[Staowners] My new drophead (Norma's car)

[David Reina]

Hi all,

Last week the auto transport company Horseless Carriage, delivered  
the 54 Drophead that Donna and I bought from Norma Kobernus.  In our  
minds it will always be known as Norma's car as she was passionate  
about the car and its appearance did a lot of the maintance herself.   
I thank her for selling us her car.

By the way, Horseless Carriage  was  very pleasant to deal with, had  
a competitive rate,  and kept our car on the same truck all the way  
across the country.  I recommend them to anyone moving a collector car.

I have a funny story about my new Sunbeam from California.  I noticed  
that the advance / retard adjustment was assembled wrong on the  
distributer.  It was just sort of floating around in place.  I could  
slide it in and out by hand.  The car was running badly and I thought  
this may be part of the problem.  I took it apart and assembled it so  
it functioned correctly.  Then I went to restart the car.  Boom!, the  
loudest backfire I had ever heard.  I guess when the parts were  
installed correctly the timing was significantly different.  Anyway,  
there was something funky about the electronic ignition which was in  
the car and after I got the advance retard mechanism corrected, I  
could not find the right position to make the car run.  ( Is there a  
way to static time a Pertronix electronic ignition?)  A little  
desperate to get the car back together and moveable, (I had to move  
it to ship a piece of equipment from my shop) I threw in my other  
cars distributer with conventional points and got it running.   
However at this point I realized that I no longer had a muffler as  
the backfire had blown it to smithereens.  Yesterday,  spent all  
afternoon and evening removing and fitting in a new muffler.

It actually wasn't such a bad thing to spend the afternoon and  
evening under the car.  I was really happy to see how clean the  
chassis and floorboards were and I discovered a couple of  things  
which need taking care of such as a shock absorber link partially  
unscrewed from the suspension arm.

Also, funny thing,  when I put the second distributer in and ran the  
motor I discovered the big nut which holds the crankshaft pulley  
totally out and sitting on the front frame crossmember.  I wonder if  
the backfire spun the motor in such a way to make the bolt loosen  
up?  This is the nut which has the fitting on it for the hand crank.   
There was a large washer but I didn't find any fold over locking  
washer and I didn't see one in the exploded  view drawing in the  
manual.  Should there be one?   I know later series Sunbeams used a  
fold over sheetmetal washer.

I reinstalled it as tightly as I could but am wondering if I should  
use some locktite?  Also what is the best way to keep the crank from  
turning over when tightening?  The coiled rope through the spark plug  
hole when the valves are in the closed position?

The wiper motor is not working and gets warm if left in the on  
position.  I am going to open it up to see if I can fix it but if not  
would anyone have an extra?

Regards,

Dave Reina

Norma and her car-
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