bobj49f2

If you're still looing and have Facebook check out this. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/291295640586992

When I installed the manifolds on my 248 in my Special I read a lot about the end bolts snapping do the movement of such a long manifold. Both end bolts in my engine were broke off. I spent some time with a spring punch pounding on the bolts to shatter them. The front one was broke off too deep into the block to weld and nut and washer on it. I finally got them out and cleaned the threads on all of the bolt holes, I replaced all of the studs. I did further reading about suggested ways to assemble the manifolds to the head and it was suggested using a graphite slurry not a gasket sealer. The slurry would allow the manifolds to move some. I also used new Bellville washers. BTW, Never Seeze is what I used, if you read the label it made up of graphic and a few other chemicals. I have not had a chance to run my engine for any amount of time so I can't say how this works. I just followed the suggestions of a few members here that have a lot more experience than I do.

You'd make up a form and cast new mats for around $200? That's not including the few mats I used trying to perfect the mat. Wow, that would be a great deal! When Steele and Bob's sold them I think there price was in the $900 range. They didn't have wide enough forms to make the mats in one piece, you had to clue a triangular piece into the mat.

What do charge for a set of mats for a '37/38?

My lasted progress on the running board mats. I glued the mat on a beat up running board I have. By doing this I was able to determine if there were adjustments needed. I will make a new mat and glue it to a new running board I made.

Here are some interesting videos on the straight eight if anyone is interested. https://www.youtube.com/@Hagerty/search?query=straight eight

I ran into problems with the material I used to make the above mat. The quality of the rubber mat started to fail and the company went out of business. I switched to neoprene rubber and it's about three time the cost but seems to be working better than the rubber mat I started with .

I have finally nailed down the procedure for making running board mats. I am going to make one for the other side to see how that comes out.

I don't have any concerns on what to use to adhere the rubber to the board. I made a sample piece and used contact cement to glue and have had it sitting outside my shop door for about a year. It has been exposed to rain, sun, snow and people walking on it and it looks as good as the day I made it. The question I have is what did you do with the raised rib that runs down the center, the area I have circled. I am making new boards for my car so I don't have a concern but if I can nail down the procedure to make these I plan to offer them for sale and potentially will be selling them to people with original boards. I want them to fit properly without a lump running down the center. One suggestion is to use a layer of body filler to gradually taper the area to the side of the board. The rib isn't that high.

I'm surprised you haven't gotten any nasty replies by the diehards on this board for altering the originality of your car. I find it an interesting write up. I have a Frankenstein '37 Special that I've installed a '40 248 with dual carbs and a Lloyd Young OD. I have yet to have it on the road but I hope it will be an interesting car when finished.

For those that have used the rubber running board mats that Steele Rubber and others used to offer how did they fit over the raised rib that runs down the middle of the running boards. I'm in the process of making new mats but I don't see how you can glue them on over the rib. I am also building new running boards that won't have the ribbed area but I would like to know how the rubber mat made by others fit.

When I installed the manifolds on my '37 Special I used the Belleville washers, I bought them on eBay, they were listed under Jeep parts. I also applied the silver never seize paste on the gaskets. I got this information on previous posts here. Someone suggested using a graphite slurry which never seize it if you look at the side panel of the container. I have run my engine long enough to have to do another adjustment. You won't find the torque specs in the shop manual. I got this from a MOTORS shop manual. The shop manual says to use an 8" wrench and tighten the nuts until the wrench stops moving which is dependent on whether the person doing the tightening is 120 pounds or 300 pounds.

You can try to fix it yourself following this artical: https://www.ply33.com/Repair/tempgauge

I have many times jump started my '49 Ford truck with a 12 volt vehicle. The one time it died at a nearby grocery store and had my son bring his newer Ford truck with a Power Stroke diesel to give me a jump. That was not the ideal vehicle to use. The power it takes to start and run a Power Stoke made my truck sound like the engine was ready to fly out of the truck. Way too much power but a typical 12 volt powered car will work fine as long as you turn everything off before hooking up the cables. I take the cable off as soon as the truck starts, the charging system doesn't like the added power and makes a ticking sound. One more thing to think about powerwise. Anyone use their cellphones when touring around in their old Buicks? I made a very simple charging port in my Ford truck. I use it to keep a charge on the cellphone as I'm using the GPS feature. I just bought a simple power port, cigarette charger type, and ran a fused circuit to it ( the case has to be (-) and the center post (+). I plug my charging unit into and it works great. All a charger needs to see is 5VDC to charge the phone. My truck is positive ground so I have a piece of plastic to insulate the mounting plate to the underside of the metal dash and nylon bolts to fasten it. You could also find a plastic unit but I thought the metal one looked a little more period correct.

Dave is a great source for Buick parts. Great guy to deal with. Kemps makes very good reproduction metal panels but for some reason I had trouble accessing their website, they have an eBay presence, you should be able to contact them through there: https://www.ebay.com/str/kempsrodandrestorationinc Classic to Current advertises floor panels and few other items but their pictures of their panels don't look like a stock Buick floor. https://www.c2cfabrication.com/products/1937-40-buick-series-40-special-front-floor-pan-lh?_pos=3&_psq=1937+buick&_ss=e&_v=1.0

I rebuilt the motor mounts on my '37 Special using a pourable elastomer. I would use the same material to do running board mounts. http://www.fatfenderedtrucks.com/motor_mount_rebuild.html I like doing as much as possible myself. Currently I am working on making my own running board covers using rubber mats and my CNC router.

I know this is very late notice but didn't see the ad until today. https://bid.hansenauctiongroup.com/ui/auctions/95797?query=buick

I administer the '37/38 Buick page on Facebook. It's almost a full time job trying to keep the trash out. I average about five scammers a week who try to get in. I have qualifying questions they must answer before they can join the page. At first that seemed to work pretty good but now they tailor their answers to give acceptable answers so they can get in. I also check each new members personal profile page and again, they have gotten smarter and will have some fairly generic posts and their friends lists seem normal. Once they get in and I find they are scammers I delete their posts and boot them out. The funny thing is there are many very observant members on the page that will spot the scammers before I do and will post that these people are scammer but members will continue to ask about items they are selling even after they've been called out as scammers. I posted a few simple things I do on FB, or CL or anywhere else that seem to work pretty good. Maybe not 100% fool proof but they seem to work so far. 1) Ask for a phone number to talk to the buyer or seller. I've found out most scammer will not talk to you on the phone. 2) Use Google and search any picture posted on line to see if it's been used on any other website. I've found about 80% of the scammers on my FB page use images from other websites and the items are usually listed far across the country than where the scammer is stating they are located. 3)If someone has an item posted on line ask for additional images of the item at different angles. If a scammer stole images from another website it's very unlikely they'll have additional images from different angles. Have them send images of them in front or next to the item. 4) Many of us belong to on line discussion boards and we've made friends all over the country. Find a discussion board friend who is near the item for sale to take a look at it in person. I've done this a few times on high value items. I would do it if someone asked me. If it was something like a complete car and it was a short distance from a friend offer to send him compensation for his time and trouble. Better to spend $100 than lose $5000. No guarantee that these will work but they've worked for me and save me from losing money to a scammer.

I'm late to the discussion about the dual carb but thought I'd throw a couple of my set up just for kicks. After talking to Jon, the Carbking, I was able to find a matching Stomberg carb for the back. I also bought kits from him to rebuild both carbs. I have a '37 Special with a '40 engine and the dual carb set up from another '40-41 Buick. My car is a Frankenstein car. I used aluminum blocks to level the carbs. Simple to do 1/2' thick aluminum bar, power miter box saw, a drill press and hole saw and a friend with a simple mill. I also made brass block off plates for between the two manifolds. Bob's sells the brass block off plates for single but not for dual carbs. I don't have the car on the road yet but I can start the engine and it seems to run great so far.

Yeah, I have a lot to adjust. For some reason the two of the bolts that fasten the end of the torque tube got stubborn and wouldn't go in all of the way. I had the car on the at the time and have a severe neck and arm problem that hindered my ability to move and lift things. Once I get the car on my lift I'll run a tap through the threaded holes and get the two remaining bolts tightened up. I also have to rerun the brake line from the hose to the rear brakes. The original '37 drive line is very different than the '38 drive line with the OD installed. I never had the e-brake cable hooked up, just had the cable from one wheel to the other wheel.

Matt, I am fairly certain you've seen my posts on the Pre-war forum but for those that haven't I'll recap a little. I am building a Frankenstein '37 Buick. Started with a complete rusted out junker, got a better frame, better body, '40 248, '36 transmission. Basically the only things form the original car I kept were the two front fenders and radio. For some reason I tent to do stupid car things like this. Anyways, I am trying to build a somewhat period correct modified car, dual carb set up, overdrive unit and I thought dual exhaust would just add to it. I'm not a hot rodder, usually stay all stock but since this car was a beast from the start I thought I'd give it a try. I bought an exhaust kit consisting of four straight pipes, four 45°, four 90° and four 180° bent pipes, all 2.25 piping. I also bought two long stock sized mufflers. I have friends that have gone this route on other old cars with success and I don't shy away from fabricating parts, have welder and grinder, will travel. The "X" pipe I have came with the dual carb set up but since the later Buicks had their engines sitting at a slight backwards angle, the '37 leve, the "X" pipe goes into the frame, I will have to cut it and alter it to fit the '37. I could modify it into the traditional "Y" pipe and run one single exhaust. My main goal is to have a quiet car, I don't want a noisy, rumbling hot rod. Thanks for the pictures and any other advise you have to offer.

I have a '37 Special with a '40 engine with a dual carb set up from a '41/42 Special/Super. I want to install dual exhaust but I'm not sure how to run the pipes. The dual carb set up I got has a modified "X" pipe, standard is a "Y" pipe, so I'm thinking someone had dual exhaust on their early '40s Buick. I'd like to know if anyone is running dual exhaust on their mostly stock '37-42 Special. If you did I'd like to see how you did it.

I got the OD in the '37 Sunday night. It was a one man job to pull the old drive line out but it helped to have help to install the "new" drive line. I'm having some medical problem with my neck and arm which hinders my ability to do somethings like installing a very heavy drive line into a car. Fortunately my wife was able to offer a little help. She recently broke most of her ribs on one side so she also limited in what she can do but together we got it in. I just wanted to get as much done to the car before I went under the knife next week.

Just an update. After I got the overdrive I took it with me to a local gearhead gathering, basically a local guy's shop where guys gather on a Tuesday to drink beer, eat junk food and BS about what they did with their cars. There is one guy, Doug, who knows a bit about differential set ups. I talked to the guy and he gave me a 30 minute course on how to adjust the lash on the gears in differential, very interesting conversation. I showed him the OD unit and just with a casual look and movement of the gears he thought the gears were pretty loose. Now today, I wanted to install the OD in my '37 but before doing that I wanted to make sure it was properly adjusted and called Doug and he was kind enough to come to my shop and take a better look at the OD. He brought with him an indicator meter and some specialty tools. He checked the lash and it was way off and tried to adjust it but one bearing cap wouldn't turn very easy so we pulled the bearing out and inspected and cleaned it up. We did both, one at a time. The bearings looked pretty good and once they were cleaned and reinstalled the adjustment went easier and he got the gear lash within tolerance. He spent a little more than an hour at my shop and did it all for no charge. Hopefully I can install the OD tomorrow.

I didn't get any email notices that there were responses to my post and was surprised today when I decided to check in and see if they were any responses. Thanks to all. Interesting information and suggestions. I did have a local guy who is know to have set up a few rear axles in his day take a quick look at it the other night. The first thing he noticed is the gear lash, he felt just by moving the ring gear by hand it was a bit loose. He gave me a pretty good lesson in adjust gear lash. Very interesting, always hear guys talking about it but never really knew what they were talking about and how to properly set it. I haven't gotten a chance to compare lengths of the OD set up and the tube in my '37 Special. I was told the OD unit is out of a '38 Special. Fortunately I parts out a '38 Special a couple of months ago and kept the axles in the hope I would be able to find a set of Century gears to install in it. I then fell into the the OD unit. Jim, thanks for the information on Glen, Circleville Ohio is about 500 miles from my home in SE Wisconsin and wouldn't be that bad of a drive to take it to him personally if I needed his help, I've driven farther in pursuit of car parts. Also, thanks for the suggestions for lube, I haven't tried to find what is needed so you saved me a lot of time. This unit does have the roller chain coupling. What really impressed me about this is the machine work on the coupling housing. I've been around machined and this has to be one of the best pieces of work I've seen. It is absolutely perfect. I have a governor from another OD I bought a while back that fits the whole, don't know if it's the correct one. I have another friend that built OD units for Model As that said he omits the governors in the units he runs on his car. I'm fortunate I know a few local guys who know quite a bit about older cars and will help me out getting this unit set up and installed.