Buicknutty

Thanks everyone for their input. What I have done on my other cars with small right hand mirrors is to add a small stick on wide one which gives a a wide field of view.

The car looks awesome Matt, the body look to be in very good condition. Thanks for all progress pictures.

Awesome car Matt! It will be a great car when it's done, as we all know. You certainly are making quick progress on it. I'll be interested as you post updates. Keith

Another question, maybe a silly one, but it's about outside mirrors. We recently got a Buick one from a gent here on the forum and it came with the original template but the position it indicates it should be in is at the very top leading edge of the door. The problem being is the view the from the drivers position is largely blocked by the A pillar and door frame. Then when looking at pictures on 'net, the I've seen them mounted anywhere from the middle of the front fenders to near the middle of the door. Any suggestions? Does one just mount them where ever? Thanks. Keith PS., the mechanic is still recovering from his mishap the other day, so we are still waiting for the safety to be done.

I am very sorry to hear of Linda's passing so late. I remember her well the times we met at the various Nationals I attended. My very Best Wishes to you, John, and your family. Keith

So we are a tad disappointed as my mechanic friend who understands these cars and was going to do the official inspection had an airbag explode in his face, so he is recuperating. Fortunately he is not seriously injured. Perhaps I sound a bit off there, as I am truly sad about my good friend's accident, though he is well on the road to recovery. The plan was to paint the whole car back to it's Windsor Grey against Dover white so I wasn't going to paint the primed parts of the quarters, but that might take some time so I think I'll try to get a colour match to the shade which is on it and blow it in so it becomes a half decent, or maybe decent 20 footer. Hopefully we can get the safety done soon and put a few shakedown miles on it, then do the quarters. That's the plan for now. We thank everyone for their interest and support. I hope the next pictures I post will be when it has Ontario license plates on it! Keith

We have been chugging along with the '55, lots of little things to do. Like find where in H... the license plate lights have been put!!! Finally we found them, in the wrong box of stuff, not with all the '55 stuff like they were supposed be. There is a theory that someone put them in the wrong place, but I'm leaning towards the theory that aliens are moving things around when I'm not looking. Then of course they wouldn't work, so that was a whole lot of time getting continuity to the ground. There is a small brass strap which connects the housing but there was enough corrosion to stop getting a connection. So some careful cleaning and soldering and Viola we have ground and now they work! Another little issue was the left side headlight door was a bit loose, it turned out that the small bit the screw goes into was broken. So a bit of fabrication then careful welding at very low power and it is solid again. You'll notice a small line of rust but it is otherwise solid and we will deal with that later when we paint the grey part of the car back to it's proper colour. Then it was time to get the other things sorted. New tires mounted on the proper rims with wheel covers, though they are '56 covers, but at least they look better. My son actually leans towards having hubcaps, "poverty caps" as some call them, but we don't have any, and haven't seen any for sale, plus the rims don't have the clips. So wheel covers it is! At this point the interior is back together and we are waiting to get it into the shop to have the safety done. Keith

If you are willing to pay for the postage, sure. We now have the proper wheels on it, as will see in the post. FYI, we are in Canada. Keith

Pete, these are truly tempting, however do you have any of the "Special" script which goes on each side for a '55? We have a 4 door sedan. Thanks. Keith

Just hoping someone out there has these arms in good condition. Thanks. Keith

Yes, it bears looking into again as it is tending to run hotter when sitting. I went though a couple of bad ones till I got this one off of Pete Phillips a few years ago. I worry about a long delay in traffic, hot weather etc. Though as was said earlier I am kind of micro managing the temp, but I want it to be as good as possible.

I'm not sure what year or model these wheels are from as we got the car with them on. They do have spacers and the locating studs on the front hubs were cut off when a previous owner installed them as they won't allow this style of wheel to fit. Likely next week they will come off and the stock ones will come back on. Keith

Just an addition to my earlier post about the Electra. It tended to run 190-195 most of the time and I had a blast across the highway on the way home at higher speeds and it still ran about the same temp. Now I'm waiting for a 90+F day and lets see how it goes. I have been running a 160 stat and am planning to go to about a 180-185 as it seems to stabilize 190ish unless I'm in cool air. Lastly, and on the subject it tended to heat up easily when stopped or slow traffic and the fan clutch seems to be working properly, but with a four core high density rad would the stock fan be sufficient to pull air through fast enough to cool it? Thanks everyone. Keith

Thanks Roberta, but it is completely rebuilt and it has new steel gears in it. About 7,000 miles or so on it now so it's getting broken in now.

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!