Bloo

I have an Atwater Kent ignition for a Hupmobile, and even though it has points and a condenser it does not really run on the same principle as the Kettering ignition, the one we all (well, almost all) use. From the description, this one may be more normal. In my distributor, the points are not closed between cylinders.There is a hook and snap mechanism, The turning cap hooks some little part that loads up a spring and then SNAP! the point overtravels and makes contact for an instant only, firing the coil. If the original points in yours have no snap mechanism, and more importantly if your points stay closed inbetween cylinders, ignore my comment about hurting the coil. One other thing to watch for when substituting points is the rotor phasing. On a distributor that you can buy parts for you would drill a hole in an old distributor cap so you can see. On this I suspect you might have to fashion a pointer so you can see just where the rotor is when the points open, and then compare the new to the old. It would really be lucky if the rubbing block landed in the right spot, but maybe.

That's going to need a modern coil, too I think. AK's "hook and snap" points have a dwell time so short it is almost unmeasureable. Is that what it had? If so I would expect the original coil not to be able to handle the long dwell of Kettering style points without burning up. It is a neat idea, but proceed with caution.

Does the 65 Riviera have an idiot light for the charging system? I can't remember. If it does you will have to power the idiot light from the relay also. Otherwise the engine will not shut off.

Have a close look, it might be flocked. If it needs redoing you can get flocking kits online. I bought one 3 years ago for something unrelated.

Yikes. Those barely made it through the first couple of years. Do yourself a favor and don't try to fix it. The points will intermittently stick and run your battery dead. It looks better than the factory delete plate, so it's got that going for it.

I have an teens car with it too. It was common in those early days. Not so much by 1940. It's fine until one day it isn't. Then it leaks or falls off. I can't imagine why anyone would use copper today when cunifer is available. Cunifer looks like copper, bends like copper, and does not work harden. Buick would have used Steel Bundyflex for the run to the front, but may have still used copper for the fuel pickup in the tank. Work hardening and cracking from vibration is a known property of copper. You can't fool mother nature.

A braided copper strap will work, if you don't have one use a wire. Run from a fuel sender mounting screw to the car frame. Clean rust and dirt away for a good connection. A star washer at the frame end would be a good idea to insure a good connection.

You need a properly working distributor for the Pertronix, too. Their reputation would probably be a lot better if more of their customers realized that simple fact.

I doubt they were standard on anything, but were an extremely common accessory. Passenger areas are small and there is no luggage space.

A black and white photo may not be simple grayscale. Sometimes colored or polarizing filters were used to increase contrast or just change the look.

I wish I could show you. I took scads of pictures of that little detail one year at the ETC Flathead Reunion, but I can't find the hard drive they are on. Both things tack (or staple) down. Then a piece of wire-on is tacked over them. In original installations the wire on and the windlace match very closely. Once the wire-on is folded over, the tacks are hidden and the car appears to have 2 rows of windlace next to each other, but one of them is just the wire-on. This thread sort of explains it, but the example shown winds up looking more like a triple bead. In a Pontiac, its all cloth and the part of the wire-on that folds over is a little bigger, leaving you with the 2 pieces of cloth windlace look. At the end of the day it is the same thing, it just looks a little different. The thread also shows hidem, which could work, but is not what Pontiac used. https://forums.aaca.org/topic/329603-wire-on-now-available-from-new-source/ If it still isn't making sense, post back and I'll grab a picture of my 36. Whoever trimmed it last used generic black cloth windlace and black vinyl wire-on with a light gray headliner, and it sort of destroys the effect. It isn't a great example.

I agree. And if that doesn't fix it, once you are in the dash and have the gauge out, look at how the gauge grounds. There is some particular spot on it that grounds to the gauge housing. As I recall it is not as obvious as you would think. Make sure that ground connection is OK. Make sure the gauge housing grounds to the dash. Since there were wires disconnected, make sure the hot wire is connected to the correct post.

Is there a channel for a piece of wood to tack things to? On quite a few prewar Pontiacs, the edge of the headliner and the windlace tack to wood, or possibly some sort of an impregnated cardboard substitute for wood. I am not sure if this applies to 48, but it might, as the early postwar models were real similar. A piece of wire-on tacks on covering both edges, Once the wire-on is folded and hammered down, the visual effect is like a double row of windlace.

Pictures of the engine as well as the engine number might nail down whether it is a 40/special or not. A larger car has a larger engine that looks similar, but is physically enough larger that the engine compartment has to be longer to accommodate it. The wheelbases are in my post above, another good clue. Philips head screws for any purpose on a 1936 GM car are unlikely to be original.

GMC according to the hood. There are subtle differences between the years, I think you would need better pictures. If you were close to it you might even find a body tag.

It is probably in the owners manual. For the dual filament ones, 1034 would have been typical for the time frame, but I can't be 100% sure for Buick. A lot of push is given to 1157 these days because it supposedly has a long life filament. It probably didn't exist in 1957. 2057 definitely didn't. A similar situation exists for the bright single-filament bulbs used in backup lights but I can't remember the old and new numbers. Wattages vary among the modern substitutes.

Normal gauge will go full with 30 ohms between the sender wire and ground, and will peg with the sender wire disconnected. Shorting the sender wire to ground sends the gauge to "E". When you get hold of the wire back at the tank sender, key on, disconnnected should peg the gauge, shorting the wire to ground should give you empty. If you do this back at the tank and it passes the test, then most likely the wiring and the stuff in the dash are all OK, and either the sender in the tank is bad or the tank is not grounded. Add a ground wire while you are there to prevent future problems. Run it from one of the sender mounting screws over to the frame. You should mention make model and year. I assumed 1940 Buick because that is what the thread is about. The test should be valid for GM cars through about 1964 and maybe quite a bit later with a caveat or two. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Me too. That would bother me a lot less if it were only in the whitewall.

Low priced chrome plating peels off. That's what it does. Better to leave it alone than do that. It is also likely to be a different type of chrome, the color of which tends to look more yellow than blue. I have been hearing horror stories about the outfit mentioned earlier for most of my life. They work on exchange wherever possible, and ship the bumpers to Mexico to get the job done cheaper. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with Mexican chrome, but when you are going for the lowest possible price in plating it just isn't going to turn out well. In the mid 1990s I was having coffee with a custom car builder and two sign painters, both of whom had formerly worked in the plating industry. I was wanting to get a bumper chromed for my daily driver, and the conversation turned to a car in the parking lot with 6 month old chrome peeling off of the bumpers. The hardest and by far the most time consuming part of chrome plating is the prep work, and the prep work is what makes it last. The advice of those two guys who had done plating work was unanimous. ALWAYS get show chrome. If you cut corners on the prep, it will not last. Yes, I know the prices have spiraled out of control. Yes I know you practically need a second mortgage these days, as I just had some chrome plating done. It doesn't change anything. All chrome work is ludicrously expensive, even bad chrome work, and throwing a bunch of money at a half-assed job that will be shot in two years is false economy. I'd start with the Simmichrome or some wadding polish.

It was almost certainly 5/16" steel "Bundyflex" brake tubing, using double flare fittings. Cunifer might be a good substitute if you are concerned about rust. I wouldn't really recommend flexible line for the whole run, just a short piece of high quality flexible line to absorb engine vibration at the fuel pump end. I would probably use 30R9 rubber fuel injection hose there. If there is a hose at the tank end, I would do the same. While the tank is down, I would add a ground wire from one of the sending unit mounting screws over to the frame to prevent fuel gauge trouble.

Me too. 36 Buick is close and might be usable in a pinch. Good luck on your search.

The whole point of relays like those is high and low beam. A nice big fat wire feeds it from a good source of current. That source probably shouldn't have been the battery because it is on the wrong side of the ammeter, but on many of the instruction sheets it was the battery, or a starter post on GM cars, and that is also on the wrong side. It removes some of the voltage drop of the switches and such, and so the floor switch (if it had one) should be on the trigger side, not the load side, and a double relay was needed. I'm not saying that's necessarily what they did though....

You broke an axle. You did not mention make, model and year. Designs vary widely. It looks like a GM car, and probably has a c-clip style rear axle. The axles are held in by clips at the center. After the axle broke, it could simply come out. I don't know if it is salvageable. Depending on availability, it would probably be cheaper to buy a whole assembly used. Recognizing that parts like this are not just laying around everywhere these days, the next things to do would be: 1) Take the brake backing plate off, remove the old bearing and seal, and figure out how damaged the axle housing is. This type of axle oils the bearing from the rear axle oil, so the seal is on the outside. It will have to be undamaged enough that you can have a new seal out there, and have it press in properly and seal. 2) Take the pan off. CHECK AND WRITE DOWN THE HOW MUCH BACKLASH on the ring gear. Take the differential and ring gear assembly out and look inside at what broke (it's likely in the middle with the spider gears). EDIT: If the rearend has not ground up any metal, don't take the ring gear and diff out yet. See if you can just get the piece(s) out and ascertain the condition of the gears in there without taking that out. Maybe. If the axle broke out in the middle somewhere away from all the gears, this is actually a good possibility. If the ring gear and differential assembly has to come out, the other axle has to come out too. The shop manual will show you how. Any tutorial for a "c clip rearend" should show you how that comes apart. You will need to do that regardless. 4) See how much broken metal got loose. Look closely at the ring and pinion for damage. If only the axle broke and you found all the pieces, and they did not get ground up by anything else, it might not be too bad to fix. 5) If there is ground up metal in there, it will need all new bearings, including the ones on the pinion, and the housing cleaned out. It is probably possible to do this under the car but I do NOT recommend it. Take it out of the car and put it on the bench. If it has this sort of damage it is NOT a good beginner project. The pinion probably has a crush sleeve. You will need a big torque wrench and you will likely need to make a tool (steel plate, pipe, holes drilled or machined, welded) to hold the yoke, and then a tiny torque wrench to check bearing preload. In my opinion if it is bad like this you need professional help. I know what to do and I would still take it to some guy who sets rear ends up all day. 6) If it wasn't that bad you will still need to clean the housing out really good and reassemble, replacing the axle, the wheel bearing, the seal (consider replacing the wheel bearing and seal on the other side too as preventative maintenance), and anything that got broken or damaged in the center (the spider gear area) when the axle broke. 7) Put it all back together and set the ring gear backlash the same as you found it. It is tough to get pans to seal. It is tough to get anything to seal gear oil. Get everything real clean and buy some silicone that is made for this exact purpose. The parts store should have it. If not, Ford and Chrysler dealers do. Fill with fresh GL-5 gear oil to the bottom of the plug, assuming this is some 70s or 80s American car (you didn't tell us what it is!). Good luck.

The Yugo was not the worst car of the millennium by a long shot. Taken in context of the 80s, it is middle of the road. I have worked on a few, but I doubt any automatics. As I recall, a Yugo is just a license built Fiat 127 body skin over Fiat 128 mechanicals. I believe back in the late 90s, the owner of one of the major USA Fiat replacement parts outlets was rallying a Yugo with some of the best 128 parts in it. That was probably FiatPlus. I would call them and ask if they know anything. They probably do. And now wild speculation follows.... It is probably just a licensed copy of some Italian rack for the 128, and is probably no different than.the rack in a stickshift car. I would guess that there were several 128 rack designs, because the car was produced for decades and licensed all over the world. I'll bet a 128 rack would fit, but that is another question for FiatPlus or another Fiat parts supplier. What you need to do, assuming it is completely hosed and can't be fixed in the car by easily replaceble parts like Rusty_OToole mentioned, is get it out of the car and take a good look at it. Figure out if it is rebuildable or not. In italian cars, sometimes both rebuildable and non-rebuildable racks wound up in the same year and model, sometimes as many as 3 different brands. The internal parts typically do not interchange. I would tear it down, clean it up, and see if it might visually match to a known 128 rack. Check 127 also. See how bad the gears themselves are worn. Bad gears are pretty much a death knell, and a sign to start looking for a better core to rebuild. If the gears are OK or even acceptable, maybe some small parts sold for Fiat would fit. All this assumes a manual rack. I don't recall ever seeing power racks on those cars, but if it is, a whole replacement rack and probably the pump too will be needed, not just small parts.

GM in that time frame used 0 ohms for empty and 30 ohms for full. A volume control from a radio is typically something like 10,000 or 50,000 ohms, so I think you might have a lot of trouble getting that to work. Get hold of the wire Neil Morse mentioned and ground it to a GOOD ground. The gauge should go to empty. If it does, everything in the dash and wire harness is likely OK. Hook the wire back up and try temporarily grounding the tank to a good clean ground on the frame or body. If that doesn't make the gauge start working, you need to drop the tank. From the post where the wire connects (one meter lead) to the sender case (the other meter lead) should measure very close to zero ohms with the tank sitting on the ground right side up and empty. Don't forget to zero your meter, If analog, there should be a knob to adjust for full scale (zero) with the leads shorted. if the meter is digital the zeroing function may be marked "delta". Short the meter leads together and press the "delta" button. If you do not have a delta or zeroing function, short your leads together and note the ohms reading. Subtract this number from whatever you get when you measure the tank. Flip the empty tank upside down, shake it a little, and measure again. It should be at least 30 ohms higher. If not, the sender is screwed up and needs to come out and be repaired or replaced. No matter what, if you drop the tank add a ground wire. Connect one end to a sending unit mounting screw, and the other end to a good clean ground, probably on the frame but the body should be ok too. This prevents the slow degradation of the grounding over time that causes the gauge to read above "E" when actually empty.