Sean Batiz

Oh and one more thing to consider, if feasible, you will DEFINITELY prefer to have the garage door(s) open in either a split side-by-side barn style track or, swing OUTWARD, so as not to be in the way of your lifts clearance requirements. The types that spool up into a tight space closed cage are also nice but, as far as I know, generally cost an arm and a leg! Either way, glad to read that you’re back in the Buick game on getting some headway (literally, it would seem)! Inspiring me to get out there and do the same, ‘before‘ SoCal here gets hit with summer consistent TRIPLE DIGIT WEATHER!

Howdy! Just reading through these fresh posts and thought I’d toss my 2¢ in this wishing well! Just a thought 💭. This might not really cost more and, may even save you a few bucks. What about having one side as a vaulted, 12’ no attic, for lift space allowance and the other side, 8’ with storage loft above that side? Might have to build a retaining, “load-bearing“ wall (With maybe a set of doublewide pocket doors) down the center stretch but, in the long run, at least you’d be able to keep one side all clean and snazzy for storing your show car with your fancy framed Buick memorabilia on the walls, while the other side can be your grease-monkey side for all of the fun tasks!? The loft storage area could be accessible from the vaulted roof side.

Rather than having a slab, have you considered a FULL SIZED basement, with the ground floor level having open pit type racks for the cars to park on & lifts incorporated above the racks? Sounds incredibly expensive but, really just a matter of figuring out the logistics of getting the soil removed and, proper retaining perimeter brick wall. Your neighbors will initially be thinking you’re putting in a pool!

Seems as though all Buick’s are idle for now.... 😔 Just wish we all already had every new seal &/or parts needed for our Buick projects, so we’d all have something positive to spend our ample home time on! And than, we’d come out on the other side of this crisis with a full fleet of beautifully restored Buick’s to once again, dominate the roadways everywhere!

I’ve likewise done the same with my two Buick’s and was wondering this same thing. If that site has a viewing option, I certainly haven’t been able to find it yet.

Still working on this task in what little spare time I seem to have these days. Hopefully, I’ll be able to provide you with these scans by the end of this week! 😬

One more thing to note on these: the wide sides of the cross-section of the slightly diamond shape of this nylon cord, rides between the WIDE faces of the two pinch/compression wheels, NOT the groove in those wheels! ‘BUT’, if you decide in exchanging your original mast cord with a good weed-wacker nylon cord with a diamond shape (if you are able to get the solid mast rods’ threaded tip removed, CCW, AND are able to gently pry open the tiny crimped FRAGILE aluminum swivel terminal from the old cord), you may end up having to intentionally run the new cord through the ‘grooves’ of the pinch wheels, due to the larger cross-section dimensions of replacement cord. At least, this is what I ended up having to do. You’ll also have to carefully widdle down the tip end of the new cord to as much of a perfectly rounded shape as possible before inserting it into that aluminum swivel terminal. I avoided re-crimping this swivel and opted to instead, coat the new cord tip and terminal’s female with a small bit of “JB Kwic” epoxy; let that fully cure and carefully file or sand down the excess before reassembly. This aluminum swivel terminal MUST ride inside of the smallest hollow tube of the telescoping segment of mast COMPLETELY FREE of resistance, in order for nothing to jam or bind during travel. This can be bench checked before assembly of other sections. GOOD LUCK! 🍀👍🏻

Pointing out what some of us might consider obvious but, possibly not to all readers of this thread, it’d behoove oneself to definitely keep every little part from each of these original units separate from each other, just in case there are any slight, subtle changes to various parts designs. Not everything was made fully interchangeable back in the day; just as with modern car system parts. In too many cases of late model cars, it’s almost required to have to use a vehicles VIN number to obtain the exact right parts. Only after having completely cleaned up and fully inspected each part/piece/hardware, should it be attempted to cross interchange individual parts to construct one single unit, containing the best of all the parts.

Oddly, out of what almost certainly seems like an endless assortment of literature that GM or Buick printed/published during the mid 50’s for just about every conceivable item or accessory, I’ve never once come across a single piece of official instructional literature that’s specifically for the breakdown servicing of one of these power antenna units, yet.... all we seem to have to go by, with our various attempts at rebuilding these, is our own wits and the collaboration of other likeminded wits to assist us in moments of “drawing a blank”. This said, you having available at your grasp, multiple units for comparative purposes, is definitely a major plus! At first, this “simple” project is just that, simple. By the end of that bench work challenge, it can easily change from simple to, SCRAP METAL that’s been tossed against the wall in frustration! Lol! Patience is definitely a virtue, in this case. I believe you’ll get’er figured out for sure.

Kosage, Back to the picture above of your flex plate for a second: the starter ring gear teeth look as if BRAND NEW! I was just going through the latest info on your progress and couldn’t help but noticing that. There’s a high possibility that after whatever major head work was performed on that Nailhead some several moons ago, little to no major time or miles were put on it before it was parked for a few decades! I really can’t even tell which side of that gear, the starters bendix gear engaged (of course it would engage the side facing the engine, just sayin’). New set of seals, bearings, rings, detailed cleaning prep work on the parts and.... she’ll be a dang fine Nailhead for MANY YEARS!

Coming along quite nicely! At least you didn’t have to encounter the explosive problem that I had to deal with in my first Nailhead dismantling; #8 piston had completely disintegrated into MANY unrecognizable aluminum shrapnel fragments, throughout the crankcase and even broke off some sizable chunks of both sides of the lowest end of that cylinder wall! Still not sure if my original block is salvageable via a sleeving job or not. Only time and money will eventually determine this fate. Worst case scenario, I’ll be having the 2nd Nailhead that I have, rebuilt instead, someday....

I’m working on the scanning process in between my spare time. Should have them ready soon. As much as I do know, I also willingly admit to still being rather computer illiterate so bare with me on this task. Should I (if I can figure out how) place only a link on here to the pdf source or, the pdf itself on here?

Aside from that gibberish rant (too much coffee today!), you might wanna consider purchasing BRAND NEW rod/cap bolts & nuts hardware for it! Just a thought....

I’m surprised that you haven’t received any feedback from your questions yet. I’d like to throw some knowledge/experience opinions your way but, myself, I honestly don’t have a good answer for these questions. That said, if that were my crankshaft, I’d probably assume those grounded off areas were definitely due to some sort of final balancing steps, as you were suspecting. As for the metal flash material between the two balancing holes, I “might” consider carefully cleaning that bridge out to a clean edge or, just leave it alone. You figure that that Nailhead was presumably a good/decent runner for the many miles/years of operation it delivered and, the fact that you were able to get it back to running decent/fair before breaking it down, concludes that its crank issues you’ve spotted out, ought not have been a detrimental problem (🤞🏼). It’ll be a fine running engine for many years/miles to come, especially after you’ve finished its meticulous rebuild, whether or not you do anything to that crank, other than the standard polishing of its journals. Take it down to a reputable shop that can spin it to check how balanced it actually is. It just might be perfect exactly as is👌!

Old-tank: Yes, I have more of them. Aside from that original 3-ring binder itself that’s in the pictures above, to which I just recently acquired via eBay, the PSB’s themselves were obtained sometime in 2016 I believe. I do also have a few of these PSB issues that are duplicates (extras), that I’d be willing to sell/trade to whomever but, not until I get around to organizing all of the various extras or, wrong year items to post in the correct “for sale” section here. So, would you (Old-tank) need digital scanned high res images of each of these pages, sent to you via email or, directly posted on here individually? I don’t currently have any of these pages scanned yet so, it may be a little while before I can get that task done first.