that trace the outside or another thing you can do is just lay this over top and this is the way that i like to do it like that take a light tiny 200 and just go ahead and work it around and you're going to see a line forming and that's where we need to go back and cut i'm going to show you in just a second here when i finish now if you hammer on it enough it'll actually cut the material for you but this is an old brass rig and i don't want to get too crazy on it but there's our basic outline right there and i can cut this out and then come back and do the same exact thing for not only the bolt holes here but also the center new gasket there we go now i gotta scrounge around for 58 months for some fine thread hardware and we'll walk back over and get this on the service truck also known as the montebarro got the exhaust fixed sounds pretty good i gotta load it down with tools and parts and stuff i might need and grab this battery this is out of the john deere b off the farm that didn't work so maybe it'll work now probably not really enjoying this car i drive it every single day well a guy had to run into town for the 97th time 3 8 24 hardware just isn't something i got laying around here you know eventually i will but we're not fully moved into the shop yet as you can see there's parts and tools and tires and stuff everywhere but once that happens we're really going to be putting out the content so much better having the shop right here by the house i'm going to start with the throttle linkage here maybe gonna we're gonna start with the throttle linkage i need well for pete's sake i need to start with throttle linkage here and is this going backwards that might be what it is the other one was on backwards was tricking me on this one okay all right yep all right our homemade gasket going on slide this up does it fit it does yes excellent news now can i get this giant nylon nut in here i had to buy probably not oh it seems to be threading on what is this one i don't know one inch might not be enough oh that's enough bite i guess well all this is in and this linkage right here that's from the throttle on the steering wheel that you can you know bring this back around and then this linkage down here goes to the pedal i'm having issues with that it's sticky and binding up and also the original spring snapped on me when i tried to get her up to the position here so we'll probably just use the the throttle on the golefco right selector for now and then i got the fuel line plugged in that just goes over to this can full of rust up there we're gonna ignore all this again for now also the spark advance and is currently not working so we'll have to look at this a little bit later right now i moved on to we got to get this lightning hose fixed she's been patched on with some room temperature vulcanization cream but this is clearly leaking lightning so i'm going to fix that and then i think we can go right into just seeing if we can get it to fire off and if it does we'll come into the belt and stuff like that took the floor out so a guy could see what's going on tried to get these pedals sorted out again because everything was kind of mixed up and i found that close-out sail battery still in here maybe that one's still good nope probably not but we're gonna try it this is a throttle i was talking about that's where we're gonna run her there this would be the choke cold hot here's your timing right there i don't know what that one is maybe that's the choke one i'm not sure i don't know okay we'll figure it out county lines i don't know found it at the tractor store there it says electric on it that's good i think we can make one out of here pretty easy great thing about these old stove bolts and flatheads and stuff like that a lot of the stuff that goes on the old tractors is completely applicable to these engines for example right here this is going to work just fine for the wire we need this well there goes that for life let's see that one fits okay give her just a little bit of lubrications yeah get this on here quick wonder what reba mcintyre is doing today boom lightning hose plug this back in sure that felt solid what about this one you ask even more solid ester okay i checked on the earl down here that's still full of the bad stuff so that's fine and then i spent a few minutes digging out what was left of this belt and that's really really old and it was all jammed up in here so now that free wheels that's much better we're going to dump some fuel on this thing and we'll probably run the lone wolf 6000 trigger off of this so a guy can be out here and fiddle with the fuel in the air situation and that way i also don't burn up that switch on that floor we probably could find a generic replacement but probably not that exact one so i want to take it easy on that if i can it's dazzling what is this oh looks like turkey gravy so that should be fine this is enough to just idle it and hopefully hopefully be able to just scoot it around the yard here a little bit you know that's probably good guy's going to check the needle here make sure that that's working it is so i can't depress this which means it's working a pretty basic setup here there's two opposing weights like this and when that float floats up and hits those weights they basically move up and then push the needle down which closes off the fuel passage here so that's working which is great nothing's leaking yet anyway so i got the battery hooked up and my lone wolf 6000 hooked up let's see what we got here bring the thunder bring it again kind of surprised to tell you this but the battery is dead get out of here all right really common place for batteries on these old rigs is the drinker side here also made for an interesting ride when you find yourself in the middle of a battery fire and floor is smoking i almost said that like i've been there oh i have i'm having issues with the old lone wolf 6000 it's not it's not percolating the way a guy wants to i'm just going to jump in the cab and use that switch at least for a little bit see what happens all right remember right there's no key but that needs switched on where's the throttle position slightly faster than idle go what no way yes i oil pressure gauge is working i don't i don't know what to say at this juncture a little smoky but it's been a long long time [Music] [Music] there's a violent amount of cat hair on my shirt also i haven't been this invested or excited about an old rig running in a long time it was just dragging away like six volt systems do just like it was last time we were working on it and it just immediately took off i didn't fiddle with the fuel making happener or nothing just absolutely incredible so now let's go ahead and see if we can get a belt made for this we're just going to make one because i don't have 17 months to try to find the original one we'll get some ice cube juice in it we'll get some air in the tires let's go see if we can you know grab some gears with this thing i'm sure it doesn't have brakes but it's got to have a clutch and even if it doesn't i'll start it in gear that's how bad i want to drive this thing man that was cool the belt system here is really basic there's a spring on the other side and this will go down for tension and it's really wide but it's lipped pulleys on both of them down there so i just grabbed a generic snake belt off the wall actually i think this is a belt i use for the procharger on the chevelle but my plan is can a guy just wrap this around the two measure it cut it and then we'll sew it together with some wire and i don't think we're going to be spinning enough rpm to throw it off it's worth a try anyway here's a piece i ended up with here basically i'd put it around both pulled the slack out of it until i got a little tension on that spring took the old razor knife and just you know now i'm drilling three holes in each end that i'm going to use to try to sew this together good enough for the girls we date well here's the start of it here and i might have lopped too much of her off because there's going to be quite a bit of pressure on this but it's holding that much right now with this one wire so i'm going to get two more wires in here and try to just slowly cinch this down a little bit more at a time well there we go that just might do the trick it did cinch all the way up together and it's holding the tension from the spring right now so i don't know see what happens i can hear some air working out of the system which is good we'll put one more in and then we'll go ahead and fire it up see if we can get this thing warmed up a little bit circulating and test our homemade belt out i don't know what that means but it doesn't look good i'm gonna try to take this cover off see if we can see what's going on in there well i'm not going to be able to get this off this one definitely felt like it was just going to snap off wanted to get this off and clean it up get it back on take a look inside but that's going to shut us down from our goal today get this thing running so we're gonna ignore that for now we're gonna fire back up see if this belt holds we know we got a little bit of juice in it and should be enough for us to just maybe try to scoot it around the yard here a lap or two hopefully i don't know if this little milwaukee's gonna have enough undercarriage to air up this big old tire but it's all we got out here so we're gonna give her a rip and see what happens [Music] this one's down too i think these other two might be up could have been wrong earlier yeah that old firestone looks like she might be up oh yeah this one's low but maybe got a little inner got the light you know fixed that's fine this has a hole in it and bentley he tried to patch that didn't work surprised got the windshield tipped out you know for maximum aerodynamics on the unit i got to be really careful with this steering wheel i put some super special wood glue in here and i had the clamps on it for a long time but that basically did nothing i'm afraid to even turn this unless the tires are rotating i got to sneak out this way and i think the flat tire is going to be an advantage this is going to drag me that way but we're going to fire it up just run it for a few minutes okay we got a fan [Applause] it's working [Music] that's not so much working hey so [Music] do so the throttle actually didn't stick i think what happened when i jumped out there was a bunch of fuel just spilling out everything i think all the bouncing and jumping and everything just kind of automatically fetter too many onions in here but it runs pretty darn decent of course it doesn't have any breaks and the flat spotted and flat tires doesn't help anything surely that should have fixed it i don't know good try huh gotta address a few things on this but man it runs and it runs pretty good this is actually really really exciting well there you have it fellers after two decades 1925 studebaker fire truck running and driving once again now we got to keep going what do you want to see with this thing where do we start tires wheels refresh the engine you guys bleep bloop it down there in the comments i'll take a gander on her we'll see what we can do thanks guys for watching appreciate it very much we'll see you next time now i gotta bump my way back to a parking spot [Music] you

Channel: Vice Grip Garage

Views: 1,271,693

Keywords: motortrend, roadkill, vice grip garage, vise grip garage, vgg, studebaker, flat bed, antique, truck, trucks, fire truck, firetruck, hearse, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, studabaker, barn, farm, field, find, revival, rescue, restoration, will it start, will it drive, abandoned, forgotten

Id: GLp9V0HEiwI

Length: 36min 22sec (2182 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 29 2021