Bloo

Here are a few things to think about: Assuming manual brakes or a conventional booster: 1) The area of the master cylinder vs the area of the calipers is calculable. You need to be able to produce enough pressure, and this does indeed calculate out in pounds per square inch. A smaller bore gives you more pressure and easier braking, but more travel. Systems are designed around a certain amount of "push" at the pedal. What is considered normal today is a bit soft by 1970s standards, but it hasn't changed that much. Sorry I cant quote numbers. I have done a bunch of this but it was 40 years ago. 2) If a power booster is used, the diaphragm area vs the vacuum available is also calculable. There is a limit to how much it can help you push. Get this wrong, and you can easily make something that has normal "one toe" braking until you have to panic stop. Then you may have to stand on it with both feet because the needed pressure is still rising but the booster is already doing all it can. Not ideal. 3) If you try to fix this with a smaller cylinder bore, the travel increases, but the travel of a brake booster is limited. Some are as little as 1-1/4". The combination of needing enough power while keeping the travel short enough for the brake booster imposes a limit on pedal ratio, In practice, it needs to be within a *very narrow* range. Joe's post has 4:1, and that must be right although I admit I can't remember. 4) You need more travel for a dual master cylinder. Most disc systems will need a dual cylinder anyway for other reasons. To take advantage of the "safety" a dual master cylinder offers, you have to be able to bottom the cylinder out mechanically (if the cylinder can take it) or almost bottom it (if the cylinder is not designed to be bottomed). The reason is that there is a "fluid piston" inbetween the pistons in a dual master cylinder, and if you lose half the brakes, you also lose some pedal travel. This is the reason many dual master cylinder conversions cannot take advantage of the alleged "safety". They don't have enough travel to do it. I have also seen factory systems that probably can't do it. That doesn't apply to you since you are building from scratch, but im throwing it out there so you won't un-knowingly make that mistake. This is another reason you don't really have any leeway on pedal ratio with a booster, It has to be right. Once again, these comments apply to conventional vacuum boosters driving conventional master cylinders. 5) If you make the brakes manual, there is also a default pedal ratio that is normal. It is higher than the one for power brakes. I can't remember that one offhand either. Maybe Joe has it. You have a little more leeway with manual brakes, substituting pedal ratio for master cylinder piston size to develop the necessary pressure. Only a little more though. You need to not run out of travel in the cylinder for one thing. 6) Floor pedals with the cylinder under the floor are more likely to work out with manual brakes than power. As the ratio gets smaller, the cylinder (and the booster if there is one) move UP. The brake booster probably wants to live in the same spot as your feet in the footwell. There are more booster options than there used to be, but you are stuck with the "power" pedal ratio, and you need enough diaphragm area to do the job, and all of this is not only bigger around, but wants to be higher in the car. In a few cars this can work correctly. In most cars it never will. There isn't room. This is one reason almost all factory power brake setups have firewall mounted master cylinders on a reinforced firewall with hanging pedals. The factory power brake systems that DO have the master cylinder under the floor usually use a remote booster (hydravac or similar). I wouldn't rule it out. I have seen pedal assemblies online marketed toward rodders that have some ludricous long pedal connected to a booster that is supposed to go under the floor. I have seen several of these advertised that cannot ever work properly. The pedal ratio is all wrong, and you can see it and measure it right on the computer screen. 7) You can get around pedal ratio problems to some extent with a ratio rod, a linkage to change the ratio in less space. Some factory systems have one, as do some aftermarket street rod parts. You could even have more than one, but one is probably almost too many. You definitely want to get rid of as much slop as possible because pedal travel is one of your main limiting factors. Linkages add slop. You could probably solve most problems with about 3 ratio rods, but it adds so much slop it is impractical. It wears out fast too. Sorry I don't have any solid numbers to throw at you. It has just been too long.

It isn't normally 100% free by the way. Do you see the little spring on the shaft down by the gear? the spring pushes on a brass washer, It is keyed to a slot so it does not turn. Under that is a cork washer. and under the cork, the gear. Those parts acts as a brake. It means in a nutshell that the reading doesn't change as easily as it could. It makes the gauge more stable, but the reading doesn't change much unless you are driving. The brake probably doesn't work anymore 80 years later. If the brake doesn't work, the gauge will still work, it will just wave around more when the gas sloshes in the tank. I don't believe the reproduction senders even have a brake.

Don't use spray bombs, especially Rustoleum spray bombs. If you try to use those (primer etc) with stuff from other manufacturers you are going to have lifting and adhesion problems. On a repair like this it is bound to happen. I don't mean to cast shade on Rustoleum. This just isn't the place to use it.

Another possibility, actually a good possibility, is that the rubber was bonded to the steel both inside and out, making it non-replaceable as built. In that case, any twisting motion that occurs is due to deflection of the rubber. If the metal were allowed to move on the inside or the outside the bushing it might cause a squeak. Aftermarket urethane bushings on the other hand, the brightly colored type often sold to 4x4 enthusiasts, are meant to slide like a bearing. They are plagued by squeaks for that reason. The urethane bushing suppliers have for years been playing with the formula trying to eliminate unwanted noise. I have heard stories in recent years of people re-molding engine and transmission mounts using windshield urethane as a substitute for the vulcanized rubber. It might be possible for you to rig up some kind of dam or mold and cast the bushings in place.

Bushings like that weren't considered replaceable or sold separately ever as far as I know. If you want to replace them, look at truck and 4x4 suppliers for bushings made of urethane. You might find something sold as an aftermarket upgrade. They are going to be very difficult to install with a captive mounting shaft like that. Good luck.

To each his own. The thing about a sock is that is is very difficult to plug. If enough crud does somehow manage to cover the whole sock, it will fall off when the car shuts down. If the crud is heavy, like iron (rust), or sand, it falls into the bottom of the tank under it's own weight and there is at least a chance it will never make it back up. Another approach is to use an inline filter. In that case, anything that would have ever touched the sock winds up in the filter and you have to change that filter ALL THE TIME, usually at the side of the road when it plugs and the car cannot get enough fuel to stay running. In about 1991 I saw a bench test of a sock with some water contaminated gasoline. The water separated from the gas and collected in tiny spheres that bounced off of the sock, while the gas came through the sock just fine. This interested me greatly because I was driving an old Studebaker to work that was constantly getting sidelined with water in the gas. It had no sock. There are some very good reasons that nearly every car for the last 50 years or more left the factory with a sock. Varnish will plug a sock, but if a tank is full of varnish it is time to pull it and clean it anyway.

Bob's Automobilia has floats listed for Buick, and that is what I used. I was not aware of the model A floats at the time. I would re-use those big washers no matter what comes with the floats. They probably prevent damage to the sealer if the floats should touch the tank. They really shouldn't touch the tank. Thanks for posting more of the sock. I agree it could be something modern. I am a believer in sock filters, and I added them to the two units I rebuilt. I wanted to use the Ford or Mopar style barrel shaped ones, but they will not fit through the tank hole next to the sender. I used a GM style, like the one in philipj's pictures above, but had to shorten it. The socks come in 3/8" or 5/16" at the tube end, and these sending units take 5/16". The sock is long enough that it looks like it could climb up the pickup tube and jam the gears, so I cut it off and re-melted the end. I crimped a piece of brass shim stock over the cut end, and heated it with a huge soldering iron until the ends of the plastic sock mesh melted together. Then, I peeled the brass off.

My guess is you could get that sender freed up by just dunking the lower half in some evaporust for a day or two. That sender is in far better shape than mine was. I am intrigued by the filter sock. I think it might be original and I have never seen one before. Next time you are working on the sending unit, would you mind posting pictures from a couple more angles? Maybe with a ruler so we can see what size it is? The resistance is 0 ohms empty (or very near) and 30 ohms full. At low resistances like that, if you are using a digital meter, you will also be measuring the test leads. Short them together and hit the "delta" button to bring the meter to zero before you measure the sender. If your meter does not have a "delta" button, then note the reading with the test leads shorted together. Subtract that number from the readings you get on the sending unit.

I've not seen that pad before either. What is it made of? I would have been in favor of changing those cork floats. I believe they were sealed in shellac originally, and the modern fuel dissolves the shellac. I used my old floats, which seemed fine, and after a few months they sunk. I don't regret it because the necessity of sealer on tank floats has been a hotly debated topic in the past around here, and I wanted to know whether it is necessary. I have Bob's Automobilia floats now. So far so good. On another note, have you ever seen a factory sock filter on one of these? A sender posted by Gingerbread in another thread from a 1938 has a sock of a type I have not seen, and I wouldn't have expected it to be there at all.

Just so you know, we are in an old thread. This is a wooden body with a one piece steel top stamping (FIsher's first steel top). The construction is fairly conventional with wooden sills, wooden doors, some tin nailed in to cover the larger openings, etc. My 1936 does have a steel assembly inside that makes up the trunk floor and the area under the rear seat. I'm not sure if the car in the pictures would have that. The A pillars are steel. The B pillars are wood, and on 1935s the front doors hang from them.

Sorry I do not know of any. Good luck on your search.

If it were me I would look for an NORS or used one on ebay. Make that NOS if it has to look correct for shows. Yes it may require a little tweaking. They don't usually wear out, but may need adjustment, or some very gentle cleaning of the points. The whole setup procedure is in the shop manual, and requires a generator test set, which most people don't have. Fortunately most regulators don't need a whole setup. The settings on the cutout and the current regulator almost never need changing as long as it is the correct regulator for the application. The charging voltage might need adjusting. On an NOS or NORS regulator that hasn't been used before, even the charging voltage is likely to be OK. If you have a digital multimeter, and if it can read the battery voltage while the engine is running and system is charging, without locking up or getting all confused, then you have what you need to check the charging voltage. It can be hard to figure out which of the regulators all over ebay might be the right kind, because the aftermarket manufacturers all had their own part numbers. A good place to start would be with the Buick and/or Delco part number. I'd look it up but don't have the right book nearby. Maybe someone else in here can look it up. Another idea might be to check with Dave Tachney about a used one.

I don't see where post 344 was mentioned, but post numbers went away on this site long ago. Got pictures? How bad is it? I fixed a couple for a 36 Pontiac and 37 Buick some time ago. Both were very similar in construction to DonMicheletti's picture in the second post. They were both made from the same basic parts, but there were differences, like the pickup tube was longer on the 36 Pontiac for a deeper tank, and the bend was in the opposite direction. The assembled unit appeared to be a near mirror image of the 37 Buick. The fittings were different too, threaded sleeve on the Pontiac and double flare on the Buick. I sand-bent new copper pickup tubes. It got the job done but was tedious and didn't work as well as expected. Next time I will try philipj's method. I would also want to use CuNiFer brake line instead of pure copper if you can solder to it. I wonder if you can? I have not tried. Pure copper work hardens, and you will probably find cracks where the line is clipped into the steel retainer on top, and maybe inside the tank as well. CuNiFer doesn't work harden. Be sure to get new sealed cork floats. The old ones cannot be trusted. Bob's Automobilia has them. I disassembled my sender, which you must do if you are going to fix the brake that keeps the float from waving around too much when you go over bumps. For somewhat of a lesser repair, you might be able to just derust the bottom non-electric portion in evaporust. I didn't. I drilled the rivets out to get the resistor off the top, and unsoldered the shaft at the bottom to get the brake washer out. Then, I electrolytic-derusted the whole remaining mechanism, straightened it, and plated it with zinc. The zinc is sacrificial, to slow down future rust. That all sounds hard, but is actually pretty easy and can be done at home with no exotic chemicals, just stuff from the grocery store. Putting the sending unit back together can be the tricky part. Post back if you plan to tackle this. I might have a picture or two but I'll have to dig for them.

Apparently there is only one left. https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/this-last-surviving-1939-art-deco-checker-marks-the-high-point-of-taxi-design/

I don't know for sure if that is Lloyd young or not, but it is a Borg Warner OD spliced into a torque tube. That's what Lloyd did, so it is a good guess it might be one of his. The torque tube does need to be the correct length for obvious reasons. That overdrive case looks like it was made to connect to a torque tube at the back. It is probably Nash or AMC. If he had to get by with a more common case for some of them, it would look different.

http://www.icta.club/the-1939-checker-model-was-watershed/

Yes. I forget the model name.

Those are Checkers.

Assuming it has the ubiquitous Mopar 8-3/4 rear axle. there will be a round metal tag on one of the bolts that holds the center section in. Round like a washer. It says "use sure-grip lube" if you can still read it. Don't confuse it with the rectangular tag. The rectangular one tells you the gear ratio and they all have it, not just sure-grips. Or, block the car up so it can't roll, jack up one back wheel, put the car in neutral, and try to turn the jacked up wheel by hand. If it won't turn you have sure-grip. If it spins easily, you don't.

6 volt. Negative ground. Any available 75 series tire is probably going to be way too wide for your rims, or too small in diameter, or both. You are most likely stuck with reproduction style tires from Coker, Universal, Lucas, etc. or "bias look" radials from Diamondback or Coker. The repro bias ply tires will be tube-type as original. Diamondback radials are tubeless but can be run with tubes if necessary. I suspect this is also true of Coker radials, but you would have to ask them. The Cokers will work with tubes for sure. Tubeless is preferable if your rims don't leak. Tube quality lately has been a big problem. The tires will also run cooler tubeless. Radials want more air, so don't go by what the owners manual says. If you don't know how much, try 35 psi and go up if necessary, but don't go over the maximum. Bias ply tires will be fine at the original pressures, and work as well as they ever did, assuming you can get your hands on some quality tubes.

Gus WIlson and the Model Garage, November 1926: http://www.gus-stories.org/november_1926.htm

You got the burn started with an oxyacetylene torch somehow, and then fed the burning carbon some oxygen from the torch to keep it going. I sure wouldn't try that without some instructions.

@Jim Nelson probably knows.

Yes, the points should ground that wire and turn the light off when they are closed. Try dragging a little strip of paper soaked in brake cleaner or rubbing alcohol between the contacts to get any crud or grease off. Also, the breaker plate (which the points bolt to) has to be grounded solidly. It moves when the vacuum advance works. The ground is usually a special piece of high-flexibility wire. from the breaker plate over to the distributor case. Make sure it's there and not broken. If the engine is freshly painted, make sure that paint is not preventing the distributor case from grounding to the block.

Chrysler never coined a nice short catch-all name like "FoMoCo", "GM" or "AMC". To be fair, there was "DPCD", but I dare you to pronounce it. Be sure to get video if you try. So yeah, most of us use "Mopar". It's been this way for generations.