Buickborn

Hi, Doug -- Thanks for your suggestions. BTW, my '54 still sports the excellent steering wheel I bought from you quite a few years ago now.

KNUT -- Will do. Thank you kindly!

I'm sure this topic has come up before, but a search has been fruitless. My '54 76R has a considerable amount of play in the rear axle, resulting in a pronounced clunk and noticeable jerk when shifting into reverse. My understanding is that this condition is common in Buicks of this vintage, but in my car the play seems extreme: nearly 1 1/2" of back-and-forth travel at the jacked-up tire shoulder with the gear selector in Park and the opposite tire on the floor. Not only am I concerned about a possible failure, but I'm wondering if the slop could likely be attributable to an issue somewhere in the torque tube rather than in the differential itself. Fortunately, I was able to obtain an entire rear axle/torque-tube assembly out of another car that appears to be tighter. But I'm wondering if it's OK to be driving my car until I can get that assembly evaluated, rehabilitated if necessary, and installed. Thanks! ~ Charlie Manes

The current catalog from Bob's shows repro stainless non-locking outside door handles as applicable to open '29-'30 models. Having bought some of their stainless items in the past for my '30 roadster, I've found the quality to be very good -- even had to wet-sand some of them to degrade the finish so as to match the original hardware still on the car.

I clearly remember that car and the seller's efforts to find new home for it. Odd, but it doesn't look as hopeless now as it did then. But, IIRC, it's long gone -- a pity.

1942 '40 A-series Specials ran a 118" wheelbase while the 40-B Specials ran 121" using the GM "B" body. Seems amazing that the better-proportioned B was not available as a convertible. No doubt it would have fetched a significantly higher price.

In describing the browning of my Diamondbacks, which I replaced with Cokers, I wasn't suggesting that the Cokers were entirely free of similar problems. Of the 8 Coker tires that I purchased at that time, 5 have stayed acceptably white, 2 have browned very noticeably, and 1 is quite brown -- although not as severely brown as the Diamondbacks. 4 of the acceptable tires are of a smaller size, with a narrower whitewall, than the others. None have more than a few hundred miles on them, and they are always garaged. Having grown up taking care of whitewall tires, I'm frankly mystified by these problems. None of the tires I looked after during the first decades of my life ever browned or yellowed, despite plenty of hard use and harsh weather. The only grief I recall with them occurred as my dad frequently scuffed them against curbs -- which I often suspected he did intentionally.

Radials are a great idea, but stay away from Diamondbacks!!! I had nothing but problems with the set I put on my '54 76R a few years ago. Specifically: the applied whitewalls buckled at the wheel rim; the buffing-off of the original tire labeling left the black perimeter dull and tired-looking; and, worst of all, the outer edges of the whitewalls began to turn irremediably brown before the tires were even a year old. Nothing I could devise would brighten them up, and the condition worsened as time passed. When I called the company to complain about the browning, they told me that I must have "stacked" the tires (that is, allowed the black of some of the tires to come into contact with the white of the others), which is categorically false -- especially in light of the menacing manner in which I minutely supervised the tire shop's installation in order to see that no stacking occurred, A gent at Diamondback did graciously offer to look at my tires if I would remove them from my car and ship them nearly 3000 miles across the country at my expense. Instead, I sold them at half price with 546 miles on them and ordered a two sets of Coker Classic radials for the '54 and another car. While I can't claim to be thrilled with those tires either, they are worlds ahead of the Diamondbacks.

Bob's has these. Catalog indicates $255.00

This listing contains about as much slathered-on blarney as any eBay page I've ever seen. And the copy was obviously lifted from something else, as evidenced by the extremely wordy description of the car as a stick-shift version while the photos clearly show it to be a Dynaflow model. If this sort of hucksterism doesn't raise a cloud of red flags, then I'm at a loss as to what would.

Wouldn't it be nice if decent, modest, workaday sedans like this were available at lower prices? Surely we'd all feel better if this hobby were more welcoming of those with little money but plenty of heart.

Come to think of it, Jake, I'm sure you're right. I was reasoning as if the dash. etc., should be in the body color. But that was true only in the case of the convertibles and the Riviera hardtop. B-pillar cars used metallic gray regardless of exterior color. So what was the idea of re-painting the dash as it appears? Maybe at some point the entire car had been repainted in that color?

In another thread, Jake Moran suggests that the dash color in this car is wrong. But the dash is probably correct while the exterior color is wrong. That is, the dash and garnish moldings appear to be Cumulus Gray (which is actually greenish, much like pre-war Ford Cloud Gray), as was surely the entire car originally. The closest factory color to the paint that's on the car now appears to be Gala Green -- a metallic considerably deeper in color than the repaint.

Who's kiddin' who here? We all know that Hans needs this car, and (with his amazingly brave restorer's heart!) it needs him. Hans, you have a reputation to maintain. Go for it!

If there is anything I've learned in many long years of evaluating used cars in any category, it is the importance of taking the measure of the seller as well as that of the car. There is nothing in the text of this auction that even remotely suggests an honest, candid, respectful, or scrupulous seller. Instead, the clearly unjustified hype and huckstering here raise enough red flags for May Day in Moscow. Caveat emptor.