Bloo

No way could it work not bolted down. It would just tip over. I believe this thread is about the distance between mountings.

I don't recall anything like that. The ratchet cant move once the weight is on it and it is hooked. Its up to the operator of course to let the weight back down on the ratchet.

They typically have some sort of ratchet system. Some of them are EXTREMELY noisy, to the point that they start messing with your head. I have seen a bunch of them disabled. I won't use a hoist like that. Some designs allow you to hold the latch open as the car goes up. Typically you then let it back down against the latches to take the hydraulic pressure off, and let the mechanical latches hold the car up.

For what it's worth, not hitting the doors on two-post hoists is ALWAYS a problem. Some are offset toward the front, some are not. With the posts offset forward, you will have to be careful getting out. With them centered, it can be very hard to get out of the car. Doubly so if it is a wide car. There is also the matter of balance. The weight has to be somewhat evenly distributed so that the car will not have a tendency to tip front to rear. Offset to the front works best for big American cars like yours, as well as modern front wheel drives. Once you get used to using your individual hoist, you will get a better idea how to "load" cars on it for good balance. Sometimes they wind up closer to the front of the bay than you would like, sometimes they hang out the back more than you want. Better to be safe rather than convenient. After looking at that hoist you mentioned, it appears the posts are centered. Put the posts as wide as you can possibly get them, and you might not have to climb out through the window.

It's a historic snapshot from a time you could still buy toilet paper.

Get a 2-post with the posts offset forward. You can recognize one easily because the arms are asymmetrical, the front ones are shorter.

Sometimes we just don't know the answer..... For instance, 41 headlights. I know that the earliest sealed beams (1940 and probably for a little while after) had metal backs and lacked the 3 glass tips for aiming. Markings or how to recognize a correct one? I have no idea. For a shop manual I would have said 1942, but then so did everyone else. Hang around a while. We aren't snobs. And Welcome!

I like it without the rings. To each his own.

Thats pretty much right, 216s and 235s. Many, probably most of them were 216s. The first 235s were for trucks like this, and came out in 1941 I think optionally. They weren't the 235 we know, more like a 235 cubic inch 216. The 235 we know came along as incremental changes in the early 50s. The first ones with full pressure oiling were 1954 automatics in cars, and maybe not until a year later in trucks? Some family friends farmed wheat and had 5 of the big AD flatbeds with sides. Some of them had hydraulic dump. There were 4 speed with the split rear and a couple of the others had Clark 5 speeds. Those Clarks were completely unsynchronized, and had a slight overdrive on fifth, though it wasn't enough overdrive really. You drove them by floating gears, sometimes double clutching. It's all gears. When you are loaded, you go really slow up hills.

No

Now that really shows the difference, Thank you!

Take your old one off and take it to a rebuilder. Look up "auto electric" in your area and you may find one. The quality will be better than anything the parts stores are hawking as "rebuilt", and you know it is the right one. Good luck.

Hudsy Wudsy, I confused you with someone else. Sorry about that.

I may be a bit dense here but no matter how I look I can't see a 2 and 4 inch difference between the black car and the brown one, other than the brown one appears to have a sealed beam conversion, and less eye bulge because of that. What am I missing here? Hudsy Wudsy: I am not doubting you. I have heard of the change for years. I am just not seeing it in the pictures.

As someone with respiratory issues, this is not something you should do. It isn't something you should do anyway. First of all, rattle cans do not give good results on panels. You would need to spray and you DO NEED PROPER PROTECTION EQUIPMENT for that. It really doesn't matter if you can afford it or will ever use it again. The paints we used to use in the driveway are no longer available, and anyway were more dangerous than we knew. Today, basically everything is a catalyzed 2-part system, maybe epoxy, maybe urethane. Longevity is better. The trouble is both will kill you. I have two dead friends from that. Google "Isocyanates". You may not like what you see. It soaks in through your skin right out of the air in a spray environment. It is a related chemical to super glue. What we didn't know back in the day, or maybe didn't pay attention to, is that the "hardener" used in Acrylic Enamel and Synthetic Enamel contains that too. If you don't put hardener in, and you get a run or something, and have to spray more paint on to fix it, it will lift and you get to sand the whole panel (or maybe the whole car) back down to the primer and start over. This is also true of Rustoleum. They don't even sell hardener for it but you can get it (Majic or Valspar). I wouldn't want to spray that. Maybe i'd do it with a roller or brush. My friend Dennis sprayed a bunch of Acrylic Enamel and Urethane. You never saw anybody in the sort of moon suit and air pump back in those days like you see now. Just masks and cartridge respirators. It isn't enough, and today the paint supplier will tell you what you need if you ask. Dennis drug around an oxygen tank for the last 8 years of his life and couldn't climb stairs. He had multiple near death experiences in the hospital. He's gone now, as is another friend of mine who sprayed a bunch of paint with hardener in it in the days before air systems.... Bodywork is incredibly time consuming. If you have not done it before you have NO idea. Maybe lacquer would be ok if you could get any. It is less dangerous but even more time consuming. At least you can fix your mistakes in lacquer and not have it show. Farm it out. Full stop.

Most of the popular flatheads don't have a separate port for every intake valve. The Ford six and the big Hudson six do. Any others?

There was a Ranger in that green for sale on Craigslist in Tacoma, WA for literally years. Not sure if it sold, or just disappeared after Craigslist started charging. IIRC it was a 6 and 3 on the tree. Way better shape than this one.

Maybe a 1937 Studebaker.

In Washington State there are some up front fees to get registered, but the registration never expires. Has to be at least 30 years old for a "collector vehicle" plate or YOM, 40 years old for a "horseless carriage" plate.

Also look around on the radio box for a distance-local switch. No idea if 41 Buick had that, but many radios of the period did.

Ford bearings (on the 9 inch anyway, and I think the 8") are sealed and lubed for life. If there is a problem you replace. There usually isn't, but after all these years I would consider replacing them if I had them out. If the seal leaks not only does the bearing get wet, but so do the brakes.....

Maybe your radio needs work. Most of the older GM tube type radios were pretty sensitive. On the other hand, AM car radios generally have a trimmer that needs to be set after the radio is installed in the car and connected to the antenna and lead-in wire it will be used with. Has this ever been done since the car was put together? The radio is set to a station close to some particular place on the dial. I think it may have been 1400kc, and the trimmer is turned slightly with a plastic screwdriver for loudest reception. Metal is not used because it would detune the trimmer, and then when you pull the screwdriver away the setting would be wrong. I have some 12 volt cars with truly horrible stock radios. I bought 5 different types of 12 volt booster to figure out which worked the best. All were crap. Two of them didn't even let the signal through. The others didn't seem to do much good. I was mainly trying to boost FM. Most do not even boost on AM when they work properly. There may be some good 6 volt ones out there, but in my opinion the odds are stacked against you.

In 1936 GM had leaf springs lubricated with graphite, and a special tool to squirt more in once a year or so. It might not be the best way according to current thinking, but not completely crazy for 1937.

Was your shifter on the floor or on the column?

There are a couple of ways a pinion can be marked. Buick's way was to mark the pinion in (+) and (-) thousandths of an inch from the default measurement. A common way aftermarket manufacturers do it is to mark the pinion with the actual distance from the center of the carrier bearings to the face of the pinion. Aftermarket tools for this job (about $600) have a dial indicator, making it easy to use the markings on an aftermarket ring and pinion. To use Buick's parts with the modern tool you would have to know the actual dimension. Maybe it is in the service manuals, but I don't recall seeing it. When I bought my J-681-A I was trying to set up an aftermarket gear set in a Pontiac. I had a machinist verify that it still agreed with it's test stand (thats like the other piece in Jolly_John's pictures), and then measure it to get the basic dimension of the tool at zero. That dimension is 4.176" from center of bearings to the face of the pinion. Using the hypoid adapter (0.888"), it would be 3.288". With that knowledge and some math you can use this tool on aftermarket gears, and also non-Buicks, as long as the carrier bearing outer diameter is 80, 90, or 100 millimeters.