Bloo

You will need to know the model, you probably won't get anywhere without it for information on a Buick, as the slightly bigger ones are usually an entirely different car and most parts don't interchange. It should be pretty easy to figure out what it is. A picture of the Fisher Body tag on the firewall would probably be enough for some guys in here to figure it out. I have never heard of a Buick conversion like what you did to the Chevrolet with a later hub, but if that is possible someone in here will know. On most GM cars, special tapered roller bearings are used for conversions like that because any standard tapered roller bearings are a different physical shape than ball bearings, usually shorter and fatter. Also, seals didn't fit because of the fatter bearing so you had to warp the seal with a couple of sockets and a hammer. I have heard the most recent conversion kits have a custom seal that solves this, but I have not seen it. Since these are all special parts, I would also be concerned about parts availability in the future, particularly if you had to machine or modify any of the parts on the car and couldn't easily go back to ball bearings. Also, bending up seals by hammering on them just isn't my style. Tapered roller bearings do make a much better wheel bearing, it's true, but balls worked fine on GM cars for decades. Could the ball bearings go 300.000+ miles with a little care like the tapered rollers in Chrysler products? No, but they weren't a problem either. My first car had ball bearings. I just repacked them when doing the brakes like any other car. I never had to buy it any. My current antique has them too. I had to replace one of the four. Welcome to the forum!

Get a pressure/vacuum one (most are). You can check fuel pressure. Normal operation will have the needle swinging all over the place as the pump is pumping, but eventually the carb will fill and the float valve will close, and you can see the actual fuel pressure until the float valve opens again. You can also hook the gauge to the input of the pump (gas line to the rear disconnected) and crank up vacuum. It should climb up pretty good and not instantly go way down. The fuel pump should be able to hold vacuum more or less, it probably wont be perfect, but the needle shouldn't go right back down. You can also tee in the gauge on the suction side of the pump. It does take quite a bit of suction to move the fuel through that little line, but if it just keeps going way up as you crank and sort of staying there, resembling the test with only the gauge connected, your gas line is restricted or your sock filter (in the tank) is plugged.

Yes. Famous for needle bearings, especially needle bearing thrust washers. Those thrust washers are called "Torrington Bearings" no matter who made them in the same way all tissues are called Kleenex. They also made bicycle pedals of very high quality. Drawn cup needle bearings like the one in this thread were probably one of their inventions as well, though I am less sure of that. I doubt there is much left of them in Connecticut today. Torrington Bearing has apparently been owned by both Koyo and Timken, and I am not sure who owns them now.

Follow Terry's advice, and the cam timing will be right. This other stuff is a separate issue. If there is ANY doubt about the accuracy your TDC mark, figure it out and fix it now. The cam timing is unaffected by that. I'll bet Terry knows that, but I don't. Personally I wouldn't trust it for TDC even if that is true. Remember that a four stoke engine only fires #1 on every other revolution of the crank. If you can even tell where that spot is by the valves, you are probably on the wrong turn of the crank. If you were on the firing turn both valves would have been closed both a long time before and a long time after TDC. It really doesn't matter for checking TDC, as TDC comes up on every turn. It matters for the ignition only. The ignition only fires every other turn. But, since you were comparing it to the ignition mark, which also comes up on every turn, even though the ignition only FIRES on every other turn, I suspect you might be about a whole turn from where you might think you are.

I'll bet that's older than you might think. It has a cork on a string for a stopper. Probably not 1920s like all these tire covers though.

PM sent.

I would still like to know if Buick swaged the studs. It matters. Chrysler swaged the studs, and if you manage to press them out without cutting the swage, you have ruined the hubs because the holes are now too big to hold a stud properly.

Was this a running car? I wonder if you are fighting rust on the input shaft spline? I had a thread a while back about a 36 Pontiac transmission overhaul, and at the end of it I tried to document some of the differences at the front and the back between the Pontiac, Buick, and Oldsmobile variants of this transmission in the mid 30s. The thread is here. Some variants of this transmission use the bellhousing as the front bearing cover, and as I recall all the mid 30s Oldsmobiles were like that. Some variants do not have the throw out bearing support @DFeeney mentioned, Pontiac for instance. I don't know if Oldsmobile has it or not, but it wouldn't matter in your case. Even if it did have that throw out bearing support it would stay with the bellhousing because on an Oldsmobile the front bearing cover is the bellhousing. We need @Dandy Dave in this thread. I believe he overhauled one of the Oldsmobile variants, maybe a 1936, and not that long ago.

Thanks! Yes, I read somewhere that Torrington used to put oil holes in all of them, and then suddenly stopped, and after that you had to add the OH suffix to get an oil hole. The age of the bearing might matter. I do need the oil hole. Last month I was going to buy that one you linked on the strength of the idea that OH means oil hole even though there were no pictures, but I got a bearing from KornKurt when I drove through Iowa a couple weeks ago. Actually it was a whole water pump of the wrong year that I bought on the strength of the idea that the bearing might be in there. It was in there, along with some other parts I can use. The bearing has an oil hole, and it is marked NB-10-X. I messaged 2 other ebay sellers over a month ago about the oil hole. One of the listings had pictures that may have been of the bearing, and may have been of the Loch Ness Monster. The other had 3 pictures of the same side of the bearing. Neither responded about the oil hole. I suspect all these NB-10 variants have a 3/4" O.D. but would like to know for sure.

That's exactly like the 53-54 Chevrolet-Pontiac setup, and a fairly detailed explanation of how those dash indicators work. It sure would have been nice if Chevrolet and Pontiac put that in the manual LOL. If you are using an original GM flasher from 1949, or back somewhere close to that, there's nothing to do about that. If you have a new flasher from NAPA or something, you need to disconnect the wire from the "P" terminal of the flasher and ground the wire. This is the wire coming off the left side of the flasher and heading over to the dash indicators on the diagram. Also, swap the positions of the two sockets in the dash. This makes the dash indicators work properly but does nothing else. The rest is normal, like most American cars. It has shared brake lights. Stuff to check: 1) On each corner of the car, there is a wire from a good ground to each signal light socket. The factory did not do this, but do it to save your sanity.... 2) There is a wire from the signal switch to each corner of the car. If there are any double-contact bulbs, there are 2 filaments inside. Each filament has a hot contact and the socket is the common ground. The big heavy filament is the signal (front) or the signal/brake (back). Make sure the wire coming from the signal switch goes to the big filament. You mentioned fuse blowing. It would probably pay to look inside the sockets for a short caused by something hot and bare touching a spring or whatever. 3) Inspect the bulbs. Are they 6 volt bulbs? If the bulbs are single-contact, make sure they have the big heavy filament and have not been substituted with some tail or park light bulbs with a tiny filament. If they are double-contact, look and see that you don't have a filament sagging enough to touch another filament inside the bulb. 4) Beyond that, there is a hot wire feeding the flasher (on it's "X" terminal I think), and a wire from the flasher (possibly an "L" terminal) to the turn signal switch. 5) There is a hot wire feeding the brake light switch. There is another wire from the brake light switch to the turn signal switch. 6) The dash indicators are connected to the front signals. Otherwise they would come on with the brake lights. And that's the whole thing. If you have all that it can't help but work unless the switch or the flasher is bad. Here's how it actually works. With the signals OFF, the turn signal switch connects both rear bulbs to the brake light switch. The brake lights work normally. When you turn a signal ON (left in this example), two things happen. 1) The signal switch connects the left front bulb (and one dash indicator) to the flasher. 2) The signal switch disconnects the left rear bulb from the brake light switch and connects it to the flasher. Good luck with it. With all new wiring you have to be close. Keep us posted.

I'd like to see the wiring diagram for this car. In 1953-54, Chevrolet and Pontiac (and possibly some others) used a scheme where the dashboard-mounted signal indicators ground through the bulbs on the opposite side of the car. These cars have separate indicators on the dash for right and left. This detail is important. What they have done is instead of grounding the sockets of the dashboard indicators to ground as normal, they have connected them together and to the "P" terminal of the flasher. I believe this is a scheme to warn the driver of a burned out bulb on the outside of the car. If your 1949 Buick is wired like this, and you still have your old original GM flasher, there should not be an issue. If you buy a new flasher today, the dashboard mounted indicators will not work correctly. The cure is to remove the dashboard indicator grounds from the flasher's "P" terminal and ground them. You also need to reverse the right and left sockets in the dash. This mod is ONLY for cars wired EXACTLY as I have described above that are no longer using an original flasher, and have a problem with the dashboard indicators. Since you are having trouble with the signal lights themselves, this is probably not it. 4.2 and 42 ohms are wildly different. To go down that path, if you wish, you will need to figure out which. 4.2 ohms would be about an 8.5 watt bulb at 6 volts, but somewhat less in real life. Ohmmeter tests are a moving target because the resistance of the bulb changes when it is on. 42 ohms would be less than a watt. You really don't need to do this, other than maybe to check for shorts to ground. The suggestion to add ground wires to the sockets at all four corners of the car is a good one. Lots of screwball problems go away when you do that. I can't really guess too much about the rest until I see a wiring diagram. Post one if you've got it. If this car shares the brake light bulbs like @NTX5467 mentioned, I can tell you how that works. 90% or more of old American cars do, but at one time Buick was an exception. I'm not sure when that changed.

41 is too early for blackout in any make, as far as I know. That is a 1942 thing, and not from the beginning of the model year. It happened sometime after the US became involved in the war. The 1942 model year would have started in late 1941 before the US became involved in the war.

As far as I know, that has always meant that it runs and drives, but that's all. In other words, it probably starts goes and stops but if you live further away than across town or the next town over it would probably be better to bring a trailer. That is my take on it from the 1970s. It's one step below "drive anywhere", one step above "yard drives", and two steps above "must be towed".

Casting numbers on a Carter Carburetor mean very little. If @carbking were here he could probably narrow each one of those castings down to a couple hundred year/make/engine/transmission combinations. The carburetors should have brass tags, and the tag number is the meaningful one. If the tags are missing you might be stuck, but sometimes Carter stamped a code in the throttle body mounting flange that can be decoded back to a tag number. I think that is what @NTX5467 is referring to. Carter might not have always stamped the code, I'm not sure. Even if they did, rebuilders sometimes eliminated it. If you don't have the tags, look at the flanges under a bright light and cross your fingers.

Did Buick swage the studs?

You just wash the mesh out with stoddard solvent, or paint thinner, or something like that. SAE 50 is race oil these days, and it's overkill, but it isn't particularly hard to get. NAPA has it in the warehouse (usually overnight availibility) if you have a NAPA store nearby. Valvoline VR-1 is the one they stock. I can get 2 changes out of a quart on my Pontiac, not sure how much bigger (or not) the air cleaner might be on a 54 Special. You might be able to blast the mesh with brake cleaner and let it drain onto some old shop rags if you can't deal with doing it the old way. Don't get any brake cleaner on any outside surfaces, as it will definitely damage or remove the paint. I've never found one loaded up with dirt in recent years, the main reason you change the oil, and I do it about once a year, is to remove the water that got separated from the air. You'll find it sitting underneath the oil trying to rust some pinholes in the bottom of the oil reservoir. Rust pinholes are the main failure mode of an oil bath air cleaner. I'm not a fan of paper filters, although I am a fan of not having to change the oil in the reservoir. Most conversions I have seen are pretty hackish. Once in a while someone comes up with a paper element that will go where the mesh assembly was and fit right. Be aware that the paper element must completely seal. Close is not good enough. If any air can get around the element, most of it will go around the element.

Yeah, I am aware of that one. I first saw that listing around the same time I bought my car. I guess that was 6 or 7 years ago? The book is in really rough shape too, not that I care much about that but it does affect the value. Similar manuals for other years have been selling on ebay for 1/3 of that or less, and usually in much better shape. Maybe someday I'll start throwing him offers. I don't want to insult the guy, and it isn't a super high priority to me right now, there's just 5 or 6 things I would like to look up. I already have the 1937 Master Parts Book. It cost less than 1/4 of what that guy is asking. 1937 is the useful one for a 1936 car because 1936 Pontiacs have an absurd number of mid year changes that wouldn't be covered in a book published in late 1935 or early 1936. I wouldn't expect it to be rare. There was in early 1936 some misunderstanding about what the 1936 Shop Manual was supposed to cost. Apparently the dealers interpreted the heavily discounted price Pontiac intended it to be retailed for as a wholesale price. There was some disagreement about it. In the fallout a month or so later, Pontiac was sending a Shop Manual, or a Master Parts Book, or both, free(!) to any 1936 Pontiac buyers who asked for them. This included people who had bought a 1936 Pontiac before the policy change. I suspect this is why the 1936 Shop Manuals are so common. There seem to be more of them around than surviving cars. I would expect the 1936 Master Parts Book to be common too for the same reason. It doesn't seem to come up much. Maybe not that many owners asked for it? EDIT: That may have been the new "users guide" instead of the shop manual, and if so does not explain the high survival rate of shop manuals. The low price may explain it. What I said about the Master Parts Book still holds. An owner could request that free of charge.

Thanks for looking!

Thanks for posting that. Looks like 1971? That's older than anything I found online by quite a bit. The bearings sizes listed closely resemble what is still available now. Still no match, but getting older.

Thanks for the links. 5/8" is way too big. It's similar to what the last guy did, apparently he used an Oldsmobile shaft (oversize at the front) and then just bushed the front in bronze and eliminated the bearing entirely. It did work. I might put it back in. The rear bushing is a special part with an oilite bush inside a bronze thrust bearing, so the rear part of the shaft must remain 31/64". It makes things a bit hairy taking it apart because you must press on the casting in a way you probably shouldn't. I still want answers about the bearing even if a 13/16" x 31/64" one exists and I can't get it. If it turns out that the bore in the front of the pump body should be 3/4" instead of the 13/16" it is now, it would be preferable from my point of view to sleeve it back to 3/4" somehow. The sleeve would need to remain concentric with the rear bore. Also, I have a 3/4" x 31/64" bearing in my hand, so there's that....

Thanks, but I have that one. It's from 2016. There seems to be nothing of this series included, if it is a series. It may be just plain custom.

I'd love to but that is pretty thin. I did look for that but didn't find a source. Maybe if I can find someone local who has a 3/4" piloted reamer....

Hopefully someone comes along with 1955 Buick Super specific advice. I have done this job with staggered soldered connections and heatshrink on so many 1960s Chrysler products it is all a blur. By the 1990s, Chrysler only had one switch available. It fit in about 95% of the steering columns (it was too fat for a very few of them), but had the wrong terminals and wires way too short for almost every application. On that Chrysler switch, soldering on the terminals themselves at the switch was a non-starter. I suspect that is true of your Buick switch as well, but without seeing pictures of it that is only a wild guess. Most signal switches are far too easy to damage. The splices don't need to be fat. They can be almost as svelte as the wire. Mesh the wires and twist like this (don't forget to slide the heatshrink over the wire first like I always do): I don't know if you have soldering experience, so here's the detailed version. Solder with a HOT soldering iron and tin the iron first. Get in, get done, and get out. You absolutely need the solder to flow, but if you have to hold the heat on forever because of a crappy little iron, the solder will wick way up the wire and make it stiff way beyond your splice. Use ROSIN core solder only, and preferably solder with lead in it, of either 63/37 or 60/40 alloy. Yes lead is poisonous. Wear some gloves or something. Lead-free solder is uncooperative stuff that is definitely not for beginners. I don't know if you are or not, but there it is. Your twisted splice will want to fall apart or spread while you solder it. Do whatever is necessary to stabilize it. If it fights you and you can't stand it, consider getting some tiny copper wire and doing this before you solder. It works well: Use longer pieces of heatshrink than most people online do in their online pictures. It should definitely go out past the stiff part from soldering, forming a little bit of a strain relief. On that subject, if you can bury the splices up next to something solid (like the column) that is preferable to having them out in the part of the harness that gets moved around. Modern heatshrink is really thin. If you stagger the splices as you were planning, it won't be a much bigger pile of wire than it was. I always stagger them. Did the guy with the butt splices put them all next to each other? It might be hard to get staggering. Some wires might need 2 splices. I would still do it.

This is a tube type radio using 12 volt tubes and one transistor. By 12 volt tubes I do not mean just common tubes with 12 volt heaters, I mean tubes that also use 12 volts as the plate voltage, so there is no vibrator power supply needed to provide high voltage. Radios like this use a transistor as this one does, or sometimes two transistors as the audio output stage. That is because a 12 volt tube can not supply near enough audio output power. It was a common way to make a car radio in the late 50s and early 60s. GM cars had this 12-volt-tubes-and-a-transistor setup in 1959 for sure, and I think they first had it in 1957. I don't have any idea if this is AMC or not, but I sure wouldn't rule 1957 out. A radio made in 1957 could easily be for a 1958 model. I believe in 1958 you would be more likely to see the technology this radio uses than anything else.