A friend called me last night to ask a favor. He wanted me to pick up his 59 H/T from the shop and drive it to his house and take his new red 62 H/T in to be repaired. A 15 min. drive to the repair shop 1
1/2 hr. drive to his house and another 1 1/2 hr. drive back to the shop. A nice little road trip driving Studebakers(my car is a 55 pres coupe). Oh and by the way did I have a carb that would fit the 62? He knew I did so I said sure what's wrong with yours. Well his rebuilt carb doesn't seem to work very well. He is not much good with a wrench. So this morning I loaded up my tools, a almost new carb (I have seen some real horror able carb rebuilds) and plenty of parts and drove to the repair shop to pick up the 59. Great car had a very enjoyable ride. In front of his house sat a nice looking red 62 H/T . I knew he was looking for one but didn't know he had bought one already. He told me the story of the car and I looked at him and said you of all people should know better. He Sells motor homes. A car salesman! I have heard this low mileage story a thousand times. None, Let me repeat, NONE have been true. I have not seen a real low mileage Studebaker since 1968. I have heard this Dealership story at least 6 times in the past 3 years.(Car found sitting for years in back building of some dealer). Another E-Bay car. His Third one(you would think after the first two he would of learned) and the seventh one I have seen this year. Will people never learn. We started it up, well almost, tried again, again would not idle barley ran at higher rpm. Opened the hood, took off the air cleaner and there sat a old carb that looks like one I have sitting out side in the scrap pile. Here is a nice looking car with new looking interior a good Macco ($395)paint job and under the air cleaner sits a ( I'm trying to be nice), scrap carb. It looked so out of place. Anyway I changed it to a almost new fully tested carb and to my surprise it ran pretty good. So off I went hoping for the best. I made it back to the shop ok but did notice a transmission noise and a drive line vibration and a bad clunk in the right front. Those will have to be check out later along with other smaller things like doors and windows that don't work correctly. Will also have to find out why it almost over heated (top of gauge, 90 degree day, at a steady 63 mph). It was an interesting day. Drove two different Studes did a little mech. work, waved at all the thumbs up people. and had a good time. I will say you don't get much for $14,000 and who ever rebuilt that carb should be ashamed of himself. bob- posted
17 years ago