Bloo

That is because "600W" never referred to viscosity or "weight". It referred to something else, probably the flash point in Fahrenheit, but I can't prove that. Today "600W" is just a trademark owned by Mobil oil. Saying "600W' is not like saying "SAE-160" or "ISO-680". It is more like saying "Havoline" or "Spirax" or "Meropa" or "Mobil1". Mobil still makes steam cylinder oil under the trademark "600W". They make it in two different viscosities. They also make "Extra Hecla" steam cylinder oil in two more viscosities. Look here for specifications: https://www.mobil.com/english-us/industrial/pds/glxxmobil-cylinder-oils Many older vehicles specified 600W in the transmission, not just Dodges. Today all the Model A Ford suppliers have "600W". It is usually rebottled (probably because it is unavailable in small quantities). I have no idea if it is really "Mobil 600W", some other brand of steam cylinder oil, or simply "some oil that nicely meets the needs of Model A transmissions" in the bottle. You would have to ask. Probably the latter would be better. You wouldn't buy a bottle of Havoline engine oil today for instance, and expect the exact same oil to be in the bottle as 1930. Even if it were, something better may have come along.

ANYTHING can have a flat cam. Checking for this problem is just taking the valve covers off. GM may have put some annoying stuff in the way, but no matter how you cut it, it isn't that deep. If the shop does not do heavy work, I am not surprised they didn't take it on. Fixing this problem in some cars requires taking the engine out, but probably not on this car. To actually fix it, the valve covers (again), the intake manifold and anything in the way will have to come off the top of the engine. and then.... The camshaft is as long as the engine, and it will need to come that same distance forward to come out. I would plan on removing the radiator, the a/c condenser (suck the a/c down first), and possibly the grille. Then, all the accessories on front of the engine need to come off, alternator, a/c condenser, air pump, p/s pump, etc. Some of these can be laid to the side, some will have to come clear off. Then, the harmonic balancer, water pump and timing cover and timing chain need to come off. Then the rocker arms, pushrods, and lifters come out.The cam comes out the front taking great care not to damage the cam bearings. They probably will get damaged a little, but hopefully not too much. If the cam STILL hits the bodywork remove whatever is necessary. If it hits something immovable, you could try disconnecting the transmission mount and tipping the tail of the engine down or up slightly to change the angle. Put in a new cam, lifters, timing chain, gaskets, seals, and reassemble. It is a lot more than valve covers. The top of a cam lobe slopes a little. The bottom of the lifters are not flat, they bulge out slightly. So, the tall corner of the edge of the cam lobe is the only thing that is making contact with the lifter as it goes over the top. The pressure on this tip is enormous, but there is a method to this madness. The action is like what would happen if you stepped on the outer edge of a Lazy Susan. You would go flying. The lifter surface just slips out from underneath, and spins. An added benefit is that the cam will hit a new spot on the lifter next time around. When enough wear occurs, for whatever reason, that the whole width of the cam lobe contacts the lifter, the lifter no longer spins, and things get bad in a hurry. This is not something slowly wearing down over 70,000 miles. 10 to 35 miles is more like it. I can't say for sure without being there, but the repair estimate sounds reasonable to me.

OH! I thought you meant you had another unit laying around that just had a mangled tube. I think they all have a mangled tube. If it were me, I would try to source an original one and rebuild it or get it rebuilt. I am thinking you are probably going to take the tank out a bunch of times getting a modified one really right. It is bad enough trying to get the stock one right. At least the 37 Buick was much easier to drop the tank out of than the 36 Pontiac. The Buick filler neck unscrews. A few years ago when I was trying to learn what makes these gauges tick, I kept seeing forum posts all over the web about 55-57 Chevrolets. They have 0-30 ohm gas gauges, as do most (all?) GM cars through about 1964. Apparently by now most 55-57 Chevys have aftermarket senders. The complaints about them are truly endless. Some of the most common ones are: 1) Gauge wont go to "e" because sender doesn't get anywhere close enough to 0 ohms. 2) Non-Lineaarity 3) Sender goes way over 30 ohms on full, so the tank has to burn way down, maybe to 3/4 or 1/2, before the needle comes off of full. 4) Needle waving all over the place. If a 37-38 Buick owner in here can suggest an aftermarket sender that is known to work, I'm all for it., otherwise I would start looking for an original to rebuild. I do like that sock filter on the sender in the picture. I am a believer in those, and I added socks to both the Pontiac and the Buick sender. I tried to use Mopar-style rigid socks, but they don't fit through the hole on these old GM tanks. The GM one fits, but is too long. I shortened the sock, and melted the end back together. As made, the GM socks are long enough that they could climb up and get caught in the gears.

Good advice I think!. I have only sand bended much larger things, and someone suggested salt for small tubing. It worked, but not as well as I had hoped. The part came out nice, but there was sure a lot of retightening the salt!. I will definitely be trying it with sand next time. This one is a 36 Pontiac. I made a 37 Buick one too, but don't have a pic handy. The differences are small.

Plug? Air must move freely over the fluid. Anything old enough to be a Desoto probably has a hole. Newer cars use a loose rubber membrane (seal) to keep moist air away from the fluid, but it still allows the air to shift when you step on the brakes.

Bent tube? Those tubes often need to be replaced anyway, due to cracking or holes worn where the tube clamps to the top of the sending unit. It is 5/16 copper tubing, a size most hardware stores don't have, but I did eventually find some. I suspect you could also use NiCopp brake line, or steel brake line. You do have to solder it. I suspect NiCopp would solder but I haven't tried. The bends in this piece are way too tight for any normal tubing benders. I started with extra length, crimped and folded over an end, and filled the tubing with salt, then I packed the salt in tightly with a punch and crimped the other end, folding it in such a way that it tightened the salt more. No matter what you do it is never tight enough,and you have to keep tightening it more as you work. I made the bends with a combination of cheap tubing benders and various size pipes and steel bars, working in a vise, usually with a pipe or something clamped in the vise. The tubing really wants to collapse. It is also a bit challenging to get the bends in the right paces. When I had it right, I cut the ends to length with a tubing cutter, dumped the salt out, and soldered it to the clamp and fitting. I didn't get the bends right on the first try. Buy more tubing than you think you need. It least one rivet will have to go away to get the clamp off. I don't think you could solder it while assembled because there is a cork gasket under there. I had the whole thing apart anyway due to problems with the resistor. Theres another gasket under the resistor housing. I had to make the rivets from hobby store brass tubing, The rivets at the hardware store were close, but not close enough. If you were only taking the pickup tube off, and not disassembling the rest, I think you could get away with just leaving that one rivet out.

Is that original for 38? I have worked on a 37, and 37 is like DonMicheletti's picture. Either way, resistance is 0-30 ohms, with 0 ohms being empty.

On a 0-90 ohm GM system, 0 ohms is empty. It isn't the tank ground. That would have the opposite effect of what you are seeing, nevertheless this system relies on perfect grounds to work, so you should add a good tank ground to make it reliable over the long term. Disconnect the wire going to the tank sending unit. With the ignition on, the gauge should peg. Now, short this wire to ground. The gauge should go to empty, or preferably below empty. If it will not do this, you have a problem with the gauge, wiring, or instrument cluster ground that you need to fix before bothering to pull the tank again. Is the float good? (yes I know its a new sending unit) These systems need to get to zero ohms for empty (almost impossible) and so there can be no stray resistance that wasn't there when the car was new, or you will have the opposite problem of what you have now. For this reason, and also to prevent float damage, the float cannot touch the bottom of the tank. It probably needs to run real close to the bottom though. With the float hanging down (out of the tank), measure the ohms with a multimeter. Put the unit in the tank and recheck. It should be the same. If it went up, the float is probably touching the bottom. Now flip the tank upside down and recheck. It had better be at least 90 ohms higher than it was right side up. If it isn't, you will never get to "full". Good luck!

4 wire (a) and 7 wire (b) I think. The main thing to think about is how the system works, because there were variations..... For instance, I think what I am calling a "type a" is the one people often call a 4 wire. One wire in, two wires out, and a fourth wire for an indicator bulb I guess? Four wires just isn't enough wires to do the brake light switching trick. Without an indicator bulb, or with 2 turn signal indicator bulbs would be 3 wire I guess? There is also some brand of switch out there that has 2 bulbs in it, but they don't do what you think. They light when a bulb on the outside of the car is burned out! This switch does not do the brake light switching trick, I don't know how many wires it has. Now a "type b".... would have the 3 wires like the "type a" switch to make the front signals work. Plus 2 more wires to go to the rear bulbs. Plus one wire to feed current from the brake light switch. Thats 6. If it has a single indicator light, add one more, so 7 total. I don't know what an eighth wire might be for. You might be on to something with the 4-ways. The old switches didn't have that. There are so many variations on 4-way circuits I don't even know where to begin. It should be possible to have 4-ways without any additional parts except a bunch of extra contacts in the switch, I think. How is this for a wild theory: Maybe the eighth wire is always-on battery voltage. If you had 4-ways you would want them to work with the ignition off. The signals might only work with the ignition on.

This subject is naturally muddy, but basically there are 2 kinds of signal light wiring. I am going to call them "type a" and "type b" "Type a" uses a separate filament, actually a whole separate bulb for the rear signal lights. This type includes most Japanese cars at least through the 80s, also "truck" signal conversion kits in the USA from the 30s onward that came with 4 signal light housings that you would mount yourself. It also includes the earliest Buick factory turn signals, as they were not even located physically close to the tail/stop lights, and so they had to be a separate bulb. "Type b" uses the same bulb filaments for the brake and signal lights at the rear of the car. This includes nearly all American cars with factory signal lights through the 80s at least an probably quite a bit beyond. There are exceptions, but few. It is also popular for conversions today, because most people wont want to add another light housing, and the existing one is probably already full of bulb(s). "Type a" is easy for wiring. The switch is just a SIngle Pole Double Throw (SPDT) switch. Fused (we hope) 6V (or 12V) is connected to the battery terminal of the flasher. Current flows out another flasher terminal to the signal light (DPDT) switch. From there it is switched to either the right or left side. The left front and left rear are usually wired together. The right front and right rear are wired together. Note this detail, because wiring the front and back together wont work on "type b". If there are 2 dash indicators, they are also wired into their respective sides. If there is a single dash indicator, it is wired to the third terminal of the flasher. "Type b" is different and needs more contacts in the switch. The front works just like "type a" described above. If there are 2 dash indicators they are wired to the front signals. If there is a single dash indicator, it is wired to the third flasher terminal just like "type a". The back is where it gets weird. In the rear, Fused (maybe) 6V (or12V) runs to the brake light switch. From the brake light switch it runs to the extra switch contacts in the turn signal switch, and then on to the rear signal/brake bulbs. Each rear signal/brake bulb has it's own switch contact and it's own wire. In "type b" systems, when you turn a signal on, the front bulb gets connected to the flasher. At the rear, contacts in the signal switch disconnect a bulb from the brake light switch, and then connect it to the flashing side. I hope this is enough information to figure out what kind of wiring you have. Good luck.

This is the right way to do it. It usually wasn't done in later years. The shoes had to break in until they made contact. It might take a long time. Doing this right also solves most "pulling to one side" problems that aren't the suspension (but most of those are caused by the suspension). I think you can still get it done, but would probably have to send the parts out in the mail.

FWIW "maximum pressure" on a tire sidewall is a "maximum cold pressure" rating on every tire I have ever seen. It is expected and normal that the pressure will run higher when the tire gets hot. It is part of the design.

That is, I think how the factory numbers were arrived at on some cars. It results in bad gas mileage, mushy handling, short tread life, and overheated tires in hot weather. The way I remember it, most drivers would complain about "flat tires" at 26 psi. Almost everyone ran 32 or 35 psi in radial tires. Since many of the cars originally came with bias, and the tire manufacturers (of the new radials) only specified a maximum, there was no "official" recommendation. 32, 35, and 44 were the maximum pressure ratings you would see on passenger car radials back then. I, and every other gas station jockey I knew used 35 pounds (or 32 pounds if that was the maximum rating) unless someone would ask for a different pressure. Maybe 1 in 1000 people asked for a different pressure. Out here in Central Washington State, in the 110 degree summer heat, tires run down in the 20's would get hot enough to burn your hand when you checked the pressure, and the sidewall rubber would start to look rough. The speed limit was only 55mph then. It would be worse today. I am not arguing the math. You are correct about the ratings, and your example gives a typical result. I still wouldn't do it.

When in doubt, 35 pounds on any old American car with radial tires.

That is gorgeous.

Generally speaking (again, so defer to the Buick shop manual if it contradicts me) The weight should never be down, in fact probably straight up when cold The thermostat spring will not be in place when you weld it. Unhook it from the post. Cold position should direct exhaust up under the carb. Look up under there. There are probably 2 ports up under the intake. With the plate in the cold position (and the weight straight up), the plate will direct the exhaust up into ONE of the ports, somehow there should be a path from the other port on down and out. Most likely the top plate will just stop with its top edge between the ports. Hot position will most likely have the weight pointing straight at the engine, maybe ever so slightly up, (if the riser travel is less than 90 degrees it will be a little up). The plate will be at an angle that directs the exhaust coming from the engine down. This is the bottom-most picture in MCHinson's post. Flip the picture sideways. The shop manual should tell you how tight the thermostat spring is. It is probably half or 3/4 of a turn. Wind it up however much the book says and hook it over the post. If it gets tighter instead of looser with heat, the spring is on upside down. Take it off and flip it over.

Are any of the gaskets leaking? If not is sort of looks to me like you could get away with removing the heat riser separately. Usually with a setup like that you would assemble it, and the intake and the exhaust to the head all at the same time, tightening all of it slowly in a sequence so that everything pulls into place properly. It seems to me, from the pictures, that if it is assembled correctly now, and not leaking, you should just be able to remove the riser and then put it back (you'll need gaskets) after fixing it. If someone knows different, hopefully they will speak up.

Speaking in general terms (since I don't have a Buick the correct year to look at), it looks all wrong. The general plan is that the weight should be sticking UP in the cold position. As the thermostatic spring relaxes with heat, the weight should fall in such a way that the heat riser is bypassed. On most cars this is about 90 degrees of movement, usually slightly less on an inline engine like this one. In the bypass (HOT) mode, on most cars, the weight will be pointing at the engine block more or less. Anti rattle spring arrangements vary, but probably the heat riser, when open, "rides" on the stiff spring as a lower stop, to keep the plate from rattling as you go over bumps. It could also be an "over center" arrangement so that it acts as a "stop" at both the open and closed position. Find out what that weight is doing in relation to the plate. It sure looks wrong to me. I suspect it should not be possible for the weight to be pointing straight down.

Thirty years or so before I had my 'tub, my dad had a brand new one. He told me nobody wanted to let their daughter go on a date with him ;). You probably flew under the radar with that Peugeot.

Ply33 nailed it. There is a cutout in the regulator and it must have stuck. Resist the temptation to just buy a new one. Take it off of there, pop the cover off and have a good look. I think you will see which one is stuck. Maybe it welded itself, maybe there is just dirt in the pivot or something. Pop the contacts apart. Be careful not to bend anything as it affects the setting. The cutout setting is not as critical as the others, but it pays to be gentle. You can clean contacts gently by putting some electrical solvent or brake cleaner or something on a strip of copy paper and dragging it between the contacts, while closing them lightly with a finger. That may be enough. Don't go directly to filing, though you may have to. There could be some precious metal on the contacts to improve life and reduce maintenance. Try not to remove it. The contacts don't necessarily need to look good (and they won't), just make good connection. In the old days there were "spoon" files meant for scraping the crap off of those contacts without damage. I don't know where you would find one now. Sandpaper has always been a no no. Have fun!

The seats fold down flat like that in a bathtub (49-51). I know the practice continued well into the 60s in Ramblers, so it is a good bet this car does the "bed" trick.

At the far upper right of this page, click the little down arrow next to your name and choose "profile" When your profile page opens, go over to the left, to the green square "c" next to your name. Click on the little gray box in the lower left corner of the green square. A page should open with options to upload a photo, or link one from the Internet.

I didn't. I rebuilt the one that was hanging there with a Then N Now rebuild kit. I believe the pump is the original one to the car.

It sure came out well. After doing this I got rid of the electric pusher the previous owner installed. The Pontiac hasn't skipped a beat since, even in hot weather! They may need more than just the part number to identify it. They did in my case. There was another code stamped in it somewhere.

Has anyone actually looked under the car? It really is time to look under the car. Rusty's Jaguar IRS idea makes more sense than anything else in this thread so far, but I still have my doubts. The picture below is a bathtub Nash. I daily drove one of these for a while in the 80s. It has all the suspension and driveline features you might find in any large series Nash, Hash, or large Rambler through about 1966. One really must start here. This is a bridge in the town I grew up in. You may notice some resemblance. The resemblance is more than superficial. If you look under the hood of the Nash, you will see a bridge-like structure connecting the load of the front suspension to the A pillars. The load is carried down through the bridge-like roof structure to a couple of rear spring seats. Also, there are sheet metal "frame rails" welded to the floorpan. They are analagous to the road structure in the bridge above. Made of body sheet metal, they are loaded in tension. They really don't need a lot of strength. This point is driven home when you see the effects of a front door leak. There were rust holes in mine in the top and out the bottom for about 6-8 inches. right at the driver and passenger footwell. Did this matter? Not much, because the rail sides and another vertical piece were there, still loaded in tension, and it supported a tension load just fine. One thing I am gonna throw out there is that you don't want to lift this car with a modern hoist on the body. Lift it from the wheels or axles. It is easy to damage this style of body with a hoist even if there is no rust. Back in the day you saw kinked Ramblers all over the place. Back to the "bridge" This structure basically sits on the front suspension and the rear spring seats. So how does the suspension work? Simply put, it is a torque tube, but not of the sort that you have probably seen before. A Chevy for instance takes only the wheel rotational reaction torque against the leaf springs. A Buick does a bit more, taking the fore/aft acceleration and braking loads. A Nash, IIRC, also takes the torque reaction of the driveline (wheel lift). There is no ball. There is a rubber "trunnion" (as Nash called it). it can take a tiny bit of misalignment but not much. What you wind up with is something like the structure of the tractor in the picture above, with a bridge-like unibody perched above it on a couple of springs at the rear axle. A panhard rod locates the axle from side to side. The mount for the panhard rod is going to be the only thing back there with any strength at all IMHO. It takes the side load from cornering. The weight of the car will be supported at the rear of the "bridge" on a couple of coil spring seats. This is a strong point for a vertical load, so not much beefiness would be required. All other suspension loads and acceleration and braking forces are taken at the front of the car, or at least that is how I remember it. Try this, bounce the rear suspension and watch the engine. I think you will see the rear of the engine going up and down in relation to the firewall. If you are serious about this, get it on a hoist (by the axles) and take lots of pictures. This is no ordinary swap.