Bloo

Who among you have seen one of these that covers Washington State? Does it exist?

As for me, I would do the penetrating oil but, don't worry too much about broken studs until you have one. You probably won't have one.

Is any of that dated?

Most 12 volt units will not work at all. Positive ground throws up yet another roadblock if you happen to have that. Analog two wire units have a higher probability of working, especially if they use a "SET" knob to calibrate the dwell scale. It should read 0 with the points open (no dwell) and the number of degrees between cylinders (45 for 8cyl, 60 for 6cyl, or 90 for 4cyl) when the points are closed. If you can get it to do that, it will work. Three wire units, including most digital ones, probably won't work.

I see you aren't getting a lot of response. I have worked on many of these at the dealership, and it was so long ago that I have no idea. Sorry about that. The short answer is that every carbureted car with an automatic choke has a fast idle screw or something that acts as a fast idle screw. I suggest getting a service manual and digging in. Close enough isn't close enough. Set everything to factory spec. These were smooth running and highly refined when new. The longer answer is there are a bunch of other things that could cause it to bog down cold, including but not limited to the choke setting itself and the choke pulloff mechanism. Your carburetor man may not be wrong.

To be clear, #7 sounds a bit off, but it should have pointed to either to #1 or to it's opposite in the firing order. Or, put another way, either the front or the back of the rotor should point to #1. If the timing was set right, and it was running, then it was correct. Since the crank rotates twice every time the distributor rotates once, only one of those 2 possibilities is right, the other is what we used to call "180 out" and will not run. It has to be not only on #1, but also on TDC right after the compression stroke when you line up the rotor to #1. That only happens every other rotation, so you need to check it some way, for instance it would blow your thumb off of the spark plug hole as the piston comes up if it is really on the compression stroke.

I would strongly recommend finding another handle as soon as reasonably possible. I had a similar situation on my truck, and it didn't take long to destroy the splines on the window regulator. If I had just fixed it right in the first place, I wouldn't have had to buy a window regulator and tear the door completely apart. It's my own damn fault, as the handle for my truck is far easier to get than one for a 35 Buick. I probably could have bought one on ebay the same day it failed.

I use them. I don't remember how many amps. Start out fully charged and you don't really need much. I go for small ones. Small is good. No point in charging the battery more than necessary. They don't like that. I think at least one of mine is a 1.5 amp. Before these tender things were common I used to use a "dumb" trickle charger, 1 or 2 amp I think, on a timer and just have it come on once in a while. @edinmass suggested using timers on tenders. I haven't implemented that yet, but I think it is a great idea. @Morgan Wright , I keep mine inside in the winter too, but in my area that is about a 3 month snooze, and I would rather not let the battery self-discharge that much, because I won't remember to top the charge off.

There are several of us in here driving flathead Pontiacs. Mine is a 1936 Master Six. You might get more views over in https://forums.aaca.org/forum/87-pontiac-flathead-owners/ or https://forums.aaca.org/forum/47-pontiac-oakland/ . Also, @32Pontiac6 might have some idea who else has a 1930. Welcome to the forum!

OUCH! Easy repair though. Replace that, lap em in and drive!

I sent a screwball Ford dual master cylinder to Brake and Equipment for sleeving maybe 2 or 3 years ago. The workmanship was excellent. I will definitely be back.

If you can't slow the leak down with new packing, the pump probably needs rebuilding due to bad bushings or a burned shaft or both. It needs to leak a tiny bit for lubrication or the shaft will burn up. Only a little, just enough to keep it damp or wet (not a steady drip or stream).

It is an interesting thing to think about, but somewhat complicated by the fact that Studebaker didn't go bankrupt as far as I know. They had diversified into other things, and no longer considered car manufacturing profitable. In the following years they were caught up in an endless string of corporate acquisitions and mergers, making it kind of hard to tell where they went. If I am not mistaken they finally ceased to exist in the mid 90s.

I would like to reinforce what was said about overfilling. It isn't just non-pressurized systems either. Any car that does not have an overflow system runs with the system NOT full. Coolant or water expands, and it has to go somewhere. Airspace is designed in. This includes most cars made up until 1970 or so. On some cars you cannot see the coolant in the radiator neck unless the car is hot. The white smoke, burned smell, and overheating combined does indeed sound like a head gasket, or more accurately "combustion gases in the cooling system". A cracked head or even a cracked block in some cases could do this. Don't even think that unless it has been proven. If you are in the US, you can rent a "block check kit" at Oreilly or Autozone, and they will sell you some blue fluid to use in it. This checks for combustion gas in the radiator. Do not overfill the radiator!. No coolant can come up in the blue fluid or it invalidates the test, only hot air or vapor. If the fluid stays blue, it's PROBABLY ok. If the fluid turns yellow you definitely have a combustion leak. In that case the head gasket is the most likely culprit. Look for the blown spot in the gasket when you take it apart, and if you don't find it, be sure to get the head professionally tested for cracks. A leaking water pump will cause the coolant to foam up and eventually boil after enough has been lost out the overflow. Some of these Buick Eights have a bypass valve on the front of the engine that may need a Buick authorized update. I don't remember offhand where that information is located. I'll bet @MCHinson knows. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

If you've not checked the valve clearances, that would be next (or a leakdown test if there's any doubt about which valve). A valve could be stuck, too. It's a common plague on flathead engines. Of course a stuck valve is not closing completely, and that will show as extremely loose when you check the valve clearance.

I have done this sort of thing. Nothing else is needed here because it is a four wheel drum brake system, all stock, and was just running on a single piston. None of the disc conversion cautions apply. Proportioning on a 4 wheel drum system like this is set up by changing the rear wheel cylinder bore size. It shouldn't need changing.

If the bore size is the same, it will stop the same. You won't be able to tell the difference. Yes, the residual valves are already in a drum/drum master. They are under the tubing seats.

Dual cylinders are wildly overrated. A single cylinder has one seal... well technically two I guess that could cause you to lose your brakes. A dual, depending on design, has at least five, so it is much more likely to fail. Rear wheel drive cars need a front rear split like you are planning. When it fails, you will in theory have 2 brakes. If it's the rears that still work, they are pretty much useless. Imagine a 2 wheel brake car, and then imagine it as heavy as a 56 Chrysler. On the other hand if you have the fronts it will stop almost as good as it ever did, just have a low pedal and feel grabby. So you are something like 2-5 times more likely to have a failure, and when you do, a 50% chance of having any usable brakes, and that is if the pedal has enough travel to engage the remaining 2 brakes. By design they need more travel than single cylinders. The thing is, many conversions (and a few factory setups) don't have enough travel to engage the remaining 2 brakes during a failure, especially if there is a power booster, and the guy who converted it doesn't even know(!). On the other hand he isn't really worse off either, because he would have had no brakes during a failure before he converted it. Yeah. WILDLY overrated. @F&J nailed it. Ideally bore size should stay the same. If you enlarge the bore, it *might* help with the travel problem, if you have a travel problem, by shortening the stroke, on the other hand the cylinder might be deeper or maybe have more volume between the pistons, so maybe not. One thing the bigger bore will do is make the pedal effort harder. Probably too hard. Especially since the Chrysler brakes have no servo action. They are indeed more like discs. Never lose sight of the fact that one size up from an original size is a bigger change than one size down. Pi * r squared. I'm thinking it would be way too much.

^^Exactly this. I'm not quite sure what you mean. The insulated terminal or wire coming out of the sending unit connects to the wire heading to the front of the car. The ground wire from the chassis connects to the metal part of the sending unit or tank. Is that what you have?

On almost all heat risers for inline engines, the weight is up when cold, and falls toward the block when hot. The spring probably goes on in such a direction that as you wind it to hook it on the pin, the coil gets smaller and it pulls the weight to the up position. That still leaves 2 possibilities for the orientation in the slot. It might be obvious and it might not. The spring shouldn't be super tight wound, but it should hold the weight up at room temperature. It probably winds up about 3/4 turn at room temp, but that part is a wild guess. Hopefully someone on here will have the info specific for a 52 Dodge.

I would duplicate the sizes of the original for everything except for highbeam or lowbeam headlights. I would increase those to the next standard wire size larger. I might also increase the charging circuit to one size larger than it is now. That would be the wire from the ARMATURE terminal on the generator to the GEN terminal on the regulator, the wire from the BAT terminal on the generator to the ammeter, and the wire from the ammeter to the starter post. By what I said above I mean everything current has to flow through to get from the ARMATURE to the battery. I don't have your wiring diagram here, so it might not be exactly the way I called it out, but it will be close. I might not necessarily enlarge that part anyway, but I would do the headlights for sure. I find it odd that I am not seeing wire gauges on that piece of diagram you posted. The manual for my 36 just tells what they are. You might have to strip some the ends of some old wires and compare to new to find out. Probably most of the old wires are the same gauge, and then just a few are bigger, like the charging circuit and a couple others. Compare the size of the copper inside. Appearance or thickness of the insulation makes no difference.

Is that in Washington State by any chance? In the 80s and 90s there used to be a small chain of parts stores in the South Puget Sound area called C.R.A.P., for "Cut Rate Auto Parts". I remember seeing a lot if C.R.A.P. branded car batteries in cars that came in for service. I swear I'm not making this up.

I doubt there are many left. I remember a feature in some car website about an Allstate insurance agent who restored one and had it painted Allstate blue. I also saw one on Craigslist years ago when I was in no position to buy it. It may have been the same car at a different time. Those are the only two I have ever seen.

Yes, if it is in reasonable condition. Dynaflow Buicks were one of the preferred cars for towing in their time.

It doesn't matter if you don't have control of the email address anymore. It doesn't matter if it no longer exists. It doesn't matter if you abandoned the email address, or if the company who provided it abandoned you. It doesn't matter if the domain your old email address was on has been sold 13 times in the last 10 years and now belongs to a Japanese company selling space helmets for owls. Whatever that old email address was, just type it in the box. Use the same password you were using here on the forum prior to March 1. If you don't even know what your old email address was, and can't figure it out, then I think you will need Peter's help. Wow. I have to type about 14 letters in the little box now instead of four (Bloo), but I didn't find that an undue hardship. I hope they reconsider.