Bloo

Yes, That is exactly it. On a newer style GM solenoid, you only need to send battery voltage to one terminal. I had forgotten that it is labeled "S". That terminal goes directly to the solenoid windings, and there is no small relay. An equivalent to the "I" terminal does not exist here. On this system they have added a small relay to kick the solenoid windings. and both ends of the coil have terminals. To get one of them to behave like an "S" terminal, you have to ground the other one. Buick's original autostart (vacuum switch and carb switch and so on) sent battery voltage to one side of the small relay coil. The other side of the small relay coil connected to the "ground" terminal on the 5 terminal voltage regulator. The "ground" terminal is actually a set of points in the regulator that grounds only when the car is not running. It prevents the starter from engaging if the car is already running.

Yes, if it is sparking, it might be shorted somehow. Here is how it is supposed to work: 6v comes from the autostart stuff (carb switch and vacuum switch) to the little relay. the current flows through the coil on the little relay, out the terminal on the other side, and to ground through a terminal in the original 5-terminal voltage regulator. I bring this up because to pull in, the little relay needs not only 6v on the "s" terminal, but also a ground on another terminal. If the car still has an original 5-terminal voltage regulator, a dirty ground contact in the regulator would could cause the relay not to pull down. Since the relay needs both terminals ("s" and ground) connected to pull down, It is possible for the starter button to be in the ground side instead of the positive side. When the little relay pulls in, the points close, connecting a copper bolt (the one with the battery cable on it) to the pull in coil and the hold in coil. The pull in coil "finds" its ground through the starter windings. The hold in coil is permanently grounded. Both pull. This pulls the solenoid plunger in, engaging the starter drive. When the plunger pulls in, it knocks the little pin in the back, pushing the copper disc back, and shorting the two copper bolts together. This does 2 things, it turns the starter motor on, cranking the engine, and it shorts out the pull in coil by connecting both ends of it together. The hold in coil continues to work. The car continues to crank until either 6v ("s") or ground is removed from the little relay.

I doubt you can repair the coils inside the solenoid. If they are bad, you will need to find another solenoid. I don't remember which terminal is the "s" terminal. you are going to have to show me. Here's how to test the coils in the solenoid: Disconnect the strap from the solenoid to the starter motor. Disconnect the little relay on top from the solenoid coil as well. Note from the graphic that the pull in coil and the hold in coil are connected together at the end that normally connects to the little relay. At the other end, the hold in coil is connected to ground, but the pull in coil is connected to the copper bolt that normally connects to the starter motor. Test resistance from the terminal that normally connects to the little relay to a bare spot on the solenoid case (ground). There should be very little resistance, a few ohms at the most. Now test resistance from the same terminal (that normally connects to the little relay) , but this time to the copper bolt that would normally connect to the strap to the starter motor. There should be very little resistance here also, only a few ohms. If both of these test good the solenoid coils are ok. Speaking of the little relay, is it clicking down when you try to start the car? You say the solenoid "wont fire", does that mean the solenoid is pulling in but not turning on the starter motor, or is it just not pulling in at all?

Well said.

I doubt endplay is a big deal. The armature will go where the magnetic and mechanical forces pull it. Tightening it up wont change this, and might even make it drag a little more. I don't have the manual handy. What does Buick say about endplay? DonMicheletti's photo in post #7 shows what the correct commutator-end thrust washer looks like, It is some kind of phenolic or maybe even leather. I think it acts as a brake when the starter disengages. I enlarged the picture in post #6 and it looks like your armature is undercut. This means that the insulation between the copper segments on the commutator is cut lower than the copper so that only the copper touches the brushes. This is the right thing to do to most electric motors, but not starters. You would have to look in the manual to see if Buick undercut it, but even if they did, it probably shouldn't be undercut now. If you have some brushes with a lot of copper in them, like the ones shown in DonMicheletti's post #7, the copper will just fill up the grooves and short out the armature. The starter will draw loads of current and barely turn. If yours is like this, clean the copper out of the grooves and it will probably start working again. If that isn't it, have a good look at the copper bolts that form the terminals on the back of the solenoid. Look where the copper disc contacts them. How burned up are they? In normal operation, the solenoid bottoms out, knocking a pin that moves the copper disc. The pin is spring loaded, so the disc and bolts can wear/burn quite a bit and still work. When it gets bad enough, the disc wont quite touch the bolt anymore. It will sort of bounce and spark, never quite connecting good enough to work properly. The starter will turn slow, if it turns at all. If the solenoid, when pulled all the way in, can push that disc all the way to the copper bolts, and compress the spring on the pin even a tiny bit, then the copper bolts are not the problem. If it isn't that either, the solenoid might have a burned out coil. There are two coils in one of these solenoids, a pull in coil and a hold in coil. I once saw a solenoid that had one of the two coils burned out. The solenoid would pull in, and the copper disc would bounce on the copper bolts just like the bolts were burned up and shot, but they were not. The starter ran super slow. This was on a 37 Buick. There is a diagram in the shop manual, either the main wiring diagram, or maybe in the starter section, that shows you the wiring inside the solenoid if you look close. With everything disconnected from the solenoid I was able to check both coils with an ohmmeter. One was open. Lastly, there is an adjustment for how far the solenoid pushes the starter drive out. If this is wrong, the gear could drag on the starter housing, or maybe the copper washers and bolts might not get fully engaged. There is a specification in the manual. I believe you hold the solenoid plunger all the way in mechanically (or electrically by engaging it on the bench with the starter motor disconnected from the solenoid). Do not hold the linkage in, only the large part of the plunger. Measure from the tip of the starter drive gear to the flat to the flat spot inside the starter nose by the bushing. The manual has the spec. It might have been 1/8 inch. To adjust, disconnect the linkage to the fork. The center part of the plunger is threaded, and you can adjust it in or out while the linkage is unhooked. Battery cables need to be pretty large on a 6v car. 00 gauge is perfect. 2 gauge will work. The ones from the parts store might work, but probably wont. Also, both the frame and the block need to be grounded. If your negative cable goes to the frame (I'm guessing it does), there needs to be a big heavy strap (or another battery cable) from the frame to the block or transmission. Make sure it's there and connections are clean. Let us know what you find out.

There is a 1928 on Seattle Craigslist. https://seattle.craigslist.org/kit/cto/d/1928-henney-hearse-chassis/6321823723.html https://seattle.craigslist.org/kit/cto/d/1928-lycoming-straight-8/6316888196.html

I wish I could find a good graphic to illustrate this. The way most inline engine heat risers work is completely different than a typical v8. Usually on a v8, there is an exhaust passage through the intake manifold. When the heat riser is "closed" (cold) it blocks the exhaust on one bank, and the exhaust from that one bank has to go through the passage to get out the other side, heating the intake as it goes. When the heat riser gets hot, it rotates 90 degrees to full open. On an inline engine, the heat riser usually never blocks anything. When it is in the cold position, exhaust is directed up near the carburetor and then it flows back down. When it is in the hot position, the exhaust hits the plate (butterfly?), which diverts it straight out the exhaust pipe. Cold to hot is probably less than 90 degrees rotation. I still vote for fixing it.

DOT 5 is SILICONE fluid. DOT 3, DOT4, AND DOT 5.1 are all GLYCOL-BASED fluids. It is important to point this out (for US-based readers) all the glycol fluid here is labeled "SYNTHETIC" now and it is causing a lot of confusion. Apparently it is just the same old brake fluid. Even the old standby Castrol GTLMA label has disappeared in favor of "synthetic"

I don't know. It might. Anything will work though. All you are doing is helping the rings seal better, to try and figure out how worn out they are. If the improvement is drastic, they might be pretty bad. If you put in way too much it could fool you by raising the compression ratio. One or two squirts per cylinder from a squirt can is about right. The half used bottle of oil left over from your last oil change will be fine.

Yes. Squirt over toward the piston.

Are we talking about the heat riser? If so, heat riser solvent works amazingly well, and the best of that crop, the Chrysler version, is still available. They have renamed it "Rust Penetrant", MoPar part number 4318039AC (shake before using!). It would work even better if the car were together and you could heat cycle it a time or two. Since it isn't, let is soak for a couple of days, then tap. It helps to keep spraying a little on now and then as it soaks. IMHO this stuff is even better than Kroil (and Kroil is great stuff). I wouldn't remove the butterfly unless a whole bunch of 37 Buick drivers tell you it's ok. Most cars that have heat risers need their heat risers. There are exceptions, but few.

I don't think this works in 36. I dug into this subject fairly deep about a year ago, and this is what I came up with. In 37 the Special and Century the rear axle is hypoid, instead of spiral bevel on the older cars. This Special and Century rearend shares a design with many later cars. This is why people can put "Century gears" (ring and pinion) in Specials. In 37 the Roadmaster and Limited are spiral bevel and thus the ring and pinion wont interchange with any later stuff. The 36 Century and Roadmaster use a spiral bevel rearend of the same basic design as the 37 Roadmaster. In theory you could exchange ring and pinion between those three. It wouldn't be a huge gear ratio change like putting Century gears in a special. I could never figure out what the 36 Special uses for a ring and pinion, but it may be a design all by itself. The Chevrolet Master / 1/2ton / Pontiac spiral bevel design (35-36 on cars, 35-39 on trucks) is the most obvious possibility. I was never able to make that connection. It seems that it is not similar. I never could nail down the Limited either. It seems to be something all to itself in 1937. It was probably like the 36 Century / 36-37 Roadmaster in 1936. I can't even guess about 38. Please post corrections.....

MSD isn't a direction I would go. IMHO it makes troubleshooting difficult. They do work well. If you really want to ditch the 5000 ohms.... How about these? (similar to the ac44 the book recommends, a step colder than what you have now) https://www.ngk.com/product.aspx?zpid=10036 or these (one step colder yet, similar to the books ac42 "for commercial ot sustained high speed operation") https://www.ngk.com/product.aspx?zpid=10037

Yeah, dual points increase the dwell, which increases the charge time, and allows the ignition to keep up at higher RPM than it could otherwise. I doubt you would be able to see 5k ohms difference... at all. The resistance of the gap is so unbelievably high, and it is in series. I really think you, or the scope, (or the car) would have a hard time seeing 5k. Are you even sure this had copper wire when it was new? I just looked in the manual and they really dodge the issue. I'm pretty sure carbon wire was commonly available by 1956. If it had resistance wire, you are already at about the same total resistance. If you have the plugs at .035 it can pull a steep hill under hard acceleration without cutting out, and it is not missing at high RPM, then it is as good as points ever get. Really. Remember the best thing an ignition could possibly do for you is light the mixture perfectly every time. If it doesn't miss, there is very little room for improvement. The biggest disadvantage to points on a street engine is that they start degrading as soon as you drive the car. The rubbing block wears, retarding the timing, closing the gap, overheating the points, etc. This is where electronic shines. 20,000 or more miles later, the dwell and timing are still the same! You can wear out a set of plugs, and never even have to set the carburetor.

Here is a trace for one cylinder. Thats time on the x axis, and kilovolts on the y. You can see it took about 14 kilovolts to initiate the spark, and less than 2 kilovolts to maintain it. Graph only goes to 21 kilovolts. Thats probably a little more than a typical 12v car with points can do. It has some headroom. Tightening the gap will give it more headroom (by lowering that spike), opening it will give it less. Want to know what it can do? Pull a wire off with the scope connected. That spike will rise to its maximum. The only caveat is the maximum falls off with RPM.

Then its fine. You have resistor plugs. In theory you don't need resistor wires. It sounds like you have it well sorted. A few ohms too much or too little isn't going to make a discernible difference. If you eliminate all the resistance, it will just make noise. Thats why the carbon wires came about. They weren't reliable, but the modern silicone stuff is fine. The gap is what makes the difference. The resistance of the gap is WAY higher than the additive resistance of the plugs, rotor, etc. The total resistance is what determines how high the voltage spikes before it fires. The gap swamps everything else. If you exceed what the system can do, the spark doesn't get weak, it just plain goes out. This is really obvious when you have one open spark plug wire. It might run ok under light load, but accelerate hard and that cylinder will drop, because the voltage does not rise high enough to overcome both the gap and the open wire. The voltage rises as high as it can go, and the spark never happens

I heard about a 1960 Dynaflow that would unhook the reverse band if you went from reverse to forward without coming to a complete stop. It was possible to hook it back up. It did not take a complete teardown. This was done in the car with the pan off. I don't know any more about it than that. Not an unhooked band? Do what Beemon says, and tear it down.

And "Rust Free" (Rust is included at no extra charge)

Nothing is ever simple...... Still, It isn't that critical. I always ran resistor wires on cars of that vintage. Not the carbon ones, but the silicone/carbon type (accel, etc.. and most modern resistor wires). Resistance was added for radio noise suppression. In years past, the rule of thumb on cars with points ignition was to run either resistor wires or resistor plugs but not both. I guess now that non-resistor plugs are getting so hard to find, maybe it is time to give copper wire another look. On a points ignition, the design-limiting factor for spark energy is the points. You can only ask them to carry so much current for so much time before the life gets really short. There is only so much time to charge the coil before it needs to fire again. The more cylinders you have, the worse it gets. When the ignition fires, the voltage rises until a spark initiates. Instantly, the voltage goes WAY down, as the voltage needed to maintain a spark is much less than what is needed to initiate one. The spark will continue until the coil is discharged enough that it can no longer maintain this lower voltage. More resistance raises these voltages a little. More gap raises them a lot. You can see all of this on an ignition scope. The lower you can make these voltages, the longer you can keep the spark going. Some companies, mostly European ones, (Bosch, Marelli, etc.), liked to run real narrow plug gaps, like maybe .021 or .025 because they felt the long duration spark was most important. I don't agree with this. I find that nearly everything with points will run better and be less susceptible to fouling at about .035 . This is assuming that the coil and the insulation in the system can support the higher voltage. Under acceleration, the voltages go up because the higher cylinder pressure makes it harder to initiate and maintain a spark. At high rpm, the coil has less time to charge. The coil has to have enough headroom to keep firing under any conditions. If you raise the gap very much, you will probably bump into the limit (and run out of spark) on a points ignition. Some guys put "40,000 volt" or "50,000 volt" coils on thinking they are raising the voltage. They aren't. The spark plug gap, (and to a much lesser extent the wire resistance, rotor resistance, carbon button, etc) sets the voltage. A higher voltage coil increases the headroom, probably at the expense of points life. On a points ignition car, if you can run .035 and the spark never goes out under high rpm or high load, you are good. It really doesn't get any better. Many years ago, one of the hot rodding magazines, probably Popular Hot Rodding, ran some tests with plug gaps on a dyno. They found modest increases in horsepower up to about .050, and measurable though insignificant increases up to .060 . After that, the law of diminishing returns kicked in. This probably had a lot to do with minimizing the burn time variations in 1980s unleaded fuel that had octane boosting chemicals floating around in it at levels around 10% (much like today). In the 50s, with Tetraethyl Lead I suspect they would have found less difference. Another limiting factor is insulation. On many cars, the weakest spot is the bit of plastic or bakelite between the contact on the center of the rotor and the grounded metal below. If it burns through, the car could stop running. It usually doesn't. It usually keeps running and slowly trashes the advance mechanism. It will look like a combination of wear and rust has nearly cut the pins off. Most electronic ignition cars can do .045 no problem. It is a great place to be. Some are specified lower or higher. At .060 it is tough to keep the insulation good. You have to have really good wire insulation, boots, rotor, cap, etc. You cant have wires in metal looms or anything like that. Spark tries to get out everywhere. You can probably get this to hold together until the next 30,000 mile tune up (on an electronic ignition car). Any higher than .060 and it is impossible. GM released some cars that ran at .080 . They could blast through the insulation somewhere or another in about 2 weeks. In the field we set those at .057 and let them burn open to .060. They last a while that way. .045 is a much better place to be. That same HEI ignition used on the .080 cars ran 50000-60000 miles with no maintenance at all at .045 on other cars.

Inside your shop? I would probably cover it. Put it away clean and get a nice new indoor cover. If there dirt, the cover will grind it in. But once covered, the grit wont fall on it. Leave a window cracked open. Supposedly they make soft indoor covers that breathe. If it got dirt on it, I assume it would grind into the car over time. I have one car under a tyvek cover inside. Those are supposed to breathe too. It seems to be doing ok, but it is not "nice" paint, so you can take that with a grain of salt. Sometimes I leave it outside under this to keep the dirt off, but only in nice weather. The key here is that the car is super clean, and so is the cover on the side that touches the car. Trying to store a car under a cover or tarp outside in the PNW long term is slightly less effective than pissing on forest fire, and almost as rewarding as herding cats. Always crack a window, even with no tarp or cover. This goes for both the wet and dry sides of the PNW.

Good advice so far. Get the cap off the master cylinder and see if it is low or empty. Look for leaks. If you dont see any big obvious leaks, bleed it. Harbor freight has vacuum bleeders cheap. Get one. Hook up the little jar to the pump, paying attention to which port is which. It is marked. Suck any remaining fluid out of the master cylinder. Get at least one big bottle of brake fluid, maybe two. Fill the master cylinder with clean new brake fluid. Open a bleeder and hook the hose to it. Start with the farthest one from the master cylinder (right rear). Suck some fluid through. Have an assistant keep dumping fresh new brake fluid in the master cylinder as it goes down.. Do not under any conditions let the master cylinder get empty. Keep sucking until you see clean fluid in the hose. Close the bleeder. Repeat for the other three bleeders, moving closer to the master cylinder as you go. Throughout this process do not let the jar on the bleeder get all the way full. You will have to keep emptying it. Don't let it tip over either (this part is fiddly). If you fail at either of these your cheapie pump will be full of brake fluid. This is not the end of the world, but it makes a mess. If a bleeder wont bleed it may be plugged. Take it out and scrutinize it. The hole goes in from the side at one and, and out the top at the other end (the hole goes around a corner). Tiny drill bits and or stiff wire from a mig welder or a wire brush can help you get the holes open. Once unplugged, put it back in and try again. BRAKE FLUID REMOVES PAINT! Don't get any on the paint. If you do clean it up immediately with water. After you are done and everything is closed clean up any brake fluid mess with water. Avoid the master cylinder lid with the water though, as it is probably vented, and you do NOT want any water getting in the system. The brake fluid chemically attracts the water! Be careful not to get the water too close to the lid, or to any open bleeders. Brake fluid that is contaminated with water is corrosive, and eats the cylinder bores. You will see plenty of this nastiness come out when you bleed it. Ok, so you have it full of clean fluid now. Are there any obvious leaks? If there are fix the leaks now, do not attempt to drive it. No obvious leaks? Bleed once more, this time by hand. Have a friend pump up the pedal a few times, and hold. DO NOT PUSH THE PEDAL TO THE FLOOR WHEN YOU ARE PUMPING, DO YOUR BEST TO NOT PUSH IT DOWN ANY FURTHER DOWN THAN IT WAS GOING WHEN IT WAS WORKING RIGHT. Hold it in the down (brakes on) position, open the farthest away bleeder for just a tiny quick squirt and close it. You can use your hose and bleed jar to keep the mess under control. The pedal will go down when you open it. I hope your friend on the pedal is paying attention. Repeat this 2 or 3 times, or until you have fluid but don't hear any air coming out. Continue this process for the other 3 bleeders, moving closer to the master cylinder as you go. You should have a pedal now. Look it over again for leaks. If there are any, fix before attempting to drive. If you have a spongy pedal, you didnt get all the air out. If you have a good pedal, but it slowly sinks, double check for leaks. Sinking pedal with no leaks? The master cylinder is bad. The reason for not taking the pedal all the way to the floor is if you push the pedal farther than it ever goes, you might be dragging the seals across a bunch of scaly rust, potentially tearing them. If the master cylinder is brand new, you don't need to consider this. Good luck. Let us know what happens.

Make it go faster. Seriously, though I have wondered if it really would. There seem to be more superchargers around than Grahams these days. It begs the questions "what Graham did it come off of?" and "what is the displacement and expected normal RPM range of this particular Packard?" Many supercharged Grahams were sixes somewhere around 196 or 217 cubic inches. There were eights too, I'm not sure how big. Was the supercharger bigger on the eight? I don't know.

Is that a Graham supercharger?

They're bending the valvestems over? I had a Plymouth long ago that had that problem. It turns out, on that car there were little dimples that were supposed to bump up against both sides of one of the tabs on the hubcap. I had to sharpen up those dimples a little bit, and replace one wheel that did not have the dimples. It must have been off of some other car. I think the inertia of the hubcaps was causing them to move under braking, until the bent-over valvestem stopped the rotation. Have a look, maybe your wheels have some little dimples like this that have become rounded off over the years.

A bit late now, but there is no reason to splice here, western union or otherwise. The wires are soldered in those pins. You can just heat them and pull the wires out. The pins can be cleaned out with heat and a solder sucker, or just heated and tapped on a table while hot. Strip the new wire a little less than the length of a pin. Shove the new wire in, heat the pin with the iron, feed solder in the hole in the tip of the pin.