1938 Buick Century Model 61 - Four Door Touring Sedan - Trunk Back

[Gary W]

Matt.. I'm sure you already did this, but sometimes it's good to repeat:

 

Be sure to polarize the generator.  As soon as I did this, the generator began charging.  Might save you some work!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MCHinson]

This morning, I swapped the voltage regulator and repolarized the generator again to be sure. It now charges properly. I had too many non Buick projects to do today to do anything else on the Buick this morning. This afternoon, I helped a friend with some work on his 1923 Buick. This evening, I picked up some rustoleum primer and some nice rustoleum paint that I think is a good match for the Dante Red 1938 optional wheel color. Tonight, I jacked the car up, put it on 4 jack stands, and removed the four wheels. I primed those four wheels and my other two extra wheels and later painted them red. Tomorrow, I hope to be able to choose the best 5 wheels and take them to my local tire store and have them remove the four old tires and mount the new tires. I also took a photo that shows the battery with my recently purchased original Delco yellow battery caps.

 

 

 

 

[MCHinson]

This morning, I decided to hold off on tire mounting until they had a bit longer to dry more thoroughly. I also had a couple of other non-Buick jobs that I had to do this morning. Wanting to accomplish something on the Buick, I riveted the body data plate to the firewall. I also installed a new vacuum line from the vacuum pump to the firewall to supply vacuum to the wiper motor.  

[MCHinson]

This morning, I squeezed 5 new tires, the four old tires and wheels from the car, and two extra wheels that I purchased into the trunk and back seat of my Buick Lesabre and took them to my local tire shop. I had them choose the five best wheels to use and mount the new tires. I then took the new tires and wheels home and installed them on the 1938 Buick project. I also installed four hubcaps. I lowered the car back onto the wheel dollies and rolled it around to face the garage door. I then started up the Buick and drove it out of the garage. I drove out to the street, turned it around and pulled back into the driveway. The oil pressure was great, the generator showed a slight discharge at idle and charging with increased engine speed. After it was running for a while, there was a quick discharge of water out of the radiator overflow tube that initially made me think something was wrong, so I shut down the engine. After confirming the temperature gauge was OK, I restarted the engine and it ran fine and no additional water was dischaged. I assume I had the radiator slightly too full. I let it run for an hour or so and the temperature gauge stayed right where it should.

 

The are only two issues discovered. First, the fuel gauge that seems to show full whenever it receives power, but the fuel tank should be only about 1/2 full. Second, the brakes are obviously dragging a bit. I will need to address those two issues soon. While the car was running in the driveway, I gave the back of the garage a bit of a cleaning job. I swept a lot of dirt and other debris from the area where the Buick project has been for the past 7 months or so.  I then drove the Buick back into the garage, put it back on the wheel dollies, and rolled it back into the garage, facing the opposite direction that it has been for a while. I am attaching a short video showing the engine running in the driveway.

VID_20180418_130506983.mp4

[Bill3747]

Really enjoying following your progress Matt.  If watching you and Gary W doesn't get us motivated, we're hopeless and nothing will.  

Bill

[MCHinson]

Thanks Bill.

I think that Gary is a lot more talented than I am, but I am really enjoying doing the restoration.

[Gary W]

Matt... She sounds great!!  Always a good day to hear it fire right up!  Nice job!

[MCHinson]

This morning, I only had a few minutes to work on the Buick project. I adjusted the master cylinder pedal rod to resolve the dragging brake shoes. I will have to take it for a bit more of a drive in the near future to confirm that I have the problem totally solved, but I feel fairly confident that it should be fixed.  

[Gary W]

Are your seats installed?    How do you drive it around?

 

Did you run a dedicated ground wire to the sending unit?  Might help the gauge. 

Edited April 19, 2018 by Gary W (see edit history)

[MCHinson]

The bare seat frames are in the car. I temporarily covered the front seat frame with a couple of heavy duty moving blankets. The seat frames without the upholstery seem to be an inch or two shorter than I would really prefer but to drive it up and down the driveway, it works. I simply connected the two wires from the Rhode Island Wiring harness to the gauge. I did not run a separate ground wire to the sending unit. It should ground through the fuel line. I have a spare gauge or two that I will try and if that does not work, I guess I will do some testing regarding a separate ground wire for the sending unit.

[Spinneyhill]

It might ground through the fuel line if you didn't cut the line and put something in there connected with rubber hose, e.g. a filter or an electric pump.

[MCHinson]

There is no rubber hose in the fuel line. The electric pump and all of the steel lines are metal. The only thing that I can think of is that maybe between the gasket on the base of the carburetor and the finish on the carburetor from the carburetor rebuilder might be insulating the fuel line from ground. It should ground through the fuel line, but either I might need one of my spare gauges or else an additional ground wire for the sending unit. I will see soon.

[keiser31]

1 hour ago, MCHinson said:

There is no rubber hose in the fuel line. The electric pump and all of the steel lines are metal. The only thing that I can think of is that maybe between the gasket on the base of the carburetor and the finish on the carburetor from the carburetor rebuilder might be insulating the fuel line from ground. It should ground through the fuel line, but either I might need one of my spare gauges or else an additional ground wire for the sending unit. I will see soon.

No rubber hose connection on the fuel line at all? How does that work when the engine moves while revving up or advancing the speed of the car? I have never seen a car without a rubber line somewhere to make up for the engine movement.

[Bloo]

There should be a hose between the body/frame and the fuel pump to deal with engine movement, shouldn't there? There is on my 36 Pontiac, and I believe there is on a 37 Buick as well, though I don't have one here to look at right now. I would be really surprised if it were omitted in 38.

 

It is a quirk of the GM fuel gauge that it needs a perfect ground on both the sender and the gauge. If the sender is not perfectly grounded, the gauge can never get to empty. The fuel tank is only mounted with straps, and those probably have tarpaper or something on them to prevent chafing. The fuel line probably just has metal tabs bent around it.

 

I have often wondered how the factory made sure the ground was ok with no ground wire. A while ago I was looking at the crimped hose w/fittings (on ebay) that connects the body to the fuel pump on the Pontiac. NORS aftermarket rubber hoses turn up regularly. One day, an example popped up that had a brass external braid on the hose. I have never seen a genuine GM hose, but I suspect they had the braid, and that it was there to ground the fuel gauge. Does anyone know?

Edited April 20, 2018 by Bloo (see edit history)

[keiser31]

A lot of Chrysler products had this ground strap/clip attached to the fuel line from the tank to the line bridging over the rubber fuel line....

[Spinneyhill]

No flexible hose on 1930 Dodge Brothers Eight. There are no flexible engine mounts either.

 

I learnt about the earth through the fuel line when I put a filter in the line near the tank.

 

[MCHinson]

Neither my 1937 nor my 1938 Buick have any rubber lines in the fuel line. They have both had electric fuel pumps added near the tank. A short 5/16" metal fuel line connects from the electric pump to the metal line on the fuel pickup/fuel gauge sending unit. A 5/16" metal fuel line runs from the electric fuel pump to the front of the car. There is a short 5/16" metal line that connects to that line with a metal junction and runs from near the frame rail to the mechanical fuel pump inlet. An approximately  5 foot long 5/16" metal fuel line runs from the fuel pump, over the front of the engine, along the intake manifold and to the carburetor. Both cars have a metal bodied fuel pressure regulator mounted at the carburetor.  

 

With a Straight 8 engine and a torque tube, there is not really much flexing of the engine. The 5 foot fuel line to the carburetor can flex enough to take care of any tiny movement of the engine. The gauge on my 1937 works fairly accurately. The one on the 1938 seems to be reading full when it should not. Perhaps the sending unit float arm needs to be adjusted. Perhaps there is another problem. This morning, I used a set of jumper cables to ground the sending unit line all the way back to the gauge and it still read the same. I also tried a spare fuel gauge which also read full. 

[Bloo]

If you disconnect the wire from the tank, and short it to ground, the gauge will go to empty. If It can do this, the gauge and wiring are fine and you need to look in the tank for the trouble

[MCHinson]

The ohm reading from the tank sending unit appears to be about right, although I really want to replace the leads on my VOM, since they seem a bit erratic which makes troubleshooting a bit more difficult. Grounding the lead from the fuel tank sending unit does not make the gauge go to zero. There is something strange going on somewhere. I am going to replace the leads on my VOM and go over all of the various components and figure out what is going on.

[MCHinson]

This morning, in addition to spending some time trying to figure out the fuel gauge mystery, I started buffing the wheel trim rings. I got a couple of them done today. The first photo shows the comparision between one before buffing and one after buffing.  

[38Buick 80C]

Let me jump in on the fuel gauge mystery some too for a some what self serving reason but possibly of help to Matt. Both my 38 Fuel gauges are not functioning as i would like to them too. The conv. at least shows signs of life and occasionally gives a true reading. I've always thought it to be ground so with inspiration from this thread i got my alligator clip jumper wire and connected it from a non painted stainless steel body bolt that runs both through the chassis and the body to first the metal fuel line directly at the pick up and then to the screw that holds the pick up in place. No change in reading at the gauge on what i am certain is an false low reading of about 1/8 tank.

 

I tired the same on my sedan and it's dead stick zero with no change and that car I just filled to the brim last week.

 

Aside for a possible poor ground from the bolt itself to chassis or body on the 80C on the 87 I clipped to exposed bare metal on the chassis itself so i now i had a good ground there.

 

So did I alligator clip it in the wrong spots for my test, does the gauge itself need to be ground (I'm fairly certain both cars are as they are part of the instrument panel and lights and other gauges work so one would assume it is thus ground itself)?Could the reverse be happening to Matt where something is hot to the instrument panel or the gauge itself.

 

oh and does it matter which way the wires are hooked to he gauge can they be installed backwards and give a false reading?

 

 

[MCHinson]

Brian,

 

The gas gauge posts are two different sizes. Assuming the wiring harness is correct, you can't put them on the wrong post. I suspect you need to pull the tank and clean up the rheostat on the fuel sending unit. If you look over some of my recent posts, you will see how easy it is to do.

 

While this won't help Brian, I just figured out my problem. The left rear tail light wire and the fuel gauge sending unit wire on my harness are supposed to be Yellow with black tracer and Yellow with crossing black tracers respectively. I made up a long jumper and tested for continuity from the black with crossing yellow tracer line wire at the fuel gauge to the black with yellow crossing tracer line at the rear of the car and found that they did not have continuity. Since I have not hooked up any tail lights yet, I decided to test for continuity from the gas gaage line to the black with yellow tracer line that is supposed to be the left tail light wire. Apparently when I was soldering  the four wires into the body harness plug behind the dash, I managed to switch the two very similar looking wires. I temporarily connected the "tail light wire" to the fuel sending unit wire. My fuel gauge then immediately went to half full, which corresponds to how much fuel is in the tank.

 

I will have to unsolder and switch the two wires in the body wiring harness plug tomorrow, but the fuel gauge mystery is solved. 

[Bloo]

Brian:

The gauge does require a good ground, as does the sending unit (tank). When things are working as they should, 0 ohms is empty and 30 ohms is full. If you disconnect the wire from the tank and ground it to a good ground, the gauge should go to full. If you let it the wire hang loose, the gauge should peg. If all this is normal, then the trouble is in the tank (or it's ground). 

 

In the past, I have rebuilt a couple of sending units of this type. There is plenty that could be wrong in there, including but not limited to, gears rusted stuck, sunk or missing floats, rod bent, and trouble with the resistor itself. If you do have a sending unit bad, and the original is there, I recommend that you find a way to have it rebuilt, rather than trying to adapt something from a newer Buick, as is sometimes done.

 

Grounding the tank as you did to the frame should have fixed it if that was the problem. The instrument panel ground is probably more critical for the gas gauge than anything else in the dash, but if shorting the tank wire to ground gets you to "e" and disconnecting the wire pegs the gauge, everything in the dash is probably fine.

 

An accuracy check of the gauge itself on the full end could be done by hooking a 30 ohm resistor from the tank wire to ground. This should make the gauge read full.

 

Usually, the trouble is getting to 0 ohms. 0 ohms is empty, and so any stray resistance in the ground or the wiring prevents you from getting to "e"

 

 

 

Edited April 21, 2018 by Bloo (see edit history)

[38Buick 80C]

10 hours ago, 38Buick 80C said:

Let me jump in on the fuel gauge mystery some too for a some what self serving reason but possibly of help to Matt.

 

9 hours ago, MCHinson said:

While this won't help Brian, I just figured out my problem.

 

See I told you I would help!!!

[MCHinson]

This morning, I opened up the body harness plug, unsoldered the two wires that needed to be switched, relocated them to the correct position on the plug, and re-soldered them. I then reassembled the body harness plug. The gas gauge now shows 1/2 full which is correct for the amount of fuel that I put in the tank. While I was in the area, I fed the speedometer cable through the firewall grommet and connected the speedometer cable to the speedometer. I then put two new bulbs in the instrument panel light sockets and connected the instrument panel light harness to the switch and installed the lights into the instrument panel. I then rolled the Buick around on the wheel dollies so I could back it out of the garage. 

 

I backed the Buick out of the garage and let it run outside for a half hour or so. The temperature gauge never went over 180 degrees.  In addition to some more slight adjustments to the brakes I found another issue that was making it so that the wheels did not all want to roll correctly. I discovered that one of the wheels that came on this car is apparently not a correct 1938 Century wheel. The front tires only have about a half an inch clearance between the suspension components. The tire on the left front was actually rubbing the front suspension. I moved the wider wheel to the left rear position and moved the left rear tire to the left front. The slightly wider wheel will probably be OK on the left rear but if I have a chance, I will see if I can find another correct wheel. This makes me wonder if the wider wheel is the size that Earl Beachaump is looking for for his 1941 Buick.

 

I drove out to the street, turned the car around and pulled it back into the garage. I was able to drive in, turn to the right and quickly position the front end of the car very close to where it needed to be. I then only had to put the rear wheels on wheel dollies and roll it around to be able to get all three cars in the garage. Back in the garage, I took a photo of the dash lights in the garage without flash and a photo that shows the clearance between the tire and front suspension components with the correct wheel on the left front.  

[keiser31]

Excellent progress!

[zipdang]

Your trim rings look great polished. I'm currently polishing the stainless trim for my car and even down to the finest "white" compound on the softest wheel (both from Eastwood) I'm still ending up with a slight pattern on the metal when the light hits it right. Do you have this problem? Am I missing something. I have been enjoying your thread and troubleshooting skills. Thank you for sharing.

[MCHinson]

zipdang,

 

I am just an amateur. I am not great at polishing, but it seems to be getting easier as I do more of it. I think that the trim lprobably ooks better in photos than in person. It is far from perfect. I am sure I will have to go back and do some more polishing to make it look closer to perfect later but I think it looks good enough for the moment.  

[zipdang]

Thank you. I'm new at it, too and at a similar place. It looks amazingly better than before and in normal lighting, almost perfect. But put it up just right to the light, and those faint buffing marks show up.

[MCHinson]

zipdang,

 

What are you restoring? Feel free to post some photos.

[zipdang]

I've been working a long time on a 1959 Fiat 1200 Granluce (life keeps getting in the way). I delivered the body tub to a gentlemen up the road who does fantastic work so I won't take credit for that. Engine machining was also farmed out, but I've done all the rest. A real learning process and my slow pace helps with that aspect of the project. This summer should have the suspension and drive line reinstalled. I guess that's why watching another "back yard mechanic" restore a car resonates with me. Keep it going!

[MCHinson]

zipdang,
 

Keep at it. The best advice I can give you is to do something on the project each day that you can. I typically spend some time on the project 6 days a week. Occasionally I am away from home and can't work on it, but otherwise, I do something on it each day that I can. That is the secret to making progress on a project. 

[MCHinson]

This morning, I decided to complete the exhaust system installation. The entire exhaust system is nice and solid, but the muffler and tail pipe have been together long enough that  I am sure I would have destroyed the muffler attempting to get them apart.  When I removed the exhaust system from the car, I cut the tail pipe just behind the muffler so that I could get the exhaust system off of the chassis. Recently I installed the front of the exhaust system but had not re-attached the rear section. To be able to weld the cut section of the tailpipe I had to lower the exhaust system a bit to get enough clearance to weld it. This required removal of the left engine splash pan, dropping the front section of the exhaust system, matching up the two sections of the tail pipe and welding it together. This sounds a lot easier and faster than it really was. Even with the front of the exhaust system lowered, the tail pipe runs very near the chassis. This welding job would have been quite a bit easier before installing the body. I was then able to reinstall the front of the exhaust system and attach the rear tail pipe hanger at the rear of the car.   

[MCHinson]

Yesterday, I did not have any time to work on my 1938 Buick. I did at least help a friend get his 1923 Buick running again. It had been sidelined for a few months and after a few days of work between he, I, and another of his friends, we finally sorted out the gremlins and it is back in running condition.

 

This morning, I decided to try out a borrowed stud welder and slide hammer to see if I could get rid of the worst dents in the air cleaner. The stud welder worked well on a few of the dents and not so well on a few others. Some of the time, the stud welded perfectly and I was able to easily pull out the dents and a couple of times, it burned through and I then used another tool to pull out the dent and then use my welder to weld up the hole. My welding is still not as nice as I would like it to be, but my grinder still works to reduce the excess weld. I still need to do a little bit more work on smoothing everything out and repainting it, but I am much happier with its appearance now.

 

In the interest of helping someone avoid my mistake in the future, I am going to tell a story about today's horn button wire work.

 

A few days ago, I noticed that the horn would occasionally blow when I turned the steering wheel. It was apparent that there was a problem with the horn button wire insulation in the steering column. A gentle tug on the wire actually broke the apparent remaining single strand of the wire near the bottom of the steering column and the majority of the wire pulled out of the steering column. I discovered that there was only about an inch of wire remaining soldered to the collar near the bottom of the steering column. I spliced a new short section of wire into the wire and used some silicone sealant around the soldered joint to make sure it was well insulated. Today, I decided to reinstall the horn button wire. When I pulled it out of the column, I did not notice that the insulating washer at the top of the column near the horn button had apparently fallen off or fell apart. I inserted the wire back into the column and started feeding it towards the bottom of the column. Without the missing insulated washer that would have kept the horn button contact from going into the column, the wire and contact button slid down inside the column. After looking at the service manual to attempt to try to figure out how many hours it was going to take to remove and disassemble the steering column and steering gear, I decided to try another way. I took a stiff multistrand wire and cut it to leave one strand sticking out of the end a few inches. I formed that wire into a hook. I slid the hooked end of the wire down into the steering column, snagged the horn button contact and pulled it out of the steering column. I was very relieved to get the wire out. I then went to my local hardware store and purchased a nylon washer to install on the horn button wire beneath the horn button contact to prevent that from ever happening again. I then fed the horn wire back down the column. I Then used a similar strand of wire to form a hook to pull the wire out of the steering column so that I could solder the wire to the contact near the bottom of the steering column. 

[MCHinson]

Last night, I applied a little bit of body filler to smooth out the repaired areas of the air cleaner. This morning, I sanded the body filler, cleaned up and primed the air cleaner. Later, I applied a first coat of paint to the air cleaner and after lunch, I applied a second coat. A short time ago, I installed the air cleaner. It looks much better than it did. 

[MCHinson]

This morning, I decided to look at the two 1938 Buick clocks that I have and choose the best one to clean up and install. One of them has apparently been worked on in the past as it had later wiring on it. It appeared to be in fairly good mechanical condition although the mechanical switch for the glove box light had been replaced with a mercury switch. I decided to use that clock, but to use the original mechanical glove box light switch from the other clock. I disassembled the clock to enable me to check the clock mechanism. It appears to be in good working condition so I cleaned up the exterior of the clock and reassembled it. If it does not keep good time, it will be simple enough to open it back up, clean, the mechanism, take it to my local clock repairman to have it oiled, and then reassemble it. I buffed the outside of the case to clean it up. The silver finish on the case buffed off on the back of the clock to expose the underlying brass material but that is only visible when you open the glove compartment, and actually looks nice. The chrome bezel ring buffed up nicely. I repainted the red center of the clock's minute hand with a small paint touch up stick. About 95% of the minute markings on the clock's glass face were missing so I simply wiped the back side of the glass, removing the remaining residue. Most people would probably not notice that those numbers are missing, but if I can find a better glass face, I can replace it later. 

 

The most interesting part of this job was the gravity operated glove box light switch. I took it apart and cleaned up everything and reassembled it. This is difficult to explain so hopefully the text along with the photos will help others understand how to do this job. The switch is made up of a small metal cylinder shaped "can" with one end open. This "can" is inside a small cardboard tube. The tube is inserted into the metal cylinder that actually holds the bulb on the other end. The wire for this light is connected to a brass tab with a spring to hold pressure on the contact, which is flat on that side, and cone shaped on the other side. Five small metal ball bearings drop into the open can, the cone shaped contact is then dropped into the open side of the can. The spring pressure on the wire connector pushes the cone up tightly to the open end of the "can" so that the metal balls roll into position to complete the circuit and light the bulb when the glove box door is opened. The clock wiring harness has two terminals that attach to the clock with two nuts. The clock light, and the glove box light wires simply require soldering a small tabs onto the wires. After completing the cleaning and reassembly, I installed the clock into the dash assembly and cleaned up the original wiring clip and secured the clock wiring harness using the original clip.

[MCHinson]

In the past, the body from the body donor car had a radio antenna mounted on the right cowl. This would not have been original equipment for a 1938 Buick as the car should have had a running board mounted antenna system. Despite the fact that the running board antenna was probably not the best antenna ever designed, I do not intend to have a visible aftermarket antenna on the car. This morning, I used a magnet underneath the hole to hold a washer in the hole. I then welded the washer in place and welded up the hole in the center of the washer. I then ground down the weld to match the contour of the body in that area. I then sanded the area first with 80 grit sandpaper and then 120 grit sandpaper. I then applied some primer to the patched area. 

 

Having a few minutes left after the repair. I painted the rod for the jack with galvanizing paint. I attempted to find the correct grabber green paint for the green parts of the jack yesterday at my local Lowes, not finding it in stock, I ordered a can online today. 

[MCHinson]

This afternoon, I rolled the car around to be able to back it out of the garage. I took it off of the wheel dollies, started it up and backed out of the garage. I drove it around the block, a distance of .8 miles. I was not totally happy with my guestimate about timing so I stopped back at the house and pulled out my timing light and got the timing right. I then drove it around the block two more times. I am going to have to do a little bit of minor brake adjustment and I have a little bit of a scraping noise coming from one of the wheels that I need to figure out and fix. The worst problems are the speedometer appears to be quite a bit slow and I need to do some troubleshooting of the starter circuit. From a slow idle, when accelerating quickly, the starter drive is able to briefly engage. This should not happen. There are electrical circuits and a vacuum switch that are supposed to prevent this, but something is not adjusted quite right. 

[MCHinson]

This evening, I drove our 1937 Century to dinner. After dinner, when I put the 1937 Century in the garage, I just could not leave the 1938 project alone. I jacked it up, put it on jack stands and determined that the noise was coming from the left front and right rear wheels. I pulled the drums off of those wheels and determined that the noise was coming from slightly raised rivet like portions of  the inside of the drums slightly scraping the brake shoes. Slightly tapping the shoes with a hammer managed to get them reseated corrrectly against the backing plates so that the drums can now rotate without making any noise.  

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

Matt, I am not 100 percent knowledgeable with the '38. I think all years are similar. In which case the vacuum switch COULD engage at heavy throttle/low vacuum conditions. The back up electrically is a ground from the generator to the starter solenoid that breaks ground when the generator starts charging, thereby rendering the solenoid inoperative.

 

  You are doing a great job. 

 

  Ben