Bloo

No, I read everything around here and I do not believe it has. I have rear doors on a 1936 Pontiac I need to fix, and there is very little wood left. It is so bad I do not have a pattern and I have had to reverse engineer how Fisher built the doors. Are you sure Chevrolet is the same? I have looked at a 35 Chevrolet Master (a friend owns one) and was not able to definitively tell if the wood would fit. None of the replacement wood suppliers do 1935-36 Chevrolet anyway. One difference that stood out was that the 35 Chevrolet had one drain at the bottom and the Pontiac had two. Speaking of those drains, do you have any bottom boards that are intact enough to see how they clearanced the wood for the drains?

For what it's worth, pop rivets are a bigger red flag than screws. Some manufacturers actually used screws back then.

CT has no titles for cars this old, but as I understand CT can provide paperwork to the current owner to stand as a title for an out of state sale, assuming he owns it. How do they tell if he owns it? Heck if I know. 3 or 4 years ago a car turned up in CT on Craigslist that I had been lusting after since I was 14 years old. It was the right color, had the right engine option, no signs of rustout in the usual spots, was running and driving and had a decent stock interior. The price was slightly below market in my opinion. I didn't even get on the airplane. There is no way I would drop a whole bunch of cash on something like that and not even know if I own it. You could ask him to get the appropriate CT paperwork if you like before you drop the cash, but personally I would run away screaming.

As far as I know Washington State has always inspected the VIN/serial. They used to inspect the whole car.

I don't think that can be the case, because according to posts by Joe Cocuzza and c49er, the stamping on the frame *is* the original engine number on these cars, and apparently(?) it does not match the title.

What I am not clear on is whether the Indiana title matches any numbers currently on the car. If it matches the current engine, that is one thing. If it matches some long gone former engine, that is quite another.

Does the title match your current engine number?

I don't believe they are supposed to be pinched. Look it over real good while it is apart, and you will probably see that they sit down in a recess so they can't come off. With the pin and associated parts removed, you can push the axles inward slightly and then get the clips off. When the pin and associated parts are installed, the axles have to be pushed back out to make room, and the clips are down in a hole where they cannot fall off.

And better WITHOUT a grease gun, and not just on Studebakers. On quite a few cars you can easily break the water pump casting with a grease gun.

Love the chicken recipe. My grandmother used to say "If at first you don't fricassee, fry, fry a hen."

It's idiotic. In the 1950s and prior it was super common. It wasn't always even predictable by state. I had a 50s car once that was a unibody, and when there is no frame "frame number" stops making sense. Those particular cars had a serial number that functioned like a VIN. Washington State used it, and others Washington cars like it had the serial number on the title. As it turned out, mine was originally sold in Oregon, and brought to Washington 7 years later. Oregon used the engine number. Apparently Washington just copied the number over.

I couldn't quite follow exactly what you did. The switch on neil morse's diagram is basically 2 switches, one for dash indicator, and one for signals. Power comes in the middle from "P" and goes out to a dash indicator. Power comes in the other middle from 'L' and goes out to the signal lights proper. The two questions in my mind are 1) Is the switch bad? and 2) Are the contacts in the switch for the dash indicators as big as the ones for the signals themselves? If they are, one set of contacts could indeed do both functions, by connecting the indicators to the signals, and using the "L" terminal to power remaining half of the switch. A "P" terminal exists because many old systems, especially those that were self contained hanging on the side of the steering column, only had one indicator bulb inside the car. There is no place to connect it that will work. Think about it. If you connect it to one side, the other side wont work. If you connect it to both sides, everything flashes. If you connect it ahead of the switch it will be on all the time when the signals are off. It had to have it's own contact in the flasher, and they added one. More modern setups just use 2 dash indicators, parallel with the signal lights. Most 12 volt flashers don't even have a "P" terminal. Buick used the "P" terminal, and then used separate switch contacts to switch indicator bulbs on the dash. I have no idea why. Assuming the remaining good contacts are the same size as the bad ones, there is no reason you couldn't come into the switch on the good center contact with a wire from "L" (formerly "P"), and go out to signals and dash indicators using the outer contacts that formerly powered only the dash indicators. The "P" terminal would not be used at all. If it were me, I would just verify the wiring according to neil morse's diagram, and then try to repair or replace the switch.

There were cities full of horses too. There must have been some custom or standard way of doing things.

Was that also true in the horse and buggy days in the USA? If you met another horse drawn vehicle was it the custom to stay to the right so they would pass you to your left?

"Kits" are often sold, but almost never are the right answer for an automatic transmission. There are always a bunch of new parts you didn't really need because the guy specifying the kit had no idea what is wrong with your transmission, and there are some friction surfaces that don't get used a lot and literally never wear out unless some specific failure tears them up. Also, most automatics have internal clearances that are set up with shims or selective clearance snap rings, so even if you buy the big kit you typically wind up down at the local transmission shop ordering snap rings or shims or something to finish the job. Has it had all the linkages, band adjustments, etc. set up according to the manual? Are you sure it is broken? If it were me, there is no way I would trade a Dual Coupling Hydramatic for a turbo 400. If it's a SlimJim, I dunno. Some guys hate those. I'm on the fence. As I understand it some cars that have it don't have space for a bigger transmission so that would be worth figuring out ahead of time. I would do whatever it takes to get it to someone who actually works on Hydramatics. Good luck with it whichever way you go.

Assuming the wiring is correct, it could be the switch or the flasher. Yes, after seeing the diagram, the "P" terminal has it's own set of contacts so they can use it with a separate right and left, so that all works. It is probably normal for the flasher not to flash if it does not have the load of the big bulbs on it. The way I see it it has to be the flasher or the switch. What I would do, is take a test light, or better yet a big bulb like a signal light if it is practical, and connect it between the flasher's "L" terminal and ground. It should at least turn on, and if it is a big bulb it will probably flash, but probably at the wrong speed. If the bulb won't come on at all the flasher is bad. If the bulb comes on, the trouble has to be the switch, unless there's a wiring error. The switch is just a DPDT switch, neil morse's diagram doesn't actually show the internals but this is what's going on inside. Of course it also has a center "OFF" position not shown in this graphic:

You know what? Scratch that. I was just reviewing your pictures and that float needle has a groove in it. It is probably never going to shut the fuel off no matter what and you are never going to get a good reading. Try hooking output of the fuel pump directly to the pressure (vacuum) gauge and crank. It might give you a better idea of the pressure.

Be sure the test kit can do low pressures, and has fittings you can use on your car. Most kits are for fuel injected cars and are inappropriate. The old fashioned way to do this is with a vacuum gauge of the sort that has the needle out in the middle somewhere, and also has a pressure scale in the opposite direction of vacuum. 90+% of vacuum gauges you can buy are like this for the last 80 years or so. Tee it into the pressure side, in-between the fuel pump and the carb. If there is hose there you can just hook it up with a hose tee and clamps, if not you will need some brass fittings. Your fittings are probably inverted flare, but there might be some 1/8" pipe in there somewhere too, or even threaded sleeve fittings but I sort of doubt that. The tee should go to a smaller hose barb, as the vacuum gauge hose is smaller than fuel line by a lot. Clamp everything as good as you can. There may be no appropriate clamps for the small hose going up to the gauge. It needs to fit extremely tight on the barbs no matter what. If it doesn't, get a smaller hose. Better to clamp it also. Makeshift clamps can be made by wrapping picture wire around a few turns and then twisting it with pliers. I would look up both the 1936 and the 1953 fuel pressure. Which carb do you have? Which fuel pump? Make sure there's not a pressure mismatch between the pump and the carb. When you run it the gauge needle will flop all over the place when the pump runs. When the float valve shuts off the pump will stop pumping and you can see the pressure for a bit.

Nice! What process lead to locating it? Was it one of those club want ads?

Thanks for posting that. I can see now that they are using the "P" terminal, and how they did it. They are using a second set of contacts in the switch to switch the "P" terminal to each dash indicator. So, when you turn on a signal, for instance left, it connects the left signal bulbs to the "L" (I assume "load") terminal, and at the same time the other set of contacts connects the left dash indicator to the "P" terminal. I have no idea why they did it that way, but it will work fine, even with a new production flasher.

its a thing to stick up and show you where the edge of the fender is. I would have expected to see it on the other side of the car, but there could be some other reason I guess. I've never had one. It just looks to me like something would get hooked on it somehow and bend the fender or crack it. Fenders tend to crack at that spot anyway.

Nearly all port fuel injection systems were batch fired in those days. They weren't "timed" to valve opening with very few exceptions. It gave more time for the fuel to vaporize, gave better emissions and driveability, and usually more power. Most systems sprayed half the fuel load for each batch on one rotation of the crank, and the other half on the second rotation to minimize errors by the injectors. There was nothing even remotely timed about it. You can get higher power from timed sequential injection, but it is much tougher to get right. Some cars, mostly four cylinders, fired ALL the injectors in a batch. Those would stop running completely if one transistor failed. Not good. Bosch made a few systems like that as did others. The Bendix/Cadillac system is an evolution of Bendix Electrojector of the late 1950s, the original electronic fuel injection system. Legend has it Bendix sold the patents for everywhere in the world except the US to Bosch, Bosch refined it, redesigned it, and that is where the Electronic fuel injection found on early 70s Volvos and Volkswagens came from. They batch fired. This should not be confused with the largely mechanical Bosch CIS systems found on some Volkswagens. Those CIS systems spray constantly through both rotations of the crankshaft. The main reason everything has timed injection today is that US emission laws require the control system to be able to disable an injector on a misfiring cylinder. Each injector has to have a separate transistor to fire it, and separate wiring anyway. They are also getting better results from timed sequential injection now than they were in the 1990s, never mind the 1970s. The biggest problem I remember with those Bendix/Cadillac systems was that they switched the fuel pump directly from the control box with no relay. It would burn up the plug and the circuit board. It was prudent to add a relay, and repairs on the control box itself were pretty iffy after new ones were no longer available.

A 320 won't fit where the smaller engine came out, so no. Someone may have just painted it the wrong color? I believe they were originally green and had some lettering on the valve cover. The 4 indicates 40 series, and the number is 20,000ish above the starting number 1939_Buick posted. There is also a frame number, it will not match the engine. One or the other of those would have been used for title, like we use a VIN today. It varied by state in the US. The tag on the firewall was most likely put there by Fisher Body when they built the body. Gary W's decoding seems to match what you have. In short, it all looks good to me.

I am far from an expert here on the wood body, still soaking up all the information about body wood I can as fast as I can, but I do own a 1936 Pontiac sedan with a very similar body to 1936 Special. The most structural part of the floor are boards called the "sills" that run right along the kick panel and the bottom of the door opening. Then there will probably be a metal panel in the center over the transmission maybe, and some plywood pieces under your feet. Those are minimally structural if at all. It is the sills themselves at the outer edge that are heavily loaded structural parts and holding the whole body together. They are sitting on the frame on spacers or mounts, and the whole body is built on and around them. When you see a 1930s car that appears to have the hood pointing up, these have probably collapsed, and the front of the body is sagging down with no support. There are some structural boards tying the sills together, maybe under the seat, but carrying less load by far and they also live in a dryer spot. As built, these cars have front mats that flip back, the battery is under there on my Pontiac, but probably the brake master cylinder on a Buick. Flip them back and look at the sills. A leak at the bottom corner of the windshield will drip water right on the most vulnerable and stressed spot, so if there's trouble, you have a good chance of seeing it right there. The body can rust out there too. The door frames are wood. There will be less trouble with front doors than rear IMHO, so you have that going for you on a coupe. the doors should feel solid and close normally. The wood is structural and the metal cosmetic, so wet noodle doors indicate trouble with the wood. Loose joints are common, possibly unavoidable, and front doors have a diagonal bar that adjusts to pull the rear lower corner of the door in, if the end of it hasn't rusted off. Front door hinges screw to the wood, with 2 wood screws and one machine screw that has the 1930s equivalent of a t-nut so the screws cant pull completely out. If the hinge is loose and the door sags, it is likely that the hinge pillar is cracked or rotten underneath. The worst wood trouble on a door will probably be at the bottom. The hinge pillar and the lock pillar go clear to the bottom, and are tied together with a "bottom board", a flat thin board under the door card. Since the door is not very thick down there, the bottom board has to be clearanced for the drains, but as you might imagine that doesn't work very well. Like a modern car, rainwater is expected to run down the glass and get in, and run out holes in the bottom. Unlike a modern car, there is no effective wiper to keep a lot of it out. Even if the drains don't plug, there is wet wood against the sheet metal down there every time it rains, so that is where the earliest door trouble will be. Don't forget to look at that spot in the back pont35cpe mentioned if you can access it. I am less familiar with that one. And unrelated to wood, I would just mention that all these bodies tend to rust out at the very back of the trunk floor and the very back of the car body.

Maybe a 1925 Buick? The rear axle doesn't match, but everything else looks close.