neil morse

Is this car possibly on its way to Latvia? 😜 Looks like a pretty good buy to me.

The seller (Nick Nichols) is well-known in San Francisco old car circles for his large collection of mostly original "driver-quality" cars, a large percentage of which are Chrysler products. He's a great guy and a pleasure to deal with. I think he may be aiming a bit high with this one, but they're only original once!

I would think that if you contact the vendor who provides the full kit, they will sell you that one bolt separately. Your award-winning Buick looks great, as usual!

Hi Grant: I hope you will consider a stop in San Francisco on your way to Los Angeles. I would love to meet you and show you my '41! Neil

Mercury Zephyr Z7 This is not my car -- it belongs to someone in my neighborhood and I see it parked on the street -- but I'm posting these pics anyway because it's unusual to see a bone stock car from the late 70's/early 80's like this. I'm not sure of the year. (They were made from '78 to '83.)

Dan, I was actually at work composing this post when you posted the above. I was curious about your car and consulted the '42 shop manual which I found available free online. https://www.teambuick.com/reference/library/42_shop/index.php The available choices for rear end ratios for '42 were dramatically reduced for some reason compared to '41. According to the chart on page 4-1 of the manual, the only ratios available for the Special were 4.4 and 4.1. There were no optional rear end choices for any of the other series, and the Super was only available with the 4.4. This is surprising to me given how well my car performs with the 3.9. I don't know why, but they seemed to be moving in the wrong direction going from '41 to '42. I also thought that the "40" stamped on the bottom of the axle housing might indicate the series, as you say. This might be the case, but that would mean that my car has an axle housing for a Special not a Super (possible, of course). Somebody might have swapped in a Special rear axle with the 3.9 on my car.

I agree with EmTee except for the part about SMS stocking the appropriate Bedford Cord. They sent me several samples of what they had in stock, but none of them was close to correct for my car. Of course, I was trying to find something that matched what was already there, since I wanted to do only the front seat. One of their standard offerings would have worked to do the whole interior, although it would not have been "correct." I opted to have them make up a custom fabric at $149 a yard, which was not cheap. The result was very nice, as noted in my previous post, however it turned out not to be enough fabric because of the problem with the width. So I ended up having to source fabric from elsewhere, and I now have 3 yards of nice fabric that cost me $500 that I can't use! As I said earlier, lesson learned. Wherever you're getting your fabric, make absolutely certain that you get your upholsterer to specify exactly the number of yards and the width of the fabric they will need, and make sure that's what you are getting from your supplier.

Hi Dan: I'm sorry to hear about your illness and hope you are on the mend. It's been a while since I looked at your thread, and I now have a possible answer to the question you posted back in October about the differential. I don't know whether you have seen the most recent posts on my thread, but I opened up the rear end on my car and confirmed that I have the optional 3.9 gears. But I also discovered that my axle housing, like yours, has a big number 40 stamped on it. The '41 shop manual says the rear end ratio is marked with daubs of red or blue paint on the axle ends "or" by figures stamped on the underside of the axle housing. But the big number 40 apparently isn't an indicator of the gear ratio -- at least not on my car. As you can see on my thread, I also discovered a much fainter stamping that "might" be a 3 and a 9 on the axle housing. Also, are you sure a 4.0 ratio was offered in '42? On the '41 Special with compound carburation, it was either a 4.1 or a 3.9. I wish I could help with the charging problem, but electricity remains largely a mystery to me. There are a lot of threads on voltage regulator problems, including some recent ones. Apparently, it's difficult to get good ones as there are a lot of junky knock-offs that fail almost immediately. At least that was my take on what I've read about it. I've made some comments on the fabric issues in your other thread. Glad to hear you're back to working on your car!

EmTee is exactly right. For example, in order to do the front seat in my '41 in the correct factory pattern, it was necessary to have the full 58" of width in order to cover the lower seat cushion with a single piece of fabric. I assume your '42 is the same. With the narrower fabric, you will have a seam down the middle of the lower cushion. I'm sure it will look fine, but it won't be strictly "correct." So it's really a matter of whether that makes a difference to you.

What a coincidence -- I was just writing this post based on an email exchange I had with Don. Don is too polite to say anything critical here, but he pointed out to me that I actually installed the rubber doughnut incorrectly. I couldn't really tell from the shop manual exactly where it was supposed to go (the drawing is pretty difficult to interpret clearly), but as Don pointed out, the doughnut should be sandwiched in between the metal clip holding the return spring and the "equalizer" (which I called the "yoke" in my earlier post). That way the doughnut is held in place and can't "wander" up the threaded rod. However, as a practical matter, I can tell you that the hole in the doughnut fits very tightly on the threaded rod. In fact, it had to be spun on there like a nut. So I don't think it's actually going anywhere. I have to admit I'm still a bit surprised that these rubber doughnuts seemed to deteriorate so fast back in the day that so many Buicks had the clanging bell problem. It may be that the reproduction sold by Cars, Inc. is an improved version, but it is very hard rubber and quite thick and robust. I know we can't compare our "pampered babies" to cars that were driven thousands of miles in a year, but I would have expected the doughnuts to have lasted longer.

More on Parking Brake Clanging When we were having the discussion about the "Buick bell" phenomenon earlier in this thread, the ever sharp-eyed Thom @Shootey pointed out to me that there was actually a part on the parking brake diagram in the shop manual that was missing from my car. It turns out that this part is, in fact, what the Buick engineers came up with to prevent the clanging of the Buick bell. They are available from Cars, Inc. and they look like this: https://oldbuickparts.com/product/brake-cable-buffer-3/ I ordered one and installed it today. Sure enough, it prevents the "yoke" of the parking brake cables from hitting the torque tube. In the earlier discussion, several people mentioned a "rubber grommet." I just assumed they were talking about the grommet, seen in the top of the photo above, where the threaded shaft goes through the ring attached to the torque tube. If anyone was talking about the "buffer," I apologize for not getting it. In any event, it turns out that Buick had a factory solution to the "clanging" problem, but one that probably didn't hold up too long as the rubber doughnut eventually deteriorated and fell off. In any event, in the interest of authenticity and correctness, I have substituted the buffer for the DIY heater hose solution that the previous owner had installed.

Yes, what ILIKECARS says is absolutely essential. I ended up with a really bad situation with SMS because I ordered several "yards" of fabric without nailing down the width. My upholstery shop had told me they would need two yards so I ordered two yards from SMS, mistakenly thinking that a "yard" of fabric in the upholstery world was some kind of standard measure. It turned out that the upholsterer was assuming a 58" width, and the stuff that SMS made up for me was only 40-something inches. Lesson learned.

I sent you a PM. I would be happy to buy the clock on Ebay and ship it to you in Germany.

Whoever picked that interior fabric should be a candidate for "a minor spot of arrest." Crazy price for a car that needs everything, not to mention the ambiguity about the drive train!

These are great cars, as has been said many times on this forum. It's odd that they don't have an asking price, just the amount supposedly spent on recent work, which is kind of a tease. They say more photos will be posted. I'm curious to see how good (or bad) the "new Green and teal houndstooth interior is." Doesn't sound like it's correct. The condition of the dash plastic could be a deal maker or breaker on this car. It can be beautiful if it's in good condition, but can be a total mess if melted or cracked (and no good reproductions are available as far as I know). Also, conversion to 12 volt is kind of a red flag. If I lived a bit closer to Pacific Grove I would go look at it just out of curiosity.

I just took a quick look over all the offerings at this auction, and there are a lot of very interesting cars, including two other '41 Buicks not mentioned in Reynard's post (a Super convertible and a Special Sedanet), a couple of nice looking '49 Cadillacs, a very nice Hudson Hornet with Twin-H power, etc. Most of the cars are offered at no reserve. It's worth taking a look at the website even if it's just to look at the pictures!

I will be watching this auction out of curiosity since this car is the exact twin of mine, down to the color. The lack of information is annoying. I've never gone to an auction so I don't know how it works, but I would be hesitant to bid on a car without at least some basic information about condition. From the look of the photos, this is a solid original car that has been in storage for quite a while. You would think that Mecum or the seller would have at least cleaned the mold off the dashboard and steering column before taking those interior pics! I am very curious to hear what this car sells for.

Bryan is correct. It's a 1930 Essex, I believe a Super Six.

Just seems like a reasonable price to me, considering the condition of the car which hasn't run for nearly 70 years. If it's a scam, it's a very odd one!

The bones appear solid, but as Mike says, it will take someone with a very fat wallet to fully restore this car. There's no indication of the last time the car ran, but it appears from the photos to have been many years ago. After spending $100K, you would have a very nice car worth about half that much. There was a guy in my neighborhood years ago with one of these -- a beautifully preserved original in top shape. I always admired that car. The Caddy dash in '37 was particularly attractive. Also, it says it's a Cadillac, but if you look at the steering wheel you can see that it's actually a Ford! 😜

Actually, it depends on which photo you're looking at. In the ad, there are some photos that show a black engine (usually an indication of a factory rebuilt engine) and other photos that show the engine in the correct "Dante Red" color. The paint in the red engine photos looks pretty fresh, so I'm assuming that they are the more recent photos. The steering wheel looks more like it's been filled and painted than recast. This looks like a pretty nice car, but I think the price is a tad high for this "junior" model -- the least expensive Buick you could get in '41, built on the Chevy "A" body with a 118" wheelbase. I thought of Mike @kingrudy as soon as I saw the location. Someone should send him out there to take a look -- I bet he could get the seller to knock the price down a bit!

For whatever it's worth, the shop manual shows the brake line routed like mine. I filled it up with the new gear oil this morning. I know I was using the right stuff because I felt nauseous for an hour after the job! Now I just have to watch for leaks and hope I don't see any.

If this were in my neighborhood, I would definitely be taking a look at it!

Buttoned Back Up I put the cover back on this morning. I made two guide pins by sawing the heads off two bolts to help keep everything lined up. I put a thin coating of black Permatex on the gasket and stuck it on. Next, hung the cover on over the guide pins, coated the threads of the bolts with a bit of Permatex, and bolted everything up. The guide pins made the whole thing easy as pie. I will let everything cure overnight and then fill it up with this GL-4 80W-90 gear oil. I opted for the GL-4 after doing some reading on the forum to make sure I was using something that was okay for yellow metals. A good day.

The short answer is no, it would definitely not be easier to take the engine out. Undoing the rear end and pulling it back about 4 inches is not that difficult a job. Lifting the engine out is a major undertaking.