Ernie's Woody Restoration

Hi Ann, Thank you for the most recent card et-al.     [Brief update for this week] No work on the actual car this past week.  We've been working on getting our rotisserie rig ready for the media blaster, which needs to be done outside and therefore required us to create some castering "off-road" wheel adapters. The rotisserie has wheels but they are only suited for a flat shop floor. This is unbillable shop work and will not be invoiced. We have that completed as of last night and once we test them out, we will be ready to schedule the Woody's date to rid it of old paint etc and of course, the remaining undercoating...   Ann replied:   Thanks for the update!  Where will this work be done?                                                           The Woody turned 69 on Saturday.   :)    Dave R replied:   The blaster is a mobile service and will come here.                                           Yes!  The date on the heater.  I'm guessing the car was a

Happy 69 th Birthday Woody !   Thank you for hanging in there, waiting for your restoration.   We finally found someone that we trust for your special needs, thanks to the careful craftsmanship of Chief-Crew-Dog , Dave Rich.    The Mallon-Tower, Mitchell, and Moore families are now looking forward to many more years with you, Woody.

Hi Ann! This past week we disassembled the engine down to the bare block.  There is evidence of a prior rebuild as the bearings were over-sized by 10 thousandths of an inch (common in rebuilds).  We will be examining other parts to see what needs to be be machined or replaced. While the engine did run, it was good that we took it apart.  The valves were very gummed up, a few were almost stuck (we really had to work to get them out) and had it been run for very long like this, it would most certainly have failed. The engine from the bottom showing the crankshaft .    The crank looks pretty good.  Needs to be measured for size and roundness and checked for stress induced cracks but at first glance it doesn't look bad. [Click Images to enlarge] The pistons and the main bearing caps that hold the crank to the block.  Dirty and gummed up but I've seen much worse. We also fabricated a frame to hold the body to the rotisserie and mounted it up. This fi

Hi Ann! First, thank you for the most recent card!  It is great to see the car so very close to when it was new. In this past week, we performed the following work on the woody: Disassembled the top half of the engine then removed the engine and transmission from the frame and separated the two units from each other. There are a few problems to deal with but nothing really unexpected for an engine of this age.   [Click Images to enlarge] There is significant rust and scale buildup in the engine.   Some cooling passages in the cylinder heads were completely blocked.   [Click Images to enlarge] This picture from the water pump outlet into the block, illustrates the amount of rusty sludge.  The pump inlets were all but blocked  This along with the radiator problems would have made the car run very hot had you tried running it in its current state for any length of time.   The machine shop will get this all cleaned out. One of the head bolts brok