dibarlaw

Thanks you Brian, since I am involved with the 36-38 group also. I could not have said it better myself! Larry

jg: Congratulations on the 37 McLaughlin Buick! I have owned my Flint made 37-41 Buick since February of 1987. At the time I knew of the 2 previous owners which took the trace back to the late 1960s. I don't know how Canada is for finding previous owners through their motor vehicle registration but in the US it is nearly impossible. Even law enforcement is not able to get old records since the individual states destroy these records over time. The best thing to do is to try to contact anyone you know who has had contact with the car. I have no record of where my 1925-25 came from the previous owner. He had it for about 11 years and said he bought it from somewhere in the Minn. or Wis. I am still trying to find a lead. I have been working thru the Buick Club The 1936-38 Buick club and the AACA library to find listings of cars registered in old shows. But my cars were not show cars and may have only shown up at local meets. Good Luck

John: Sorry to say my trip was for naught. The store front where this was is now empty. The bookstore owner in the adjacent building said they moved out last month and may open in another location. It does look like the one in the photo Scott posted.

Leif is correct as usual. I did not look at the same 1923 Book of Parts I sent him. The only photo I had of a car with a trunk that did not have a cover on it was this 1923-55.

Bob: Looks to be what would go on the 1923-1928 Model 55 Sport touring. Would love to have a Buick Sport Touring ! This is a 1923-55

John: I will check today. There was one in the window of a resale (junk) shop here in Chambersburg, I thought at $800 it was quite a stretch for a glorified lawn mower. The price had been coming down. I will take my camera to get a photo if it is still there.

Joel: Thank you for posting about your journey into the restoration of a wood bodied Buick. I just came across this thread and it only reinforced my decision to pass on all the cars that were for sale with "just a bit of bad wood". I know I had the skills to do this type of work but not the facilities and space required to manage this type of undertaking. I have been working on just a small fraction of bad wood in the drivers door of my 1925 Standard touring. I taught Industrial arts (now Tech Ed) for over 30 years. I do not regret retiring but I do regret not having access to a fully equipped wood shop with space. Will we see you at Chickasha?

Scott: I sent you all the specs I was given from Leif Holmberg. Were you able to open them? If the thickness at the hub is 1.59" (39-40mm)then I can use it and would like to buy it. Larry

PM sent with my specs.

At that price depending on how it was mechanically it was a reasonable price. You will find many more D45s. Not so with D-55s. Not that I could afford it. Terry had been working with me about an E-45 near him. Still over 1,200 miles away. Today I looked at a 1927-24 Roadster. "Barn find" with a 60 year old fix up restoration requiring a total re-do. Only 25 miles away. Too much work and not enough room to do it right.

Terry: I just retired from teaching last June and have been wanting to get there. All my Buick buddies who have posted here convinced me that I need to go. Now we finally have the opportunity. We have our reservations for Newcastle OK. We hope to be there by Wednesday afternoon and may get over to the meet.

The same fellow with the 1938 LaSalle was who recommended it to me.

I had a shop do some "Driver Restoration" work on my 1937 Special. They said they cleaned the block. They had the radiator sent out to be cleaned and other than the lower cast iron outlet fitting seeping a bit. all was good... This was in summer 2012. They promised to have it ready to drive to the Buick nationals in June 2012. It was delivered to us in September. They could not trust it to be driven 50 miles. After 6 months of "Tweaking" we were finally able to drive it to the 2013 Nationals in South Bend. The car had overheating issues the entire trip. We did short trips within an hour or two from our home and the car still ran hot. I did the normal seasonal flushes etc. When we tried to drive to the 2015 Nationals overheating stopped us after 56 miles. Embarrassing tow home. Apparently leftover crud from the block let loose and plugged the radiator solid. So I pulled the "New"freeze plugs, back flushed the block and radiator several times. My radiator guy could not rod it out. I had a new core made. I Back flushed the block again and used EVAPO RUST to do a thorough cleaning. After all that you bet I put in a filter (GANO). Last September we drove the Buick to the 1936-38 Buick Club Tour of the Nashville area. Water temp rarely went over 160 degrees even though it was over 95 degrees each day of the trip. After 1,555 miles I checked the filter and there was still rust and scale being caught.

The 3rd car up from the bottom is a 1925-25 Buick. With side curtains.

Thanks for posting. Why are all the nice ones over a 1000 miles away. It will be interesting to know what it goes for.

If the transmission has been apart. (Things can be replaced incorrectly). If not I would look to a slipping clutch.

As we who have commented. All it takes is BOD approval accepting Larry's generous offer to set things in motion. How can we help make it happen?

My stock geared 1937-41 was cruising all day at 55-60 when we drove to Nashville last Sept. Over 1,500 miles. No more than 55 up hill and tried to keep it a 60 down hill. And yes it is a workout for these cars. It is much happier at 50-55. I know the feeling that at 35 mph the engine revs sound as if the car is waiting for you to shift to the next gear. A little faster and all feels in harmony..... I love it.

I thought I would take a look. My feeling on the special was... revulsion! I have seen a few modified Buicks that I could say I truly liked (very few). But now it has 31 bidders.

I also cleaned my head and block. Flushed it repeatedly. My pre winter season service this year I put in "evapo-rust". It worked great for a final cleaning on my 1937. Ran to Nashville TN and back during 95 degree weather. The water temp stayed at 160 most of the trip. So I will see what the spring brings. Prior to all this my radiator guy said my radiator was also clean. Still the car overheated. Not until I had a new core made was the problem solved. I still have to get to redoing my water pump as it is pretty scored. I can drive around town all week and a drip or 2 will show up. But on a long hot drive the packing nut loosened up after a 50 mile trip. Water was pouring out of the packing.

My 1937-41 has over 108,000 without the head off. Still has over 90 lbs. compression. I did check and brought the bearings back into spec. Only had to remove .002 shim in most cases. Looking forward to many more miles.

Dave : Good to speak to you last night. As soon as the weather warms up we will get together. Since you say the seller started and ran the car for you on a "nurse tank" we know the entire fuel system will need redone. The good news is that it does run. But before that, the first order of business I would remove the oil pan to clean out and check the bearings. Not just change the oil. People love to get cars running that have sat for ages and tend to do the most damage before these things are evaluated. After things are cleaned up below, a good cleaning /lubrication above on the valve train. Then I would feel better about doing a compression check. If all is well up to this point then the cooling system transmission, rear axle, suspension, brakes and electrical will need to be attended to. All before you think about cosmetic enhancement. I know you stated that you are not mechanically inclined. You told me your goal was to be able to drive to a local car show 4 miles away. Well if you wish to drive a car like this then by necessity you will become mechanically inclined. To have a car driven safely on the road it should be able to be driven reliably much farther than just 4 miles.Or as some hobbyists who have the means to do so, have their "guy" attend to them. In my old Buick garage I am the "guy". I have done all the above on my 1937 and 1925 Buicks. The hardest was re-doing the clutch on both the 1937 and 1925. Not too bad a job if one has a lift. Not so easy on jack stands and a creeper. Even after doing all the above, each time I take my cars out there seems to be some issue to be attended to. Remember your car is now 89 years old. You indicated that it was fixed up in the late 1950s. It was around 30 years old then with still plenty of old timers to work on it and some parts availability. So far I have only had to be towed home twice. Once for each car. Each time it took over a month to either find parts or have services farmed out which was beyond my ability. Welcome to the world of antique cars.

I do love these cars and I would have gone farther about purchasing it as the asking price seemed very reasonable. Still a full days drive for me.I have found that patients has been a virtue since some earlier Buicks have shown up recently. If we were going to take on a project we really wanted a brass era Buick. This 1919 is a still a project. I worked with a gentleman in Kansas that has a very nice 1980s restoration 1918-E45 that I offered on for closer to $10K. It was not running with all the same mechanical issues this 1919 would have. I told them to leave the car alone as I wanted to work on it myself. Knowing that once other people were involved I could no longer afford to buy the car. Considering that it was half way across the U.S A..They did have the car cleaned up and had the fuel system redone. It will still need some heavy servicing and wiring as well as the cooling system. I believe now they are asking over $18,000. To me this 1919 is more interesting as to it's originality.

Here is one on the 1913-31 Buick I inspected and made an offer on in November. To me, not to bad considering the heavy, stiff vinyl that was used when the car was restored in 1955 . Still not very appealing geometrically and it felt quite uncomfortable to sit upon

Dave: I had not looked at this thread for a while. I am so glad you got the car. And only 20 miles away! I will get in touch as I would love to help. PM sent.