neil morse

For anyone wondering how this turned out, I posted the rest of the story in my "Me and My Buick" thread.

First, a pic of the brushes that I forgot to post earlier. As you can see, there is hardly any wear at all. Now the story takes a little detour. We put the solenoid back together, being very careful (we thought) to get everything back in the right place. The mechanism is quite simple, but has some complicated aspects. Each terminal bolt is mounted with a series of spacers, washers, insulators, etc. to keep the current where it’s supposed to be and insulate it from where it's not supposed to be. And each side is different. Well, when I went back home and put the starter back on the car and connected the wires, something was obviously amiss. When I tried to connect the braided ground wire to the negative terminal of the battery, I got a huge spark. Oops. So after a delay of several weeks, I took everything off again and took it back down to Don's. We found the problem right away. In our haste to finish the job, we had assembled the "sandwich" of washers and insulators wrong on the “hot” side. A fiber washer had failed to seat properly. The problem was further exacerbated by the fact that when I was connecting the cable from the battery, the copper bolt twisted in place and cracked one of the insulators. Result: the “hot” terminal was grounded. So we carefully took it apart again and put it back together right. Don had another solenoid (from a '49) and we disassembled it hoping to find a replacement for the broken insulator. It turned out the insulator on the other solenoid was broken in exactly the same spot, and in even worse shape than the one on mine. This was an indication that we weren't the first people to have the problem of the "hot" terminal bolt twisting when the battery cable is connected. We were able to glue the original insulator back together and reuse it. We also bench tested the starter this time. I put it back on the car this morning, and was careful not to over-torque the nut that holds the battery cable in place on the "hot" terminal. I connected everything, and it's working fine. Bloo has already commented on another issue I wanted to mention. As Bloo says, there is an adjustment on the solenoid plunger so that you can control how far back the Bendix is pushed when the solenoid is activated. If it's out of adjustment to the point that the Bendix is bottoming out on the starter casing, I think this can inhibit the solenoid from moving forward sufficiently to firmly engage the copper disc against the terminals, even with the spring arrangement that Bloo mentions. We figured that this must have been the situation with my solenoid. We made sure when we bench tested the starter to adjust the plunger so that there's a 3/16" gap between the Bendix gear and the end of the case, as specified in the manual. The final issue concerns the uneven wear on the terminals. It seemed to me that the wear should be even unless the copper disc is off-kilter in some way. However, it's interesting to hear what Bloo had to say about the uneven wear. Another friend of mine proposed exactly the same theory suggested by Bloo, i.e., the direction of the current causes the erosion to be uneven. It seems that the "hot" terminal wears more than the grounded terminal. So time will tell whether we found the actual problem or “fixed” something that didn’t need to be fixed. But I’m pretty confident that’s what was causing the problem. It's also nice to have the peace of mind of knowing that everything has been checked out and is functioning as it should.

Yes, I don't blame you for feeling that way! I am very fortunate. I will have wait until tomorrow before posting the exciting conclusion to the story. 😄

Starter Solenoid Rebuild As I reported in another thread, my car developed an intermittent starting problem back in April of this year. It would only happen very occasionally, but it was annoying. It seemed like the solenoid was engaging the Bendix, but the starter would not spin. It was not battery-related, and it seemed to "fix itself" after the car rested a bit or after I push started it and ran it for a while. After the third time it happened, I conferred with Don Micheletti about what it might be, and he theorized that the solenoid was only doing half its job. After being educated by him about the anatomy of a starter solenoid, I thought his theory made a lot of sense. As I learned (and undoubtedly most of you already know), the solenoid both shoves the Bendix backward to engage with the flywheel ring gear and at the same time pushes a copper disc forward where it makes contact with two terminals and causes the starter motor to spin. Don explained that if the terminals (really the heads of two copper bolts) get eroded over time from arcing, the disc doesn't make good contact and the starter motor doesn't spin. This theory seemed to explain exactly the symptom I was experiencing, so I decided to pull the starter off and see how it looked. I took the starter and solenoid off the car and took a look. Sure enough, as Don had predicted, the surface of one of the terminals was badly eroded. I then took the whole thing down to Don's shop so he could help me fix the situation. While we were at it, we dissembled the starter motor to check the brushes. They looked almost brand new. The commutator had obviously been turned at least once, but looked to be in good shape. We took the solenoid apart, and found that one of the terminals looked much worse than the other. This was odd because you would expect them to be the same. (More on this later.) Anyhow, Don put the two terminal bolts on his lathe and machined and smooth surface on both of them, being careful to make sure the thickness of the two bolt heads remained exactly the same. We also put the copper disc in the lathe and went over the surface with a piece of emery paper to smooth it out. To be continued.

Welcome to the forum! The power chord to the radio has a fuse housing that attaches to a bayonet mount inside the radio case. Here's what the end of the chord looks like: Unfortunately, I don't know where you can get one of these. You might try calling the folks at Rhode Island Wiring Service. https://www.riwire.com/ They are an excellent company that makes all variety of wiring harnesses. I don't know about the antenna situation. It seems odd that your car has a radio but no antenna. On the closed cars, the antenna was mounted on the roof just above the windshield. I believe that convertibles used a conventional antenna mounted on the side of the hood.

Wow, beautiful car! I bet that turns heads in Germany.

I agree that this car is priced somewhat optimistically. I disagree that it was on a movie set 30 years ago. The set is obviously from "Tales of the City" in San Francisco with the fictional "Barbary Lane" sign. This miniseries was filmed first in 1993 and then a sequel was filmed in 2019. I suspect the photo is from the 2019 filming, given what the seller says about how he acquired the car and what he has done to it.

Did you post this same thing in another Continental thread? I'm having an intense feeling of déjà vu. In any event, I agree completely with all your comments. A ground-breaking original and stunning design from 1939 completely ruined by a ham-handed attempt to "update" it to conform to later trends.

Seems like a very good price given all the work that's been done -- the under hood area looks super clean. But it's very odd that someone would devote all that effort to the interior and leave the terrible rusty dash the way it is. Even the dash pad looks new.

Yes, I concur that the one next to the Dodge is a Pontiac (with a dent in the right front fender).

Yes, good eye! And ... the other one is ... ? (Hint: it's next to a '34 Chrysler Six)

Short answer: NO!

Ouch! I'm so sorry to hear that. I didn't mean to make light of a tough situation. I wish you the best of luck with your surgery.

Haha, come on and man up! 😄 I guess I'm just used to getting my upper body exercise driving my '41 around town. This seems like a very nice car to me, despite the lack of power steering.

Deal of the day!

Looks really nice -- Toby's sister.

John, I've often wondered the same thing. These weren't just tiny mistakes that somehow "fell through the cracks" and went unnoticed. As you say, the process is very lengthy and involved many opportunities for people to intervene or veto the decisions that were being made. On the other hand, it would be interesting to look at the sales figures for '61. These designs offend our sensibilities, but I wonder whether they made much difference with the general public?

Here you go. @Elpad did a fabulous job with this car.

I bought this cable from Bob's Automobilia. I don't know if it's 00, but it works fine. Bob's also sells the correct mesh ground cables. https://bobsautomobilia.com/shop/electrical/positive-battery-cable-1940-53-straight-8-bc-17/

I've never understood what happened to Exner with the '61 designs for Dodge and Plymouth. Yes, they are just bizarre, there's no other word for it. It was as if he dropped some really bad acid! As a kid during those years I used to look forward every year to September when the first issues of Life Magazine would arrive at the house with the ads for the new models. As a 12-year-old in 1960 I remember just being dumbfounded when I saw the new designs for Dodge and Plymouth. The Plymouth front end is even worse than the Dodge. And, in contrast, it was a fabulous year for GM! I remember vividly that the '61 Pontiac just blew me away -- and it was in the era when Pontiac had those wonderful illustrations in their magazine ads. I wanted my Dad to get one so bad!

Beautiful car! If you mean what kind of jack to use in the shop, I would suggest that you get a good floor jack and a pair of jack stands. They are not expensive from places like Harbor Freight. The placement is really anywhere on the frame. Under the differential is good for the rear. Never on the bumper or the body, obviously. As far as a replacement for a portable jack to carry in the car, I can't help you there. I just carry a AAA membership, and hope I don't get a flat!

Of course you are correct, Grant. If you want to compare an apple to an orange to show that you know they are different, why not? 😄 Thank you for stating what you are trying to establish. My understanding is that the answer to the first question you pose is "Yes." Buick went to Fisher and asked for some of the Chevy "A" bodies to use to make a less expensive entry-level Buick Special. (Although some on this thread have argued that Buick got the bodies from Chevrolet instead of from Fisher -- which I gather is irrelevant to what you are interested in.) Now, if I'm following you correctly, we come to your second question, "the crux of what you are trying to establish," which is whether the bodies then had to be modified to make the Buick hood and front fenders mate up or whether the Buick front clip fit on the Chevy body without any modification. And I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that. I don't think you are barking up the wrong tree or that anything you are saying is fundamentally flawed -- you are just asking a question. Maybe someone who is following this discussion knows the answer.

No, you are misunderstanding me. I'm saying that in 1941, the Buick Super and Roadmaster used the General Motors (Fisher) new "C" body. This body was also used by Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac. The 1941 Buick Special used either the "A" body (shared with Chevrolet -- your car) or the "B" body. So all I'm saying is that your comparison of a '41 Special to a '41 Super is "apples to oranges." The Super simply had a different body than the Special, so you are not shedding any light on the Chevy/Buick question by comparing your car to a Super. Your car is obviously an "A" bodied Buick that shared a body with the Chevy on the 118" wheelbase. As I understand it, it is not "exactly" the same as a Chevy from firewall to trunk because it used Buick fenders (see Matt Harwood's post earlier in this thread). This thread seems to meander a bit into questions about fender skirts and whether the "A" body was a "Fisher body" or a "Chevrolet body," but I don't think anyone has ever questioned that your car has the "A" body, and therefore "the body shell (firewall to trunk) is the same as a '41 Chevy." I don't think it's really that confusing. Does that help?