Beemon

Tom, Sorry to say but the 53 Roadmaster at the junkyard has been completely gutted on the inside. I've never peeked into it until now. The windshield wiper arm transmissions are also gone, but the engine bay has been left partially unmolested. If there's anything else your friend might need, then let me know. This is all that's left of the car.

When I had manual adjust shoes, I always did 4-5 clicks. Now I'm thinking it was too tight. The 56 shop manual says 25 clicks... lol

Yes I did, that's the only one I could find lol. I didn't measure the size of the cone on the original speaker. I need to pull the rear speaker anyways, but I'm going to buy two kits and do both speakers. The site has a tutorial page, too, and it doesn't seem too hard. Definitely easier than rebuilding a radio... lol John, the speaker is basically a copper wound magnet. We made them in highschool physics with copper wire and white 8x11" printing paper. Along with what Matt about environment and overpowering, the windings in the magnet can also become corroded and loose its conductivity, along with the lead wire, which can create a ground. In the case of my dash speaker, the paper was perfect but it didn't work until I replaced the lead wire. The rear speaker by observation became very brittle and just fell apart in big chunks. The foil that shields the windings has also come unglued, so this speaker may need more than just a recone. It's not impossible to rewind the magnet, but without knowing how many times it was wound, it's a bit difficult... other than unwinding 10,000 wires and counting yourself lol

Matt, I'm getting a lot of money from taxes this year by pouring all my hard earned cash into paying for college. I am ready to invest in your endeavor.

I poked and prodded the original one, there was nothing wrong with it. The rear speaker for the last 30 years was exposed to the sun, so I'm guessing that's why it disintegrated. Funny you should mention a recone, I was looking into a few kits. 6x9 is unfortunately not a common size, so trying to locate a kit that fits has been difficult.

Oh, oops. Either way, anything in the range of a 100 or so MPa will still be required to deform any hardened steel, at least.

Does it have all the bells and whistles? Compressor, condenser, evaporator? I'm now very interested in the whole ac system if you have no reserve on any of it

John, the speakers have the same mounting pattern as originals. They are just too big as in there isn't enough room inside the radio for it. It worked for Matt because he gutted his chassis and added a Bluetooth amp.

Matt, I call dibs on the Carter 4bbl if you don't already have that one in mind. My other one fell through. You said 3-groove, is that an AC car? Might want to pull everything you can that's AC off while you're there. I know KC was looking for those pulleys, but if he already has them, I'll take those as well. The power steering pulley will most likely be different, too.

Kinda funny talking about only driving domestic cars, Buick isn't even made in America anymore. Maybe that will change now that GM is dumping their foreign business.

So some good news, some bad news. Bad news is, I wasted $40 because the Kenwood speakers are too big to fit the stock chassis. It needs to be at least a half inch smaller, preferably an inch. The good news is, my speaker was the culprit all along and it just need a new lead wire! Here's a video for all those who care. Some more bad news... my rear speaker is disintegrated, so even though the front is plenty loud, I won't have both sides of the switch working. Now that I don't have to go to the radio show on Saturday, maybe I'll be able to pull one from one of the junkyard cars. While I'm in there, might be good to pull some spare tubes, too. Though I imagine anything I pull out of there will be worse for wear, but I'm pretty limited on speaker options. I thought about putting one of the two Kenwood speakers in the back, but then it wouldn't sound right to have one original and one new... I can't get a refund either, because I cut the wires that came with it. In my excitement, I had just used a jumper wire to test the speaker and it came alive, so I jumped the gun.

John, sorry I missed this. The speaker at the rear doesn't even make a buzz. The speaker in the case makes noise but it's very muted and distorted. So I got the new speakers to test. If it's the speaker, great! If not, well at least I have better speakers now.

Matt, the original speaker is 4 ohm, I measured it today. Don't be upset, but I purchased new Kenwood speakers just now from best buy for $41 out the door and the tweeter is now flush or about a 1/16" behind the mounting flange. Same part number, KFC-6965R.

There are insulators on my rear springs where they bolt to the body, nothing on the axle. On the fronts, there are no insulators.

My car has two speakers with a Front/Rear switch. I can't just leave one stock, it wouldn't sound or feel right. The meet is this weekend, so buying a new speaker to test doesn't sound too bad.

Tom, Not sure if you've seen my radio repair thread but there is a large radio expo this Saturday at the same time as the junkyard is open. I was hoping I wouldn't have to go, but it's once a year. I've tried to get to the yard earlier and the owner has been down with a cold. We're into the non-stop rains here, so he's a bit hesitant to go out to the yard. Needless to say, he will be open. I'm hoping I can get in and out of the convention in a timely matter, but just wanted to give a head's up that I might take a bit longer to check out those parts.

Those control arms will break before they deform. Cast iron is high strength, low ductility. It can also withstand high compression, but little tension. You would need to put it in a professional stretcher at 29000 psi to get it to deform. Don't sweat it!

You might have to buy a drag link repair kit, or salvage a power steering drag link, to swap springs in the drag link if they are different.

Nice plug wires Mudbone. Any chance you took a measurement of how long your new plug wires are? My engine didn't have the original plug wires, so my wires have always been either too long or just long enough... lol. Also where did you get the supplies and wire to make your own? All custom fit wires I've seen have never been stranded wire, always solid core.

Okay, so on a whim to see if the 0Z4 was the culprit or not, I opened it up today and replaced the guts. I carefully pried apart the pushed in tabs with a 90 degree pick to expose the vacuum tube. As you can see, it's gotten quite a bit of life out of it. In the 4th picture, there is some oxidation buildup on the contact leads. The fifth picture, by deduction, indicated the correct pins for the two input and one output leads. I labeled them based on the tube terminals that came out of each leg. I then twisted the two diodes together and hooked the resistor in place using method 1 above. The 0Z4 can had a cardboard sleeve in there (my girlfriend decided to label the electronic condom), so grounding to the case is not an issue. After that, it was just a matter of pressing the tabs back in place. Fired up the radio and... no change. All tubes are getting the correct B+ voltage, so now I've got to wait for the tube testing/replacing this weekend. I'm also going to need to replace both speakers. As it stands, the rear speaker does not work and I can't just replace one speaker... Luckily, there was a thread not too long ago where Matt contributed a Best-Buy Kennwood speaker, so this will be my next task after the radio is up and running. My only regret so far has been ripping out the electrolytic capacitor. Everything else looks stock from the back, and I suppose you can't look up to see it in there, but the replacements are quite ugly as it stands.

A lot of people have said that the bias-ply tires that are being made now are show quality only. Unless they are officially DOT certified and have a printed date code, I wouldn't use them unless the car is being trailered.

That must have been something to see. Usually its me every time I walk in to AutoZone and have them look up the part so I can go to NAPA... lol. Unfortunately, the do not sell vacuum tubes. The only local place near me is at the Canadian border, 2 hours away.

School at the community college for me ends on the 22 (getting done a quarter early), but I have to drive 5 hours over the pass and into the east on the 25 so it can't be more than a hundred bucks. Which is a shame, because I think radio work is fun and would like to do more for hobby work. I'm hoping there will be a booth there that will have a tube testing station so I can bring all my tubes and see which ones are really bad, and hopefully find replacements. Also thank you for the kind words! Maybe after this, I'll tackle a steering box... lol You bought tubes from RadioShack? When was this? All the RadioShacks around here are all liquidized - not enough of a hobby in my area to keep them I guess. I'll have to pull a reading again, but I did my research and apparently the "blue flame" is the electrons hitting the side of the glass, indicating the heater is working. The tube may not be bad after all. I'm almost thinking the 0Z4 is only rectifying half of the transformer since there is a buzzing noise. Also looks like I need to pick up a set of hobby alligator clips. Don't worry man, when you get to this part of the restoration, just know that others have blazed the trail for you and we're here to help! Radios are simple, just need to trace the wiring diagram and figure out where everything goes before tearing into one.

Back with some news! The place I bought the vibrator from (the one Matt linked to) said delivery in 2-3 weeks, well it showed up today and I got the chance to place with it. Original vibrator is obviously dead, so time to gut it out. At this point, I have to say I felt like I had the onset of Parkinson's trying to solder that micro chip to the original wires. They say the unit never needs to be serviced, that it's the be all end all... I've heard that one before, so I made sure I had an easy way to pull it back out. Just double looped a piece of string and inserted the chip with it on the bottom. If I ever need to get it out, just need to give a light yank. I then filed the burs off the can from opening the sides up so it wouldn't cut the string, and pushed it down into place over the string and everything, for a clean original install. The manufacturer said that the chip doesn't generate any heat, so I'm not worried about it. After all was said and done, I was a bit hesitant to turn the radio on. Did a final check to make sure there weren't any shorts in the B+ side of the radio. Everything checked out fine. Turned the radio on, warmed up and - very faint static. I could tune into a radio station, but I could barely hear it on full volume. There was also a slight buzz noise. Not a vibrator buzz, but probably a transformer buzz. AC voltage was in the ballpark. Turns out, the 12V6GT lit up in a blue flame on the inside, so I shut down the radio immediately. My grandfather swears he's never been in the radio before, but there was a spare 12V6GT tube in the glove box (it was missing a pin, didn't seem to matter). Turned the radio back on, nothing had changed. Then I noticed that the smaller tube shown (12BE6) was burned on the top where the heater is located. A quick search shows that these two individual symptoms are tell tale signs of bad tubes (obviously lol). So now I'm at the point where the radio functions, but the signal is not being amplified. I guess it's all tube work now, and without a tube tester, I'm now at the mercy of replacing every individual tube. On the bright side, I might get some spares. One step at a time. I'm really glad at least the 0Z4 tube is functioning. I think playing it safe while I wait for the radio swap meet this weekend, I'll make a solid state 0Z4. Interestingly in the documentation that came with the VBN-1 chip, it said to use one 470 ohm resistors with 1N4007 diodes vs two 220 ohm resistors in series. Both will work as resistance is additive in series (440 ohms total with two 220 ohm resistors). The 470 ohm resistor sounds more clean, but I also like having two resistors in each leg. Either way, it's to reduce the B+ voltage just like the 0Z4 rectifier tube. Attached is a diagram I made.

Terry, your post count is how many times you as an individual has contributed to the forums over the years. It is below your profile picture on the left.