neil morse

Both of the Robert Montgomery cars shown are Cadillacs. The first is a 1931 Fleetwood V-12 Phaeton, the second is a 1933 V-16 Convertible Victoria. The '33 received a full-restoration in the early 2000's. I saw it at the Hillsborough Concours in 2015. A stunning automobile! Here's another period photo of Montgomery with the car.

Hi Ken: I missed this thread because you have posted it in an obscure place. You should really either start a thread on the "Me and My Buick" forum, or post on the Pre-war Buick forum. You will get a much better response. As mentioned by @Sidemount33, I have some discussion on my "Me and My Buick" thread about dropping the oil pan and rebuilding the oil pump on my '41 Super. You can find it here (click on the arrow in the upper right hand corner to get to the right starting point). Also, I got your PM about the dash panels and I will be responding soon. Neil

Grant Zippel Visit I had a great visit today with @Grant Z who is here from Australia taking a drive from Seattle to Los Angeles with the apparent goal of checking out every '41 Buick on the west coast. We went out to lunch in my Super and then went over to @Shootey 's garage so Grant could see Thom's car. Grant showed us a lot of videos and photos he has taken on his trip, and I made him promise to post a thread with photos once he gets home. Here's a photo of Grant (on the left) with Thom, and another of the two Buicks. A great day!

I have had good luck with using a 50-50 mixture of ATF (automatic transmission fluid) and acetone to soak rusty fasteners to loosen them up. Also, while you have everything apart, I would recommend that you replace those remaining core plugs. I see that you have one new one and the other two are old. The older ones will eventually corrode and start to leak, and since the corrosion is on the inside, they will look fine until all of a sudden they are a mess. I know this because that's what happened on my car. And they are impossible to reach once you put the manifolds back on.

They were fortunate to run into you on their travels. I LOVE the photos that you posted of the car. You said there was thick fog and icy roads, but a picture is truly worth 1K words!

Further update: We have confirmed that the throttle control rods on Thom's car are for a 320 engine. An elaborate bartering deal involving both Dave Tacheny and Greg ( @2carb40 ) is now underway that will hopefully get a set of the proper 248 rods to Thom. What a great hobby this is -- I am continually grateful for the all the helpful and very nice people involved!

Here's a further report on Thom's woody: Today, I drove my car over to Thom's garage so we could have the ability to do an instant comparison and try to determine exactly what was going on with the throttle linkage on his car. We pretty quickly determined that there were at least two major problems with Thom's car: (1) the control rods to both the front and rear carbs were about 4" longer than they should be; and (2) the two return springs were missing and someone had instead jury-rigged a substitute spring that was completely wrong. After looking at the set up in direct comparison with my car, I was amazed that we were even able to have the short ride that we took two days ago. The control rods on Thom's car looked OEM, but as mentioned were about 4" too long. The rods have a threaded portion at the carb end that allows some adjustment. On Thom's car, the rods had been jammed in by adjusting them to the shortest possible setting (but still too long). This resulted, among other things, in making it so that the rear carb throttle opened as soon as the front. It also resulted in the throttle sticking wide open on both carbs. The explanation? We suspect that the previous owner (or mechanic) had gotten a set of control rods for the Roadmaster/Century engine, and tried to make them work with the Special/Super engine. This makes sense since the 320 engine is about 4" longer than the 248. Just a theory. So Thom is now looking for a pair of correct control rods for the 248 c.i. engine -- if you're reading this and you have any lying around, please let me know! If we can't locate a set of the correct rods, we will use the rods off my car as patterns to fabricate a new set. Also, there were some questions about the dual exhaust system on Thom's car. I took a few photos today that show how it is set up.

Haha -- I had to look up "Holes Flat" because I couldn't believe that was the name of the place. It's not. It's a typo -- should be "Holmes Flat." Either way, it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere. A very stylish car, but an ambitious project, for sure.

The dual exhaust on Thom's car uses the stock twin exhaust manifolds, but then runs separate pipes from each one (instead of the "Y" pipe under the manifolds in the stock system). The front pipe runs under the oil pan and exits out the right side. The rear pipe stays on the left side, following the route of the stock single pipe. Yes, this avoids the problem of a leaky slip joint in the "Y" pipe (which I continue to have trouble with on my Waldron replacement system), but I think it's very unlikely that the previous owner of Thom's car installed the dual system because of any concern about the "Y" pipe. It's a very expensive and labor-intensive way of avoiding a problem that can be solved much more easily! I suspect he just liked the idea of dual exhaust and maybe was trying to improve performance. It definitely has a different sound than my car, but I'm sure that has more to do with the muffler choice than anything else.

Don, George (Grimy), and I are friends and have gotten together various times over the last several years, but not in any organized way. I would be happy to meet up with you, send me a PM if you'd like to get together. I am happy to drive my Buick to the East Bay -- good exercise for both me and the car.

George, I certainly didn't intend to question your Buick bona fides! I should have said "not a current Buick owner." Your great-aunt's car sounds great -- I bet it was a real cream puff.

Haha -- my "go to" pre-war Buick friendly mechanic is @DonMicheletti! But I am extremely fortunate. If you post specific questions here on the forum, you will get plenty of good answers from Don and many other knowledgeable people. Also, @Grimy is not a Buick owner but is very knowledgeable about resources in the East Bay. I think he can recommend a good local tire shop that could help you.

Thom's Woody A great day in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco as Thom ( @Shootey ) took his '41 woody out its first shakedown cruise since he acquired it several years ago. This was literally the first drive other than once around the block, and in the meantime he had done a bunch of work, including installing Century brakes and 15" wheels (recently painted and pinstriped). Here's a little video of the magnificent machine coming into the light of day. A few more pics: The test drive was -- what shall I say -- "instructive." She starts, she stops, but we discovered a very disconcerting tendency for the throttle to stick wide open! Further review revealed that a previous owner (or mechanic) had decided that it was a good idea to adjust the throttle linkage so that the rear carb throttle opened as soon as the front carb. I know from my own car that the carbs were intended to be sequential or progressive -- the rear carb only kicks in after the front carb is at about 75% throttle. My theory is that changing the linkage buggered things up so that it had this tendency to stick. But I don't want to get ahead of myself (or of Thom). Thom is going to tinker with it and we will report on the result. But I have to say it was a treat to ride around the neighborhood in this lovely vehicle, even for just a short time. Other than the throttle problem, it ran well, and I'm sure this bug will be eliminated very soon.

I am in SF with a '41. Feel free to contact me any time! Neil