Bloo

Napa oil has been Valvoline for at least 40 years, and probably a lot longer.

More difficult? Yes. No, not the same engine. The Zephyr/Continental v12 is a lot closer to the flathead V8 than this is. Even a zephyr is going to be quite a bit tougher than a V8. It's easy to spend $8000 on a flathead V8 if there isn't much wrong (but by this time they are all full of cracks). Your mileage may vary.

How much difference would you consider acceptable?

1) "Touching" another gear before going to first is common. If it is so intent on spinning up by itself that you litterally have to leave it in third and then shift instantly, your clutch is dragging. Try this. With car idling as if at a stoplight, clutch pedal down (don't let clutch pedal back up for entire test!), put in third. Pull back out of third. Count 5 seconds while in neutral (you still have NOT let the clutch pedal up!). Put in first. If it grinds, the clutch is dragging. 2) Coolant should only be full to the test petcock where the upper hose connects. The shop manual says you can put a little more in in the summer, about a quart, but I don't think it will hold a whole extra quart without pushing some out when you stop. Maybe a pint.... If you can see the coolant in there it is probably too full, unless the engine is really hot. Mine runs at 190 or higher, always, according to the gauge. I'm not sure if it's normal. Maybe. The gauge is at the hottest spot at the back of the head. I changed my coolant recently, and started having trouble with the coolant pushing out. I had been using the old fashioned green antifreeze, known for foaming problems, but mine was pretty much working until this last change. If your water pump leaks excessively. it will aggravate foaming. Tighten the packing until it is only making a drop every few minutes. Lubricate your pump. If it has the original oil cups, oil it. If it has grease zerks, grease it. Use only water pump grease on the fitting out in the open by the packing nut. You can use it on the one under the hole in the pulley too if you want, but that is just the fan bearing, no water there, and regular grease could be OK on that. If you are using any sort of modern grease gun, be very careful about pressure. The gun used in the 30s would have probably been something you push on with your palm. A modern one easily develops enough pressure to break the cast iron. If you have Pontiac's post-1938 retrofit (updated) pump with a seal instead of packing, you can ignore all that as long as it is not leaking. IMHO if you are running the old pre-1994 green antifreeze it isn't going to work. I have had 2 different brands of it recently and both foamed up and pushed out, and then the engine boiled because there wasn't enough liquid coolant in the head. There is an ASTM test for coolant foaming. The numbers are conspicuously missing on the datasheets for many brands and types. Here is one I have been able to buy locally that has good anti-foam test numbers, and seems to work OK, but it might be too early to tell. I used concentrate and mixed 50-50 with distilled water. 3) Brake hoses collapse internally and cause that (mine did it). Stuck pistons in the brake cylinders also could. Also look for oil contamination on brake linings, and looseness in suspension components. All three hoses on my Master were the same as a NAPA hose for the back of a 1950 Chevrolet pickup. It should work on the back hose for sure, and if all three are alike, then all three. A Deluxe has different front suspension than my Master, so I am not sure if the front hoses on yours are the same. 4) Your sending unit originally was 0-30 ohms. The sending unit does not care about the voltage, but the gauge does. When GM went to 12v in 53-55, they kept the 0-30 ohm sending units and just changed the gauge. In 65 or so, they switched to 0-90 ohms and kept it until 1996 or so. All the gauges for those 0-90 ohm senders were 12 volt, but that was just because of the time they were made. Ford is different. Mopar is different. Stewart Warner aftermarket is different. VDO aftermarket is different, and so on. The sender has to match the gauge, and the gauge has to match the voltage. If you tell me how many ohms (empty-to-full) the sender you are using is, and exactly what gauge you are trying to use, I will try to guess what is wrong or what needs to be changed. Always use a ground wire to the tank or the case of the sender. Gauges are one thing most guys never get working right again after a 12 volt conversion. Good luck. 5) I doubt it is because of someone grinding gears. There are a bunch of parts where the stick meets the top of the transmission that wear out. Mine are completely shot, but my stick doesn't rattle, so I don't know. I wish I was there to listen to it. As for clutch chatter, the engine mounts adjust. The engine and trans basically sit on the front and the back mount, and the side mounts tighten to hold the engine down under torque. There's several types. If the front and back mount are bad enough, you can run out of adjustment at the sides. Within reason you might be able to add a washer to each stud. The shifter is not in the center of the transmission housing, so is slightly offset right normally, but enough misadjustment of the side mounts could tip the engine and trans enough that the stick isn't coming out of the floor where it should. I just had to correct that. Even normally though, the stick looks like it is further right in the floor hole than you would expect.

Try a road trip in a car like this. Even with the trunk it isn't enough space, at least if you plan to have passengers in the back. in 1936 or so, several makes offered them both ways. It's no surprise which design won out.

It's blue, 273s (and 318s) were red until 1970. It has a closed PCV system. The oldest C.A.P. engine I have seen with that was a 1966, and that was a 440. I had a 1968 C.A.P. 318 and it didn't have it. This could be a 273, but Occams Razor says it's a 70s smogger 318.

Someone mentioned salvage titles. Do they even have such things for for 80 year old cars? Silly if so. How that works may vary by state, but if possible cut a deal where they write you a check for the damage, rather than buying the car and selling it back to you. Keep the car in your name.

I'll bet that's not a 273.....

You could use a punch I guess, carefully, but a tiny pit of prying with a screwdriver ought to do it. We are not talking about very much force at all. Go slow and watch what happens. Don't overdo it. Make it slow down a lot, then maybe carefully get it down to a drop every few minutes. If you make it seal completely it will just burn the shaft up and you will need a new shaft. The nut just compresses the packing, it is not "tight" in the traditional sense. If it is so hard to turn that you would need a punch to move it, it is probably out of packing and bottoming out. In that case it needs more packing. That one looks like it would be tough to get more packing in. If you have to take it off of the car anyway, it would be prudent to have a good look at the shaft and bushings.

And/or that ^^ These can be difficult to troubleshoot over the internet. The breaker is simply a bi-metallic strip and a set of points. Construction varies, and I don't remember exactly how the 30s Buick on is made, but there is some electrical resistance. They might have just run the current right through the bimetal, or there could be some resistance wire wrapped around it. Whatever they did, it is series resistance and it gets HOT, for the same reason a bad battery connection gets hot. When it gets hot enough, the bimetal goes "PLINK!!" and opens the points. The headlights go off. This basic idea was used clear into the 80s at least on the headlights on some american cars. The idea is you have just enough resistance that the rated current of the breaker makes just enough heat to push it over the edge and open the points. They can get weak from age (like Jack Worstell's), but that doesn't usually happen. Dirty points could also contribute more resistance and heat, tripping the breaker early. That happens more often, but the most likely scenario is that it is actually overloaded. You need to figure out why. Now you might be thinking, series resistance? That sounds like a horrible design. Isn't that going to make the headlights dimmer than they need to be? The answer is yes, but in a 1930s context it is probably the most reliable thing they could have done, the alternative being glass fuses. If the breaker kicks out for some reason it will TRY to come back on. You might appreciate it if the headlights go out in the middle of a corner at 60MPH. It has happened to me. Glass fuses sometimes melt because of resistive connections, it is super common in 60s American cars. A melted glass fuse won't TRY to come back on, but on those cars the headlights are on a circuit breaker, just like this Buick. The glass fuses are for everything else. Stuff that could be causing this if the breaker isn't bad (and the breaker probably isn't bad): 1) Wire bare, shorting to ground somewhere 2) Bulbs too big, too high wattage. Sealed beam conversions, H4 conversions, extra-bright taillight bulbs, etc. or some combination of the above. 3) Corrosion causing electrical leakage to ground somewhere, usually the dimmer switch, because they get wet. Offhand, 37 Buicks have junction blocks up at the headlights that probably get wet too. So, if there are no oversize bulbs or accessories present that would trip it, you probably need to disconnect things selectively until you find which wire draws too much current. This can be fiddly because it is the TOTAL current that trips the breaker, and disconnecting something might make the breaker hold even if it isn't the right thing, and when you disconnect something you remove part of the current draw. Fortunately, something like a shorted wire or a dimmer switch leaking to ground will usually trip the breaker pretty definitively. Keep trying. Good luck.

^^Do this.

So we are talking about the ripple? That might even make sense. More ripple right after it starts charging? There is more load on the alternator when the car first starts because although the voltage is regulated, the battery draws more current at first as it replaces the energy used to start the car. Then it tapers off, all by itself. More current draw during those first moments would cause more ripple. You may just be watching the battery charge. I wonder if a trace of the current flowing from the alternator would track your ripple trace. I'll bet it would. Never mind the capacitive kick. I misunderstood what you were talking about.

So why AC Volts then? Aren't you just seeing a capacitive spike when the field comes on and the unit begins to charge? My experience looking at alternator patterns are on what I suspect is a much shorter time scale, looking at the three phases to see if one is missing. Sorry to be dense, but I don't understand what you are looking for or why. What make/model is this Alternator?

I don't get what I am looking at here either, or what the question is. Also what alternator? There has to be some magnetism for the alternator to bootstrap. Residual magnetism might not always be enough, so there will be some more positive way. Some alternators use the current through the idiot light. The behavior might be different depending on whether the particular car shuts the idiot light off while cranking. Some, maybe all GM alternators with an internal regulator have an extremely small parasitic current and do not depend on the idiot light to bootstrap. There are other ways too, like old Chrysler and Prestolite systems that simply turn on with the ignition switch and do not need to bootstrap at all.

And, sadly. they would probably hit everywhere. Not to mention they wouldn't want to fit on the stock wheels very well. That is the rub (pun intended).

In modern tires, all the tall 16 inch sizes have all been discontinued up here in the USA, but since you are in Australia, there might be some Toyota Hilux tires floating around (or so I have heard). 195/80r16 = 600-16 more or less, maybe 1/2" wider at about the same height. Something like 205/80 or better yet 195/90 or 205/90 or so might do nicely for 650-16 if they exist.

Hey SC38DLS: Don't give up. It doesn't look hurt that bad. Something similar happened to a guy up here in WA with a 38 Pontiac last year. Friends online dug in to help find parts, It took a little while but it is back on the road now and looking like it never happened.

HAHA no... but they used to.

I've got no dog in this race, but isn't this an NLA part that someone is currently attempting to rebuild or reproduce due to unavailability? If so, it sounds like an opportunity that should not be passed up. Someone correct me if I am confusing some other year of torque ball.

Thanks, I don't know if it matters either, but I'll put it in spring hooks down.

You must have each cylinder on top dead center of the compression stroke to do the leakdown test. There are 2 reasons for top dead center. One is the worst ring wear is at top dead center. The second is the air pressure is likely to turn the engine if the piston is not at perfect TDC, so much that you can't accomplish a test at all. I like to start at #1 and follow the firing order, turning the crank just enough to get to the next cylinder that would be firing. I believe that is 60 crankshaft degrees on the Lincoln, but correct me if I am wrong. If you were on TDC overlap for some of those, maybe that explains the leakage through the carburetor. If not, and you were on TDC of the compression stroke for every one, your intake valves are stuck open or not seating on those cylinders. Air escape through the crankcase is normal, and though some people will tell you anything over 10 percent is bad, my experience says otherwise. There are plenty of perfect running (if a little worn) engines running around with 25% or more ring leakage. That goes double for you because the engine is fresh and the rings presumably aren't seated. For now, they are going to leak. High leakage through the valves is always bad, but engines that sit get rust and crud on the valve faces, and a little running time could be a miracle. That said, 8,9, and 10 are ridiculous and if they were truly on the compression stroke when the test was made something is wrong, like intake valves stuck or clearance set too tight. The across-the-board low and similar compression numbers don't jive with 3 stuck intake valves. I can't explain that. I would double check the valve timing.

I found the rest of the parts (whew!). You are supposed to orient the notch with the spring end in it down then? Judging from the wear marks mine was installed with the spring ends up. If it was wrong it wouldn't surprise me, I have found plenty of old repairs on this car that were not quite right.

Spoiler: It never did. I remember these problems (and others) with super 77 when working in an auto trim shop in 1984. Rattle cans are not the way. I have been using some generic stuff from JOANN lately that works better than 77 ever did, but you can still color me skeptical. What works is landau top cement in a spray gun, or contact cement. The car is looking outstanding. Keep up the good work!

Early 1920s, my guess 1924.

Does this car have a sealed beam or some other headlight conversion? If so, how many candlepower or watts? Try it with the headlight bulbs removed and see what if anything changes compared to your last post.