Bloo

Thats it on the left, after plating them all with a little zinc (to prevent rust).

Yesterday I tested the meter for it's overload and reverse polarity protection. I had been considering a fuse, but it now seems unnecessary. It can take 15 volts in either the correct polarity or the wrong polarity with no trouble at all. That represents an accidental hookup to a 12v system, running. Even at 30 volts nothing is over it's ratings. The only exception is the meter movement itself, which, on a severe overload could be pegged at almost one and a half times its 1 milliamp rating. I did not allow it to do that for long, but it was unfazed, and there was no change in calibration or accuracy. Today I have been mocking it up for a handle and a couple of hanging hooks, and figuring out where to drill the next bunch of holes. The hooks will be much heavier than the bailing wire shown, and probably covered in heatshrink tubing. I haven't decided what to make the handle out of yet. I have some deerskin, maybe that.

I regret that it happened to you, but I think maybe I can explain why it probably happened. Using vintage electronic manuals as an example, watermarking like this is pretty common on PDFs, and probably paper manuals as well. I'll bet that mess you pictured began as a PDF. There are couple of reasons people do this. The first would be a "free" website. In the electronics world, a majority of the (obsolete) manuals had their copyrights expire in 1964 because their owners did not bother to renew. Exceptions exist, but they are few. Also, a couple of specific large companies have granted a blanket license for hobbyist use. There are sites that have scans of manuals free to download. People would take advantage of this and sell downloads or cds or maybe even paper manuals on Ebay. This really annoys the folks who took the time and expense to acquire books, scan them , and post them for the good of the hobby. Usually a page or two would be added saying "if you paid for this manual, you have been taken" or something similar. It wasn't enough. Watermarking eventually followed in some cases. The second would be commercial manual dealers. This would be for rarer manuals. One dealer would acquire an expensive manual, scan it, and find out later that all his competition had it too and were undercutting him on price, and that the scalpers on ebay were undercutting all of them. The watermarking became severe. Now back to Buick, or at least GM. Always get originals if you can. It is worth the extra money. My 1936 Pontiac manual is an original, and the lithographs are actually useful as illustrations. That is rare in reproductions. I have seen a bunch of Buick reprints of various years, and the lithographs are usually terrible. Also, in parts manuals it is common for some characters to not quite scan properly, making 6's look like 8's and so on. Sometimes the edge of a page is cut off, making part numbers unusable. Fisher body book reproductions I have seen (and in a couple of cases own) are similarly awful. Best of luck finding what you need.

How many terminals does this voltage regulator have, and what are they marked?

Stick around mercer09, I enjoy reading your posts.

This is true but, you have to buy tags for it for those 3 years (plus a significant fee), and if someone shows up with a title, it's theirs. I wouldn't want to sink much money into it until I had clear title. Also, I don't think I would want to be caught hauling a car on a trailer in Washington that I couldn't prove I owned. You may recall that in the old days (and maybe still) you couldn't even GET RID of one without a title. Washington probably has the highest number of sawzalls per capita in the nation. Nuff said.

Assuming a 12 volt negative ground car and a 12 volt dwell meter, and it has only 2 leads, most would connect like your first example. For positive ground, you could in theory reverse the leads. If it has more than 2 leads, or is anything weird, stick to 12 volt negative ground cars unless the instructions say otherwise. For what it's worth, a 2 lead analog meter should be safe to try on 6 volts, too. When the points are closed (100% "on" time), you need the meter to go to maximum dwell. When the points are open (0% "on" time), the meter needs to go to zero dwell. If it won't do that, something is wrong. Maximum dwell is the number of distributor degrees between firings (assuming one coil and one distributor). So, thats 45 degrees for an Eight, 60 degrees for a six, and 90 degrees for a four.

I've not used Green Gripper, but I see a few sizes of it listed at Chaffin's https://www.chaffinsgarage.com/catalog.pdf

What are these coils for? The construction looks VERY similar to the Buick "mailbox" coil, and there is a thread about it right now. https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341214-delco-mailbox-coil/ The post on the outside you have labeled "to distributor" has to be spark out, in other words ignition wire to the center of the distributor. "Bat" is self explanatory. The only remaining wire has to go to the points ("Dimer" may be "timer"). The BAT terminal is not connected to anything, and just serves as a place to mount one end of the resistor and hot lead from the ignition switch. You really should zero the meter, but that wont really change the outcome here too much. Sounds good, since the resistor is probably less than an ohm. Probably just case hardware, grounded when mounted on the car. That is a very good sign. A to D is probably the high tension winding. C to D is probably the high tension winding in series with the low tension winding. It isn't burned out. Thats about all you can tell with an ohmmeter. To find out whether it works, you would need to make it work. The chances are good since it passed the ohm test. A car battery of the correct voltage could provide power. Use negative or positive ground depending on what the car uses. Hook a plug wire and plug from the high tension output (side terminal) through the spark plug to ground. Ground the coil (possibly unnecessary, but do it anyway). Hook a condenser from "dimer" to ground if the car uses an external condenser. For instance the Buick example above had the condenser inside the coil, and would not normally want an extra. I suspect the mailbox shape on the Buick may be to accommodate the condenser. Hook battery power to "bat" (goes through the resistor to "C"). Touch the bare end of a grounded wire (with insulation on it so you don't get bit) to "dimer" and look for a good spark at the plug.

Because it weighs less, doesn't corrode, and is less conductive of heat. Ford is not the only one, those have been around for years now. Fords do seem to have more trouble with them than others. A friend had to replace the one on his (2004?) Crown Victoria when replacing the steel coolant tubes under the manifold. The plastic manifold needed replacement at the same time. I don't remember why. It was a common enough replacement that aftermarket ones were available (Dorman, etc.).

Two suggestions: 1) Send a PM to KornKurt (Kurt Kelsey) here on the forum. 2) California Pontiac Restoration http://pontiacparts.net/ Or, consider getting your old one relined. This could be pretty inexpensive if you just need the lining replaced. If the pressure plate needs refacing, a good oldschool clutch and brake outfit can probably handle that too. A couple I know of: 1) Brake and Clutch Supply (of Seattle, WA) https://brakeandclutchsupply.com/locations.shtml 2) Brake and Equipment (of Minneapolis MN) https://brakeandequipment.com/machine-shop/ I walked into Brake and Clutch (Seattle) about 3 years ago and dropped off a screwball Buick clutch plate to be relined. I had it back the same day (!). Throwout bearings and pilot bearings occasionally show up on Ebay, if none of the suppliers turn out to have them.

This picture is the best I could find. Looks probably flat.

I guess I'll be the one to open the can of worms LOL. Electronic ignitions have 3 main advantages. The first is that fact that rubbing block wear and points wear cause changes in the dwell and timing. This is one chief reason old cars needed "tuning" fairly often, and newer models can go for sometimes years with carburetor screws left alone, sometimes even sealed. The second is that total spark energy is limited by the points. You can only put so much current through them before they burn quickly. If you replace the point contacts with a transistor, you can have more current through the coil (with a different coil), and charge it faster. This can matter quite a bit if the engine has 8 cylinders or more and spins really fast. It can also allow you to run a wider spark plug gap. The wider gap raises the spark voltage. The distributor rotor and other ignition parts would have to be able to deal with more voltage, but only if you widened the spark plug gap. The third is "variable dwell". Points ignitions might like to run a narrower point gap at high RPM for more dwell (more coil charge time), as the ability to keep up charging the coil between firings is quickly falling off. The narrower point gap wouldn't work well at idle. Some electronic ignitions have current limiting built in for the same reason. This is pretty irrelevant for a 6 volt car, because even if the ignition included the feature, AFAIK coils don't exist to take advantage of it. You should notice no difference on a car that has just been tuned. If you replace old used up points with electronic, then you probably will. As for me, I have heard more complaints about electronic ignition conversions on 6 volt cars than success stories, so I'll stick with points for now.

More to the point, the "grouped" carburetors Carbking refers to usually don't work right. The day will come, probably sooner than later, when you can't stand screwing with it anymore and will need to do a proper rebuild. You will need a good core that hasn't had random orifices and jets drilled out. Good cores are hard to find. You probably already have one.

I would not try to fix this by buying a carburetor. in any event, don't turn your old one in for a core.

Here are the pictures (not mine):

Pay attention to whether they leak vacuum with the switch off. Mine did, and that is an unacceptable situation. I probably could have figured out how to get the switch and/or the flapper valve to seal up, but cleaning and relubricating the motor didn't make it run reliably either. The flapper seal in mine was cloth (as many are), not leather, and it needed replacement. That plus the uncooperative leaky valve convinced me to send it in. I keep hearing about neatsfoot oil. That is the first thing I ever tried back in the 80s or maybe the 70s to revitalize a leather flapper seal in a wiper motor. It didn't work for me. Neatsfoot oil is thick sticky stuff, and it caused so much drag the flapper wouldn't move at all. I had better luck with transmission fluid back then (works on leather cups in carburetors, too!). I have heard of people using brake fluid. That sounds like a horrible idea to me. YMMV.

I say go for it. Throw the 1950s one in the toolbox (or trunk if you have one). I have a 1913 car with a Splitdorf magneto, reputed to be troublesome, still working fine. I have a 1936 car with a hole in the coil. It should be full of oil I think, but isn't. It works fine. Of course you have a right to be concerned, and the insulation on the magnet wire back then was inferior compared to what is available now. I am looking for a spare for that 1936 coil too. I don't trust it due to the missing (probably) oil. If you can carry a known working substitute, why not? There is a thread right now over in the Prewar Buick Technical section about teens-twenties Buick "mailbox" coils, and how to test them. I'll bet they find some that still work.

I believe the black paint is correct. Carbking would know for sure.

Could it be a Hupmobile?

You would probably have to disconnect the old one to get it to work well. Maybe you could stuff the new one inside? They have become smaller. It would be pretty easy to test though, based on that manual page posted earlier. If you just don't ground the mailbox, that takes the condenser out of the circuit. Then you could hook a condenser from the points wire to ground, like in a "modern" car.

I have no recent experience with Ficken. I had a motor rebuilt by Melissa Klein (the latest owner of Clean Sweep) last year and although I have not been out in the rain much yet, it seems to work fine. I like to rebuild things myself, but if there is any unevenness, wear or warpage to the inside of the case where the flapper runs, wiper motors can be extremely frustrating. Gaskets are on ebay for some models. If you take it apart its almost a given you will need gaskets. The seal for the flapper could be problematic, unless someone is stocking a whole rebuild kit for your model. An NOS kit might not be a lot better than what you already have. Look here:

Check your coil wire! It might have just got wet, but a bad wire can do that too.

Didn't that occur years ago, before Coker sold?

If you go up next to you name/handle at the upper right of the screen, there is a little down arrow. Click on it. Scroll down to "ignore list" and click. You can add a user you want to block. Full disclosure: I have not tried it on this forum, so cant say for sure if it works, but it is a common option on forums, and it probably does.