1936 Cord Engine… It’s Alive!

Eric started the Cord engine on our running stand early this afternoon. He’s spent the last few weeks replacing gaskets, assembling parts and readying the stand for this first running. The engine started right up and sounds great.

1936 Cord Engine (update)

A couple more weeks of work on the 1936 Cord engine finds us nearly ready to fire it up for the first time. The photos below show many of the multitude of little details we’ve attended to as the engine is readied to run. Eric has completely rebuilt the water pump, constructed a set of vintage plug wires, fitted the engine and stand with mufflers, and is nearly ready to connect the engine to the radiator. It is going to be really fun to fire this up for the first time!

Lotus Exige Mirrors…

The Lotus arrived with a pair of mirrors designed and built by Mark Brandt of Luftkraft Fabricating in Colorado. Mark did an excellent job of fabricating the mirrors and they look great on the Exige.

But… The actual glass surface on the Luftkraft mirrors is about 1/2 the size of the original equipment set. The visibility out the rear of an Exige is already extremely limited because the intercooler completely any view from inside the car. The small sized Luftkraft mirrors make it very difficult to see what is going on behind the car as you zoom down the road.

Mark sent the original mirrors along with the car. I decided to put them back on the Exige to see whether or not they provide better rear visibility. The Luftkraft mirrors were attached using rivet nuts. Re-attaching the original mirrors required drilling out the nuts and adding a larger diameter washers under the bolt inside the door. Neither of these tasks were simple or easy… but after a lot of hand wringing and only one washer lost inside the door it is done!

The original mirrors extend much further out and the additional glass makes for a vastly improved view out the back. While it could be argued Mark’s mirrors are sleeker and more stylish I cannot imagine going back to them after driving with these!

Lycoming/Cord V-8

A cut-away drawing of the Lycoming/Cord and description from Josh Malks.

Lycoming Manufacturing, makers of engines for many makes of automobiles and aircraft, was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Auburn Automobile Company. The Cord engine was the only V-8 Lycoming ever built.

It was a very modern powerplant, with almost 'square' bore and stroke and nearly-horizontal valves operated by roller-equipped rocker arms. Even the earliest engines were designed to accomodate the centrifugal supercharger that was offered as an option on 1937 models.

 

Cord Transmission (Inspection)

With work well under way on the Cord engine we are turning our attention toward the transmission that came along with the “Hatch” engine. A close inspection of the gearbox revealed enough wear on the gear train to force a rebuild of the shafting and gears. Installing new bearings and generally cleaning things up cannot be a bad idea.

1936 Cord Engine (Innards)

As we set about evaluating the “Hatch” engine for the 1936 Cord we decided to remove the manifolds from the top, oil pan from the bottom, flywheel and covers from both ends providing clear access to the crankshaft, camshaft, connecting rods & pistons and valve train. All of these elements look (and measure) to be in good shape.

We also removed one crankshaft main bearing cap to have a look at wear on the main bearings. This babbitted journal bearing shows only ordinary wear and looks good.

Finally… we attached an external pump to the oil pickup forcing good clean oil throughout the engine. Oil weeps out all the right places in the correct amounts convincing us that it all systems GO!

Our workbench filled with all the rebuilt parts and new materials…

1936 Cord Engine

At long last we are starting the process of getting my 1936 Cord 810 back on the road. For the last two years we have been busy organizing and selling off bits and pieces of my Dad’s vast collection of automobiles and parts. In the last couple of months we have finally organized things to the point where we are ready to dive into the engine and transmission we plan to fit to the “Brom” Cord. My Dad bought this engine from Al Hatch (in Detroit) almost 10 years ago. The engine came out of a Cabriolet Al purchased from an estate in the 1980’s and has only been driven 250 – 300 miles.

Eric Johnston removed the intake and exhaust manifolds from the top, and oil pan from the bottom to allow us to have a good look at the engine “innards”. Our friend Bob McNaughton stopped by to help us evaluate the condition of the engine. The crankshaft, connecting rods, pistons, camshaft, rocker arms, and valves all look fine. We found a few problems to fix related to the timing chain on the front and flywheel off the back but all things considered the engine looks good.

As of today the re-assembled engine is attached to our run-stand where Eric is preparing to “fire it up”.