Buicknutty

This is what happened to the '68 Wildcat my wife has, only they were completely rusted out. When the car was last painted in the early 80's it seems the body shop did a simple repair, they cut them out and did a nice patch over that area in the trunk! Of course this car is a convertible and the body sagged to the point where the top wouldn't close! I agree with you it's a terrible design, and especially here in the north where they get bombarded with salt and sand, so they're bound to fail. Keith

The temps have been up and down here in Ontario, and when it gets cold at nights they tend to salt the roads, and/or use the brine on them so I've been very leary of taking any of mine out for a winter's drive. Though we are supposed to get a lot of rain overnight so if it clears tomorrow or the next day I'll try to take on of the babies out for a drive. Keith (John, that sounds like a perfect name for your Super!)

Great to see an update on this, Micheal! As an Electra owner myself I love what you've done to the car and wish you all success in 2023. Keith

Awesome work! The car is looking fabulous! You must be getting very anxious to have it on the road and drive it, I certainly would be. Keith

Thank you very much! We do our best.

This thread inspired me to take the next newest car, the '41 McLaughlin Buick Roadmaster Coupe. This car was also built in Oshawa Ont, and I finished the restoration of it about 10 years ago. A great driver.

My son and I took the 1916 McLaughlin D45 out for a drive yesterday (Sun) as it was such a nice afternoon and around here we might not get another one as nice, we stopped for a quick photo op and he took this picture. Keith

Over the weekend, I had my two oldest cars out for a short drive, the '16 McLaughlin and the '41 McLaughlin Buick. (The '16 uses a Buick engine and running gear, just fyi) About a dozen miles on each, so not a lot of driving but it was a lovely weekend here in Ontario with temps in 70 F range. The cool thing as we were coming home and were stopped at a stop sign a gent at the opposite sign waved to us and shouted "Can I take a look?". So of course I said yes, then offered him a ride which he gladly accepted. Part of my intent when I bought the '16 was to share it with others, by letting them sit in it and give rides where possible so folks can get the experience of early motoring. He was very surprised at how comfortable it was riding in the backseat, and how roomy it is too. It was well after dark when I drove the '41 so the pic is taken just after it was parked in the garage, my wife's Wildcat is in the background. Keith

Thanks, yes, I'm very pleased with the look of it too. I feel much the same the same way about it as well. Keith

It got a fair bit of attention, but it wasn't a judged show so other than door prize draws no awards were handed out.

After some debate between me and my son I decided to get some paint custom mixed to get as close a match as possible to the paint which is on the car and spray the rear sections which are still in primer from the body work we did over the winter. The debate was about whether or not to leave it as is till we are able to do the whole car but I wanted to get it looking better and not so much like a patchwork quilt. I believe it was painted in the 80's or so, a single stage and what's on it would seem to be a mistint of the original colour. We do want to return to the correct colour but to do a nice job it will take quite a lot of work to correct all the little issues. There was an upcoming show on last weekend (Oct 16) and I thought it would be cool to have it painted by then to drive it there. This is pretty much the last outdoor event in the area till next year. It took a couple of tries to get a good match but we did in the end. Over I'm extremely pleased with the outcome. I also buffed the old paint which brought the shine and colour back up to be closer to the new stuff. Honestly was not trying for a show car shine so I wouldn't make the new section look too much out of place. They also mixed in a ready to spray format and it worked great. In this case I didn't use hardener to avoid potential problems with blending the new to old. I had run out of masking paper so I had to improvise with newspapers etc. The only other thing we need are the emblems, new ones are on their way from the US as the old ones came off in pieces. The originals had been stuck on by the previous folks. Keith

We took the 55 Buick of my son's to a larger local show today, and annual event which is partnered with a local Fall Fair, called Pumpkinfest. This is close to home as it's only about 10 miles each way so 20 miles or so total. I had just finished painting the quarter panels and then a buff on most of it which brought it up pretty well and helped to blend the difference between the old paint and new. The cars repainted sometime in the 80's or so we believe, as it's definitely not the original paint. The turnout of cars was incredible nearly 1,600 I was told. So many beautiful cars of many makes and models, but I've pictured a few of the Buicks, of which there was quite a number in attendance. I've also included a couple of pictures of a rare beastie, a 1954 Meteor glasstop. Rare when new. The Meteor was a Canada only models, a lower end car with but based on the Fords and Mercuries of the time. The more pedestrian model were quite popular in Canada and I had a couple of later model years in my early days. Keith

Amazing work Roger! Your craftsmanship is without par. Thanks to the internet and you sharing this, I'm able to see your work even though I'm thousands of miles away in Canada. Keith

I also took my '69 Electra out for an afternoon drive to the gas station. I'm embarrassed to say how much I spent for a similar amount of gas here in Ontario, Canada except to say not quite as much my friend above. About 45 smooth miles all together. Keith

We had an interesting Buick day, or rather afternoon. Graham and I finally had the underside of the replacement hood cleaned and ready to paint. Then the adventures began! The regulator on my spray gun malfunctioned and but I thought it was the spray gun, so I grabbed another, and it didn't work right either. Finally I took the regulator off and presto, we have spray again, instead of dribbles! Good thing this was just primer (epoxy) or else the paint job would have been trashed. I'm still on the fence as to how far to go, but I'm thinking of getting a quart of paint mixed to paint the quarters which are in primer so it looks more cohesive. When we do a complete we will take a lot of time to strip and fix all the little imperfections on the body, etc. So a biggish job that I'd like to leave till we get the engine sorted out. After clean up and supper we decided to take the '55 out to fill it up. This time Graham did the deed! It is only the second time it has been to a gas station but we only put a partial tank in it last time. Here's a picture of Graham about to fill it up. He is driving the car more as well which is good as these cars drive quite differently from modern ones. On that subject I'm more and more pleased with how this car is turning out. It drives smooth and quiet, no wind noise at 50- 55, we haven't had it past 60 indicated and the speedo seems to be just a few mph optimistic which is typical in my experience. Only about a dozen miles on this one tonight. With the dead cylinder it's pretty chuggy off of the line so we take it very accelerating, but it smooths out about 30 and cruises at 50 with just a crack of throttle, so we are looking forward to getting the engine fully sorted. Next year's project! Then the Electra kind of needed a spin around the block and I decided to go far enough to get it to flip over 54,000 miles, so about 20 miles on the Big Girl tonight.

Sorry no pictures yet, but we had the Electra out on an all day Club tour, ending at our place so folks could view our small collection of (mostly) Buicks. Silly me never took note of my start mileage but the total must have been something around 150+, quite a lot of driving for a secondary highway tour anyway. Next Wed we expect to be on another one, as long or longer. Either the Electra again or maybe the Reatta will be our ride. Keith

So far we've had two Buicks out this weekend. Friday afternoon we took the '55 to a lady who sews upholstery so she could see it and give us a price. Last year I had bought some original fabric from S.S, and that's the part which is bad in a few spots. Overall she thought the condition of the interior was surprisingly good and she is feeling vinyl sections are reusable, with only one small section needing replacement. You might call this a sympathic restoration as we trying to do as little as possible and retain as much of it's originality as we reasonably can. Of course one can get carried away on things, so we will see how it goes. At least this woman wants to keep it simple and isn't trying to up sell us on this or that. She is an older lady who is considering retiring due to the physical actions of her work. So we have agreed to take the seat covers off for her. Which of course saves us a bit of money too. Then Sat morning there was a Wings and Wheels show at the local regional airport and we drove the '41 out for a few hours. Nearly 400 hundred cars showed up. They were offering airplane rides in Harvard's, a WWII trainer aircraft, but neither of us took the opportunity! Just after I parked we were swarmed by quite a number or people who admired the car and wanted to talk to me about it! I was surprised that quite a number knew the name McLaughlin, as it is technically a McLaughlin Buick, but it identical except in a few small details to the US model 76S. It ran great on the way out, but after sitting in the lineup to get in and out it was running rough and didn't clear up on the 20+ mile drive back home, so I guess it's plug cleaning time. Total mileage today was 45. This get me thinking about running two front carbs like Matt and a few others have done instead of the rear secondary, which often seems to not work quite right. No pictures right now as they are still on the camera. Keith

Tonight was the last cruise night at the Tilsonburg cruise in, where I go every couple of weeks, so being a decent afternoon, cool, and the rain had lifted so I wanted to make sure I attended. Since we had just got the '55 on the road We decided to take it for it's first cruise night! Also a trip to the gas station on route, which must be it's first visit to such a place in a long time too. In this case we did 37 miles on it tonight which is it's longest trip so far. The sunset on the way home was spectacular and we took the time to take a few pics of it. Here I have to do a full disclosure about the picture of the '55 with the sunset. The sunset was actually in the other direction and the sky behind the car was pretty boring, so being a retired Photoshop pro, I switched skys, and I really like the altered version. Hope no one minds. Keith

That's what I did on my '41 Roadmaster when I installed the 3.4's. Keith

After the fuel pump change all seemed well so we decided to take it out again this morning. First we did a short drive and all was well so we took it for a longer loop. All told we drove it about 25 miles today. The mileage displayed is what it is reading now after our driving today, and it is interesting as you can clearly see the fade on the numbers which have been in the same position for decades. I should have done a shot before we took it out the first time, but I forgot. Here is a picture of us changing drivers, so my son Graham can drive it for the first time on the road rather than just around our place. He did just fine, and the car is smoking much less than the day before so the rings have come back a bit at least. Keith

On the road at last! I got the safety yesterday, she passed without any issues and I got plates this morning. So we took it out for a drive around the block, a country block that is which is about 6-7 miles. It drove just fine and I had it up to about 50 mph and it drove fine and rode smooth like a Buick should. However I was leaving more of a "vapour trail" than I expected. There was a lot of smoke coming out of the road draft tube. We know it has blow by as well as a bad cylinder so it's not going to be perfect. We are hoping that it will free up a bit. So to that end we got home checked things on the car and headed out again for another cruise. However the car had different ideas as it died at the end of the driveway. Turned out it was the fuel pump. Fortunately I had a spare which I carry in the trunk of the '56 and once installed the '55 fired up and ran just fine. The ironic thing is I had the decades old one which still worked rebuilt last year, for reliability!

Well I did drive an old Buick today, and it was the '55 Special my son and I have been working on. I got the safety yesterday, and the plates this morning, so this was it's first day on the road. We had about a 7 mile drive and made it back into the driveway then we took it out again and it died at the end of the driveway! Turned out it was the recently rebuilt fuel pump. The decades old one which was still working and I sent it out last year to be refreshed. Silly me! Fortunately I had a spare one I keep in the truck of the '56 Roadie and it fired up after a bit of priming. The crazy thing is the fuel pump died on the '41 on it's first day on the road too!

Awesome progress, and you must be excited! Keith

I too just found this thread and that's an awesome find you have there! I'm following your adventure too. Keith

As the summer is drawing to a close we are trying to take in a few more cruise nights and give all the cars some exercise so we took the '56 Roadmaster out to the Tilsonburg cruise where there were 171 vehicles including the Sherp and the cira 1911 Flying Merkel motorcycle. Also a couple of gents I'm friends with brought their McLaughlin Buicks, a '31 and a '32, which made me wish I'd brought the '41 McLaughlin. This is 30+ miles round trip so a nice evening drive. Keith