26-25Buick

Inspired by Charlie I pulled the top off my gearbox this weekend to work out why there was some slop in the stick. Now I know why! Img 183/184 is the front selector and 185/186 is the rear one. Both selectors are heavily worn and I guess will need to be welded and ground out before I reinstall. I haven't worked out how to get lock barrel out yet. I've removed the 3 set screws around the barrel but it steadfastly refuses to move. Any suggestions are welcome. UPDATE. The scoring on the forks appears to be the result of the gate retaining pins (that I think are to stop it dropping out of gear). Anyway they are in the side of the top cover and have a slot that they live in when the car is in gear. These were quite stiff and not retracting properly so when you changed gears they scored down the side of the forks. I've cleaned them out and they slide a lot freer now.

Charlie, my Standard has a plated handbrake lever and a painted gear stick so I'm not sure you can draw a conclusion purely on one versus the other but it does sort of make sense that Buick wanted the Master to be a class above the Standard so made this a distinction. I'm confident someone will know for sure as there is a wealth of knowledge available on here

Welcome Charlie. In my standard it's painted black and doesn't appear to have ever been plated but I don't know about the master. I'll be interested in hearing how to get it out as well as I have a little bit of slop in the linkages that I've been meaning to investigate. On first look it looks like you have to take the selector off the top of gearbox to get it out but perhaps there is a trick to it. Has yours got the gearbox lock next to the stick?

A photo of my worn hub. The teeth on the clutch plates that mesh with the hub rather than being a nice U shape were more like V. Eventually it got so worn the clutch plates got stuck in the grooves in the hub and the clutch wouldn't engage and you could no longer change gear.

The Shelsey Heavy is 40-70W and the Shelsey Medium 25-70W both with a good loading of zinc

It seems to be driven more by personal choice and availability these days but I've always used Penerite Shelsley Heavy in the 1926 but I've often wondered if Shelsley Medium would be better in our warmer climate.

On the 26 Std there is a small set screw on the side of the horn button but be careful as they ingeniously put 3 small return springs behind the button that are easily lost. Behind the horn button there is a nut for removing the steering wheel although I've never tried undoing mine it appears to be all that holds it to the shaft. I would make sure to remove the advance, headlight and manual throttle levers first as they are only pot metal and would be easily broken. I found a paper spacer between each of the levers to give them some clearance and to stop them binding. Good luck

Donb is correct that a number of high heat liquid coatings are designed to dry but they require heat to cure fully, especially the ones with a silicon backbone. So you can paint the manifold, allow it to dry and reassemble it at your leisure and once you fire up the car for the first time it will finish curing. If you really wanted to get fancy though you'd have a primer coat of inorganic zinc silicate and put the silicon over the top. The zinc stops those pesky little rust spots that can appear in silicon due to it's relatively high porosity. These coatings are one of those things where more is not better, keep them thin and even for the best result. A word to those who are considering the grill option, it is very effective but be warned some of these paints will produce considerable fumes which can be a little unpleasant especially if the area around the grill is not well ventilated or the wind is blowing the wrong way. A couple of other pointers which might seem obvious but do not allow direct flame to contact the paint while it is curing and keep in mind the paint might soften during the heating process before it is fully cured so be mindful of how you support the piece you are curing. A quick word on the ceramic coatings. Make sure whoever is putting it on has plenty of experience. They're really good when they are done properly but they can be a nightmare if not. Main issues range from poor adhesion to excessive porosity. Be interested to see what people have done and how successful it's been. If you can post the failures and the good stories as we can learn from them both. If you have photos please share.

Interesting you bring this up Mike. In the last year or so I've changed from the original Edison 37T to Autolite 3076 plugs. I also managed to fail a brand new condenser in my distributor. Although I cleaned the plugs when the condenser failed they have carboned over again. Is the C49 a hotter plug and suitable for the Std 6?

For people who may not have seen a set of leak down results I just did a leak down test on the 6 cyclinder in my 26 Tourer (207 cu in straight 6) as I wasn't too sure that the compression test results that I got were accurate as they all around the 45 psi mark, even but well short of the 60+psi they should be. I haven't tried adding oil to see if that improves the situation yet. This engine has 79000 miles but not sure about the age of the rings as the story seems to change depending who remembers what but they will have been in the car at the very least, 40 years. I mention this because all the air in the leak down test seems to be escaping pass the rings as you can hear it whistling in the oil filler pipe. These are all lose numbers #1 35% #2 30% #3 32% #4 32% #5 35% #6 34% I'm facing a similar problem of fouling plugs too. We typical never have temps below 60F and the car has just run about 200 miles. What do you think?

Or the clutch hub and the teeth on the clutch disc pack are so badly worn that clutch pack teeth look like shark fins and in the divets in the hub are so deep the clutch plates won't slide over (look at the right side of the hub and you'll see the wear pattern) The symptoms for this were you could start the car in gear but there was no way to engage a gear once it was running.

Hi John, PM sent

Hugh, Our '26 also has some form of welt in the locations you show but being an Australian locally made body that may account for it. It's also possible that it was added during 60s when the resto was done but whenever it happened it was a long time ago.

What's the game plan for this one Larry? Restoration or driver?

Gage, I'll second Leif comments. People are always very helpful on this forum and there is a number of us with various versions of the 1926 who are able to provide an opinion. We either faced the same problem and fixed it or someone has a work around. Parts wise the Buick are not quite as common as a Model T but parts are not as expensive or rare as some cars with parts often poping up on eBay and there are many dedicated restoration websites with Buick parts.

Excellent news. The job sounds like it should be straight forward and hopefully completed by only lifting the floorboards. I've ordered some felt for a first up try and given the car only does about 500 miles a year will hopefully last a long time. In the end it only cost AUD $13 for 120 inches of 1/4 x 1/4 grade B engineering felt, while I probably have a life time supply of felt at least I haven't got a lot invested if it becomes a replacement item on a regular basis. Hugh I think I might add some sealant as you suggest as belts and braces against a leak in the future at the housing joint. I had a small weep at the top plate of the gearbox under the selector and interestingly I found there was no gasket/sealant under there so I would not be surprised if there is no gasket for the ball housing installed on mine either. Also I like your idea of using rubber as a long term fix especially if you knew someone who could vulcanise it in place for you.

Thanks for the quick response guys and the great photos Hugh. Next question is will the torque ball cover slide far enough back to change the seal without removing the prop shaft?

It's time to fix that oil leaking out the back of the torque ball as I can't keep oil in the gearbox anymore and it's making a mess on the garage floor but unfortunately Bob's is out of stock (TBP-14) of the packing for torque balls for our car. Rather than pulling the old one out and measuring it does anyone happen to know what size it is so I can try and find a source for it out here in Oz.

An to answer the corrosion question. It is true aluminium is anodic to steel or in other words will corrode to protect the steel and corrode even faster to protect stainless steel. There are however a few things working in your favour here that means it's less of an issue. For corrosion to occur you need a conductive electrolyte e.g. Water, which if the part is wet with oil that's not going to happen. The second thing that helps here is what is called anode to cathode ratio. If you can't avoid dissimilar metals being connected the best way to have this ratio is with a large anode and a small cathode as you have lots of metal trying to protect just small pieces, which is the case here also. So I think whichever you choose its not going to be an issue unless you go really left field and find an insert that corrodes to protect the aluminium.

GMBuick, One thing you might want to think about is the rev range that the engine of this period, the Buick straight 6 anyway, operates in as it is quite narrow compared with today's engine. The coil needs to be able to provide maximum performance at the low end of the rev range (<3000 rpm) which may not be optimum for these "Petronix" types of coils and perhaps more suited to the vintage tractor coil. We'd still be interesting to see how well it works so keep us posted on what you end up doing.

Hugh, I agree this pin can only be regulating the fuel going to the high speed jet and in that it is either on or off. With the throttle wide open at low speed the air flow must not create sufficient vacuum to draw fuel through the high speed jet otherwise it would drown in fuel. I was surprised to see that it doesn't sit the shoulder of the pin on the seat to improve the seal but we'll call that another Marvel mystery. Started up the car yesterday for the first time since soldering the metering pin seat. The first notable change was it needed an increase in the fuel mix to get it to run so I'm thinking that the metering pin was allowing fuel past at idle and therefore was making up the shortfall, which after the seat repair it was no longer doing. An easy adjustment but I'm thinking I've been a little heavy handed as it might be a little fuel rich at the moment, but not too bad as its idling smoothly. Only plugged around the suburbian streets yesterday so could only test pick-up and it seems to be working well. We have a 200 mile rally in a few weeks which will certainly test the high speed jet as it is country miles

Hugh, Not sure if anyone else answered your question so here I go anyway. I took the top off the bowl of our carburettor yesterday and our metering pin on the 26-25X does exactly the same as yours. On full throttle the pin is clear of the seat and with the throttle closed the pin has about 1/2 of its length inserted into the seat. Looks exactly the same as your great photos show. Of course this is no guarantee that this is correct but it gives a little more confidence that what we see is right. I didn't see a number stamped in to the pin but I'll take a closer look this weekend. I guess the other variable is at what point in the throttle movement does the pin actually start to clear the seat as that will be driven by the length of the linkage and the placement of the fulcrum so a modified linkage could in theory still allow the car to idle but it would be trouble under higher speed. While trying to measure and look at the metering pin I made my own discovery. Our pin was not quite straight and had worn the seat in to a nice oval and the pin wasn't a good fit any more so I would guess it didn't shut off the fuel to the high speed jet properly and there would always be some fuel flow. Soldered the seat up and rebored it to match the pin diameter so can't wait to get back out on the road and see what this latest tweak has done

Hopefully with today's cleaner and drier gas you'll never have cause to get the plug out again. Ours had a series of pinholes around the plug and it was a case of soldering up the holes and a good coat of epoxy on the bottom of the inside of the tank for secondary protection and a coat of paint on the outside and it's working perfectly again and the repair is virtually undetectable.

And the bad news is they rot from the inside so the inside is probably even worse

Never tried to measure it more accurately but our 26 Standard 207 CID is only about 16-18psi with new oil according to the factory installed gauge in the cab. Also have the factory filter the same as Bob but mine is not in bypass. Should I be concerned by the lower oil pressure?