Buicknutty

I'm not sure this entirely qualifies for this thread, but I'll post it anyway. My son and I got the '16 McLaughlin, which uses the Buick light six of that year, and related running started for the first time this year. There's a wee bit more to getting it going than the newer ones, but once we got it all oiled and the vacuum tank primed it started easily and ran just lovely! This car is amazing as it starts and runs so well it is hard to believe it's now 106 years old! Hopefully we will get it out for a drive in the near future! Here's a picture of it taken last year in front of the mansion of the man whose company built my car. That's my son in the back seat of it. Keith

Monday night (Last night at this writing) we took the Electra to a cruise in at the small resort town of Port Dover, on the North shore of Lake Erie. This is the first time I've been there since 2019. There were about 170 cars in attendance and it was a perfect night to be out. Other than my Buick there were quite a few other ones there as well, with a nice '64 Wildcat, a few 60's Skylarks, then a beautiful '37 Pontiac convert which has been in her family since new. A few nice Fords too, including this Bronco II, and the sharp looking black and yellow (with matching interior) '57 Fairlane. I drove a Bronco II for many years, bought it new in '87 and traded it in, in '98 on another Ford! There were lots of these little trucks around, but like so many other cars the rust worm took most of them. Then there was this '41 Chev coupe, very nicely done too and with body lines so much like my '41 Roadmaster coupe. The latter of which I was going to drive, but I'd been working too much during the day my hands were aching badly, so the feather light power steering on the Electra won the day. Keith

The guide we follow is that each group (club chapter) does it to the best of their ability.

Marty; there is a check list to go through, and it includes the basics like lights, signals, as applicable, horn. A look under the hood that everything is secure and there is no evidence of fuel leakage. We also lift each front wheel to check steering components, and play in the steering box, etc. Emergency brake test, and pedal height of the service brake too. A look and listen at the exhaust system, as well as possible for leaks and missed or degraded hangers, and a sniff for fuel leaks at the back too. We don't want to call it an actual safety inspection as it is not as through as the Ontario Govt standard is. We don't pull wheels, etc., etc. However it does give a fair idea if a car is in decent shape. I've done this service for another club (I don't check my own car at these meets, for obvious reasons) and have found very worn steering components on otherwise rather lovely looking cars. It takes some effort to do this, and the Club has to have a person who is either mechanic or knowledgeable enough to do the front end checks. Keith

Today (Sunday) was a local club's touring (safety) inspection meet today, so I took the '41 Roadmaster out for the first time this year, then went back home and got the Electra. Both cars passed with flying colours, by the way. Not a lot of driving on either one about 30 miles on each along a nice good country highway. The Electra is pictured beside my friend's '32 McLaughlin Buick. Keith

I do follow your posts, Roger, even though I only post from time to time. Your work so amazing and you are so forthright with the things which don't work so well, at least at first! Keith

We (my son and I) took in the first cruise night of the season on Tues evening. This was perfect weather, not too hot, low humidity with clear skies. The place was packed with a recorded total of 259 cars! I drove the Electra, a round trip of about 30+ miles along some nice secondary highway. The only kind we have near here. Here are a few pictures, my yellow Electra, then a nice LeSabre convert which I'd not seen before, a Grand National which is summertime regular. Then a couple of non Buicks, a Jag XJS convert., a fav of my wife's, and a special edition 007 Thunderbird, one of the last series. This car was interesting, not just because I like them but I got a fender for the '41 Roadmaster off of a gent who had one of these. Only 700 were built, I've been told and the one I saw was perhaps an hour or so's drive away. I talked to the owner but it seems like it's not the same car.

This is a quick picture of it after last night's test drive. Don't worry about the missing wheel cover, I left it off so I could double check the torque of the lug nuts.

Thanks again, Sebastien! These are really great road cars amazingly quiet for a 50+ year old car and the ride is so smooth too. The down side is of course they require regular "feeding", but they need to good stuff, not regular. The steering is very light, and does take some getting used to. I am so looking forward to hearing that you are finally driving yours. Your work is looking fabulous, so hopefully soon you will be able to drive it. Keith

If the date is correct on the previous post it has been exactly 2 years since my last update! Since then the gent who did the work on the A/C for me a couple of years ago installed a fully rebuilt compressor for me last summer, and it works well now. The auto climate still works nicely, but it does take a couple of minutes to think about it first. We have our first local cruise night coming up in a few days, so I'm doing a bit of repair and maint on it. Oil change of course, and the replacement of the left side brake reaction rod bushings as I changed the right side, which were really bad last year. These weren't nearly as bad, but since I had the parts I decided to just change them out. Then of course the sway bar bushings were looking a bit tired so I did them too! Tomorrow I have to have a closer look at the wheel bearings as they seem a bit loose. Keith

I look forward to everything in the Bugle, but this will be extra special! Plus some it will be great inspiration to keep restoring our '68. Keith

Though I'm not too much of a poster, we have been making progress on this. I'd managed to get the correct muffler for it, and then with a bunch of mucking around we got it in, the tailpipe on and all the hangers in place. Now she is so much quieter, no leaks and it sounds like a Buick now! Lots of little things as well, and one of the mods a previous owner had done was to put a manual choke on it. It works, but the thing which wasn't hooked up was the fast idle, so cold running was problematic. So I bought an electric choke conversion for it. This is a mod I've thought about doing on my '56 as it's choke hasn't worked quite right, like for ever. In the case of the '55 we are trying to return it to good stock running order. As part of doing this mod the person drilled out the hole which is on the choke shaft. This relies on a lug on the lever which goes to the fast idle cam to hold it in place. The only thing I could think of was to fill it with braze rod, then drill for the 1/8 in shaft then carefully work the key way into it. I wasn't at all sure this was going to work out, but it did!!! Now it all works properly! The choke closes, fast idle works, choke opens when it should, and so on. The march continues to get it ready for an Ontario safety certificate in a while, one by one we are crossing things off of the list. Here are a couple of pictures of the choke parts. Not the prettiest I suppose but it works well! Keith

Finally I have my cars out and about! We took the Reatta to a couple of events on Sat., and drove it nearly 300 miles. Not too bad a day, but we had a couple hours of rain, but it is water tight and the wipers work well. Great to be out and about doing car stuff again.

Good looking work Roger, success then!

I have to wholeheartedly agree with you on that. Now of course I'm an owner of a '41 Roadmaster so I'm not totally impartial, but these are great driving cars. Keith

That certainly is good news Pete! Beautiful car too. Keith

Work is progressing slowly on the 'Cat, but progressing it is. My son and I have spent quite a bit of time working the old dent in right the side from a previous accident. To facilitate this I removed the quarter window and channels, what a job on this car! More difficult than the older ones I'm used to working on. One issue I had was though I could push dent it out it would pop back in without too much pressure, but with the window and related parts out I could properly dolly the actual scrape out and shrink that small part of the panel back into shape, well close to it anyway. This really doesn't show in photography, and it doesn't look so different but it has had many hours of work done since. Now the panel is stable again and will hold it's shape. I also made up a hardwood form and dollied the patch panel, and the form was shaped for the gentle curve on the outside, as well as the wheel well. Of course there are quite a few dings to fix in the are once it gets welded into place. I've cleaned out the old body filler from the holes which were punched in the panel for the previous dent repair. I think my best bet is to clean them out with a slightly larger drill then carefully plug weld the holes. There is a reinforcing brace which runs from the door jam to the inside of the wheel well, which was rusted out. That is now partly made up as well, so I'm nearly at the point where I can start piecing it back together again. I have a fairly well equipted wood shop as well, an older gent in the area was selling off a planer and associated stuff, which I bought up. So this little panel brought most of that into play. From the chainsaw to rough cut the wood into planks, the planer to smooth them out, table saw to cut to size, the hand planer the get the gentle curve, sander to smooth things out, and jig saw to cut the shape. I do like wood working, so all of that just wasn't for the sake of the car, but it is what I used. We have a large lot which had many Ash trees which became infected and died of the beetle. So I cut a few into planks for use in some projects, so this piece was from some of that. Just in case you want to know! Keith

Great story about an awesome car. Keith

I'm trying to avoid doing that, to be honest, though it could be argued the car might need it. The original goal was to make a nice driver out of it, as the value of these cars doesn't warrant the expense of a full blown body off project. To do that I'd be better off starting with a better car, and using this one as a parts car, but my wife liked this specific car as she remembers it in the area where she lived before we were married and admired back then. Of course a never seems to be as good as one would hope for, my experience is it always seems to be worse! The engine runs very nicely, but I will change the timing chain and sprockets too before doing any amount of driving with it. Thanks John. Keith

So after a very long hiatus I finally got back to work on the Wildcat. It is now on the lift so I can get to work under it, and one of the first things was to clean out a lot of the stuff which had got pushed into it over the time it's been sitting around. Then I have to get my brain up to date on where I was when I left off back in 2016. As I said previously we have collected some of the things we will need for the car, and a former owner of it found a piece of trim in his basement which he bought for it but never installed, so he gifted it to us. One of the issues was the door fit, as back when it had body work in the past the body mounting pads had rusted out, the ones under the forward section of the trunk, however they just nicely patched over the holes in the trunk without repairing the actual support. So the body had sagged and to the point where the top would not close. The other good thing was it didn't sag very much when the lift picked it up, something I was concerned about. Due to time and conditions back in 2016 I didn't have the body shimmed properly, so we (my son and I) got that sorted out, and then the door gaps were a bit better. We also conducted a number of chassis measurements and determined that the frame is in good alignment. Then with the car on the ground and sitting evenly I did some door adjustments and got them fitting pretty well. The passenger side still is just a shell without even the latch, and the drivers side is still the original, rusty and has been fixed already. I have a good rust free one to go on, but at least I know I can get doors that fit well now. I started on an area of the inner fender near where I left off, cut some of that out, then got curious about what was under all that body filler. So a lot of it came off with a chisel, then used the sander to strip a bunch more. This showed some evidence of impact damage, as well as rust repair. The wheel well section has been replaced and nicely brazed in way back when and still doesn't look too bad. There was a scrape starting just back of the door and I can see the weld marks where rods had been attached to pull the sheet metal out. However it was still nearly a half an inch deep. The balance of the front part of the quarter wasn't too terrible, some is savable, but the rocker doesn't look so good. So here are a few pictures of my work tonight. It's a pretty ugly quarter panel that's for sure! Keith

Thank you very much! With this car, or any sedan of this type there's no money in it, not that we do this for the money, but to pour a ton of dollars into this car you'll get yourself so upside down so quickly on the final value it's nuts. Plus my son, being a young man wants to drive the car sooner rather than later. Keith

Well work is progressing slowly on the car, but we got all of the reconstruction done in the back, and now it's cleaned and painted. I used the Bill Hirsch paint, as I went over areas where there was still some surface rust to seal it all up. This is not a full restoration, but we are trying to get it safe, legal reliable and stabilize remaining rust with coatings, then oil spray when we're done.

It is looking fabulous Ken, can't wait to see it finished.

I'm just catching up here, nice looking car you got there. I also have a '41 coupe, but a large series. Welcome, and I'll be looking forward to seeing more about your car. Keith

In all of the years I've been following your work you never cease to astound me time and time again. Beautiful work and craftmanship. Keith