Eric W

It's been a while, but with the summer heat around here, work in the garage hasn't been very tempting. I found a few things from the vendors in Allentown. Yes, those hood emblems aren't '51, but they'll just hang on the wall... I wasn't planning on a steering wheel at all, and squeezing an 18" wheel into a 14" carry-on back was interesting, but I got it back home. I did get back under there today and disconnect the flywheel bolts (15 of them!). I even marked the flywheel & turbine with paint to keep the clocking when it goes back in, but I might have a lead on a trans from another car. I think the point of the clocking is just to keep the two trans drain ports lined up with the clearance holes in the flywheel. The photos with the wide-whites are from April when I moved the car. Those wheels/tires belonged to the 41D (sold it with the wide whites). I got the fender ports installed. Photo shows I only needed 3. Ok, 2 more wall-hangers...

A couple more...

Posting a few most closely related to the car I'm working on, but there's about 900 more where that came from... And used a better camera this year. The maroon interior belongs to the wagon.

Has the roof bracket with cutout for the radio antenna. Bought it for my 76R, but then realized the 46R/56R/76R antenna is in the top of the windshield frame, not the roof, so it doesn't fit my car. http://www.ebay.com/itm/142063228808 I'll tell you guys, make offer is set at $420. The unpainted bracket under the center section - I remade that myself because the original was cracked.

Try posting in the more general AACA forums (above the Buick ones), since it's not a Buick mirror...

The shop that did mine offered the option of big $$$ for original type core (special order ) or Aluminum for $500 or so. I went with the Al since my car wasn't going for any awards. The Al is about 2/3 as thick, but it works just fine. Not sure if this site still shows my location. Tucson, AZ with regular use above 100F air temperature.

There is one on ebay right now. 5940321 in the ad title. Says it's 51-52 Buick and 52-53 Packard. It's more than just a thin trim ring. It's a cast pot metal part to account for the curve of the body. There is another pair of lights that have just a thin trim ring listed as 50-53 Buick. I'll be back home in a week and can check my parts book for what goes on your 53, or maybe someone else can.

Below trunk lid is probably the same as 51-52. Switch is on the steering column for the Dyna Flow.

Not such a good "before" photo on this one, but I didn't even know the DYNA FLOW lettering was on the part. Soak for a couple days in the Drano solution to loosen up the grease, water rinse & wire brush to remove the grease, then a couple hours in the Evap-o-rust to get the light surface rust off, and a little more clean up with a piece of Scotchbrite to get the last of the dirt/grease residue off. Final clean w/ alcohol, then paint.

Found a before pic of those clamps. Evap-o-rust did good.

I was using the Drano as a grease remover. Not rust. Drano is caustic, so very high PH - causes grease to break down, same as what they advertise it would do in a clogged pipe. Vinegar is acid, so very low PH. I'm not sure what vinegar's reaction is - I tried it on a couple of parts a while back and it would immediately re-rust. I know another thread on here said to soak in a baking soda solution to neutralize the vinegar, but all that seems like it's fighting to use something that isn't all that great of a rust remover. How long to soak it for? How to determine correct concentration for the soda soak? How do you know if you completely canceled the vinegar action, and won't just end up with rust through new paint? I have two phosphoric acid products now - the spray on Rust Cutter from Tractor Supply & the Evap-o-rust. Evap-o-rust is a soak. Both of these products turn the rust into a black product that settles out or washes / wipes off. After trying the phosphoric-acid based products, I would recommend going with those instead of vinegar. The phosphoric acid reaction stops when the product is washed off with water, and if you dry the water off so the water doesn't cause re-rusting, you get clean non-rusted bare metal to work with, and the acid reaction is done. Both of these are more expensive than vinegar by volume, but they work more easily and the reaction is easier to stop without rust reappearing.

Got a bigger container for the Drano soak - 5 gallon. Soaked the trans front cover & diff cover. Also did the trans dipstick tube & tube support bracket. The Drano soak releases this rust-orange "mud" out from within the surface of the metal. Hopefully that's soaked-in grease. Anyway, these are the parts after soak, rinse, wash with dish detergent (to remove the Drano "slime" feel & smell), light sand with 220, then wipe with alcohol before prime & paint. On the diff cover, I also hammered out a couple of dents.

Cleaned up most of the parts today + bagged & labeled everything. Found a doubler plate in all that grime on the thrust pad bracket. Used manual scraping, wire brush, Purple Power, then soaked in hot water with a little Drano for an hour. For the spring clamps, though these were NOS, they were completely surface rusted. I didn't get a before photo, but here's the after - soaked those in Evap-o-Rust for an hour.

Well, it wasn't the circus housecat performing group, and it wasn't the water-dog dog-swimming competition, and it wasn't the knitting guild, the quilting bee, or flaming-handled knife-jugglers group... It wasn't the stamp collectors, baseball memorabilia collectors, or board-gamers convention... Not that there's anything wrong with all that...

Scraped & wire-brushed the bellhousing cover, then sprayed with Purple Power a couple of times. I'll clean up the bottom edge with a file & hammer flat the bent corner. Anyone know if this cover should have paint? If there was any on this part, it came right off with the road grime. Other parts that came off today - dipstick, thrust pad, retainer bracket. Also disconnected the shift linkage. There's no detents at the transmission at all - the shift lever just smoothly moves through its range. Speedometer cable - that's just the 1" or so ridged cap to disconnect it? I can't get pliers on that with the other hardware around it - might have to do that when the cross beam is out of the way.

I'm in! Just figured out today I had enough frequent flier miles to get there (with a whole 4 miles to spare)! I also booked room at Best Western Lehigh Valley - no problem if you knew the right answer to their "are you with a group" question...

Was the yellow & blue the factory paint on your car, or is that a respray? As for numbering removed parts, if you have the Buick documentation (chassis parts book / body parts book), Buick has a detailed code for each part that remains the same across model years (though the part numbers are year-specific or year-range specific). Cars, Inc. in particular organizes their replacement parts catalog using the Buick numbering system.

I don't plan much underside clean-up at this point. I am cleaning up the rear drive assembly, since it's out & I can roll it around. I have already found a couple of interesting paint marks. Yellow stripe on the shock arm, and a red stripe around the torque tube. I did find the oxide red on the forward axle/diff housing, as others have. This car height has been good so far - high enough to just roll the rear end out with the wheels/tires on it. I'm doing this out of order relative to "the book". Book says step 1 is remove the drift bolt from behind the starter solenoid, and that this can't be accessed from below. It also says use a special tool to drive this bolt out. Well, I lifted the car first, so this WAS done mostly from below. I saw Shadetree's post on making the "special tool". I had the starter redone on this car already, so it's clean. Wires are new too. So just pull the starter! I spent more time looking for the 11/32" wrench (for the small starter wire) than the whole rest of the job! (Blasted 11/32 wrench got in with my metric stuff.) Pull starter, access the nut on the drift bolt from below. Pull the nut. Put 3/8 socket extension on the end of the bolt, hit extension (not too hard) with hammer, and knock the bolt out. Looks like this bolt wasn't pulled all the way in last time this trans was worked on (there's evidence this trans has been pulled before - may not even be the original).

Found the plates NOS on eBay. Bob's has the bolts, so I'll add one in when I order other things...

In pulling the rear end out of my '51 Roadmaster, one of the rear suspension lower spring clamps stripped out. Need the clamp and the bolt. Group 7.518 clamp, part 1304995, 1938-50 (all); 1951-53 50-70 Series. Group 7.531 bolt, lower, part 1313973, 1938-50 (all); 1951-53 50-70 Series. Maybe common knowledge, but if you're going to pull this, it's a left-hand thread! Unfortunately, this will make your parts car unmovable, unless you throw in some kind of big bolt & plate to keep the spring on the axle...

Been a while on this one, but I haven't given up. Quick update, and then the latest part of the story - I did find a huge selection of used tires a little south of where I work, which is way to the south side of town. Had to move about 2 miles up the road due (actually back to the house where my '55 46R thread originated) and sell the '51 41D. (And unfortunately, as yet, none of the proceeds from that gets to be rolled back into this 76R.) Moving the 2 cars was fairly involved, though I guess it worked out easier than it could have. I drove the 41D to the destination, swapped the roller rims & used tires onto it, took the "good" rims/tires back to where the 76R sat, put those on. Then it sat for about a month. I don't even recall exactly what defined its "moving day", but some deadline (possibly self-created) had me make the 2-mile drive with the 76R. I hadn't driven it more than 3x around the block to that point, and my wife misunderstood my instructions (to follow directly behind me), so I found myself out on the road alone with this beast. Drive worked good for about a mile, then the trans was slipping. So I shifted to Low. It also was dropping in & out, but it made it. Since my wife wasn't behind me to hit the garage door opener, I had to stop in the street in front of the house. By the time I walked around to open the garage door from the inside, the car wouldn't engage any gear. So I turned it off in the street (perpendicular to traffic, mostly blocking the road, since I had expected to just pull right up). The driveway is only 1 car long, but too much slope to even attempt to push the car, so I hoped a little cool down would let it engage a forward gear. We made this move around 6am on a weekend, so there wasn't any traffic. After some cool-down time, I started it, it engaged Drive, and I pulled it in. I left the "good wheels" on it for about a month, and I took it up & down the street a couple of times (it's a dead-end street, so no around-the-block). It would "slip out" of Drive and Low. I didn't try reverse for far enough to see if that one slipped as well, but going through the manual, this symptom is likely low pump pressure, which could be from seals dried up from 30+ years of not being driven. The "good wheels" had to go with the 41D (they're the wrong size for the 76R anyway), so about a week before the 41D sold, the basically undrivable "roller" wheels/tires went on the 76R. After a couple of months of getting back into this house (installed tile, painted a few rooms, unpacking, etc.) it's about time to get back to doing something on the car. Since the transmission has to come out, the rear end / rear suspension has to come out, so the car needs to be lifted - high. I rechecked Shadetree's '52 thread for his lift experience, and planned the attack. I did a test (pictured) with a single 2x4 (which are well under true 2x4) over two 4x4's at 16" apart (about 9" open span). Didn't even creak. So I know each corner can sit on a single 2x4 over a base 16" wide. Why 16"? Because I can cut 6 16" sections from an 8-foot board length. So I bought 4 8-foot lengths of 4x4 and 2 8-foot lengths of 2x8. I also bought an 8-foot 2x4 - I didn't know why yet. In the picture, you can see what the 4x4 and 2x8's turned into - six "lift platforms". Four of these have the 2x8's spaced to the outside (gap between them) because I thought the gap in the middle could make a good lift handle, and with the other lift platform on top of it, I wanted the 2x8's at the full 16" width for maximum stability. How it went - jack on ground, lift one front corner far enough to insert lift platform. Do same for the other side. Jack on ground, lift far enough to put jack stand under each rear corner (well in front of the back wheels). NOW I know what the 2x4 is for - a JACK lift platform! I had 70" of 4x4 left over from something else, so I cut this in half. Then I cut the 2x4 into 16" lengths. I also had maybe another 5 or 6 2x4 scraps I could cut to 16" lengths to make a "deck" over the 35" 4x4's for the jack. I set this deck on maybe another 2" of particle board and jacked the front corners high enough to stack the 3rd and 4th lift platforms over the first pair. Then jacked the rear (with jack on platform) to put the jack stands on the 5th and 6th lift platforms. This gives the car almost perfectly level with 25" between the frame and the garage floor. Book says 20" minimum to pull the transmission, but I don't know what they assume for your transmission jack. (Car would be almost 3" higher in front with the correct-size tires!) Followed the manual's instructions to pull the rear end. Of course, the last fastener that I did (the left-side spring retainer) was an absolute beast. Due to built-up junk on the bolt thread, I basically ground the thread off in getting that bolt out. I'll post in for sale / wanted - need another one of these (the bolt & the spring retainer plate). By the way, these spring retainers are left-hand thread! I found that completely by chance because after spraying the PB Blaster and letting it sit for a little, I like to attempt to break loose the thread a little by applying some force in the "tighten" direction. In this case, that's the "loosen" direction, and when the bolt turned left-hand style, I knew I could just keep going! Anyway, rear end is fairly straightforward to drop. I expect I'll need help to get the drive shaft lined up to get it back up there, but the pull down wasn't that hard. When the rear tires were down on the ground, I just moved the jack around under the torque tube so it could roll back. I lowered the jack down, and after fumbling around with the front of the torque tube on some 2x4 scraps, I remembered I have wheel dollies, so I put one of those up there. Also put a fluid catch bowl up there. It's leaking what's probably ancient trans fluid out the front of the torque tube.

That manifold price is well, not good. What typically breaks on these is the exhaust manifold, so intakes by themselves are NOT rare. If Ben doesn't come through for you, let me know. I have one of those 263 intake manifolds "just sitting around". Haven't even thought of selling it because well, it's the exhaust side that breaks... I'd get it off my shelf for value of my time & materials to make a box + shipping. Looks like the mice or whatever dumped a bunch of nuts or nut shells into that cylinder, especially after seeing the broken side of the manifold. I'll bet you can get that engine moving again.

Was just looking back through this for Robert's transmission posts as I contemplate dropping the Dynaflow out of my car, but just last night I was looking at an Autoweek from March 2016 that had a feature on the Leadslinger. Now 94 years old, and still working! I'm not saying one should skip all PPE and ignore what we now know about lead safety. You say "still vertical" - man, his story is something else. He spent time at or near the end of high school in an institution where they physically straightened (or attempted to straighten) his spine by strapping him down to a flat surface and holding tension on him for the daylight hours - every day for 2 1/2 years! They also removed 2 vertebrae. If he's 94 now, that would have been just before WWII. Article said he had to crawl for a time when he couldn't walk...

This just guarantees another '51 Special falls into my lap. But anyway, I never installed these, and they're NOS. $110 + ship http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/141990144174

Sold! Looking back on this, it took longer than I thought. Went to a local guy, so I'll probably see it again. He's absolutely not painting it or swapping out the engine... But it might be lowered just a little in the rear... And get a dual exhaust...