SpecialEducation

Not a Gas Monkey Garage fan, but caught a piece of one once where the pulled an old F*rd out of a field. They said it was amazing how many "dead" cars they get where they just need fresh gas and ignition parts and they run like a top.

Last I knew, it was 2 years, so it should be due. I have thought it would be nice if it were available online in the member's only side of the website. That way, those of us that send out mailings to events don't have to bug the home office for the most current list.

Mr. Green, is this your Riv? When the weather gets nicer, I'll bring my gauges down to West Street & we'll check it. I tend to agree with the overcharge hypothesis. If the compressor is running, you have the right amount of freon er... refrigerant, & it blows warm, it could be a blocked orifice. We'll be able to tell that with the gauges.

Now that's interesting… We tried to order a full set of lines from brand K, and after several months of delays, they issued a refund and told us they couldn't help us.

Wow!

Yep. Went through a half-dozen before deciding the first one we had was probably the LEAST busted out of all of them. Seriously - multiple sources, all the same. The weep holes always look jacked-up.

Simple answer on the fuel & oil: Specials were lower compression, so regular gas will do as long as timing is set right. Avoid ethanol. It's detonation resistant, but it will eat the soft parts in the fuel system (especially fuel pump diaphragms). As far as oil goes, a good brand diesel motor oil that meets the CJ or CI spec will take care of those flat tappets & cam (don't add ZDDP to oil that already has it, that's bad). There are more expensive alternatives, but CJ is cheap and highly available. First number doesn't matter much, but the 2nd number should be 30 unless the engine is really lose. Don't go over 40 unless oil pressure is in the toilet. If you put in 20w50 thinking racing oil will surely protect it, and oil pressure is through the roof, yer probably starving it. Hey. How about some photos!?!

Your color code is "DFF" - which is the same between both tags. D= Electric Blue F= Cadet Blue http://www.hometownbuick.com/1956-buick/1956-buick-colors-exterior-paint/ Order is Top, Middle, Bottom (the car pictured does not match the dataplate).

Oh, Kansas would never discard an opportunity to collect taxes, but after the car is 35 years old, the revenue is small enough that it's not worth tracking. There are records, but nobody is looking at them. Kansas also has another stupid policy: A friend bought a customized 1954 Studebaker back in 2004. Even though he had the title to the 1979 Suburban that donated its drivetrain to the cause, Kansas no longer considers it a 1954 Studebaker. Without his consent, the state chiseled off the original VIN tag, and the car is titled (and taxed) as a "2004 Kansas Manufactured Vehicle." You'd never find his car in the Kansas system if you were looking for Studes.

That would be really tough in Kansas. Once a car gets an antique tag, tax collection goes to the honor system.

Well, that may explain the mixer door psychosis, but not the floor/dash control. A couple of these have shown up in salvage recently, and I'm wondering what parts I should be stockpiling. I guess I'll add temp probes to the list...

I wouldn't be so sure. Our Special came with a single action pump. While one might think that it was changed out by a cheapskate sometime between 1956 and 1995, my grandfather bought a model 41 Special new in '56 and said that the problem with vacuum wipers is that they quit when you needed them most - while trying to pass in the rain. When sharing that story with other '56 owners, we often get, "Mine never do that." I assume that's because they have the dual action pump. I've never researched the reason some have dual and some not, but I always assumed it was a Special vs. upper trim thing. One might think the change was made mid-year, but our Black 46R is one of the first 1000 built in Kansas City. Grandpa's 41 was bittersweet - a spring color - so obviously it was later production. My *guess* is that the Specials out there with dual-action pumps were upgraded later in life. As far as fuel goes, we often have trouble with vapor lock on hot summer days. Fuel quality isn't what it used to be, even though we run 100% ethanol-free. We are looking to install an electric pump for those hot summer days, and since we already converted to electric wipers, we could easily do without the mechanical pump the next time it fails.

To be fair, it's really a hand-built car that happens to have used Buick body panels. The price isn't that far out of what I'd expect for a full-on custom. Not that I would pay it...

When I first hit the external temp button, it said 24° (I work at the airport, so airport temp of 18° actually means something to me). I drove 1 mile and the temp shot up almost 100°. If that's in spec, that's quite a tolerance they've given it.

A couple hours later…

I don't take the car out of town (which makes my kids sad), so the cruise isn't as irritating as it could be. The cold, however, is a bit obnoxious. At lunch today, I hit the exterior temperature button. It showed a bit warmer than expected.

Ahem...

I know a guy in Oklahoma selling $50 washers. He has 70 washers for sale, and with one of them he will include a complete '85 turbo Regal. Of course, he's not saying which washer...

I'm in Kansas, so if anyone wants me to go look at it I can. All I ask is gas money... say $1000 or so should cover it. For the record, this guy has several cars on eBay that seem to be more reasonably priced. I'm inclined to think $95k is a typo. I bet if you offered $950, he'd take it. For posterity:

Yes. I had actually bought a new check valve, even though the system was holding vacuum for hours after shutdown, and the REPLACEMENT leaked - it whistled at WOT and at shutdown. On the upside, I had an audible indication of when I had more vacuum on the service side than on the manifold side, and there was never any whistling when the cruise would quit. On the climate side, I bypassed the controller, and my air doors hold all day long. It also does stupid things with the temp mixer, which has nothing to do with vacuum. The psychosis is in the controller logic. The cruise will start to oscillate before it fails completely. It starts out small and increases in amplitude, apparently until the error rate gets significant enough to cause the system to let go completely. It's not that it's slipping due to lack of vacuum, it is over-correcting and it seems to know it's doing so, so it quits. It will actually pull on the throttle pretty hard during the oscillations, but not hard enough to induce a whistle with the bad valve installed. There's plenty of vacuum available.

It is most certainly not a vacuum issue, I've beat that possibility to death. I just happen to have issues with 2 different systems that use vacuum.

OK, I'm going to give this a bump. Neither issue seems to be vacuum related, so I'm going to be looking for some salvage components to get the gremlins out. Quick question: Where are the "brains" of the electronic climate control? Is the box on the dash just a remote control/display and the system logic (or lack thereof) is really in the unit below the glovebox?

This one is very similar: http://www.teambuick.com/forums/showthread.php?13852-1948-Buick-Super-56-c-Body-Tag-Help

That's exactly why people spend more money restoring these cars than they are "worth." My grandpa's bittersweet model 41 was turned into paperclips a long time ago, but he liked the car so much, he bought a white one used for my uncles to drive. Our Maaco paint job was a stop-gap. We put a coat of black lacquer on the car back in '95, and it looked nice for about 3 years before the Kansas sun had it looking just like it did. The car would get cover in the summer, but no home in the winter. We didn't want to put another coat of paint on it only to have it be destroyed, but the car was deteriorating because of the failed paint. We knew the Maaco job wouldn't be perfect, but we didn't give them perfect to begin with. It was more of a preservation effort than restoration effort, and a Maaco job is more than adequate for that.

Not that I'm aware of, but there is Maaco. 1/2 price paint jobs in February. Not "show car" quality for sure, but they are decent driver quality paint jobs. We spent more money on sandpaper, fasteners, & window seals than on the paint job itself. Not perfect, but good enough to win a few awards...