Janousek
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Posts posted by Janousek
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Kar Grabber floor rack. A perimeter around the car where attachments hook on the outside lip to pull stuff. In the picture you can see it's a pain in the butt to pull the cherry picker over the plates but I use it more than I dread it.
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I pulled the head off of ours and left the transmission on the motor when I pulled it. Remove your floorboards in order remove the trans shifter plate. The weight of this motor/trans was all my cherry picker wanted. Only way I'd leave the head on is if you have some good slings.
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Al,
Years ago the 53'-54' Club toured the Dayton wire wheel company and they didn't recommend driving on their rims and the were pretty much for show only. Our tour guide told us that they reproduce this wheel but it's way under built. Not enough spokes he told us.
I'm sure the wheel vintiques are the same way.
One club member built a set of wheels for his 53' Skylark using a larger spoke. Unfortunately he doesn't drive much anymore to see how they hold up.
BTW nice job sending articles to the Skylark newsletter each month.
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A big plus for the Buick are the reasonable parts guys around. Lots of good vendors with honest prices. I have a 320 engine in barn for one that I bought just because it was reasonable. I don't own a car it will fit. Try that with a Packard and it will hurt a lot more.
The Packard will probably bring more attention though. The marque just has more prestigue. I'm a Buick guy but I face the facts that our 31' 90 series is just filler at the big shows.
I did a bunch of work on an Austin Healey like that. My wife really thought she'd like to have a small convertible like that. She drove it around the block, called it a roller skate, and asked if it had an engine. Scratched that itch. She'd drive the wheels off a Century though.
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AuburnSeeker, I think your worrying about something that isn't going to happen. Especially if the metal is properly sealed with epoxy primer first. We don't want metal to breath like a wooden boat needs.
I just thought about my current truck that I did the floors with back in 06'. The truck is a 04' Silverado reg cab that I bought rolled over. I had the interior gutted during the cab repair and used the rattle trap on the floors, ceilings, door panels. This was back in 06', the truck is in michigan, gets washed a few times a year, sits outside year around. I know winter junk from my boots runs down into the floor boards on this truck as I don't have fancy floor mats. I had to pull the rubber floor mat last year to replace the shifter cable and it was clean underneath. If my floorboards can last through 10 years of this than an antique car with the stuff is going to be permanent.
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Good call on the crush sleeve. In a perfect world it would be replaced everytime the yoke is pulled from the pinion gear. If they reused the old one with new pinion bearings then it would over preload the pinion bearings.
Now that it is making noise the ring and pinion might always make that noise even with new bearings. You'll have to rebuild it with new bearings and shoot for .006" backlash and hope it's quite. Otherwise a new ring and pinion is needed.
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Freshly restored examples are running under 125k right now. They are soft compared to what they were once.
Tough car to sell for a good price. It looks pretty rough and needs a restoration to be presentable. Even if a guy did the work himself they'd be buried in it financially.
Good luck.
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I forgot but another expensive option is Lizard Skin that is a ceramic sprayed on insulation and a seperate sound control spray on. I like the ceramic spray on firewalls but I like the rattle trap more for sound control. The spray sound control is pretty thin and doesn't have the same thud when you slap the panel. The ceramic spray insulation is fantastic for a roof on a black car. Really blocks the heat.
Years ago I built an outdoor style woodstove that heats water. I sprayed the entire outside with lizard skin. The door to the stove is two layers of 3/8" plate with an 3" air gap between them. No water passes through it so It gets hot but I can touch anywhere on the door without discomfort. It's warm to the touch but not hot. The water jacket has 170 degree water in it and it's just warm to the touch also.
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I also use Rattle Trap. Reasonable cost for a good product. I use the extreme version and double up firewalls and floors. It really solid when doubled up. I use it on ceilings and doors also. Everything I do is blasted/epoxy primed so it's sealed and theirs no worry that moisture could cause a problem. I also can't see what problems water would do to the stuff inside a door. Maybe tarnish the aluminum layer? It's pure rubber based and water wouldn't soak in like the original asphalt soaked fiber that factories used.
I wouldn't ever try to save a buck and use roofing products. First hand experience from the mid 90's. Dynamat was coming on strong back then and it was expensive. I used the sticky sided roofing product for eves and valleys inside my 92' Blazer. I gutted the interior, installed the mat, installed the interior. Within a week I had to regut the interior and remove the roofing product due to asphalt smell. It would burn my eyes on a sunny day.
You can get the rattle trap without logos also. I did a 59' Cadillac limo with it doubled up and it's a solid car. I wouldn't build a car to be driven without the stuff.
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I don't watch much Nascar, the wife watches it (100 lap nap also). The endings can be fun and a fight afterwards is a bonus. At least the drivers are still Americans, and I don't think Toyota should have been allowed in.
Can't say that for baseball. Supposedly "America's game" played by a bunch of overpaid foreigners. I was drug to a cubs game a couple years ago and thank god for the rain delay so I could get out of there. I've never been so bored in my life and I will never go to another game. I cross my fingers every season the tigers suck so I don't have to endure watching a game in the motorhome with the guys at Hershey.
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Yup. Terry, it was Pinky. He was a really nice guy. This was over ten years ago, I wonder if he's still with us?
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I just did our 42' Cadillac last fall. I'll have to look it up but seems like parts were around 2k and machining another 1000. But it needed 3 sleeves, some stitch pins, block acid dipped, all surfaces decked.
So not a real good comparison. The bill will give me a break down of machine work. Oil pump rework/modification with new idler gear was another grand. (Cadillac flathead problem).
A new Kanter book came yesterday. It has main bearings at $209 and rods at $117.36. Cam bearings 94$ So roughly 420.00 in bearings. To me that not a lot for peace of mind. But.. every budget is different. I'm not a wealthy person but I do the best job I can when I have something apart. My luck with old cars is everything I don't throughly restore bites me in the butt.
I know around here a rough rule of thumb from the shops is a grand a hole. 8 cylinder= 8 grand. This is for complete jobs without unforseen extras. Now that is hard to swallow. I think most of those services include a rebuilt carb,fuelpump, generator, starter. Years ago I had a shop like that converty our 31' Buick to insert bearings. I just had the machine work done but the bill had all kinds misc. fees. Almost like a utility bill. That one hurt but it's given over 8 thousand trouble free miles. If I was to go back I probably would have just re-babbited everything.
I thought I'd share some numbers that I know of. It's nice to see Gary restoring this Buick. I once had an old timer Chevy guy say a Buick is just a Chevy with lock washers but after having this 50' Chevy in the shop it's nothing like our 48' Buick 46s.
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I have no doubt that engine should last a long time, but 30 bucks a hole for a bore and insert bearings are cheap on top of a crank grind. I guess it would be peace of mind for myself if it was mine especially since my book shows the rods slightly out of spec.
I have 4-5 cars a year roll through for new wheel cylinders. Restored cars where guys put kits in a honed cylinder. Restorations are usually 3-10 years old. The surface finish on the new stuff or brass sleeves far exceeds what the average hone can produce so the rubber pucks last much longer. Doing a 50' chevy right now with original wheel cylinders stuck on a nicely restored car. I don't think these guys even bothered with a hone. Just a kit on a muddy cylinder. Nobody is saving money doing things twice.
Those rear springs are a mess. Are you putting the tin shields back on the new ones?
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This has been a nice post and your working quickly on the project.
Even though the engine ran fine you should have done 3 things to it. 1. New cam bearings. 2. crank ground with new rod bearings (.0008-.0018) specs in one of my motors manuals and plastic gage isn't as accurate as a bore gage and mics. 3. bore job with new pistons. Cutting ridges and honing cylinders isn't the same as the cylinders can be tapered and if you cut a ridge then your flirting with clearances.
Save yourself some trouble and buy new or resleeve the master cylinder and wheel cylinders. Honeing old nasty cylinders might net you a few years before your doing it again as they are leaking fluid.
Are you getting the springs from Eaton spring?
Nice thread and I'm nitpicking from experience.
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They had police at Beall Street when we were there also. They wouldn't be there if they weren't needed to help keep tourists safe.
They had another group of people in hard hats and work boots. I forget what they call them but they were another presence downtown to help tourism. They were easilly recognizable and were there for questions and help. I watched them interact with the homeless and keep them away from tourists. Street people in Memphis were the most aggressive of any city I've been in. I go to Chicago at least once a year and have never felt the pressence of danger like in Memphis. I enjoyed my experience there but I'd never go back.
I still recommend the civil rights museum.
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Elvis had pretty bad taste in cars but they were one display at Graceland a few years ago. If your into 70's shag carpet you might enjoy them. We did a car tour in the Memphis area and the only cars we saw were at the Elvis musuem so I don't think their are a lot of car related stuff.
If your into music then their is a ton of stuff to do. Downtown their is an interesting exhange/trade musuem about cotton and domestic goods back in the day.
Non car related but the MLK/civil rights museum was very interesting. Be careful as I think it's a dangerous city. My wife and I watched two officers with guns pulled enter a house when we were sitting in the museum's parking lot.
Beall Street is supposed to be cool but I was uncomfortable down there. Lots of predators waiting for some drunk dummy to wander from the herd. Be aware of your surroundings if you stay downtown.
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Thanks for dragging up old memories NTX. We used to help with those promotional videos at the proving grounds. Dog and Pony shows is what we called them. The locker always outperformed the limited slip since 100% torque was transferred. The limited slips will lock the rear wheels in a straight line on pavement but usually would smoke the clutch packs in the events the videos show. In the winter states the g80 was a better bet because a posi can cause the rear end to come around on ice. Normal dry roads it's fine but ice can screw with a posi if the rear traction can't overcome the bias torque required to get the pinions spinning.
The g80 will not unlock unless your turn your steering wheel lightly one way or the other to move the spider gears to unlock it. The flyweight can't disengage unless the pressure is taken off of it. It's not a problem as a slight turn of the wheel does the job. It's a good performer that has been around since the 70's in GM trucks. It was really the only viable candidate for a locker from the 70's - 2000's. It had good manners where some of the other ratchet ones were noisy. Most of the aftermarket designs were more rugged offroad but weren't acceptable on the street.
They were playing with electronic lockers and such back then. Basically pins would be controlled with a magnet (basically an A/C clutch magnet). They worked good off-road and all the Hummer lines either came standard or an option. (can't remember which).
They had some neat hydraulic controlled ones that worked well with the stability systems. Grand Cherokees used those. A pump was used in the differential and controlled by an electronic soleniod. Sounded good on paper but my complaint was contaminents from the ring and pinion. The differential always makes a lot of wear in crap as the magnets on the cover always show. This junk would cause problems on the pump. I always thought it was a good paper idea but not in a real world 100k mile application. External pump might have gotten me on board.
Back then the stability stuff was supposedly going to take over and obsolete the g80 and other systems. I don't think we moved as fast what everybody thought 12+ years ago. That is fine with me as their is to much crap on new cars.
I don't mean to hijack the post, you just sent me down memory lane in between block sanding parts today. Not sure If I'm the smart one to replace gear lube with restoring old cars but that is what I did back in 05'.
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12 hours ago, NTX5467 said:Quote
The ltd slip units are "unlocked until they lock", as a governor weight has to swing out to engage the clutches (with different wheel speeds happening), unlike the old PTrac units with springs (either 4 separate springs or one S-shaped spring) that were "locked until they unlocked/slipped to go around tighter corners. It was usually a lh turn that would cause issues as the clutches tried to slip but usually didn't. That's what the old PTrac additive was supposed to fix. GM had a special pn lube for the PTracs, but went to "normal lube + PTrac additive by the later 1960s-early 1970s. Then a "universal rear axle lube" later on.
These limited slips were the old school limited slips with clutch paks and spring paks. The force of the gear teeth act as ramps and put pressure against the clutch discs to keep power on both wheels. They acted like a regular diff around the corner unless you stomped it to get the gear teeth ramping up against the clutch discs. They ran them for a short period in the Trailblazer/Sabb/Bravada platform on certain packages. The GM limited slip additive wouldn't fix the chirping. Mineral oil would right away. They were playing around with different stability systems and the G80 locker wasn't that compatible back then. I have now idea now but I know the pickups still offer the g80. That is the one with the flyweights that lock the rear end up completely under 30 mph. Nice unit for a pickup and I bet I could still build one blindfolded.
Early on the switch to synthetic caused the front pigs to weap at the axle seals. One of the fixes was to lower the lube height under the fill hole by 10mm. That helped. The synthetic seems to weap in the old cars even more than regular lube. Most the seals are single lip or felt and not as effective as the seals designed for it.
We were told fuel milage was the reason for the synthetic lube. Could very well be other reasons but everything about every part was cost. They wouldn't have done it if they didn't have to. I wish I could go back and spend some time on the tester that would tear up ring and pinions. We weren't testing those but several would fail before our parts would. The mineral was going away when I was there early on. Shortly after it went all synthetic. Synthetic probably took higher heat but our temperatures were controlled with heat exchangers. I can still smell that stink when the synthetic went up in smoke.
Our 31' Buick with 140 in the trans and differential gets 14 mpg running 55-60 mph for hours on end. I can't complain about that and wouldn't run something thinner to try for better. Maybe getting into the 50's the thinner oils might be better designed? Tolerances are still the same though. .006 ring and pinion backlash has been a rough rule of thumb throught the decades.
Enough babbling, I'm glad to see you progressed this far on the project. That torque tube is a pia for the Buick mechanic. Great ride though.
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Here is some probably outdated info that was from the mid to late 90's. GM switched the trucks axle lube from mineral to synthetic. Probably 80-90 weight but I'm not positive anymore. This was a fuel milage change. The gear testing that I ran back then would show the backsides of the pinions and thrust washers with more gauling than with mineral lube. It didn't affect the life of gear testing it just show more abrasive wear like it didn't protect as much under load. It didn't matter for our testing it was just something I noticed but my "production part approval process" parts passed the durability tests with either oil.
I'm sure this could be and has been addressed with additives to the synthetic oil.
Another huge problem we had was with limited slip packs squeeking during that testing. We had to use their synthetic gear lube during the clutch pack testing. The machines would start chirping after the wear pattern was established. I didn't run those particular machines unless someone went on vacation or such. They were trying different additives to the base syn. lube to stop this chirping. We found that regular mineral lube would stop this chirping instantly. But... that wasn't an option and they had to develop additives that wouldn't chirp. The customer complaint would amount to an SUV turning into a parking spot the limited slip would chirp around the corner.
For these reasons I use a premium mineral based 140 weight in our diffs and transmission and haven't had any trouble. We run the cars in Michigan from april to November so their is some 40 degrees operation. I see no need to run a thinner oil and the 140 keeps some of the drips away.
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I'd run Brad Penn or Schaffer's racing oil at a straight 40 weight if it's summer. In our cars the oil pressure drops to almost nothing with multiviscosity oils at a hot idle. Straight weight keeps the oil pressure up a little more in a heat soaked engine.
I also run Marvel or Schaffer Neutra fuel stabilizer in our cars. They both lubricate the valves which is a good thing.
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I'd go with base/clear or urethane SS. Acrylic enamel would be 3rd.
I would'nt bother with Laquer anymore. PPG still sells Duracryl but I've had a lot of problems with it using it to repair 70/80's restorations. I believe they removed the lead from the system and it's fussy as heck to whether it will lay down or crack instantly. We never had problems with Dupont lucite doing what this does now. Maybe the cheap nitrocellulose laquer isn't fussy but it also doesn't last that long either.
Restorer 32 - 8-10 years ago I made the paint samples your thinking about making. I used Centari, Base/clear, laquer, Dupont premier SS and all were black. I sanded and buffed each one. I had car clubs come in the shop and nobody could tell what was what. The laquer was usually picked last and the Centari was usually picked first. It was all splitting hairs though and bet if I got them out and wiped the dust off them I couldn't tell which is which. Our 31' Buick has base/cleared front and rear fenders and laquer on the body. Everything is rubbed out and you can't tell the difference. I still use it as an example to a blow hard that brags about the new paints looking fake. Cut and buffed paint is cut and buffed paint.
I'm painting two black cars in the shop right now and one is base/clear and one is Single stage. The parts are hanging next to each other and look the same. I went with SS on one because it is our car that will be a driver and I wanted to spray 4 coats of paint instead of the 7 it would take for base/clear. The other car was having the belt mouldings a different color so I used base/clear. SS can a be a little cheaper since your buying one paint and your spraying 1 paint instead of the extra coats of base. SPI is what I use and I feel they have the best products available at any price.
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I like the creativity. Something we would have tried in HS if we had the stuff lying around. Cousin had a 70's Thunderbird on a 4wd chassis with the huge Cadillac big block. I can't remember the cubic inches of those but they were around 500 ci. Terrorized the dirt roads runnin over stuff. Oh, the fun before the eyes of the world were able to watch every move.
I'd take that thing over most of the stuff I've seen at the Street Rod Nationals.
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Tom isn't wrong. I don't know the exact differences but was going to replace my 248 with a 262 that I have but read they are different. I read it over on the performance straight 8 forum.
I have both engines but my 262 has a dynaflow on it and I've never gotten around to pull it and check it with my 248. Flywheels are made everyday though, it just might cost a bit.
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Surely an early 31' as later in the year a single bumper replaced the upper/lower bumpers. I know for sure it's not a 90series as it's to small.
Our 31' 96C has dual cowl vents just like those.
The hood sides on a 31' are louvered and the 32's had vents that could be opened.
Velocity Channel Ruins Wheeler Dealers
in General Discussion
Posted
I know a guy that was on the show and purchased a vehicle from them. He said Edd was a jerk to everybody on set. Maybe he was just having a bad day.
Chasing Classic cars should be changed to Chasing Micro Cars. Ditch Wayne and his fascination for tiny cars and just show Roger working on stuff. He makes the show watchable for me and I liked the Minerva episode. Otherwise it's been Pebble Beach and clips of whichever auction company is sponsoring him.