neil morse

Raise your hand if you washed at least one old Buick this weekend! A pleasant way to spend a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.

I found this old thread that might have some useful information in it for you.

Your car is a Special, model 41 4-door Touring Sedan. According to William Anderson's "Restoration Facts -- 1941 Buick," 91,138 of this model were produced (more than any other model for 1941). I have been unable to find any figures for factory RHD cars. I assume they are very uncommon. Maybe @Grant Z or one of our other Australian members will have some information about RHD cars. If you need help with the restoration or obtaining parts, feel free to reach out to us on this forum. The '41's are very popular and there are a lot of good sources for parts. Glad to hear that it's running well!

Haha -- I was thinking the exact same thing!

It's not an "A" model. It's the 40B, you can tell by the body style. I'm not sure it's that unusual that the data plate is missing. The data plate was missing on my '41 when I got it. If you could send more photos, we can probably help you answer more of your questions. Your initial question is pretty general, asking for "all the information" you can get. It would help if you could ask more specific questions. We have a lot of information! Good luck, it looks like a solid car.

Go ahead, Matt, you've earned it! I'm so happy for you and your family after following this saga up to the present.

Mr. W.T. Cooper bought new whitewalls for that Plymouth sedan and put it front and center for a quick sale! Gotta admit, it looks like a creampuff!

Trim number 900 is tan and gray Bedford Cord (also sometimes referred to as "tan and blue" Bedford Cord).

Rita Hayworth and Liz Taylor -- I'm afraid they are no longer with us.

Yes, Lever House! Thank you, Elpad, it was really bugging me that I couldn't remember that.

That's a twofer! But what is that building? I know it's an iconic New York City office building by a famous mid-Century modern architect, but I can't remember what it's called or who designed it. Help me out!

Do you have the shop manual? On my '41, there is a line embossed on the upper tank under the filler tube that shows the proper coolant level. As a rule of thumb (pun intended), stick your finger down the filler tube. Just the tip of your finger should get wet.

Peter, did you see that right at the beginning of my post I said, "I have no idea whether this is an appropriate topic to raise on this forum, and I urge the moderators to move it to a better spot if necessary, but I think it's a topic of general interest to forum members." I try to be a responsible member of this forum. I did not intend to start "another topic about how bad eBay is." As has been pointed out, I was frustrated with one aspect of eBay -- the search function -- and wondered if others shared my frustration and whether I could get some help on using it more effectively. The irony is that I actually find eBay to be a useful resource and was trying to get some tips on how to use it more successfully. If you thought my thread was a bad idea, you could have just closed it. As far as your expending virtually "no effort to find the help necessary to explain how to use the eBay search tool," I thank you for posting that link. However, I'm not sure you appreciate how challenging it can be for those of us who are not as computer savvy as you are to effectively use a search tool. Even having read the instructions offered by eBay, I still find it difficult. And part of what I was having trouble understanding was that something had changed -- I had very happily used the search function in the past to find parts for my car, but over time it no longer worked for me. One of the things I love about this forum is how helpful the members are to each other. I figured I could get some help by posting my questions, and that the answers might be helpful to others as well. That's how this forum works at its best as far as I'm concerned, and I was grateful for the help I received, as I posted earlier.

I'm learning a lot from all these responses. I thank everyone for your contributions!

I had the same experience. I used to have a programmed search for any '41 Buick parts, and I would check it frequently when I looked at my email. It was helpful because the list was actually limited to '41 Buick parts. But, as you say, it eventually became a complete waste of time because only a tiny fraction of the search results had anything to do with a '41 Buick. It's interesting to hear that the explanation is that sellers are spamming the search engine. It's ironic to me that they are completely wrecking the very system that I would think they want to rely on to enable buyers to find their products.

I don't know the answer to your question. But I have heard stories about conservative long-time Chrysler customers (bankers, doctors, etc.) who were quite shocked when they stepped on the gas for the first time on their new 1951 models!

I have actually found a lot of parts that I have purchased for what I consider to be reasonable prices. I have even found that some established vendors for Buick parts sometimes offer their products at a discount on ebay. I'm just frustrated trying to find the parts! (By the way, I have often found that a simple Google search is a much more effective method of finding parts for sale on ebay. It's only ebay's own search engine that seems to be haunted.)

Charge indicator gauge wrongly identified as being for a Pontiac. https://www.ebay.com/itm/165551167762?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D253008%26meid%3Dd1694cdffc7a44dcb07702b88373c269%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D9%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D155703728568%26itm%3D165551167762%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv11WebTrimmedV3MskuWithLambda85KnnRecallV1V2V4ItemNrtInQueryAndCassiniVisualRankerAndBertRecallWithVMEV3%26brand%3DTacktick&_trksid=p2047675.c101195.m1851&amdata=cksum%3A165551167762d1694cdffc7a44dcb07702b88373c269|enc%3AAQAIAAABcPqB0EgCndAssfMWNy0AT0GytGzF9%2By0G%2BlcW69DgBK3Qlz4BjwJQqPkN4K8I7qz9GoVciN1QNWqyS8EeqYS8rZRsDvyvw34m3N%2FyJKokwCTIIc3RNym2SNW8ARudP72DyiwgIY0dfUnIr5%2BMZDTaospZnHP%2F%2BJGbQthzlmiA3U5HpBtUO7Ueys7kK0TYFwG8iklHpHr4fmx2kEQSkzJfq%2BdEeEkD2mVZ9qVgsZzQpRd%2B0%2FhkmRwdNBioo%2FFk08Z8CyxbVcqTDdyM5HIhA0i40iAZuJ3KIkU2Rec4xdaX4IYkSexATAQNrYECyQ9t1yJaF1Q2Ch03JU%2FAGqgVSlLEERrD%2BRNZVMw3uSDJN4IzVzw7D2BD0mQvRe01aS7Qj6dSWWS6sFYblBw8cGLaCni%2Beq5nOLkZ%2FCR8zF6t%2FdqAuONn2Yws8H3AAxPdoyp29%2FVcQb946E5R0eJNXVmSzKDbc9kuB9uQG2bHHj9gThLsKPk|ampid%3APL_CLK|clp%3A2047675

A good way to instantly increase the top speed of your car by 10 mph! Here's an NOS fuel gauge that I just found on ebay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/155703728568?hash=item2440aa59b8:g:mCgAAOSw4A9kzcJZ&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8Mm6vExtkoFkfCHFL9mDFEmNY8FvpcdabfX6XQU%2F3EJVpVcV%2FTZN5vnOPehwiKc0b6B47YatiPGuD5VP3r4cZdE0Htzsu4HQR6Ovn%2FUCzK66ZIAfPlHzzyPNV0iAymNEFti6wqUbyQpzmtVb6NFPeNnDPYo5StDftuab9Iu8TWGrXKZPFNh1hxxaX1BHDmBi35nb4fZ0oHYUUa2aulwwoh7uq4jj5nmwS9RyU%2FipGlA%2B94Wib4oMUCjuRkGBwo1HL7ukvtXDpQPozjzNd1NIC47OFicjIBoAoOzQq7Rg51whjYbKvpLe99ukAltT5lrdbg%3D%3D|tkp%3ABFBM1Kql97hi

I have no idea whether this is an appropriate topic to raise on this forum, and I urge the moderators to move it to a better spot if necessary, but I think it's a topic of general interest to forum members. In the past, I have found the ebay search engine to be a useful way to look for parts for my '41 Buick. However, starting about two years ago, I have found that no matter how I try to narrow down the search terms I use, I just get an endless stream of links to completely wrong products. I first noticed that I got of lot of products that supposedly "fit" on my car. For example, if I searched for "1941 Buick fuel gauge," I would get a lot of aftermarket gauges with the claim that they would "fit" a '41 Buick. For a while, it seemed to help to add "- fits" to the search terms which eliminated the word "fits" from the search. However, that only worked for a short time. For at least the past two years or so, the search engine has become completely useless. For example, just to make sure I wasn't going crazy, I did a sample search just before making this post. Just as a random test, I put in "1941 Buick fuel gauge -fits." The first four items to come up were an industrial hose cleaner, a dragster fuel pressure gauge, a set of vintage locking lug nuts, and a set of pans for a 1954 Hydramatic transmission. (By the way, I don't currently need a fuel gauge -- that was just something I picked at random.) We hear a lot about Artificial Intelligence these days. This just seems like "Artificial Stupidity." I would be grateful for any suggestions on how to conduct effective and useful searches on ebay! Thanks in advance. Neil

Another thread about the two different fonts on the '40/'41 gauges:

Fuel/Oil Pressure gauge on Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/125930294546

Also, Dave, this is an excellent thread that has a lot of great information about rebuilding '40 gauges.

Sorry for the delay. I have posted links to two places in my "Me and My Buick" thread that deal with my rebuilding of the gauges. (click on arrow in upper right hand corner to get to the right post.) If you have the patience to poke around some more, you will find others. I started out thinking that I would have to use reproduction plastic. When I started, a full set was still being sold by Bob's, but I don't think they are available any more. I got a speedo face off of Ebay, and I bought one of the "bowtie" plastic pieces from Doug Seybold in Ohio (440-835-1193). I also started buying up used gauges on Ebay, which come up quite often, as well as NOS gauge heads for the charge indicator and temperature gauge, which were completely fried on my car. Once I got into the project, however, I found that the reproduction plastic parts that I had were a noticeably different color than the originals. They had a kind of greenish tinge instead of the creamy, ivory tone of the originals. So I ended up using the best original "bowtie" piece from my collection of parts. They do tend to yellow with age, but a little rubbing compound helps to get them looking good again. Then, at the last minute, I was super fortunate to find a NOS speedo face on Ebay for $35! So that's what worked for me. Good luck, and feel free to DM me if you have any questions that I might be able to help with.

I have a lot of information for you but I can't post right now. I will chime in later this evening.