Bloo

Oh really? Thats news to me. I corrected my post.

I checked my 1947 Chilton/MotorAge and it does not say whether a 1947 Lincoln is positive or negative ground. Maybe Motor's would, but I don't have one handy. That was just the sort of thing every mechanic knew back then. EDIT: MoTor 12th Edition, 1949. 1947 Lincoln is Positive ground.

Positive ground was more common in the 6 volt days. GM cars (except some Cadillacs) were the odd ones for using negative ground.

Chop side? What does that mean? Got a picture or a link?

I derusted some Pontiac wheels almost like those with evaporust, using a metal garbage can as a container, The bottom of the can was just barely larger than the 16 x 4.5 wheels. It took about 6 gallons to submerge them. Not cheap but works well. I soldered the seams of the can, sealed the lid with weatherstrip, aimed a tiny heater at the can and let 'er rip. The wheels had been sandblasted, but rusted on the way home. The "tank" gets used for other parts now. Welcome to the forum!

Who bought the unrestored one up in Tacoma WA that went begging for $4000 a couple of years ago? Any of you guys?

I'm not seeing it in any of those links. Although Brillman had one close, the top line was different. Maybe check with these people: https://www.nostalgicreflections.com/index.html

Ok, on the back of the ignition switch, in your second image, top center is "yellow". This is the hot circuit coming from the battery. It starts at that ring terminal on the starter relay, hits the "BAT terminal on the voltage regulator, goes through a connector (probably at the firewall), and then feeds the ignition switch (and the cigarette lighter and maybe another thing or 2, not important right now). That yellow wire at the ignition switch should be hot all the time. Assuming your body is grounded, you should be able to verify easily with a test light or multimeter. Make sure you have a good clean ground on the dash or a bolt or something for your light or meter. The center terminal is "accesssory" (blk-grn, blk-grn, org-wht). The lower right is ignition (blk-grn, red-grn, blk-grn). Starting at "off", if you turn the key left, accessory should be hot. If you turn the key to the right ("on") but not all the way to "start", BOTH "accessory" and "ignition" should be hot. The remaining terminal (red-blu) is only hot when you are holding the key in the start position. Don't worry about that one just yet. I'll bet you find something dead that should be alive. Let us know how it goes.

You rebuild the stuff you have and really make it right. Don't plan for trouble, plan to NOT have trouble. Drive the car every day and learn its problems. do more sorting and rebuilding of whatever is unreliable. Eventually, you will have confidence. You may need to pack along some extras of things that MIGHT break, but these should be relatively few, unless you have the room and just want to be REALLY sure. Some cars will never be reliable enough for trips no matter how much you do, but those are not normal or common. Most cars just need all the crappy workmanship cleaned up. So many modified cars are full of stuff from the 70s-80s-90s. It is easy to get sucked into the idea that you can just walk in and buy parts, but those 70s-80s-90s drivetrains are antiques now too. I have friend and neighbor who plans to put an 80s GM drivetrain under his old Pontiac so he can get parts to fix it if out of town. He will build a nice car, but is misguided. I have an old truck with a Chevy 283 in it. Basically nothing on it is original. I use it for towing and hauling around car parts. Mostly it sits. A few years ago when the fuel pump failed, nobody had a 283 fuel pump, so I redid the gas lines to use a 350 fuel pump, available everywhere. Guess what? Now the local parts stores don't stock a 350 fuel pump..... I will be driving my bone-stock 36 Pontiac from Washington State to Wisconsin next year for the ETC Flathead Reunion. I was planning to go this year until Covid got loose and everything got canceled. I drive it everywhere (in good weather). It doesn't break. If it does, I guess I'll have to ship it home. I'm not too worried.

Got a wiring diagram? Can you post it? Old Fords of this vintage have an "accessory" feed off the ignition switch and an "ignition" feed. It is not entirely logical what feeds what. Sounds like one might not be working. The gas and temp gauges probably(?) don't ground. The little rectangular box that feeds them power probably does though. An oil light would ground through the instrument cluster or dash. So would the dash lights. Without looking at the car, all of this probably grounds where the instrument cluster bolts to the dash. The GEN light would not be grounded. Fords like this have a stater relay near the battery somewhere they refer to as a "starter solenoid". A short positive battery cable goes to a large post. On that same large post should be a smaller wire with a large ring terminal. This feeds power to all the little stuff in the car. There might also be another wire with large ring terminal on this post going to the charging system. Not sure about that. A diagram would really help. Other wires present are a heavy cable running from the OTHER large post to the starter, and 2 small wires that push on the 2 small posts. The negative battery cable runs to the block generally. The body must also be grounded. I don't recall how Ford did it. There may be an extra terminal partway down the negative battery cable bolted to the body. If not. look for a small ground strap, maybe from the back of the engine to the firewall.

Your goal should be to reverse the force that made the dent exactly. Of course that is usually impossible, but it should be your goal. The closer you can come to that, the less straightening work you will have once it is pulled. Pull it just a little further than you need because there will be some spring-back. That is generic advice for any dent or damage. Pictures would help us answer better what to do. Nevertheless, the best jig is most likely whatever it was bolted to when it got dented.

It was common in those days to look at a "body" (no fenders, hood, radiator shell or chassis) as a separate item painted separately. As others already mentioned the paint was often of different composition and/or color. Get some of this and a couple pieces of soft cloth (but not microfiber). One damp to polish with, and one dry to finish. I know it's expensive, but this product is capable of miracles that similar products are generally not. Try an inconspicuous spot first and rub like crazy. Don't use a machine. If it works, work on a small area at a time by hand, no more than a square foot. Wax after. Don't use on crazed paint, because it is light colored and will get in the cracks. If this won't bring up a shine, nothing will. Go by the part number, NOT the appearance of the bottle. Accept no substitutes.

Modulators have a diaphragm inside that occasionally fails, and should be viewed as consumables like tires, batteries, and hoses. Look for an original only if it's for show, otherwise take Hans3 and telriv's advice and get the new one. Be sure to verify the adjustment. It affects the shift points as well as the internal pressures. I don't have one in front of me, but I believe the shop manual will tell you when it should shift.

I've never heard of gluing a rim strip.

Another good reason to run tubeless whenever you can. You can still buy tire talc. Baby powder used to be talc, but is corn starch now? Maybe it would work. If you don't use something there's gonna be trouble, and probably sooner than later. Chances are you wont have to wait for the rubber to heat up and stick.

Some 2 posters have cables and pulleys in them. Frankly I think it's dangerous as hell. I used quite a few of them, but they were pretty new. I hate to think what would happen when the cable frays and lets go. The car falling might be the least of your worries. Those hoists had threaded areas at the end of the cable to adjust. If it's out of whack, the car hangs crooked. I have seen them in some shops, car tilted sideways because the cables were out of whack, ratchets disabled, etc.....

The additives in the antifreeze alone should be enough to prevent corrosion. Change every 2 years because the additives get used up. let the water pump packing weep a little so the shaft gets lubricated.

Regarding electrolysis, you can take a voltmeter and put one probe on the radiator, and stick the other probe in the coolant and measure the voltage. With fresh coolant there shouldn't be any. Don't use any tap water unless you are sure, beyond all doubt, that it is OK. Someone I know when through one radiator core and about 12 heater cores (one a year) because he stubbornly clung to the idea of using tap water. For many years it was OK here, and then suddenly it wasn't. You could measure the voltage with the multimeter. It was fine until he put more tap water in.... Electrolysis is one problem, but tap water can also contain minerals that will plug up your radiator core. Purified water is cheap at the grocery store, usually less than a buck a gallon. Buying 50/50 premixed antifreeze is another option, but typically isn't a good deal cost-wise.

I have a 1913 Studebaker 25 that has also been in the family since the early 60s. We have always run plain water and drained it when not in use. That is such a pain because you have to drain it every time or risk forgetting about it and breaking the block when winter comes. I tried a 50-50 mixture using green antifreze several years ago. It is an open (non-pressurized) system with an overflow tube that connects to the radiator neck and vents at the bottom of the core. The coolant foamed horribly and pushed out of the overflow, getting all over the paint, which it discolored, and the windshield, making it very difficult to see. Breathing ethylene glycol is extremely unpleasant by the way. The spots in the paint eventually disappeared, and I never made any attempt to solve the problem, I just put water back in. Since then, the water pump packing has been replaced and I will try again at some point, but I would be quite gun-shy about trying it on a fresh restoration, or anything with nice paint. At the very least maybe plumb the overflow into a big plastic bottle so it cant splatter until you figure out whether there is a problem or not.

In the "GL" system, if I remember correctly, GL-1 doesn't have a test, it just means "mineral oil". It would be very similar to motor oil, but intended for gears, or a combination of gears and hydraulics, or something. Think of old fashioned 'tractor oil", because that is the intended purpose of any you will find today. The viscosity of gear oils are rated on a different scale that motor oils. 75W80 gear oil sounds thicker than 10W30 motor oil, but it is really about the same. GL-1 does NOT belong in any hypoid rear axle, it simply isn't enough protection. In a non-hypoid rear axle you might get away with it but GL-4 or GL-5 would be much better.

The whole "GL" rating system is a mess. Generally speaking, you want GL-4 or GL-5 in a rear axle. GL-4 and GL-5 are both extreme pressure lubricants. GL-5 is the super duper version. Once upon a time, GL-5 was more expensive, and due to the ingredients needed to make GL-5, it was fairly safe to assume that GL-4 was safer for brass, and also OK for synchromesh transmissions. It's not been true for decades now, and the way the rating system works a GL-5 oil also will pass the tests for a GL-4. There is no difference in cost anymore, so a bottle labeled GL-4 could easily be GL-5. You have to check the datasheet for the particular oil you intend to use for it's "copper strip test" to determine if the oil wants to eat the brass. Thats the long answer. The short answer is if it NOT an old Stutz or something with a brass worm gear, you don't need to worry that much, In a 30s Mopar, the brass, if it exists, would be bushings and thrust washers. I was hoping someone would pipe up who knows whether your 1936 DeSoto has any. If it does, you might want to look at some copper strip tests. Otherwise just put GL-5 in.

Yes, although most rear axles would be happier with hypoid oil, whether they have hypoid gears or not. Any "normal" gear oil today is hypoid. The exception would be if there is brass inside the rear axle (probably not as late as 1936, but I am not 100% sure about the Mopar axle). If there is brass inside, then you must choose something safe for "yellow metals". That may or may not be hypoid oil. Trouble picking suitable gear oils usually occurs with synchromesh transmissions, not rear axles.

Have you seen this? Scroll down to Chev Nut's post: https://vccachat.org/ubbthreads.php/topics/290901/48-guide-sealed-beam.html Yes I know it is Chevrolet, but since its GM and Guide Lamp division the chances are very good that Buick was using the same bulbs. One More... http://www.modifiedcadillac.org/documents/Multiple_Years/Guide%20to%20T-3%20Headlights/Guide%20to%20T-3%20Headlights.jpg

What was the color of the Century?

Also, you can get out of the car and then roll it. Always leave in neutral when on the hoist. Push it forward a bit by hand, or just grab a wheel and turn it while you are on the floor setting the pads, if the car is not in an ideal position. Get the pads set, if they are flip-ups, they should be pointing opposite directions front to rear. Get the car off the ground just a few inches, then shake the crap out of it. That should reveal if the car is balanced badly on the hoist, or if the pads are not solid. Then, take it the rest off the way up.