On December 17, 2018, we gassed up the car and drove it out of the yard and onto the street to see if we could get it to go through the gears. It did. And we were very pleased. We note that the car still does not seem to like reverse very much and makes some growling noises, but first gear through third gear (that’s all of them) worked fine. And there wasn’t half the grinding I thought there might be. The clutch seems to work very nicely, without either grabbing or slipping.
Our short little drive, convinced me that when finished, this car will be a very solid vehicle for touring. It does NOT drive like a Model T Ford.
Having demonstrated that the car will start reliably and that we finally have a responsive carburetor, (an accelerator that will let the car idle) it was time to put the clutch back in and see if we could get the car to move under power. I reinstalled the clutch on August 21, 2018. Next I put the temporary bench seat (2nd row seat from a Ford Econoline van) on the car and attached a temporary 1.5 gallon stainless steel gas tank to the dashboard.
On August 24th, I summoned the minions (Janet & Tori) to push the car out of the workshop. And we proceeded uneventfully to start the car. We idled for a bit and then proceeded to see if the car could be put in gear and move under its own power.
IT DID!
First drive under its own power in over 70 years.
The moment of TRUTH! First gear and let out the clutch.
Friday, August 17, 2018 at approximately 10:30 am — we started the Michigan. It idled like it should. The motor revved like it was supposed to and immediately idled down. It only seems to run on battery and did not like the flip of the switch to magneto. We’ll deal with that issue later.
We had FINALLY achieved what had been eluding us for weeks (actually over a year – if you count the first start-up back on January 6, 2017- when the over-revving probably contributed to the motor killing itself). Yes, it does make a difference when the carburetor is mounted backwards and all the linkages work in reverse. GOOD GRIEF! Philip Dickey with his mischievous Portage High School woodshop – autoshop students continue to exact their vengeance.
Short story — When we cut our deal to obtain the car from Janet’s cousin, Steve Dickey, he told us that his father, Philip, the Portage High woodshop teacher, had taken the car to school for restoration of various parts. I’ve found evidence of this at various points, including modern bearings in the drive shaft tube. (See Blog Post, “Gears & Thrust bearings & Patience) Steve warned that the differential cover was on backwards. (No, it wasn’t. But the ring gear was – See Blog Post, “Uh Oh…. That’s not a good noise”). He indicated that some of the decoration and/or paint on the radiator had been removed by overzealous student sand blasting of the front of the car. (We are still not sure what this was. Nor is there evidence of sandblasting on the radiator.) Steve had told us that some very rudimentary body work had been started on one of the front fenders. This is true. A portion of the front right fender has a new section welded in where the fender meets the engine compartment frame. However, the backwards carburetor was not something I had anticipated. And, until careful examination, would not have been suspected as an even remotely possible issue. Anyway……. all you now 70 & 80 year old Portage High shop kids have had your fun. Ha Ha. Please just let me get this car back together and on the road!
Well, it’s been a few days now since the last post. We’ve gotten the engine to start reliably every time we try. But it does NOT want to idle down. And, we blew out the muffler when I tried to change the timing by advancing the spark. Pop pop KAPOW… The outside layer of the muffler was completely blown off.
The muffler – went BOOM.
Oh dear. It seems no matter how I adjust the high and low settings on the carburetor, the thing wants to run very rich and will not idle down. I’ve attached several articles from 1911 through 1914 about adjusting the Stromberg B No. 4 carburetor, but so far, nothing seems to be working correctly. (Click on BLUE text to view attached literature) Any adjustment I have made that permits greater air flow makes the engine race even faster. WHAT IS GOING ON? This is very frustrating.
So…………… this situation required some more contemplation. What have we got WRONG here? Saturday, I reviewed the situation and set out to see if there was something wrong with the main jet. This meant I needed to modify the temporary testing set-up I had made for the carburetor. The simple metal plate did not have a hole that exposed the accelerator butterfly valve, so I set out to cut a hole there to see down the throat (venturi) of the carburetor. With that cut out, I could fully move the accelerator lever and watch the movement of the butterfly.
Temporary Carburetor Mount. NOTE: The carb is in the OPPOSITE position as it had been mounted on the intake manifold (with fuel inlet facing REAR) Accelerator butterfly valve exposed and at FULL THROTTLE OPEN.
I flipped it back and forth a few times and said to myself, “That’s weird”. The valve was fully open in the position it should have been fully closed. My temporary set-up required the carb to be rotated 180 degrees from the way it had been installed on the car. Was I all mixed up? Could I have mounted the carb backwards? The way I had it mounted was logical. The fuel intake was close to the gas tank. The air intake was facing forward. Better look for other indicators. Had I flipped the carb around at some point and not recognized the change? Nope.
Here is a photo of the orientation of the carb in Sept. of 2011, when we got the Michigan out of Steve Dickie’s barn in Hebron IN.
I’m not crazy. This is the way the carb was mounted when we got the car.
What other evidence do we have that the way we had it mounted was backwards? Some of the 1912 Michigan sales literature shows the fuel inlet towards the FRONT of the car and the air valve towards the REAR.
What else do I have that shows we are backwards? Photos of other Michigan cars. Here is a photo of the 1911 Michigan owned by Loren & Louisa Cuthbert.
Cuthbert Stromberg carb with float bowl adjusting needle & fuel intake towards front.
So……… I’m not crazy. And, maybe that is PART of the reason we couldn’t get the engine to idle down. (Cue ominous sounds portending other trouble ahead)
So…the fully closed accelerator was actually fully open. So basic. So stupid. So… this isn’t the first thing that’s been backwards. The differential ring gear was on the wrong side. Wow. Take nothing for granted.
I slept fitfully that Tuesday night. Tomorrow should be THE DAY.
Wednesday morning, August 1, 2018 ……………….. With the dog locked safely indoors, Janet, Tori & I pushed the Michigan out of the workshop and readied it for another attempt at starting. We were not disappointed. It started right up.
HOWEVER, as you will observe in the video below, the engine did NOT want to idle down. Instead, it wanted to run very fast at high revolutions. The only way it would start to idle down, was when I briefly shut the engine off and then back on again. This is NOT correct. This is how we killed the #3 connecting rod bearing when I started the car back in 2017. This requires further investigation. Why does it want to rev so high?
Most of the month of July, Janet, Tori & I were on vacation back East, visiting Janet’s siblings & family and seeing our son Eric & daughter-in-law Kristie. During that time I had a chance to ponder on what could be wrong with the engine. I had spark to all the cylinders. I had the spark on #1 occurring at approximately 7 degrees before top dead center where it had previously started on the second pull of the crank. Hmmmm.
I suspected that something might be amiss with the magneto because I had found 2 loose (rattling around) in the bottom of the magneto breaker cover. But I had put them back in the only positions they could have come from. And… the magneto appeared to be delivering spark where it should when the flywheel was manually turned over. Two days after we returned from vacation I approached the engine determined to understand the position of the valves when the #1 plug sparked. I placed small dowels into both the spark plug and the acetylene injector holes on #1 cylinder and fixed dial indicators to both. The spark plug was directly over the INTAKE valve and the acetylene injector directly over the EXHAUST valve.
Dial indicators set to show opening & closing of #1 cylinder valves.
I also went back to my BUDA manuals and discovered the following:
From Buda Bulletin #300 (approx. 1915)
Paragraph 42 Timing the Engine: The cams are forged integral with the cam shaft and if one valve is properly timed the balance of the valves must be right provided the clearances are properly adjusted. The most convenient point to make the setting is at the intake opening point of cylinder No. 1. This will be found marked on the circumference of the flywheel thus “INT. OP. 1 & 4.” Revolve the crank until this mark is in line with the center of the inspection hole (we have a pointer) in the top of the flywheel housing. Then set .003″ clearance on No. 1 intake valve, which would be the second valve in the row. Be sure the valve is properly seated. Revolve the cam shaft in the normal direction until the valve just starts to open. The cam shaft is now properly set in relation to the crank shaft so the gears can be attached. Turn the crank until each valve is seated and then adjust to the proper clearances as given under Paragraph “TAPPET CLEARANCE.” Paragraph No. 64.
We knew the valves were set approximately correct, because the engine ran in 2017. I had checked them then. We had not messed with the valve clearances since, so this procedure should probably work. Except, that without witness marks on the cam gear, I probably had that one or two teeth off from where it should have been. Or so I thought.
Using the procedure outlined above, I determined that our cam gear was about 1/4 turn off from where it should have been. Oh dear. THAT WAS AT LEAST ONE OF THE REASONS WHY THE CAR WOULD NOT START.
Accordingly, I removed the radiator, the fan, the crank shaft jaw and front seal, and the front gear cover. I rechecked the valve positions while watching the cam gear. Yup. It was wrong. I then proceeded to remove the cam gear from its mesh with the crank gear and turned the cam shaft to match the positions set forth in Paragraph 42, above. Then I re-installed the cam gear and checked it again. The valves moved as they were supposed to. I stamped the cam gear with double witness marks ( : ) and painted the teeth that meshed with the witness marked crank gear. (this may be a bit confusing for some future mechanic, but at least the proper position is marked now.)
Double witness marks on cam gear.
Then I put everything back together as it had come off.
The greater part of the motor assembly procedure was behind us and it was time to consolidate these many parts into an automobile. On December 2, 2017, Janet took some time out from learning about very hot glass to help me swing the motor onto the frame and align the motor mount bolts.
Janet and a molten vase to be.
Janet aligns motor mounts to frame.
Over the next couple of weeks I attached the water pump, magneto, carburetor and muffler. It was ready to attempt to start the engine. In-laws, Clarence Davis and Janet’s sister, Sally, were in California following a cruise on February 20, 2018, so we thought we would give it a try. We got one crummy “pop” and I messed up my back trying to crank the tight engine. Very disappointing.
Craig & Clarence couldn’t get the engine to start on Feb. 20, 2018
My back was so messed up that I didn’t want to touch the car for a while. As I recovered, I worked on different methods to start the car without using my back.
The first method was some sort of heavy duty drill that I could attach to a bolt in the place of the hand crank. To that end, I built a new spring loaded crank extension.
Original starting crank and new crank for drill starting (lower).
New starter stub, installed.
I bought a nice low RPM high torque half inch drive electric drill from Harbor Freight ($50 or so) and chucked in a welded up 3/4″ socket and hex shaft. With the spark plugs out and priming cups open, the engine turned easily. With the spark plugs in, it strained and smoked, but turned. With the spark plugs in and priming cups closed, it simply made bad noises and smoked. Bummer…..
Big HF drill – it smokes – and not in a good way.
I tried a pneumatic drill… That did even less.
Time to reflect and form a different plan.
Various types of “bump starters” or “paddock starters” might work. These are motors that turn a tire or roller with friction applied against a fly wheel (in the case of stationary oil field engines or large hit & miss engines) or rear tire (in the case of starter-less motor cycles. As soon as the engine / motorcycle is started, the bump starter is backed away. I searched (without any luck) for a temporary starter such as this for use with antique autos. I found none. Theoretically, such a starter could be used on an exposed fly wheel (such as our Michigan has) or on a jacked up rear wheel on a car that doesn’t. The commercially available bump starters were prohibitively expensive and frankly didn’t look like anything I would want to own. Some were powered by electric motors. Some were powered by small gasoline engines. I wanted a battery powered starter. So I set about building one. The final result is shown below. It’s basic configuration was dictated by the platform it is mounted on — a rolling cart for a power washer (removed) that I obtained with wheels and all for $5. It consists of the following:
a 1970’s vintage Dodge pickup starter with functioning solenoid and 10 tooth pinion gear.($25)
a jack shaft that takes the 10 tooth to a 21 tooth sprocket.
a mini-bike wheel with a slick tire and 72 tooth sprocket.
a 12 volt battery ($50) and Harbor Freight remote starter button ($10).
The overall cost with gears, sprockets, chains and some specialized tools was less than $300. Not including EDM (Electric Discharge Machining) of a keyway into a 10 tooth pinion gear needed on the jack shaft. ($75). This cost might have been unnecessary.
Here is what the gadget looks like:
Bump starter – image 1
Bump starter- image 2
The good part about this gadget, is that it works. I was able to use it to turn the engine over on July 1, 2018. When jammed against the bottom right side of the fly wheel, the engine turns over…. rapidly. Just like starting a car. The main issue is getting it in the correct position and exerting enough upward pressure / friction. Once the sweet spot is found. It spins things easily. HOWEVER — if the cam shaft gear is in the wrong position, you can turn the engine over indefinitely and never have the engine start. Unbeknownst to me, that was EXACTLY the problem on July 1, 2018, when Janet, Tori & I tried for 2 hours to get the car to start. All to no avail. But my back didn’t hurt from cranking! It was time to ponder the reasons for lack of any effective internal combustion. Dang! No Bang.
The “MotorRotor” engine stand was a blessing and really made the assembly process easy. Part of the process of reassembly was started by Jim Blair in Tucson. In addition to re-babbitting #3 connecting rod, he re-seated the crank in the case. In the process he removed and re-arranged some of the thin shims on the main bearings. This tightened up the engine, but the bearings still needed to be lapped (or scraped) into a better fit. The crank turned, but not as easily as I would like.
In my work on our Model T Ford engine, I had used a really nice product to lap in main bearings & connecting rod bearings. The product is called TIMESAVER Lapping Compound. It is a non-imbedding grit that apparently cuts the babbitt for a while and then breaks down. Supposedly the stuff is made from feldspar, but I cannot confirm that.
TIMESAVER lapping compound
IN any case, I used TIMESAVER on our BUDA motor. Specifically, I used the #100N Very Fine grit Yellow Label material. The engine was rotated to upright position and I dripped a mixture of 10W-40 oil and TIMESAVER into all the main bearing oil holes while turning the crank with a pneumatic drill. And oh what a difference.
Applying oil suspension of TIMESAVER lapping compound to oil holes on main bearings
After getting a nice fit with the TIMESAVER, I opened up the bearings and washed out any remaining grit, then re-assembled the main bearings. The next step was to attach the fly wheel and check for runout. The flywheel had a thin paper shim when I disassembled the engine and sure enough…. it needed it back in when it was reinstalled.
Checking shim location on flywheel
Checking the flywheel for runout
During the later part of November of 2017, my Dad came down to visit from Fresno and we made major progress on putting the engine back together. We created new gaskets for both the head and the oil pan and then proceeded to put everything back together.
Dad with piston, con-rod & wrist pin
Dad checks piston fit
The jug style head went back on first, and then the engine was flipped over so we could install the piston & connecting rods from the bottom of the engine (while upside down).
Dad swings head into position to mount on crankcase.
I pause midway through the install to look up.
Dad aligning head to crank case
Once the head was securely bolted on, we flipped the engine over (Oh — I do love that Motor Rotor) and installed the cam shaft & timing gear where we thought it should go. (More on this later) Please note that there were no witness marks on the gear, contrary to verbiage in some of the later (after 1912) Buda Motors service manuals that I have. So, the install was a “guess”. When I originally removed the cam gear & shaft from the engine, I was relying on the existence of witness marks for aligning the crank and cam gears. Because the gear housing was loaded with gunk, I could not see that — ahem — there were no alignment marks. DAMN! And believe me, the air turned blue when I discovered this a year before. So, you’ve got to start somewhere, even if it is wrong (and it was). In the cam went — right, wrong or whatever.
Witness marks on cam gear added by me…. in the wrong spot.
We were rolling now, so next the piston rings were compressed and pushed into the upside down cylinders.
Dad with rings compressed
Tightening #2 con rod bearing cap bolts.
Once the pistons and connecting rods were all in, I placed in the oil level float and prepared to put on both the front gear cover and the oil pan. All while the engine is upside down in my favorite Motor Rotor engine stand.
Ready to close up the bottom of the engine.
Ball bearing at center of cam gear & criss-cross end play adjuster on gear cover.
With lots of supervision and help from my Dad over the Thanksgiving holiday, the engine was mostly back together. It was time to reinstall it on the frame.
Our BUDA Engine is complete & ready to go back on the frame.
As soon as we got home from picking up the re-babbitted rod & crank case from Jim Blair, I thought about what engine stand I would need for “simple” re-assembly. The two BUDA manuals (one from 1915 and another from 19??) both contain phrases like “put engine on floor & turn over”. YIKES! This thing is big & heavy. I’ve done Model T engines and two 6 cylinder Mercedes engines and those weren’t “light weight” like a VW engine (which I’ve also worked on.) Those fit on a standard Harbor Freight 1000 lb. stand. The stand complains a bit and spinning the engine around sometimes takes 2 people, but this BUDA engine is much bigger. And the fly wheel is a beast. So, should I fabricate a stand? There were several choices for stands of the 1910’s that were depicted in the literature. See below.
Engine Stand from BUDA Bulletin No. 422
Engine Stand from Dykes, chart No. 246, Building & Equipment of Garage & Shop
However the Buda Manuals both mention “turning the engine over” at several points in the re-assembly process. I also worried that if the stand did not provide for an easy way to invert the engine for assembly, I’d be struggling to flip an engine that is pretty close to irreplaceable. A cantilever set-up that only bolts the motor on one side or an end seemed too risky. I opted for a really nice (and pricy) engine stand rated at 2000 lbs. that would flip the engine end for end with a mere crank of a geared handle. It arrived in a big wooden box that required a fork lift to unload.
The big box – for the Motor Rotor
When assembled, it was a nice blue & grey with a crank.
Assembled Motor Rotor engine stand.
So, with a beautiful new engine stand, I hoisted up the crank case with the crank seated by Jim Blair up and onto the stand.
Crankcase on stand – Nov. 4, 2017
With the new stand, I could get our engine to do headstands & back flips. Very cool!
As previously discussed, our Buda engine tried to kill itself by destroying the #3 connecting rod bearing and then trying to knock the engine apart. All this happened on January 6, 2017 (see prior posts). I checked with numerous folks in the antique auto community about who and where to have our engine looked at and the #3 bearing replaced. Some locations, though highly recommended were very far away (like Minnesota) others were close by, but health and other issues of the business owners’ mitigated against that choice. We eventually chose to take our engine (and all the bearings, gears, crank shaft, cam shaft, connecting rods, pistons & wrist pins) to a highly recommended fellow in Tucson, Arizona — Mr. Jim Blair. Jim had done some very nice bearing work on several cars for some of our San Diego area Horseless Carriage Club members. While Tucson isn’t close. It isn’t 2/3’s of the continent away either. We have since discovered that we can make the trip one-way in just over 6 hours. So, on July 29, 2017 we delivered the lower half of the engine to Tucson, where Jim & I went over the condition of the various bits to see what needed fixing and what looked pretty good.
Jim Blair examines front cover as Craig unloads the crank case.
Craig & Jim examine the infamous #3 connecting rod & bearing cap.
The upshot was that Jim’s initial reaction was that other than the disintegrated #3 bearing, the engine was in remarkably good shape and the bearings and other bits should be just fine — as is. He would go through everything to make sure and check the shims for each of the bearings and pour a new bearing for #3 connecting rod.
And……. that’s exactly how things went down when we picked up the motor on October 21, 2017. Jim was at the shop to meet us and we examined the rods & re-set crank. Everything looked very nice and ready to assemble.
Jim Blair at the shop with our engine ready for pickup.
#3 connecting rod – rebabbitted and ready for service.
Jim & Craig load the engine into our pickup for the trip back to Carlsbad.
And now it is time for Craig to get busy and put it all back together. Our several month hiatus on the restoration is over.
