Mark Pearson's 1948 Studebaker Car Restoration Project - Part 10

Here the left outer fender is off. You can see a pile of dirt on the floor under the right suspension arms. Both sides were caked with mud, an inch or two thick, all over the suspension components. We were able to chip away at it, and in some cases, revealed some shiny steel underneath! I have been pleasantly surprised to find that so far, the frame has very little rust on it. I have been somewhat concerned about the rotary-type shocks, whether they are still in serviceable condition. I guess the only real test will come after we have everything back together, and have a chance to road-test it.

The last of the front fender assembly is off, at last! You can see that the battery bracket is a part of the inner fender. You may be able to tell, sort of, that the right front wheel is canted inward at the top, just a little. Probably will need some adjustment when I am putting all of these things back together again, some day. The cable that curves around to the right of the engine is the hood release cable. I have not yet been able to get the end off it, so that it can be removed from the dashboard, but it will come.

Yours truly doing his best to be photogenic. I tried to pull off the old heater hose, but only succeeded in "skinning" it, leaving coils of wire snaking all over the place. There is a hose clamp holding it to the filter box under the passenger floor area, that is holding the other end of the wire, and won't let go! So, at some point I will have to get under there and remove that clamp in order to get the rest of the hose off. I did consider leaving the hose as is at first, but it started to disintegrate with minor handling, so it has to go.

A view from the front, sans fenders. I did manage to remove the hood release wire from the latch after some more drilling. Actually, what happened is that in trying to drill out the rest of the set screw, I ended up drilling through enough of the wire, that it separated inside the little cylindrical metal block and just pulled loose. The rest of the wire, about a quarter of an inch or so, is still inside the block. When I get around to putting this back together, I will have to tap it for a new set screw, and I believe there is enough length left on the wire to put it back the way it was. As I recall, there was about a half an inch or so of extra play in the wire.