Kaftan

That... was an incredibly useful piece of information to have in my back pocket!! Story to follow shortly! But first, here's a few adventures I've had this past month: ...Went to Glacier National Park, and met up with some mountain goats, big horn sheep, and marmots... Not to mention breathtaking scenery!! ...Went to Yellowstone National Park, and met up with a grizzly bear, big horn sheep, bison, and many many many elk!! Ok ok ok - now to get back on topic with a few updates on Buick progress: First, let's tackle the conclusion of the fuel filter story. So with @carbking's advice, I was thinking twice about putting a new ceramic cylinder in. With the advice and assistance from some local parts stores, I managed to come across an acceptable alternative, as shown below: As you can see, there's a clear defect in the ceramic when I took the unit apart. This picture is also *after* I cleaned up the fuel bulb assembly. I chose to go with a paper filter cylinder (box included for part number reference). Here's a close-up shot of the fuel filter assembly cap, for those who are interested: Here's how the new gasket fit into the cap: I didn't like that. Realistically, it likely would have worked just fine, but it seemed unnecessarily restrictive. So I purchased an additional, different filter kit, and used the gasket out of that one: Box included for part number reference. This filter didn't even come close to fitting, but the gasket was spot-on for matching the old one I chiseled out! So after 20 minutes of fighting the assembly, it just wasn't going together. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the filter I had wasn't fitting by a fraction of an inch. So after examining the structure of my paper filter, well, let's just call it a "manual adjustment"... That should do... Perfect!! Lookin' good... Lookin' too good compared to the rest, ha... And with that, I was finally able to finish testing my radiator and thermostat installation! The engine fired up without complaint, almost immediately, now that it wasn't starved for fuel. I let it idle for a while, and watched the temperature gauge climb (to my surprise, the gauge worked!!! Ha). Sure enough, as soon as the gauge read 180F, the thermostat opened up and my radiator hoses became warm to the touch. Things were going smoothly. As a side bonus, I noticed the oil pressure gauge appeared to be working! It read about 34 at idle, on 10W-30 oil. So, cooling system complete! Clearly, though, this rig has BAD piston rings, or something. You can probably imagine: white exhaust and all, So this past weekend, I finally had the wild-hair-ambition to tackle some brake drum rebuilding. As a refresher, this is something I started a long time ago, and never got around to finishing it. So now that I'm getting closer and closer to my first road test, this unfinished task is really starting to get in my way. So I dug up my replacement wheel cylinders I had purchased a while ago, and labeled them to match the invoice: Pic for part number reference... Here's the rear left drum, completely disassembled as the parts were soaking in cleaner... Here's the rear right drum, after cleaning and reassembly (new cylinder)... Here's the rear left drum, after cleaning and reassembly (new cylinder)... Here's the front right drum innards, prior to cleaning and reassembly. As I write this, the front right drum parts are soaking in cleaner. I admit, I started with the back two thinking they were going to be easier than the front. But with that parking brake complication in the back, they were actually more difficult! As per my methods of operation, the first brake reassembly took me roughly 4.5 hours. Don't ask me how!! My only excuse is this was my first experience with drum brakes! And getting them back together felt like a magic trick. But I'm pleased with the end result. The second back brake took about 3 hours to break down, clean and reassemble. My goodness, to think this was standard maintenance back in the day, ha!! While I have the front wheels off, I'm also replacing the front brake lines, brake hoses, and tie rod ends. Much to my surprise, the brake shoes are in great condition on all four corners. The drums, well, I would say those are in "acceptable", or "tolerable" condition. Nothing too bad, though. So there you have it - the project slowly marches on. There's one more GLARINGLY bad problem to deal with, once the brakes are done - the transmission. Let me see if I can describe this well enough: Problem #1 (the glaringly bad one): Transmission makes loud clicking/knocking sound when clutch is not completely depressed. Whenever the clutch is engaged, the sound goes away. If the clutch is not engaged, the upsetting sound ensues (doesn't matter if it's in forward gears, reverse, or neutral). Now, I haven't checked on the gear oil within the transmission. It's on my to-do list after the brakes. I'm *praying* the problem is that it's just low on gear oil, and a fill-up will put that sound to rest. But I have bad feelings that it's probably more serious than that. Problem #2: Double-clutching is required to get the car into 2nd gear. Honestly, I'm not sure this is really a problem. It's certainly easy enough to deal with. But as far as I can tell from reading the manual and shop manual, there *should* be functioning synchronizing gears at work. Fun fact: I *don't* need to double clutch when shifting from 2nd to 3rd. That's all I have this time! Hope everybody had a fantastic labor day weekend!!

Few more happenings since the last update! Before reinstalling the repaired radiator, I chose to use a mild engine flush in the engine's water jacket. I increased the water-to-cleaner ratio in order to make it more "gentle". It was during this time that I noted the small radiator hoses that connected the thermostat housing to the heater cores were leaking. After I completed the flush (left cleaner in the water jacket for two hours), I began replacing all of the smaller radiator hoses. There were four total - two between the thermostat housing and the front heater core, and other two that ran from the front heater core to the rear heater core (underneath the car). Here's a photo of the four hoses to/from the front heater core: And here are a few photos with the new hoses and hose clamps in place: At the thermostat housing At the front heater core At the rear heater core (from underneath) The next task was replacing the thermostat. I then reinstalled the repaired radiator with new radiator hoses: That's the original radiator cap; I just spent a while cleaning and shining it up :). Here are pics that list out the part numbers I used for the thermostat, upper hose, and lower hose, just for reference: For the upper radiator hose... For the lower radiator hose... And for the thermostat... While I was dinking around, I also reinstalled the spark plug cover: Before.... After... So here's where the next thing went wrong, ha. The plan was to get the engine fired up and up to temperature, in order to verify the thermostat is doing its job and allowing the coolant to re-enter the water jacket. But as much as the starter turned, the fuel pump failed to deliver adequate amounts of fuel to the carb. In other words, we couldn't get the engine up to stay idling. So! At that time, my immediate guess was the fuel pump was getting weak. It was still pumping, but clearly not enough. In order to test my theory, we (Dad and I) removed the fuel filter bulb assembly in order to connect a gravity feed tank directly to the carburetor. We then fired up the engine and two things happened: 1) the engine fired up and idled perfectly, and 2) the fuel line previously connected to the fuel filter squirted fuel LIKE CRAZY. Ha, I admit, I probably should have seen that coming. However, even though my diagnosis was incorrect, the gravity tank test still identified the problem - that fuel bulb/filter assembly was severely restricting the fuel flow. The engine was never brought up to temp to finish testing the cooling system. The next hour or so was spent taking the filter assemble apart and cleaning the components. I eventually was able to access the inner filter - a ceramic cylinder. I had never seen a filter like this before! So I took it to Napa. They had no replacements. Then I took it to Car Quest. They had nothing to offer, either. So throughout my searching, I *finally* found a replacement online. It's rather expensive, but that's because it's original equipment leftover from the 50s or something like that. So at this point, I'm guessing these filters just aren't made anymore. I would love if somebody would give me some advice! It's my strong desire to keep the original equipment fuel bulb assembly in use. Is there a paper filter replacement that can go in there? Or is my only option to procure the ceramic cylinder?? As always, I thank you in advance for your tips and advice!!