collinrestores
Junior Member
I've been slowly restoring this 1936 sedan after getting it last year. After an extended saga of trying to stop it from overheating, now the main issue I'm worried about is this persistent vibration being produced by the engine.
Let me describe the vibration and then explain why I'm worried.
-always present, but has harmonic points at regular intervals as you rev up the engine
-present whether the clutch is engaged or not, and whether the car is moving or not
-is bad enough to shake the cab at the harmonic points
-becomes much less noticeable if you keep revs low and don't floor it while accelerating
-seems to be getting transferred almost completely to the frame of the car for some reason. If you rev up the engine to make it vibrate, the frame and body of the car are vibrating but the engine is not.
-becomes sharper, but not necessarily "worse", under load. That is, you can feel it in your feet on the floor as a sharp rap rather than a rumble, when the engine is under load.
All this says flywheel or crankshaft to me. If it's the flywheel, I'm not too concerned. It would probably need to be balanced at some point, and it's not too bad until then. If it's the crankshaft, or bearing caps, then I'm worried. If one of those caps is cracked, maybe that would explain why it seems to get worse under load? And if so, I want to fix that ASAP lest it fail and the crankshaft have a bad day.
The other issue here is that when I replaced the front motor mounts, I put the rubber in upside down by mistake, because the old mounts were so squished that I misunderstood how they were supposed to go in. But the vibration was present before I changed them, and I don't think they'll make much of a difference when I flip them the right way up.
I also added some rubber padding to the rear engine mounts, on the transmission, which were bolted directly to the frame (great idea, Ford).
I know in order to check the crankshaft I'll have to drop the pan. Problem is, in this model year, from what I've heard it's hard to do this without basically pulling the engine. I don't have the ability to pull the engine with the tooling I have in my little one bay garage. I can maybe jack it up a ways with my floor jack. FWIW I was able to replace the radiator, but that was a bear and required an extra set of hands.
Anyone have any gut feelings about this?
And if anyone is in Colorado and wants to see the car or help me replace the clutch (that'll need done at some point), let me know!
Let me describe the vibration and then explain why I'm worried.
-always present, but has harmonic points at regular intervals as you rev up the engine
-present whether the clutch is engaged or not, and whether the car is moving or not
-is bad enough to shake the cab at the harmonic points
-becomes much less noticeable if you keep revs low and don't floor it while accelerating
-seems to be getting transferred almost completely to the frame of the car for some reason. If you rev up the engine to make it vibrate, the frame and body of the car are vibrating but the engine is not.
-becomes sharper, but not necessarily "worse", under load. That is, you can feel it in your feet on the floor as a sharp rap rather than a rumble, when the engine is under load.
All this says flywheel or crankshaft to me. If it's the flywheel, I'm not too concerned. It would probably need to be balanced at some point, and it's not too bad until then. If it's the crankshaft, or bearing caps, then I'm worried. If one of those caps is cracked, maybe that would explain why it seems to get worse under load? And if so, I want to fix that ASAP lest it fail and the crankshaft have a bad day.
The other issue here is that when I replaced the front motor mounts, I put the rubber in upside down by mistake, because the old mounts were so squished that I misunderstood how they were supposed to go in. But the vibration was present before I changed them, and I don't think they'll make much of a difference when I flip them the right way up.
I also added some rubber padding to the rear engine mounts, on the transmission, which were bolted directly to the frame (great idea, Ford).
I know in order to check the crankshaft I'll have to drop the pan. Problem is, in this model year, from what I've heard it's hard to do this without basically pulling the engine. I don't have the ability to pull the engine with the tooling I have in my little one bay garage. I can maybe jack it up a ways with my floor jack. FWIW I was able to replace the radiator, but that was a bear and required an extra set of hands.
Anyone have any gut feelings about this?
And if anyone is in Colorado and wants to see the car or help me replace the clutch (that'll need done at some point), let me know!
