Mike...Great that you found your starter woes. Freakin batteries can be such a pain. We probably have a 5% failure rate with the NEW high end batteries that we sell to our motorcycle folks. 12 volts and an alternator. Yup that's the ticket. Way less intensive that your porting project. And as far as a daily driver goes, probably almost as rewarding.
Well...it finally got into the 40's today. A little slushy but I took "Connie" for a 40 mile spin to see how my fixes faired. The driveline vibration has greatly diminished but still starts to show a hint of its former self around 75 mph. Now I will take the tires and wheels off and just make sure that they are all balanced and happy.
I modified a stock offset air cleaner to pass a bunch more air by increasing the exposed fiter area and WOW did that wake the ole girl up. Real easy to turn the tires in first gear with the 1,2,3 shift trans. Mind you the rubber is only 215/70R15 but the point is she would not do that before unless you worked her. I am gonna look into doing the same mods to the offset C / K air cleaner assembly just beacause it does not look quite so bulbous. Just a little long but that will make it a bit more of a challenge.
As far as the "freakin" power steering goes I kinda like it as I have a smaller Lark steering wheel c/w suicide knob that I just luv to use. Tried the knob with larger wheel and the Armstrong steering and it was a bunch more effort to use. Dont wanna have arms like Popeye! And I must say that after the 40 miles all the Chinese Disease from the power steering system seems to have disappeared.
Cant say the same for the new oil leak that has developed from the fuel pump. Way messy.
Kinda kool as I was tooling around some back country roads today, I got flagged down by a couple of folks out for a stroll. They were way impressed with the sound and look of a Studebaker and flagged me down just to tell me that.
Briz...Try it, you will like it.
Anyway it was a great day in the neighbourhood.
Keep smilin and stylin....Al