Restoration Log ~ 2001

2001	Work Done
Saturday, January 6	Glass-beaded and cleaned the four jump seat casting pieces. Worked on the sliding back mechanisms for both seats and got them operational. Painted all four pieces Satin Black. Completed gluing of the two wooden seat back frames.
Sunday, January 7	Assembled the two jump-seats. Glued the wooden seat and leg panels together and installed them in the metal frames using wood screws 1/4" longer than the originals. Assembled the seat-backs to the slide mechanisms using new stove bolts, locking nuts, and washers. Adjusted the seat-back slide mechanisms so the backs move easily. Painted both jump-seats satin black to protect the wood. Both jump-seats are now ready for reupholstering.
Sunday, January 14	Delivered toolbox and hood panels to Carl Kishbaugh. Picked up the spare tire hub and rim so that I may respoke it. He's done a real nice job finishing up what Joe and I had started.
Saturday, January 27	Cleaned 24 of each of the three sizes of spokes and 72 nipples in gasoline to remove the oil coating. Then soaked them in the etchant that Carl Kishbaugh had provided. Mounted the wheel hub fixture on the steel lift table in my lab and tested its use. It appears that it will work quite well for spoking each wheel. Installed the longest length spokes first which run from the outside of the hub to the outside of the rim. As each spoke was installed a nipple was threaded on the end for about three to five turns. In attempting to install the medium length spokes next which go from the inside of the hub to the outside of the rim the long spokes were in the way. The long spokes were removed and all the medium length spokes installed. Next to be installed were the shortest length spokes which run between the inside of the hub to the inside of the rim. These had to be tapped into their hub holes while being bent slightly to miss the rim. Once these spokes were installed the longest length spokes were installed. These too needed to be tapped into the hub holes while being bent slightly to miss the rim. Once all the spokes were installed the rim was placed on the wheel fixture and each nipple was tightened until the top of the nipple just covered all of the spoke threads. Then each nipple was further tightened to bring all the spokes tight while making the wheel run true within +/- 1/4". Next will be to adjust the spokes to true the wheel. When that is accomplished each nipple will be removed, the spoke and nipple threads never-seized, and the nipples reinstalled and tightened properly.
Saturday, March 3	Never-Seized all the threads and nipples. Hand tightened each spoke and trued the wheel at the same time. Once everything was hand-tight and the wheel ran true each spoke was tightened 1/2-turn to start the tightening process. After each tightening of all the spokes the wheel was checked for true running, adjusted as necessary and the process repeated. The nipples were tightened until they would not tighten further. The wheel was removed from the fixture and each spoke head struck with a ball-peen hammer to insure they were set in the hub tightly. A final tightening process occurred where each spoke was struck to insure it was as tight as it could be. Some of the outside spokes run through the nipples and will need to be ground down. After that the wheel is ready for the final priming.
Wednesday, April 25	No restoration activity on the car for some time. Waiting for Carl Kishbaugh to get started on painting it. However with the payment made to Marvin Klair this month the loan for the car is satisfied and it is now fully mine with no outstanding loans or debts.
Tuesday, May 15	Picked up adapter plates from Tony Alvarez for the kerosene tank filler pipe and level gauge.
Saturday, June 23	Finally after nearly a year of waiting the car went to Carl Kishbaugh for painting. It was supposed to go in February, then March, then May. It would have gone a couple weeks ago had it not been for Bruce's engine show having the roll-back tied up and then me being in Chicago working on Paul Van Der Molen's pipe organ. I finally arranged to use Tom Marshall's Suburban and trailer to take the car to Carl. At this time Carl has the car. I'll need to go back to get the wheels off of it to respoke and take the kerosene tank down. I'll also need to take the door hardware and other items needed to assemble the car as needed.
Monday, August 6	After a much too long delay I finally got back to doing some actual restoration work on the Stanley. Picked up a 735 engine from Tom Marshall and took it to Herb Kephart for restoration. The intent is that this engine will go in the car while the one presently in there comes out, gets restored, and then put in storage as a spare. Also visited Karl Kishbaugh to pick up the four wheels on the car so the spokes could be cut out and rims and hubs sandblasted in preparation for his restoration work to begin. Also picked up the new stainless steel kerosene tank from M&P. It will need to be sandblasted and then taken to Carl for painting.
Wednesday, August 15	Removed the split rings from the four rims and removed the tires and tubes. Cut the spokes out of each wheel and removed the pieces. It is a good thing that I decided to respoke the wheels since at least half a dozen spokes "fell out" once they had been cut with the cut-off wheel. The spoke heads had rusted through sufficiently in the center hubs that the spoke broke off during the cutting process. Nearly every one of the nipples was badly rusted and most had to be driven out of the outer rim. The next step will be to sandblast the center hubs and outer rims. There is plenty of rust to remove especially on the tube side of the outer rim. There are a couple places on the rims that will require a little weld buildup to occur prior to Carl Kishbaugh doing his restoration work. After sandblasting I'll know for sure what kind of metal repairs may be needed. Heard from Herb Kephart that the spare engine is generally in great shape. There is very little cylinder and valve wear. A major problem does exist with the lower crank bearings. Evidently they were tightened too much and the bearing rollers on one side had started to break apart. This explains how the nicks occurred on the main crank gear. The races have also started to spall on both bearing races. Two repair solutions need to be explored. One is getting an engine bottom end from Tom's collection in order to keep the engine original. The other is for Herb to harden then machine the bearing blocks for modern bearings.
Monday, August 20	Visited Herb Kephart to look at the progress on the engine overhaul. The main roller bearings have really broken up and the races are well galled. We discussed the machining of the parts to accept a modern bearing. Seeing the parts helps in understanding the work that Herb is proposing. The crank is a pressed-together assembly and will need to be pressed apart into the individual parts in order to make the necessary repairs. Herb is going to investigate the use of a replacement roller bearing, replacement ball bearing, or the use of a replacement self-aligning ball bearing. After some additional discussion I decided to have Herb pull the head off so that all packing stuffing boxes can be properly cleaned out and new piston rings installed as well as parts Never-seized. Otherwise the engine does look in fine shape. I photographed the engine partially apart. Worked with Kenny Reed to sand-blast the new kerosene tank and two of the four wheel rims.
Sunday, August 26	Cleaned out all the spoke holes on the wheel hub and rim. Used a #4 (0.209") drill for the spoke holes in the hub and a 23/64" (0.359") drill for the nipple holes in the rim. Spoke diameters are 0.204" and 0.348" respectively.
Monday, September 17	Took rims and hubs along with the kerosene tank to Carl Kishbaugh for priming. Carl has got the doors ready for painting and is working on the hood. I need to get the rods for the hood hinge pins.
Friday, September 21	Purchased a pair of #6213.2RSR.C3 bearings for the spare engine crankshaft and delivered them to Herb Kephart for installation.
Monday, November 19	Picked up four wire wheel hubs and rims from Carl Kishbaugh that had been primed. I need to install the spokes and get them ready for him to paint them. Obtained a 1923 Valentine's Valspar Enamel Automotive Paint Chip brochure on eBay. Took Carl and Donnie Hastings an electric heater to keep the car warm in the garage over the winter while it gets painted.
Thursday, November 22	Started spoking the wheels. Cleaned all the spokes in gasoline to remove the oil they had been packed in. Then put them in the etchant that Carl Kishbaugh had provided. As they felt sticky after the being in the etching bath the spokes were then run through a bath of lacquer cleaner and dried. In putting the first rim together many of the spokes were difficult to insert in the rim holes without bending them. Also the pattern for the spokes at the outer edge of the hub didn't look like they crossed properly. This wheel however matched the appearance of the wheel done several months ago. For the second wheel I assembled it differently to see if I could get the pattern to look proper. Checking the photos it confirmed that the sample had not be reassembled properly. For the assembly of this wheel I put four of the longest spokes in the outer edge of the hub at 90-degrees apart. I then put in four more spokes to cross the ones that were in thus holding the hub in the center of the rim. Flipping the assembly over and setting the rim on blocks of wood so that the hub hung free in the center I installed the medium length spokes. These were installed such that the ferules pointed to the hub holes where the spoke was to originate from. All the spokes for one direction were installed followed by the spokes of the opposite direction. Going around the hub there were two spokes going to the outer edge of the rim, then two holes, then two spokes to the outer edge of the rim, etc. Then the shortest spokes were installed again using the ferules to indicate the correct hub hole to use. All the spokes of one direction were installed followed by the spokes running in the opposite direction. The shortest spokes all went to holes at the rear of the rim. The assembly was flipped over and the outermost set of the longest spokes removed so that the 2nd row of longest length spokes could be installed. These all ran in the same direction. Once these were installed the remaining spokes which ran in the opposite direction were installed. This process made installing the spokes much easier. The wheel done first was disassembled and then reassembled using this process. The wheel done several months ago will need to be taken apart and redone as the spoke pattern for the longest spokes is not correct.
Friday, November 23	Continued with the respoking effort. Spoked the remaining two wheels from the car. Documented with digital photographs the respoking process with the remaining wheel. Discovered that one of the four had the drill pattern for the longest spokes reversed from the remaining three wheels. Disassembled the wheel done earlier in the year and respoked it according to the new process. Discovered that instead of twelve pairs of long spokes at the outer part of the hub, there are only eleven pairs making this wheel having less spokes than the remaining four. Additionally the drill pattern for this wheel matches the lone 12-pair hub's drill pattern. Thus there are three wheels that are identical in number of long spokes (12) and the long spoke drilling pattern. There is one wheel with 12 long spoke-pairs but with a reversed long spoke drill pattern. And there is one wheel with 11 long spoke-pairs but with the same drill pattern as the singular 12-long spoke-pare wheel. A real assortment that I didn't know I had until today. Luckily all the rim diameters are all the same. What is real good is that the wheel with 11 spoke-pairs was the one that I did by itself initially thus it didn't get mixed up with the other sets of wheels. Had I done one of the 12 spoke-pair rims and then the four remaining wheels together I might have been wondering for a while what was going on. The next steps are to remove each nipple and anti-seize the threads and then to start the spoke tightening and wheel truing process.
Saturday, November 24	Started the spoke tightening process. Removed each spoke nipple and placed a small amount of anti-seize on the threads and reinstalled the nipple on the spoke. When all nipples were anti-seized the nipples were tightened so that the spoke threaded through the nipple to the bottom of the screwdriver cut in the end of the nipple. This brought the wheel into a general trueness. The longest spokes on the front were tightened first followed by the shortest spokes at the back. Then the intermediate spokes were tightened. Once all the spokes were tightened to this amount I began taking up a turn on each nipple doing all the long spokes first, then the shortest, and finally the intermediate. I then proceeded with a half turn of the longest followed by the shortest and finally the intermediate. By now the nipples were very firm to turn. With the wheel still in reasonable trueness I final tightened each spoke. Two of the three identical wheels were tightened in this manner.
Sunday, November 25	Continued with the spoke tightening operation. Tightened the remaining wheel of the three identical ones along with the 11-pair spoked wheel that had been assembled earlier in the year and had to be disassembled to correct the spoke pattern.
Monday, November 26	Visited Herb Kephart to pick up the totally rebuilt 20 horsepower Stanley condensing engine for my car. He's installed the new crankshaft bearings, new piston rings, and generally gone over the engine. He has set the valve timing so it should be ready to run in the car. It only needs rod packings before installation in the car.
Wednesday, November 28	Loosened the spokes on the second wheel that I had assembled when I figured out the process and procedure for respoking. Anti-Seized each nipple and tightened each spoke. All five wheels are now spoked and are ready for the final step of grinding off any spoke that protrudes the nipple into the tire area.
Saturday, December 1	Using a hand grinder each spoke that had a bit of the spoke threads protruding through the nipple was ground down. After grinding with the hand grinder the Dremmel was used with a grinding wheel to remove burrs and smooth each nipple in the rim. The rims are now ready to be returned to Carl Kishbaugh for priming of the spokes before I mount the tires, tubes, and liners. Got the new tires, tubes, and liners out of storage. Cut the plastic off 5 of the tires and unpacked the tubes and liners.
Monday, December 3	Took the five spoked wheels to Carl Kishbaugh for painting. Joe McAleese joined me for the visit. Also picked out the two shades of red that will be used to paint the car.

2001

Work Done

Saturday,
January 6

Glass-beaded and cleaned the four jump seat casting pieces. Worked on the sliding back mechanisms for both seats and got them operational. Painted all four pieces Satin Black. Completed gluing of the two wooden seat back frames.

Sunday,
January 7

Assembled the two jump-seats. Glued the wooden seat and leg panels together and installed them in the metal frames using wood screws 1/4" longer than the originals. Assembled the seat-backs to the slide mechanisms using new stove bolts, locking nuts, and washers. Adjusted the seat-back slide mechanisms so the backs move easily. Painted both jump-seats satin black to protect the wood. Both jump-seats are now ready for reupholstering.

Sunday,
January 14

Delivered toolbox and hood panels to Carl Kishbaugh. Picked up the spare tire hub and rim so that I may respoke it. He's done a real nice job finishing up what Joe and I had started.

Saturday,
January 27

Cleaned 24 of each of the three sizes of spokes and 72 nipples in gasoline to remove the oil coating. Then soaked them in the etchant that Carl Kishbaugh had provided. Mounted the wheel hub fixture on the steel lift table in my lab and tested its use. It appears that it will work quite well for spoking each wheel.

Installed the longest length spokes first which run from the outside of the hub to the outside of the rim. As each spoke was installed a nipple was threaded on the end for about three to five turns. In attempting to install the medium length spokes next which go from the inside of the hub to the outside of the rim the long spokes were in the way. The long spokes were removed and all the medium length spokes installed. Next to be installed were the shortest length spokes which run between the inside of the hub to the inside of the rim. These had to be tapped into their hub holes while being bent slightly to miss the rim. Once these spokes were installed the longest length spokes were installed. These too needed to be tapped into the hub holes while being bent slightly to miss the rim. Once all the spokes were installed the rim was placed on the wheel fixture and each nipple was tightened until the top of the nipple just covered all of the spoke threads. Then each nipple was further tightened to bring all the spokes tight while making the wheel run true within +/- 1/4". Next will be to adjust the spokes to true the wheel. When that is accomplished each nipple will be removed, the spoke and nipple threads never-seized, and the nipples reinstalled and tightened properly.

Saturday,
March 3

Never-Seized all the threads and nipples. Hand tightened each spoke and trued the wheel at the same time. Once everything was hand-tight and the wheel ran true each spoke was tightened 1/2-turn to start the tightening process. After each tightening of all the spokes the wheel was checked for true running, adjusted as necessary and the process repeated. The nipples were tightened until they would not tighten further. The wheel was removed from the fixture and each spoke head struck with a ball-peen hammer to insure they were set in the hub tightly. A final tightening process occurred where each spoke was struck to insure it was as tight as it could be. Some of the outside spokes run through the nipples and will need to be ground down. After that the wheel is ready for the final priming.

Wednesday,
April 25

No restoration activity on the car for some time. Waiting for Carl Kishbaugh to get started on painting it. However with the payment made to Marvin Klair this month the loan for the car is satisfied and it is now fully mine with no outstanding loans or debts.

Tuesday,
May 15

Picked up adapter plates from Tony Alvarez for the kerosene tank filler pipe and level gauge.

Saturday,
June 23

Finally after nearly a year of waiting the car went to Carl Kishbaugh for painting. It was supposed to go in February, then March, then May. It would have gone a couple weeks ago had it not been for Bruce's engine show having the roll-back tied up and then me being in Chicago working on Paul Van Der Molen's pipe organ. I finally arranged to use Tom Marshall's Suburban and trailer to take the car to Carl.

At this time Carl has the car. I'll need to go back to get the wheels off of it to respoke and take the kerosene tank down. I'll also need to take the door hardware and other items needed to assemble the car as needed.

Monday,
August 6

After a much too long delay I finally got back to doing some actual restoration work on the Stanley. Picked up a 735 engine from Tom Marshall and took it to Herb Kephart for restoration. The intent is that this engine will go in the car while the one presently in there comes out, gets restored, and then put in storage as a spare.

Also visited Karl Kishbaugh to pick up the four wheels on the car so the spokes could be cut out and rims and hubs sandblasted in preparation for his restoration work to begin.

Also picked up the new stainless steel kerosene tank from M&P. It will need to be sandblasted and then taken to Carl for painting.

Wednesday,
August 15

Removed the split rings from the four rims and removed the tires and tubes. Cut the spokes out of each wheel and removed the pieces. It is a good thing that I decided to respoke the wheels since at least half a dozen spokes "fell out" once they had been cut with the cut-off wheel. The spoke heads had rusted through sufficiently in the center hubs that the spoke broke off during the cutting process. Nearly every one of the nipples was badly rusted and most had to be driven out of the outer rim. The next step will be to sandblast the center hubs and outer rims. There is plenty of rust to remove especially on the tube side of the outer rim. There are a couple places on the rims that will require a little weld buildup to occur prior to Carl Kishbaugh doing his restoration work. After sandblasting I'll know for sure what kind of metal repairs may be needed.

Heard from Herb Kephart that the spare engine is generally in great shape. There is very little cylinder and valve wear. A major problem does exist with the lower crank bearings. Evidently they were tightened too much and the bearing rollers on one side had started to break apart. This explains how the nicks occurred on the main crank gear. The races have also started to spall on both bearing races. Two repair solutions need to be explored. One is getting an engine bottom end from Tom's collection in order to keep the engine original. The other is for Herb to harden then machine the bearing blocks for modern bearings.

Monday,
August 20

Visited Herb Kephart to look at the progress on the engine overhaul. The main roller bearings have really broken up and the races are well galled. We discussed the machining of the parts to accept a modern bearing. Seeing the parts helps in understanding the work that Herb is proposing. The crank is a pressed-together assembly and will need to be pressed apart into the individual parts in order to make the necessary repairs. Herb is going to investigate the use of a replacement roller bearing, replacement ball bearing, or the use of a replacement self-aligning ball bearing. After some additional discussion I decided to have Herb pull the head off so that all packing stuffing boxes can be properly cleaned out and new piston rings installed as well as parts Never-seized. Otherwise the engine does look in fine shape. I photographed the engine partially apart.

Worked with Kenny Reed to sand-blast the new kerosene tank and two of the four wheel rims.

Sunday,
August 26

Cleaned out all the spoke holes on the wheel hub and rim. Used a #4 (0.209") drill for the spoke holes in the hub and a 23/64" (0.359") drill for the nipple holes in the rim. Spoke diameters are 0.204" and 0.348" respectively.

Monday,
September 17

Took rims and hubs along with the kerosene tank to Carl Kishbaugh for priming. Carl has got the doors ready for painting and is working on the hood. I need to get the rods for the hood hinge pins.

Friday,
September 21

Purchased a pair of #6213.2RSR.C3 bearings for the spare engine crankshaft and delivered them to Herb Kephart for installation.

Monday,
November 19

Picked up four wire wheel hubs and rims from Carl Kishbaugh that had been primed. I need to install the spokes and get them ready for him to paint them.

Obtained a 1923 Valentine's Valspar Enamel Automotive Paint Chip brochure on eBay.

Took Carl and Donnie Hastings an electric heater to keep the car warm in the garage over the winter while it gets painted.

Thursday,
November 22

Started spoking the wheels. Cleaned all the spokes in gasoline to remove the oil they had been packed in. Then put them in the etchant that Carl Kishbaugh had provided. As they felt sticky after the being in the etching bath the spokes were then run through a bath of lacquer cleaner and dried.

In putting the first rim together many of the spokes were difficult to insert in the rim holes without bending them. Also the pattern for the spokes at the outer edge of the hub didn't look like they crossed properly. This wheel however matched the appearance of the wheel done several months ago.

For the second wheel I assembled it differently to see if I could get the pattern to look proper. Checking the photos it confirmed that the sample had not be reassembled properly. For the assembly of this wheel I put four of the longest spokes in the outer edge of the hub at 90-degrees apart. I then put in four more spokes to cross the ones that were in thus holding the hub in the center of the rim. Flipping the assembly over and setting the rim on blocks of wood so that the hub hung free in the center I installed the medium length spokes. These were installed such that the ferules pointed to the hub holes where the spoke was to originate from. All the spokes for one direction were installed followed by the spokes of the opposite direction. Going around the hub there were two spokes going to the outer edge of the rim, then two holes, then two spokes to the outer edge of the rim, etc.

Then the shortest spokes were installed again using the ferules to indicate the correct hub hole to use. All the spokes of one direction were installed followed by the spokes running in the opposite direction. The shortest spokes all went to holes at the rear of the rim.

The assembly was flipped over and the outermost set of the longest spokes removed so that the 2nd row of longest length spokes could be installed. These all ran in the same direction. Once these were installed the remaining spokes which ran in the opposite direction were installed. This process made installing the spokes much easier.

The wheel done first was disassembled and then reassembled using this process. The wheel done several months ago will need to be taken apart and redone as the spoke pattern for the longest spokes is not correct.

Friday,
November 23

Continued with the respoking effort. Spoked the remaining two wheels from the car. Documented with digital photographs the respoking process with the remaining wheel. Discovered that one of the four had the drill pattern for the longest spokes reversed from the remaining three wheels.

Disassembled the wheel done earlier in the year and respoked it according to the new process. Discovered that instead of twelve pairs of long spokes at the outer part of the hub, there are only eleven pairs making this wheel having less spokes than the remaining four. Additionally the drill pattern for this wheel matches the lone 12-pair hub's drill pattern.

Thus there are three wheels that are identical in number of long spokes (12) and the long spoke drilling pattern. There is one wheel with 12 long spoke-pairs but with a reversed long spoke drill pattern. And there is one wheel with 11 long spoke-pairs but with the same drill pattern as the singular 12-long spoke-pare wheel. A real assortment that I didn't know I had until today. Luckily all the rim diameters are all the same. What is real good is that the wheel with 11 spoke-pairs was the one that I did by itself initially thus it didn't get mixed up with the other sets of wheels. Had I done one of the 12 spoke-pair rims and then the four remaining wheels together I might have been wondering for a while what was going on.

The next steps are to remove each nipple and anti-seize the threads and then to start the spoke tightening and wheel truing process.

Saturday,
November 24

Started the spoke tightening process. Removed each spoke nipple and placed a small amount of anti-seize on the threads and reinstalled the nipple on the spoke. When all nipples were anti-seized the nipples were tightened so that the spoke threaded through the nipple to the bottom of the screwdriver cut in the end of the nipple. This brought the wheel into a general trueness. The longest spokes on the front were tightened first followed by the shortest spokes at the back. Then the intermediate spokes were tightened.

Once all the spokes were tightened to this amount I began taking up a turn on each nipple doing all the long spokes first, then the shortest, and finally the intermediate. I then proceeded with a half turn of the longest followed by the shortest and finally the intermediate. By now the nipples were very firm to turn. With the wheel still in reasonable trueness I final tightened each spoke.

Two of the three identical wheels were tightened in this manner.

Sunday,
November 25

Continued with the spoke tightening operation. Tightened the remaining wheel of the three identical ones along with the 11-pair spoked wheel that had been assembled earlier in the year and had to be disassembled to correct the spoke pattern.

Monday,
November 26

Visited Herb Kephart to pick up the totally rebuilt 20 horsepower Stanley condensing engine for my car. He's installed the new crankshaft bearings, new piston rings, and generally gone over the engine. He has set the valve timing so it should be ready to run in the car. It only needs rod packings before installation in the car.

Wednesday,
November 28

Loosened the spokes on the second wheel that I had assembled when I figured out the process and procedure for respoking. Anti-Seized each nipple and tightened each spoke. All five wheels are now spoked and are ready for the final step of grinding off any spoke that protrudes the nipple into the tire area.

Saturday,
December 1

Using a hand grinder each spoke that had a bit of the spoke threads protruding through the nipple was ground down. After grinding with the hand grinder the Dremmel was used with a grinding wheel to remove burrs and smooth each nipple in the rim. The rims are now ready to be returned to Carl Kishbaugh for priming of the spokes before I mount the tires, tubes, and liners.

Got the new tires, tubes, and liners out of storage. Cut the plastic off 5 of the tires and unpacked the tubes and liners.

Monday,
December 3

Took the five spoked wheels to Carl Kishbaugh for painting. Joe McAleese joined me for the visit. Also picked out the two shades of red that will be used to paint the car.

1998 ~ Mechanical Restoration Started
1999A ~ Mechanical Restoration Completed
1999B ~ Test Drives and Tours
2000 ~ Body Paint Stripping
2001 ~ Body Restoration
2002 ~ Body Restoration
2003 ~ Final Painting and Reassembly
2004 ~ Reassembly
2005 ~ Interior and Top Restoration
2006 ~ Finishing Up The Loose Ends

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