Worden18

Sept. 13: Took the Meadowbrook distributor and my spare into my place of work to the mill. My plan was to drill out the shaft pins (the ends were mushroomed on both dizzys) and swap the spare shaft that has a nice straight tang and identical springs on the mechanical advance...to the Meadowbrook distributor (which has a very worn tang -// if that's the correct word for the end of the shaft// and one crappy weak spring on the mechanical advance and one spring that on further inspection wasn't working at all). I did just that. I cleaned everything up, re-oiled the bushings and off I went to reassemble everything at home. Although I'm sure what I accomplished IS going to help at some point, I believe I'm having grounding issues. Man, I need some help with this. I measured the resistance between the distributor plate and the positive ground on the battery and got .3 ohms, which is supposed to be okay. I also measured across the coil, and that measured okay as well. then I measured from the negative terminal on the coil to the center of the coil and got 8.83 ohms, which I think is okay but not entirely sure about that. That measurement is actually 8,800 correct? A 12-volt coil should measure 10 to 12,000 ohms correct? I'm having a hard time with this electrical crap. The big problem was I couldn't get my car started and the battery died. The car just chugged like a Model T for a little bit and then would die. I was getting gas in the carburetor. I checked and rechecked all of my connections, which look fine. I also measured resistance from the battery to the coil ground on the fenderwell and got .3 ohms....still okay. Then from the battery + to the firewall; there I got over 29 ohms! As far as I know I don't have a ground strap from the engine to the frame, or from the engine to the firewall, or from the frame to the firewall. Do I need all 3? Could this be my biggest issue? I'm really frustrated but trying to plug away at this.

Final picture of the longer canister with the bracket. You can PM me so we don't get in trouble with the mods. ?

Here's the 3 I found in my stash. The 2 on the ends are exactly the same except for one has the mounting bracket. The blue one in the middle is shorter in length but has a mounting bracket as well. The blue one's mounting holes range from 4.690 down to 3.580. The larger canister with the handle on top has mounting holes in this range: 4.860 down to 3.740. they are all in good shape, just need to be cleaned up and painted if you go that route.

I have some spares that came with my 48 B1D. Might have a mounting bracket. I'll check tonight when I get home from work. I'll send you some pics.

Sept. 8: This is a seal from the rear drum. Notice the inner metal part showing, which is behind the rubber. Is it supposed to be like this? Or is the seal junk?

Sept. 8: Borrowed a long piece of brass from work. It's good and heavy. Bearings and seals out of rear drums. Parts soaking...

When I fail at what I'm attempting I'll probably move in that direction. Thanks for reminding me of this option. Yeah I'd like to stay 6V.

Sept. 7: This is the spare distributor. Springs look to be the same. #s are different from the Meadowbrook's distributor. Not sure how big of a deal that is if I'm not using points, etc. The shafts are the same length. The vacuum advance pots are the same. This one has good spring tension. BTW, I don't believe either of my vacuum advance modules are working. I pushed the arm in, held it there, and then put my thumb over the hole and let go. If the diaphragm was good the arm should stay in, correct? Neither of them do that. I'm probably going to have a vacuum advance issue as well. Thoughts?

Sept. 7: This is the Meadowbrook distributor. I have no idea if it's the original one. Inside you can see the springs are different. One is definitely weaker than the other. The weights move easily. Much easier than the other one I'm working on (that came with my truck). Not sure if that's bad or not. Shouldn't the springs be the same? Shouldn't there be a decent amount of tension by hand?

Not sure if there's a substantial leak. If there was, wouldn't I have a jumping needle on my vacuum gauge when setting the timing? There was a slight bounce but less than one number. Thoughts on that?

Thanks. Never heard of it. But I'm going to pick up a tube ?

Sept. 7: Master cylinder out. It's about my only solid accomplishment for the day. I started a list of parts I need including the brake shoes, master cylinder, front drum inner seals, rear axle flange gasket, and pumpkin gasket. There'll be other things I'm going to add as I proceed.

Sept. 7: After searching my garage for s suitable tool/drift to no avail, I'll have to ask my boss for a piece of scrap aluminum to use as a drift. I already have the rest of the bearings soaking in hopes of getting them clean. None of the bearings or cones are scored, pitted, or rusty. I'll be reusing them. Pic: bearings soaking

Thanks for the concerns fellas. I don't think it's related to the pertronix as it ran good for the past four years. I believe I am running the correct spark plug wires. A friend of mine helped me with that when we put the engine back in. I always end up putting my foot in my mouth, but I'm certain my problems arise from my worn distributor. I'm going to eliminate that one way or another, let's put it that way. Right now I'm at a standstill with this other distributor that has a nicer shaft. The peened pin that goes through the shaft to hold it in place will not budge. I'm going to have to take it to work and drill it out. I'll likely end up with a larger pin in replacement. That's really the least of my worries. My bigger worry is getting this whole thing put back together and still having the same problems. Only one way to find out. Stay tuned....

Sorry for the long delay fellas. The new carb is fine. I'll have to read through Langdon's instruction sheet again to answer your question. I have other issues that are keeping the Meadowbrook in the garage. After taking a longer cruise with higher speeds and more acceleration, I realized I have timing/spark issues beyond a bad cap and rotor or plugs. All of those are brand new. It's the distributor itself. Someone mentioned worn bushings, etc. Not sure if that's part of the problem yet (I finally pulled the dizzy this morning... don't have it completely disassembled yet) as the shaft doesn't have any side play. It does have end to end play. Not sure if that is normal. What isn't normal is the wear I found on the end of the shaft (the tang); about .015 PER SIDE....that must be enough to give me erratic timing issues that are making the car run so poorly. lucky for me I have four extra distributors lying around that came with my truck. One of them has very little shaft wear and seems very solid. The distributor numbers themselves are slightly different, but the shafts are exactly the same length. I'm thinking I'm going to tear that one apart and completely clean it and put my pertronics back in it. I hope to make good progress on this tomorrow. I've never completely disassembled a distributor before, but I have a friend that is willing to help if needed. All I know is it makes me sick that I can't drive my car, so I need to get it fixed. This distributor problem is hopefully the last piece of this puzzle. There's nothing left to fix!

Wow! Looking good! Dang that's sharp?

Joe, I've been slow to work on my brakes as I'm trying to get my 51 Meadowbrook back on the road. Anyway, my link above. Good youtube tutorial below.

Welcome! Love your car. Take your time and do things right, and have fun along the way. Lotta good folks here on these forums.

Welcome! Love that car...post more pics!

I used a 12" caliper to measure across the shaft to the opposite side shoe...top and bottom, to center it. Then across from shoe to shoe top and bottom .005 less than the ID of the drum. Worked well.

Drive to Minnesota and pick me up! ?

Aug. 20: Despite needing to be timed again and also needing to set the idle mixture screw (I hope to do both tomorrow after work), the car runs amazing! I dumped a little bit of gas in the carburetor to prime it, and she started right up. The idle was at about 400 RPM, and stayed there without me having to feather the gas pedal after about 30 seconds; and that was without the choke on. I took it for a quick spin around the block and I realized how my old flathead should have been running all of this time. I'm going to put new plugs in it, and like I said, I will time it and set the idle mixture screw and we'll see where we're at. I just want the car to be my daily driver again! I'm close now ?

Aug. 20: I can see if this carburetor was mounted sideways on a Volkswagen bug engine in the rear of the vehicle how easy it would be to work on. Different story on a 1951 Meadowbrook with a flathead. Things are in the way. I had to use my old craftsman angled screwdriver to tighten up the screw for the choke linkage. There's just no other way to do it. I also had to use an 8mm wrench to set the idle because you can't get a screwdriver in there.

August 20: Spent the evening putting on the new carburetor. What a task. There is about zero room for the mounting nuts. In hindsight I should have taking the adapter to work and milled slots on both sides to make it easier to screw on the mounting nuts. There would have been much less interference with the adapter body, and more room for my wrench. It was just a terrible bear. There is no room because of the heater box and no room on the other side because of the engine itself, let alone the curved shape of the adapter which just makes it really difficult to get the nuts on. It probably took me an hour and a half, but I wasn't going to let it beat me. The kit comes with a piece of throttle linkage that you're supposed to weld to your existing linkage after you cut a piece off of your existing linkage. I decided not to do that, so I drilled a hole in the mounting bracket of the carburetor for the throttle that was .015 bigger than threaded part of my throttle linkage. See pic. I ran a countersink over it to get rid of the burr. I actually tightened (made shorter) my throttle linkage a little bit to go with the bigger hole I drilled, because unscrewing the linkage farther would have put me near the end of the threads if I wanted to use that upper middle hole. This way I was at a nice 90 degree angle, and no chopping of original linkage, and no welding.

Thank you for posting; much appreciated!!?