Bloo

The later Century ring and pinion does not fit any 1936. It will fit 1937 and 1938 40 series. The 1936 40 series has a spiral bevel ring and pinion, not hypoid. It is an animal all to itself as far as I know. It is smaller than the spiral bevel ring and pinion used in the larger series Buicks. I have a screwball rear axle here from a 1936 Canadian Chevrolet 1/2 ton that I strongly suspect uses the same ring and pinion design as the 1936 Buick 40 series, but it is speculation as I don't have real 1936 40 series parts to compare. It is 4.10. That wouldn't be much of a change from 4.4. I suggest you post a topic about it. There are people in here who probably know a lot more about this than I do.

Is this a non-pressurized system? What kind of coolant? What type of water pump, sealed or packing gland?

Looks like you bought... A Chandler, and a pretty rough one. You might need another one or two to be on your way to make a car. What are your plans? I saw this one in Lewistown, MT behind Subway, also needing a lot of work.

The "GL" rating system is worse than useless for choosing lube for a transmission. It has nothing to do with a transmission. Back in the 30s when Hypoid gears came along in automotive rear axles, the typical gear oil of the time was not good enough. Why? Because the sliding motion of the hypoid gears was constantly wiping the lube off of the teeth. Before that, with spiral bevel or bevel gears, the oil was under a lot of pressure, but was not getting wiped off as every tooth passed. "EP" gear oil was the solution for the new hypoid gears, generally in SAE 90 rather than the SAE 160 mineral oil or "600W" steam cylinder oil that was used earlier, in both transmissions and rear axles. Since the new "EP" gear oil was just barely good enough to do the job in the hypoid rear axle, automakers continued using the same oil in transmissions as rear axles. They even did it with synchromesh transmissions, which were fairly new at the time. As the EP oil got better, it got less and less good for synchromesh transmissions. A synchronizer is a brake, and it has to scrape the oil off to work. EP gear oil is designed not to scrape off. GL-1 means "mineral oil", in other words "oil", with probably not a lot of additives. GL-4 means the oil is slippery enough for medium duty hypoid gear service. GL-5 means the oil is slippery enough for extreme duty hypoid service. The old saw about "GL4 for transmissions, GL-5 for rear axles" has not been true for decades, and only worked by accident when it was sort of true. I believed it until 1995, when I discovered that it didn't work anymore. In a hypoid rear axle use the highest quality hypoid gear oil you can get your hands on. If there is any brass or bronze in the rear axle, then you need one that will not attack "white metals". There will be a rating for that in the datasheet. Read it. In a synchromesh transmission, use an oil made specifically for synchromesh transmissions. It will shift better, and you won't have to worry much about whether it eats the brass, because synchros are assumed to almost always be made of brass. There are many synchromesh oils to choose from these days.

Are you sure it has a seal? Many cars of the period didn't, and oil is for sure going to run out when too full if there's no seal.

My 1913 Studebaker just has a leather belt sewn together at the joint with some leather string like a moccasin. It is looking pretty ragged but it works. I doubt it is original, but who knows? It's been on there since the early 60s for sure and no telling how long before that. Clipper belt lacing might be a possibility. Some guys use serpentine belts. No belt joint. OK for touring, not so great for shows. https://woodshopmike.com/stitching-a-flat-belt-for-machinery/ https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/splicing-flat-belts.185992/ https://woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Leather_and_Rubber_Belts_for_Old_Machinery.html

I bought a tender with 6v capability on Amazon, and am very happy with it. I would recommend it, except I know it is out of production because I tried to buy a second one. They have others, and you might even find one in a local parts store. As Larry and Joe pointed out, positive ground doesn't matter. Follow the markings on the battery. You don't have to disconnect the battery, but for storage over winter I would.

Go shopping for tires in an appropriate size and type for some period correct aftermarket wheels or factory rally wheels. You will understand very quickly why cars end up looking like this. I don't like it either, but I get it.

Are the 1949-51 convertibles all convertible sedans? And I gather the chrome window frames are not removable in normal use? How about the one-of-two Derham convertible that still survives? I looked for pictures of it online and found none. If any are posted, please post a link. How many doors does it have? Are it's window frames out of sight when the top and windows are down?

I don't know, but 1919 is well into the interchangeable parts era. An automobile engine without interchangeable parts that late would be unusual and extremely archaic. If the engines are not the exact same model, all bets are off. Sorry I can't definitively answer the question.

If I'm not mistaken, the fenders are not welded to the structure, just welded to the inner fenders and then the whole fender assembly bolts on. As for the rear, I suspect the only reason the quarters are not removable is because it is a wagon.

My guess is it is synchromesh on second and third like many cars of the period. I read all about those transmissions back when there was a 34 Desoto Airflow for sale on here 2 or 3 years ago, and I don't recall anything about unsynchronized transmissions. The Desoto was not offered with overdrive in 34 but the Chrysler was. Those earliest overdrives were inside the transmission case unlike the later ones with a separate rear housing. I was trying to figure out if a Chrysler overdrive transmission could be slid into the Desoto, with only the driveline length needing to be changed. Spoiler: probably yes. It is all Warner Gear stuff and pretty similar. If you want to see info about those transmissions, seek information about the overdrive. As I recall there is an overdrive spotters guide over on p15-d24.com . Asking over there would be another option, as those guys would probably know.

I think we are spinning our wheels here though (pun intended). If the tires won't balance there is something wrong, and contacting the vendor is the next step. It could be tire runout, or the tires could be seriously out of balance, or it could be trouble with the wheels. Whoever is mounting the tires should be able to check the bare wheels on the spin balancer to rule out any problems there. Spin balancers are very useful, and if old-tank had one of his own, there are some things that could be tried. Most people do not have a spin balancer laying around. Back in the day when something wouldn't spin balance, one of my employers would drag out a bubble balancer and static balance the tire with it. It usually solved the problem. Still, there was probably something else wrong like a tire or wheel not running quite true.

Put the wheel on the front, loosen up the brake, turn wheel and find the spot that always stops at the bottom, add weight at the top. Adjust as necessary until the wheel never stops at the same spot.

That hit the nail on the head.

If this is like 36, it is the tools that slide through the slot that don't work. It is because the slot that the tool slides through on newer GM handles does not go all the way through on these old ones. That's a lousy explanation, but all will become clear when you try to do it on the bench. Whatever you get has to rotate the clip off. That pliers Daves1940Buick56S posted looks like it would do fine.

I don't know for sure whats wrong, but I have a good guess. My 36 Pontiac has those same GM clips, and I have a couple of the usual tools, but there is metal in the way and the tool we all know and love does not work, at all, in either size. Some people have threaded a rag between the escutcheon and the handle, and drag it around in a circle to "roll" the clip out when the rag gets caught on an end. There was also at one time a tool that caught an end and "rolled" the clip on around like that. I have one but I can't find it, nor could I find any for sale the last time this came up in the forum. Once you have the handle off of the car, put a clip in it and try to slide the tool through while everything is out where you can see it. If the handles are made like mine, the problem will be obvious. There are a zillion kinds on those escutcheons on GM cars of the period. I broke one of mine, a black one with a simple rounded edge. It turns out that mine is not one of the more common ones, and I had to resort to trolling ebay and buying some handles that included the escutcheons. Since it's a 38 Buick, I'd check with Dave Tachney for an escutcheon.

Some old documents I got from the Hupp club suggest maybe I was optimistic about speed. In at least one document they were bragging about how smooth it is at 50mph. That couldn't possibly be sustained in my opinion. There were apparently 3 gear ratios in the N, but in 1917 they were bragging about 4.6, the lowest one. An N with 4.6 and 35 inch tires developed maximum horsepower at 44mph. If you have a short wheelbase N like mine and most others, you have 34 inch tires, so make that 42-43mph. So then guessing that it can probably do 80 percent of it's maximum output indefinitely, I think it is probably about a 35mph car for sustained speeds. That would have been fairly typical in the days of 2 wheel brakes. The roads were terrible in those days and there was no place to drive fast. The measure of a good car was how steep of a hill it could pull without downshifting, not top speed. Hopefully this thread will attract the attention of some other N owners and we can find out for sure what they are capable of.

I don't know, but I have a model N in pieces, so I would like to know. They were known for reliability in their time. Hupp sent an N on an around the country tour and visited all the state capitals at a time when there were just barely roads. I have heard of the rear axle troubles, and one of the parts cars in my project had a Studebaker rear axle in it. I would bet an awful lot against 50-55 MPH. Its probably a 45MPH car as most were in that size class at that time. I have heard the oiling was improved on the 1917, but the rear axle gearing is lower. By the way, the N oiling system consists of the flywheel lifting oil up into a reservoir which then drains under gravity through oil galleys and a drilled crank to get to the bearings. Not exactly pressure but not exactly splash. There is no oil pump. There is no water pump, it is indeed thermosiphon. Generator and fan are driven by a silent chain. They really were trying to minimize what could go wrong. The wheels are 26 inch, and the 34x4 tires cost a small fortune. Only a few cars use them. I have been advertising for some "rollers" so I can move the chassis around the shop for about 2 years now. I still don't have any....

If the bearing fails, or just runs out of grease over a long period, you have to take it all apart. That is unlikely to happen with Oilite sintered bronze or similar. Worst case maybe it wears out enough to make the clutch chatter. That probably wont happen before the clutch wears out. Avoid iron/steel based Oilite. Stick with sintered bronze. If a magnet sticks to the bushing, get a different bushing.

That auto radio stuff is maybe 93 ohm, or maybe even higher. It is made the way it is to lower capacitance. The impedance rating won't matter that much. Since there is really no way to impedance match it effectively with a typical antenna and a typical car radio, whatever capacitance exists in the cable just drains signal to ground, so the lower the pF/foot the better. I have had exactly zero success splicing this stuff, the loss was always horrendous afterwards. I can't explain why. The only times I have tried were for long runs and rear fender mounted antennas, so if the antenna is mounted up front and there is less cable I think you are more likely to come up with something that works. Good luck.

They are two adjustments that do the same thing. If you set the octane selector afterward, you don't know where you are. If you set the octane selector to zero first, and lock it down, then set the timing (with the other clamp), then you know that "0" represents the setting you made.

EmTee nailed it, but to further clarify: Set the octane selector to zero with the knob tightened down, then set the timing to factory spec by loosening the distributor clamp (NOT the octane selector knob). Use a light or whatever method you intend to use to set timing. In this manner, "0" on the octane selector will now represent the factory default timing. The octane selector scale will allow you to make minor adjustments for better or worse gas using the octane selector release knob, but when you put it back to zero on the octane selector scale you are back at the factory default setting. Modern gas is higher octane than 1930s gas, and some cars like to run more advanced than they did back then. In that case, you would just set the octane selector to "0" as above, but use the timing spec the car runs best at to set the timing (instead of the factory default) when you set the timing with the distributor clamp. Then you can use the octane selector to advance or retard the timing. "0" represents whatever spec you used when you set the timing initially by loosening the distributor clamp. I believe "high" represents "more advanced" and "low" represents "more retarded" If you want to check for sure, remove the distributor cap, crank the engine, and see which way the rotor turns. Turning the distributor housing in the opposite direction of rotor rotation always gives you more advance.

According to the Standard Catalog of American Cars, 3rd Edition (Kimes/Clark), the engine number P546304 makes it a 1929-1/2 200c.i. Pontiac "Big Six".

It's a Pontiac.