Eric W

Well shoot - that was almost too easy. Had first engine start last night, after what was reported to me as around 30 years since last run. Actually started it 3x. A couple of days ago, when I put the rebuilt starter in, I was disappointed that the starter would make about half a turn of the crank and bog down. I could turn it by hand by the nut on the front pulley, so it wasn't jammed or anything. I pulled the plugs out. MUCH easier to turn. So it's getting bogged down on compression. I took that as a good sign - that it's got at least some compression. So I pulled it through by hand a few revolutions. Then sprayed some PB blaster into each cylinder. Let that sit about 6 hours, then turned it 180, and sprayed some more in. Let that sit overnight, and turned it some more by hand. Couldn't tell if it was getting easier or not. Over the next few days, I'd hit the starter for a couple of revolutions to see if that would loosen it up any more. Then last night, I put the plugs in & wires on. I put the terminals on the starter wires at the carb & made the carb electrical connections. I bumped the starter using the carb switch - yes, carb switch works. So I added fuel to the float bowl through a short length of fuel hose with a tiny funnel in it. Pumped the throttle a couple of times with the ignition switch off (so I could see the accel pump moving fuel in). Sprayed some starting fluid in there. Ignition on, hit the starter, and it started right up! Burned the fuel out of the manifold and stopped. So I did all that again. Quickly burned the fuel out of the manifold and stopped. 3rd time, I had a little squirt bottle of gas ready, so I nursed it along dripping fuel directly into the carb. I opened the throttle up some - accel pump worked, and the engine sped up and maintained until the fuel in the float bowl burned out. This was a better series of starts than I had with the 263 / 41D, so I think this one is going to run ok when I get fuel delivery straightened out. Oh, and it sounds awesome with the main exhaust tube unbolted from the manifold - even unbolted it blew a bunch of junk out of the tail pipe... I'll see if I can get some video, then I need to put the battery back in the other car for the weekly cruise night...

Good luck on the tire. I have a tire place I've bought a bunch of tires from. I brought them a print of the tires listed from the Summit website, and they matched the price. So it was on them to be sure the tires were good. Your price on blast & coat for 5 rims is exactly what I got on mine about a year ago. They turned them around in 2-3 days - anyway it was quicker than I expected.

The one Plyroadking posted is for the smaller engine. I have both in my garage. Here's some pics. The one behind the black-painted radiator with the new hose is the 263. The one with the dusty old hose is the 320. Both are '51's. Either one might fit either engine, but for the smaller engine, the outlet shifted rearwards over the t-stat, and on the larger engine, the outlet is shifted forwards over the t-stat. Not sure if this is to allow the same length elbow hose to work in both cars...

Thanks! To finish off the brake light switch, reverse light switch, and horn connections went quickly after the adventure into the middle of the harness. Got the rebuilt starter reinstalled. Plan to get back to working on engine start, because with the wiring in place, hopefully engine start won't require much more in the way of parts cost. Once it starts/runs, will probably move onto the brake system - since I may be able to get functional brakes for less than the cost of a radiator recore. I expect the radiator will need to be recored, but just dropping off the radiator & writing a check is less "quality time" for me than getting a brake system going...

This one looks pretty good: http://www.ebay.com/itm/46-47-48-49-50-51-52-BUICK-320-STRAIGHT-EIGHT-ENGINE-MOTOR-THERMOSTAT-HOUSING-/131499804013?hash=item1e9dffc56d&vxp=mtr

Last night, completed the forward end of the splices and got it wrapped. The pair of white wires off to the right side of the car are for the RH dome light. The other pics are the back end of the splices and getting that wrapped up. What you don't see is anything from the couple of hours of cleaning out the channel that the wires sit in. The hose with a rag taped to it was the start. I fished that thing through each side of the channel about 10 times, vacuuming what came out each time. Then one time, I moved the vac to the other side of the car and accidentally put the hose on the blower instead of vac end. But that gave me an idea - as a last step, I put the vac nozzle in the center hole of the channel and blew it out to each side. Snaked the wire bundle into the channel, then completed the splices for the back end. Before installing the over-wrap, I checked, and all lights work. Don't have a working brake light switch or reverse light switch yet, but at least when these are installed, the wires from fuse panel to the lights out back are all good.

Couple of days out recently. Been making the Thursday night cruise nearly every week. Ferrari pulled in next to us at the early-morning cruise July 11 on the higher-end side of town. The other is last Thursday July 30.

Here's a photo, if this is what you mean by butt joint. This is typical of what I'm doing in this section. Each solder joint is covered with heat shrink tubing. I have these joints staggered along the 7 or so wires in the bundle, so when I put an over-wrap back on, the bundle will be more or less the original size. Need to maintain that because the spliced bundle fits under a cover plate on the floor.

Patient - well, we'd all like to have the car running & driving for the price, right. But then we wouldn't like the price... So it's been more work than I thought, but at least this electrical stuff isn't all that expensive. Yes, it adds up, but a lot of "entertainment" value for the money... Started on the center splice. Got 5 wires done on the forward end of the splice. Have about 3 more on the front end, but 2 of them split off - dome light, I think. I need to figure those out. It's probably been covered elsewhere, but I should post the trick to soldering that I got from an aircraft electrical book: Trim insulation on one wire about 3/8". Twist the strands tight. Trim insulation on the other wire (the new one, if one is new) about 1". Peel off 3-4 strands of the 1" length. Twist the rest tight. Trim the twisted part to about 3/8" length. Now you have 3 long strands hanging out from the tight twisted group. Lay the new wire next to the old wire, in line, so the 2 bare twisted ends are next to each other. Wrap the 1" length around both, securing them mechanically, so you don't have to hold them. Then put the solder on. This works well for 16 gauge or smaller. For larger, make all those lengths a little longer. Also works well for making a solder joint where 1 wire branches off into two.

Got the 3 middle lights connected. Did an initial clean-up of the wire routing. Photo with the marker lights - license light also working.

Ended up also having a short in LH turn. Got the RH socket reconnected. Got bulbs for all the sockets. Got the new wires put in for LH turn, brake, and started on reverse. With a test lead, found that the license plate light works, and one of the reverse lights needed a bulb. Need to get reverse & license plate light reconnected to the harness, then make it all neat, then the trunk end is done. Then back to splicing all of these leads at the front edge of the back seat. Starter came back from rebuild, so it's just as well I was stopped on the engine to get the electrical into much better shape. Picture - marker lights, both sockets working...

In the last few days, I've had the brake wire clipped together near the fuse panel, bypassing the brake light switch, so it's hot when the key is on. Using that, I checked the wire harness at the break at the front of the back seat (picture previously posted). Checked LH and RH turn, marker, brake, reverse, and fuel gauge for shorts. Got shorts on reverse and brake. Put a bulb in the LH fixture - that's the marker light in the picture. For reverse & brake, I cut these wires at 2 points in the trunk to narrow down where the short is. Reverse short is very close to where the leads from the bumper sockets join in. So will add a new segment of wire there (about 1 foot). Brake is shorted a little farther up, possibly in the LH socket. This seems most likely because the harness in the trunk is in fairly good condition, but I'll check more into that one.

Was out of town, so no work on the car this past weekend. Today, pulled the wire cover off the floor to see the whole run between front & back seats. To check that the connections are correct, will identify what I can, then temporarily join (twist together) the existing wires to check with power before soldering in replacement lengths of wire. That shouldn't be too bad - some of the color-coded over-braid exists on both sides of what needs to be repaired. Need to clean out the tunnel/channel along the front edge of the back seat before pulling the repaired harness through there. Plan to do that with a smaller diameter hose on the shop vac. Also found 3" defroster hose at a local store for the 41D.

Oh, I got to it. Actually, a rat did. Found the major discontinuity in the harness to the back. I had to identify which of the 2 bundles that go down the firewall, under the front passenger's feet, along the right side of the seat, along the back edge of the front seat to the driveshaft hump in the floor, to a tunnel under the front edge of the back seat, over to the left side, then back into the trunk - which one is for the power windows vs. for the rear lights. Got that figured out because there's a branch just in front of the front seat for the power seat. I assumed that one continues for the power windows (since the power window and power seat switches all go to the hydroelectric system). I cut a little section of the outer braid off the other harness at the side of the front seat. I found the right quantity of wires inside for that to be the rear lighting harness (also includes the dome light & fuel gauge). I was able to identify nearly all of these by the color-coded tracer threads. Brake is solid white, no tracers. So I gradually shaved away the insulation until I could just see the copper. Then started working with the power. Initial power up, almost no voltage at the new brake light switch wire out front. Checked at the fuse panel ~6V. Cycled the connector at the fuse panel - got voltage down the wire. Connected that wire to the brake light output wire with a temporary clamp. Checked at the spot I'd opened in the under-seat harness. Showed ~-.5V. Not a short, but not right either. Decided to inspect the harness in the trunk area again. Found the right tail light harness has been cut inside the trunk. Not quite in the style of the vandalism under the hood, but just 6" of wires removed - the rest was there. So I trimmed off stray strands in case those were connecting something together. Found another spot like this for a lead that exits the harness right under the trunk latch. Not sure what that one is for, as I can see the wires for the reverse lights and fuel gauge are there. Anyway, trimmed more loose strands. Could see continuous harness to the LH tail light, up forwards along the left side of the trunk. Inside the car, could see the harness down behind the rear seat back and along the floor - though along the floor, the outer sheath and color-coded cotton weave was gone. This got me thinking - I had removed a lot of rat debris at the very left end of the tunnel that is below the front edge of the back seat. I put a light & mirror at the end of the tunnel and looked up in there - more rat debris. I moved the wire harness where it exits that tunnel just right of center (where it goes from rear seat to front seat), and it moved - like it's not connected. So I pulled out the rear piece of harness from inside the tunnel - and it pulled right out, dragging some more rat debris with it. Laid this harness out on the outside of the tunnel, and I could see the break was very close to the just-right-of-center hole where the harness goes forwards. Pulled that end of the harness out and it's a ball of stray strands. Must have tasted good to the rats. Cut off the stray strands until I could see the separate wires. Turned on the power supply again. Checked the spot I'd opened at the side of the front seat: 6V! Ok, now reconnect this break in the harness and see if I can get some of those rear lights working...

Busted through what was making the power supply trip. Turns out not a short. I'm using a model railroad power supply for testing. It's variable up to 12V, 2.5A, with built-in protection. I set it at ~6V. Problem was that it would trip while I was testing these light circuits. I put an extension cord inside the car so I could unplug the power supply when I hear it trip. Got some blankets and even a foam pad on the floor (inside the car) so I can put eyeballs on the headlight switch and ignition switch behind the dash. Also put a little flexible plug-in light under there. Plug in the power. Turn on the ignition. Buzzing like it has been, and after 20-30 seconds, the power supply trips. Decided to isolate / remove the power window circuit. It's not on the main diagram, but I followed the wires out from the door, up under the dash, and there's one connector to the ignition switch. (Not sure how or even if this is fused, but not worrying about that now.) Disconnected that from the ignition switch. Powered on. Something still buzzes, and the power supply trips. Not the power windows, but good to leave them isolated for now anyway. Next thing to pull - the feed to the fuse panel. I had pulled all the fuses already anyway, but the way this is made, there's a line direct to the fuel gauge that isn't fused. Power on. No more buzz - so the fuel gauge was what's buzzing, but power supply STILL trips. Headlight switch is off, so I didn't see purpose in checking that - may still be a short to a lamp somewhere, but with the switch off, short or not should still be isolated. What the heck is left on the ignition switch? Line to the starter solenoid, but that's through the neutral switch AND the carb switch, and the solenoid is NOS and the neutral switch is NOS, and the carb switch isn't even connected. So what else is there? The ignition COIL! Coil is new, and line to it is new (from firewall forward) - but if that's drawing more than what the power supply can handle - there it is! Pulled the wire off the coil. That's it! Power supply stays on indefinitely. So with that discovery made, worked on the wire for the brake light switch. Power doesn't get out to the light sockets, so there's something open in the long harness from the dashboard to the back, but I'll get to that later.

Thanks for the heads-up. I could see the bar that opens the circuit in the photos of the ones for sale. Same as I did with the fuse panel, I will open 1 circuit at a time until the short is isolated. There's about a dozen leads that come through that switch...

Pulled every fuse in the panel and the short is still there. Turned off the radio in the garage. Power on - could hear a buzz from behind the instrument panel. Got down on the floor to look up under there. Switch on ignition and traced the buzz to the Mother of the Electrical System (in this car) - the headlight switch. Ok, so that might be the problem. There's a couple of these on eBay right now. The RH park light was intermittent. Turns out it was bad ground, but I replaced one of the wires at the bulb end just in case. Here's how that goes: - Drill/grind out rivets to remove socket - Remake wire end for the in-socket terminal (no crimped-on part, it was fold the wires into a circle and load with solder) - Solder the new wire back to the harness - Rivet the socket back to the housing (used stainless rivets)

Had a few minutes this morning to start looking at what's next for the electrical wiring: With the few wires remaining to be reconnected at the firewall, I was able to positively identify the brake light in/out and the reverse light in/out from the color codes on the wires. Connected 6V transformer and "powered up" the car (easier than moving the battery from the other car, and for lower-power things like these light switches, it works). Turn on ignition key switch. See the fuel gauge jump from empty to full, and can see the charge/discharge gauge move a little. With a meter, can see 4 1/2-ish V on both the brake light hot and reverse light hot wires. (Checked that transformer is putting in ~6.5V.) Before running any new wires, I cleaned off the cut-off ends of these leads (brake in/out, reverse in/out). Touch the brake in/out together to see if I can get any V at the light sockets in back. Transformer trips. Short in that line. Reset the transformer. Touch the reverse in/out together. Transformer trips again. Short in both of these. Will need to track down where that short is before reconnecting these to the reverse and brake light switches.

Thanks! Here's the firewall end straightened up. Why so many more wires with the blue tape tags identifying what they are? Shouldn't this be enough? Brake lights, reverse light switch, defroster fan lead...

I believe Bob's or Cars sells those terminal blocks. Should conduct fine if I take off the screws on both sides of one contact, releasing the metal bar across the screws. Clean the side of the metal bar that is tight against the new terminals, and they'll work. Trying not to get too much into restoration mode - want to see it run/drive first. Here's some more from today - finished the leads to the other side of the headlight / marker / signal blocks, the horns / horn relay, and the high/low beam switch. On the high beam output, the original harness has a joint in the line to split off a smaller wire for the dashboard high beam indicator. That would have saved maybe a foot of wire per car. Since I'm not worried about a foot of wire, I just added a 2nd lead off the high-beam output to run back to the dashboard light. I have the harness positioned with twist ties right now. I'm going to pull it back out to wrap it up. Main thing to go now is joining the new wires to the existing at the firewall (actually will be behind the firewall / under the dash when I'm done). Also need a bullet terminal for the horn wire off the steering column. Other circuit that I have parts for but still need to do is the defroster fan in the air tube on the inner right fender. I did find the 1154 bulbs at the FLAPS. Put those in and tested the turn/markers. The attachments to the post appear in a different order than I expect, so if you want to see these photos in logical progression, the file names end in a number that indicates the order. (As soon as I say that, they'll show up in the order I expect...)

I ran across a link to a file that listed all the interior trim codes. It may have been in the Postwar forum. Search for 1932-1975 Buick Trim Codes. For '52 Super - looks like 2-tone gray cloth, 2-tone green cloth, and if it's a 56R, black pattern cloth with gray cloth bolster, light gray cloth with red leather bolster, and dark green cloth with light green leather bolster. So no all-over leather.

Thanks, Willie. I hadn't even started looking for these bulbs. Got a box full of wire to work through...

Finished up the headlight wiring. Got the bumper pulled. Pulled out and cleaned up the light buckets. Made up new leads for those and wrapped them w/ vinyl tape. Got the bumper reinstalled and the leads back on the terminal strips. Need to get some bulbs.

Thanks - I went through a couple of days ago and made up the order for what might be the rest of the firewall-forward wiring. That might show up tomorrow. Took a look at getting the front marker/turn housings off in order to do the wiring in those. Decided that pulling the bumper might be easier. Those marker/turn housings have 5 bolts each, and 2 of the bolts on each one are buried between the bumper and the strip of body-colored metal between the bumper and fenders. Looks like the bumper itself is 6 bolts total, and that would drop the grille and the marker/turn housings. Got the center 2 bumper bolts off, and have the PB Blaster working on the other 2. The other 2 bolts are on the sides of the marker/turn housings, and I got one of these to come out pretty easily. Didn't check the other one yet.

Yes, the car sat without headlights for many years, so the wire near the connectors was exposed. The section of wire inside the fender was just fine. I'm not re-using any of the original headlight wiring, but it does give confidence that under the dash and wires to the rear lights are ok (but I'll check all that as well).