Beemon

Squeak could be from worn through spring insulators. Curious about the Blistein shocks, because I have Gabriel classics on the front and Monroe on the back and the ride isn't what I feel is being advertised. Are they stiffer or is it more of a soft, controlled recoil action similar to the old oil filled shocks? How much did they run you?

32 to 35 is where I set mine.

afraid to get your hands dirty? I kid! I wish I could afford gloves, would make my hands less sticky after playing with lube. How'd you paint the pieces? Correct is aluminum base plate with semi gloss body and plain cast iron head. Fasteners and plunger throw out arm are cad plated, from my observations. The unit I pulled from the junkyard also had the solenoid body painted semi gloss, too. Did you ever find a replacement solenoid boot?

NAPA part number UP80803 is the correct spring. However, it seems GM discontinued this spring in favor of UP80579, which I found locally in a NAPA parts book labeled 11-13" override spring. Dimensions are correct, donor vehicle is a 94 Chevy Blazer. Hope this helps someone who's looking! Note: last picture is the 94 Blazer kit that shows even though the arm is shorter, the holes for the hold down and spring hole are the same. Why this spring does not show up in the catalogs for this vintage Buick is beyond me, but it is the correct spring. Glad to have good working hardware!

I wish! It would have to wait 2 years when I have time to do major work on a car again. Just a bit difficult to store something when I'm 5 hours from home and can't even store the one I got! ?

Tonight I rotated my tires for the 5000 mile anniversary of them. Since I had the wheels off, I pulled the drums, too, to inspect and clean behind the backing plate. The same drum that overheated last year had more problems this year! Pulled the drum and the shoe was in disarray! Hundreds of micro cracks and a large portion of material missing. The piece on the ground is the piece I removed by hand without effort. The other piece was no where to be found... good thing I had a spare set of shoes on hand! Tires rotated, brakes adjusted, bearings repacked and I'm on my way. I'm looking in the next day or two to do an oil change. The rear driver side backing plate gasket is leaking some axle lube. Thankfully it's coming out of the weep hole and not dripping on the drum and contaminating the shoes. That can wait though because I just found the right 3.36 rear gears! So when they come in, the 3.23 gears will be my back up set if/when they ever need to be used. The 3.36 gears I found look to be in better shape than I recall the 3.23 gears. I know its not a significant change, but the Buick engineers felt it was necessary for high compression 4 barrel cars and that's good enough for me. The pick up off the line will be back, too, as I've missed that with the 3.23 gears. On top of this, ill be getting two straight torque tube strut rods, so hopefully my rear end won't be sprung anymore. Tomorrow or Wednesday I'm hoping to setup a home made alignment shop at my grandfather's and spend some quality bonding with the Buick. Since all these tire shops are hopelessly incompetent if the car is not in their computer (just asking for a tie rod alignment here, throw me a bone), I'll be wrapping four jack stands with twine and trying my best to triangulate the wheels with aluminum pie plates under the wheels. Should be pretty easy, however with the amount of play I have in the wheel, it will be a bit difficult to find dead center on the gear box.

Does anyone know where to find these override springs? I had one stretch on me while at school and being back for Spring break, I was going to repack the bearings and do a suspension lube job. All of the kits from vendors do not supply the override spring and no one sells them. I do not like using fatigued springs..

The "bearing thing" is the bendix clutch. Rotate the bendix, if it makes a groaning noise the clutch is bad. If it's smooth, you're good to go. Those don't look too bad. The starter on my car came straight from the junkyard, the same donor as my power steering pump. Go buy a scotch brite pad from your local grocery store and just rub down the oxidation and corrosion on both the field coils and the armature. New brushes should be fine. If there's little to no wobble in the bushings on both ends, don't sweat it. The starter isn't used all the time like a generator. The important part is going to be new brushes and making sure the solenoid throws out AND spins the armature.

If you can't find a sleeve, there's always JB weld. Worst case scenario, you could have one spun on a lathe but that's probably big $$$. Hope all goes well, I'm still looking forward to this car ripping up the road at peak efficiency!

Matt, I would ditch the power disc system, more trouble than it's worth. Find yourself a donor 56 Roadmaster and swap front backing plates, then find 58 to 60 BALL BEARING 12x2.5" front aluminum drums. That thing will stop pretty well with that setup! Dual exhaust will be difficult I imagine, you might have to cut up the frame. Im the end, I look forward to this build! You might want to look into a dual quad manifold to give yourself some extra ponies.

Doug, when was the last time you've been to Seattle? Wouldn't exactly call it beautiful, more like cesspool these days.

Thanks for sharing! No we haven't completed this year's car yet. We're horribly behind schedule and probably won't have it rolling until mid March. I am hoping to go to Michigan this year. We have a reputation to up hold, win or lose Cougs still booze. Thats really cool though! All our old cars get cut in half and mounted on walls. I don't think anyone has ever bought a chassis and rebuilt it. Having no restrictor would be really cool as I know these motorcycles are deadly fast. Keep me posted on the cars progress! This weekend I came home for spring break. At my half way fuel up in Vantage, WA, the car threw up. I'm starting to wonder if the car isn't getting fed up to and when it's shut down, the pressure goes through the rear main. The photo was after I shut the car off at the gas station. I'm not sure if highway pressure has anything to do with it. I also found metal on my dipstick so it looks like we're on our way out. I need to find myself a late 60s Riviera soon so I'm not left without a Buick if I have to dig into this engine.

I think the air box plenums were coated with some kind of rubber under coating or something similar to insulate the engine heat for cool air. The boxes I've scraped at the junkyard reminds me of the same stuff I scraped from one of my fenders. Looking good!

I dread the day I have to explain to my grandchildren what Halo is...

The exhaust noise on a dual exhaust Dynaflow car does shift in tone when the secondaries kick in.

I have only had about 2 years I the hobby thus far and I distrust any and all mechanics and restoration services and shops. I have been burned at every corner in my journey. If the shop says they can do it, they just want more $$$. Everything I've had rebuilt or worked on "professionally" be people with "years of experience" have failed me all except for the Dynaflow which was built buy a young, humble Latino man who was not much older than myself (mid to late 20s) and had no experience himself with Dynaflows and worked in a strip mall transmission shop. My only complaint is the front seal dribbles a bit but it's nothing to worry about because the dipstick level never changes. Those who claim to know, know nothing and those who claim to know nothing, know a lot.

John I really think it depends individually on the engine, not some thing to quantify without knowing every tolerance in your engine. For example, my old engine I could advance timing to 7 degrees and run 87 ethanol and never had issue. This original unrestored engine only likes 5 degrees and 91 ethanol. Granted the two internally are completely different, but I only drive with ethanol and the advertised 9.5:1CR really only favors 91 octane otherwise I get pinging going up steep hills at 40mph. When I was talking about the difference of 7 octane, I was speaking in terms of ethanol specifically. Ethanol free is expensive and way out of the way for me so I never use it except for special occasions or if it's in my way.

This is a picture from a HAMB thread of a 425 Nailhead cylinder head that was cut apart. You can see how close the seat comes to the waterjacket here. As for nickle content in cylinder heads, I have not found anything from Buick Motor Division that states what the cast iron alloy used for their cylinder heads and block are. However, since I have a few ruined heads, maybe I'll bring them back with me after spring break and do a Rockwell test to see how hard they truly are. I've also been told that Nailhead spring pressures aren't as extreme as other engines of the era because they have relatively low RPM numbers.

I think he's eluding to the potential failure of hardened seats due to the thin waterjacket, and then having to find another pair of useable heads and having those rebuilt again, but without hardened seats.

That's just one of those things where either they work or they don't and no in between.I feel they would look nice on Buicks because the sweep spear would hide most of the same but it's hard to say if they don't complement the change in height from the door to the rear quarter.

I'll definitely make a tally now after every fill up. I would consider a cost report, however I feel like I would disappoint myself. What's the difference between a 1956 Buick and a 2002 Jeep Liberty? 7 Octane.

Same color as my Buick. I hope one day it looks just as good. Is that sheen just how paint looked back then or was that a specific polish technique?

My grandfather had a 1941 compound carbureted Century that I think would be fun to own. Other than that, maybe something with a 401/425 or a 430 would be fun to drive - something to spin tires with without dropping in low around a right hand turn.

It is 285 miles from school to home and I've migrated 2 times already this year and will be heading back for spring break nest Friday. I've already amassed 1140 miles so far with another 570 on the way, and then of course my trip to Michigan in May if I drive and summer break. 2500 will be easy this year

Also check for hardened seats.