I had one of those brain fade moments last week... made some new gaskets for the power steering reservoir with cork gasket paper, but neglected to check the thickness of the cork I was using, as I'd done this job before on another pump. Turns out in the generic Fel-Pro gasket paper assortment there are two thicknesses of cork, and I'd used up all the thick stuff already :( results were predictable. So I bought some new gasket paper today and now it is amazingly dry as a bone! Theoretically, if I can get the fan shroud and air deflector cleaned and painted (another challenge, the fan shroud has a decent amount of surface rust in some places, and is too big to fit in a standard size garbage can, so I might be buying JP a new garbage can for his electrolytic derusting setup) I could have a functional car very shortly.
I'm reasonably happy with the general dryness of the car - neither front nor rear main are leaking, nor do the little seals on the side of the transmission seem to be leaking (I replaced the tailshaft and pinion seals before putting it together because I just ASSumed they were bad.
Now the bad news. The oil pan on this engine apparently came out of a car that threw a rod. JP hammered it back into shape and brazed all the holes up that he could see, but apparently he missed one at the bottom of the sump. Not sure if it's rust or damage, because it was already painted over by the time I got the engine. Anyone got any good ideas on fixing a leaky oil pan that's already on an engine? Or should I just bite the bullet and pull it and braze some more? I believe I've mentioned here before that I had a dream of owning a Studebaker that I could park on a clean floor without worry, and I'm almost there except for this pan... How hard is it to pull the pan on a C-K in the car, anyway? I am using the "R3" motor mounts (I think they are actually the mount that hangs the sheetmetal on the front of a convertible Lark, not sure how they got that moniker... AFAIK the R3's just used regular mounts, yes?) so I assume that I'm looking at either jacking up the engine, or dropping the bellcrank, yes?
Or, if anyone has a good R1/R2 pan that they'd be willing to sell for cheap, drop me a line, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd call Phil Harris but I think he requires a good pan in exchange for one of his, and I don't have any extra pans.
thanks,
nate