Buicknutty

Today I had a fair bit of driving to do, I had to drop my son off at his sister's place an hour's drive away, then see a gent about some work he needs doing on his '40 Buick coupe, plus some extra stops. With temps in the mid 80's F I decided to use the Electra to see how it performs on longer highway trips with the AC on, plus the inevitable traffic jams, etc. going through the city. The total mileage for today was just over 150, and basically it did fine. We ran into several backups but nothing really radical and the temp got above 210F a couple of times but came down quickly once we moving again. It started excellent every time even hot, and ran pretty well. The qualifier on this is that it has a slightly unstable idle at times. I was checking the timing the other day and it is not stable it goes back a few degrees from time to time, and comes right back virtually instantly. This is a rebuilt distributor with about 6,000 miles or so on it, but it looks like it has issues as everything seems tight on it. Quality does not seem to be what it was! If I have to replace it again I'm seriously considering a rebuilt later model electronic unit, even though the look is slightly different. Any thoughts on this? Here's a shot of the mileage on it as I pulled in my driveway a very cool number I think! Keith

Just a quick update on the '55. I finished the paint on the lower part of the body a couple of weeks ago and we have been doing a bunch of little things on it, including getting some of the side trim back on. Here's a shot of the left side which looks much better now! Getting a set of correct steel rims for it was more difficult than I expected. I thought I had a full set, but a couple turned out to be bad so a couple of friends came the the rescue, only I had to drive several hours each way to get them! Now they have been sandblasted and painted and await tires, which hopefully we will get next week. After a bit more tuning it is running much better and actually feels a lot more driveable now the limited space we have to test drive. Keith

We were out with a local car club for breakfast this morning then a tour to a historic mansion in Brantford Ontario. Called the Yates Mansion after the original owner and builder of it, who made his fortune in the early days of the Canadian railroads. Sadly he passed away around 1923 and the family remained in the house, but these were the days when they had servants to do everything so the cost to run it were high and they ran out of money rather quickly, and the grandfather of the gent who now owns it bought it in 1927. It has stayed in his family ever since and he restored it to it's full glory in the 1980's and he rents out portions of the property to cover expenses. He is a lifelong car guy and had 20 or so cars there, plus another dozen stored off site. He is in the planning stages to build another 20 car or so garage on the property. We drove the '41 Roadmaster and like Matt's '41 Limited it ran and drove great, it was the second oldest car on the tour, with the oldest being a '31 Chrysler coupe, but nothing else came close to our vintage with the rest except for a mid 70's Chevy Caprice were 80's and up. A good day for driving, decent weather, not too hot and my wipers work just great so a but of rain doesn't worry me. The cars were so packed in there it was tough to take decent pictures, but here are a few. Keith

Today we met with a bunch of others from a local car club for a corn roast at a member's place. This gent has an expansive rural property with lots of grassed areas for parking and mature tree for shade. The deal is the Club supplies the corn, burgers, sausages and then the other items are pot luck. So I made a pineapple upside down cake for a desert. We drove the Electra and temps were in the mid 80's F so we ran with the AC on and the temp stayed 190-195 the whole way there and back. Not seriously challenging driving with 55-60 mph speeds and fairly flat country with a total of 145 miles round trip. Here's a picture of it at my friend's place. For a short time there was an Olds parked beside the Pontiac, but I didn't a shot of the three makes together. Keith

Folks; I didn't have a close enough at this thread, but Canadian cars didn't have the breather tube from the valve cover to the air cleaner, so my guess is this is a US car, and someone just painted to dash brown. Keith

Thank you very much! I suppose it gets over shadowed by my others lately, but I have had it since 1976 and have driven it every summer to one extent or another. In '91 we drove it the BCA National in Sacramento Calf. Keith

Yes, Canadian produced Buicks, McLaughlin Buicks, had full wood grained dashboards instead of the US cars with a combo of engine turning on the instrument panel and glove box door with the rest of it wood grained. A look at the VIN tag will quickly tell the story if it's US or Canadian built. Having owned and driven a '41 Roadmaster coupe for the last 10 years and putting about 12,000 miles on it I can't agree with Matt more. These are remarkable cars to drive, amazing for their age. With the style of the car power and performance of the big engine puts many others to shame. My opinion of course! Keith

The other day we had the Electra out for a 70 mile drive on a warm day, high 70's and it cooled quite well at a variety of speeds. Now tomorrow it is supposed to be up around 90 so I'm hoping I have the time to take it out for a long drive again. No pictures of the Electra this time, but maybe tomorrow if I take it out I'll take one or two to share. Then tonight we took the '56 Roadmaster out to a local cruise night, about 30 miles round trip. This is the first time I've had this car to an event of any kind in maybe about three years. There were 150-200 cars there and it was a beautiful evening to be out and about. I've posted a couple of photos of a '47 Mercury truck, a Canada only model, nicely done up, with a modified flathead, and an International Scout beautifully restored. Then I came home and did some paint work on the '55 Special, but that's a different thread! Keith

Folks; The title says it all! Ours are rather rust ravaged and I'd like to replace them, so good rust free ones, or at least decent ones so would be appreciated. Please let me know the price, and note shipping will be to Canada, I can give specific address info when you respond. We need the uppers and lowers, ie long and short arms. PM me also if you post a reply here. Thank you. Keith

As the work is slowly progressing on the '55 we decided to finish the painting on the sides, so it at least will look a wee bit better going down the road. We are just doing the section below the beltline and are keeping it black. We had all of the door panels off, except for the driver's door so we took off the side trim on the doors which are easily done. Graham wasn't a fan of taking the driver's door card off, so I'm keeping the peace and leaving it on and are just masking off the moulding. Likely this won't be the final finish, he is still debating that, but the rest of the car is nearly ready to go for the mandatory safety inspection so we can license it. When we got the fasteners off of both rear doors is when it got interesting. The left door has two less fasteners than the right door. They both have small screws on each end, which on the front edge was a devil of a time to get off, but it got done. Since we haven't taken the front moulding off the left door we don't know if has the same number. Here are pictures of the left and right rear doors. Has anyone seen this before? There is no indication the car was ever hit, unless the damage was confined to the one door and it only was replaced? Keith

The other thing I forgot to mention is the fan clutch I replaced in 16 or 17 with a NOS one but the way the temp goes up in brief stop I suspect it's failed now. So something else to do!

Thanks everyone for their input. The timing is set a touch advanced, but it's also not stable when idling, and this is a rebuilt unit just a few years ago, so that bothers me a bit as to why it's doing that. My experience is usually this is due to an internal problem. I recently discovered the newish vacuum advance had gone bad so that's now replaced. The total advance seems to be coming in at about 35+ at 2000+ rpm. So I don't know if that's a bit low for total advance, as it's not pinging on the highway under accerlation. I get thinking about changing the distributor to one of the high energy electronic ones. Does anyone have thoughts about doing this? The comment about not knowing, is exactly what I was thinking during the drive yesterday as my son was duly reporting any temp change to me, but if I was just driving with the stock light I'd have no idea till the light came one at 246F. Maybe even with a less accurate gauge. We are seriously considering driving out the next year's National in Portland and am thinking about driving the Electra though the gas cost is a major consideration. It needs to be as strong as possible to make the cross country trip. Thanks again all! Keith

So today some more tinkering with Electra. Specifically I changed to the high performance water pump. When I had it on the car before I didn't think it did much for me, but now with the high density four core rad it certainly helped compared to yesterday's drive. The ambient temp was similar, just a pinch warmer, 82-83 F instead of 80-82 F. We (my son rode shotgun) drove the same roads at the same speeds to start with, and the engine temp ran 10-15 degrees lower with no AC, and at about the same point I turned the AC on so we rode in the cool air, and the engine ran about 10 degrees warmer, ie just under 190, driving 55mph. I gassed it up then went the rest of the way the main highway to run at higher speeds for about 1o miles back to the secondary highway which leads home. At 70ish it ran about 200 consistently till we pulled off and then 190 or so at the 55 or so for the 20 miles back to the house. So this is much better than before, but I'm not sure it is still as good as it should be. The cooling system is super clean inside. Anyway, here's a quick picture of it as we paused at the side of the road. Keith

Tonight I had the Electra out for a late afternoon drive after a bit of tuning. The previous vacuum advance had quit working, so a new one was needed. Though it's not like the other one was very old, maybe about 5 years or so. It was a warm afternoon to evening with temps in the low 80's. The car ran great, though I still don't think it's cooling properly, so tomorrow I'm going to install one of the high performance water pumps with TA Performance and see if it helps, especially with the big rad it now has. The AC kept us nice and cool too! Something like 25-30 miles though I didn't take close note of our start mileage.

Beautiful!

I had lots of Buick fun this weekend, but you folks will have to trust me on that! We got my son's '55 Special running again and drove it around the property a bunch and it's running much better than before, though it still has a bad cylinder so it's definitely not up to par. Now it doesn't bog like it used to, but the kickdown still didn't engage. Then for his sake I got the '56 Roadmaster out on the road, and I'm embarrassed to say this, but this was the first time it's been out of the yard this year. So he could feel what his is missing, and on a closer look it seems as though it's pushing the rod far enough to engage it. However to get the '56 out I had to move the '16 McLaughlin, powered by a Buick six, so I took it for a quick toot around. Lastly, and this one isn't as old the others, my wife just bought a used 2018 Regal GS, with the 3.6 L engine good for 310 HP. My daughter is a motorhead too and last night we took it out for a bit of a hot lap around the lightly travelled roads in our county. With her driving it for a good stretch and in GS mode most of the time. That stiffens the suspension and a few other tweeks. Quite a hoot to drive! Keith

I don't think I do, sorry to say.

Yesterday I drove the Reatta into my old neighbourhood to help them with a basic safety inspection, which for liability reasons is referred to as a "Touring Inspection". Unfortunately there is no one left in Club with the experience to do this work. So I drove the Reatta a bit over 225 miles round trip, and they generously paid me the gas money to do this. A busy evening for me, checking the usual things so I didn't have the chance to chat with many of my old friends as much as I would have liked. It was a beautiful evening and with a good turn out. Parked beside me for a while was a lovely Volvo 1800 ES, I believe the station wagon versions are called. Now is I wasn't such a Buick guy, I just might find space for one of these little babies.

Yesterday (Sat) we had a gathering of family for our daughter's 30th birthday and I took a number of them, who'd not yet seen the '16 McLaughlin for a 10 mile drive around the countryside. It was a beautiful summer's afternoon, and there were 6 of us it, the most I've ever had in the car. It started and ran well as usual. No pictures right now as I didn't take any personally and I'm still waiting for the others to send some to me.

That is great news Larry, thank you very much. Mine still work but the electrodes look like have been repaired on a couple of them, so I'll check out the link. Keith

Wow, it sure is coming along great! Keith

Would these work in my 1916 D45 light six? Sorry for the slightly off topic post. Thanks. Keith

McLaughlin's used Northway engines in some models which didn't use the Buick engines. Unfortunately I don't have that info. Keith

On Tues night I decided to take the '16 to a local cruise night I go to, in Tilsonburg. I've often posted pictures from there before but this would be the first time I've driven the '16 there. The weather being totally clear with lots of daylight this time of year was an important formula. The started and ran great, with about 30 miles round trip. The car certainly was quite a hit! So many people crowding around it, asking questions, looking at the exposed valve train, etc. A gent took the picture of my son and I arriving, plus a few at the cruise too. Keith PS, in case anyone is wondering, my son took the one of us driving along the country road on the way home.

Not yet, though he has driven the '41 a couple of times around our property. So far he's a bit intimidated by the crash box and backwards shift pattern. We have just got insurance set up so he can drive the vintage cars on the road, on a limited basis to start with.