Bloo

I have daily driven cars with generators. Assuming it isn't some third brush crap (and this isn't) it doesn't even really require much special consideration. They don't charge at idle. You have to remember to shut off the lights and radio if you want to leave the car idling a long time. I have never understood why people want to put on 10si/12si Delco alternators to "improve reliability". Those were sloppily made in the first place, and reasonably reliable, but not terrific. I guess because you can hook them up with one wire. I have heard of issues with those new production regulators. Is it really that hard to find a usable regulator these days? Personally I would run if I saw the cover riveted on. Generally speaking, the shop manual for almost any car will tell you how to set up all the air gaps and regulated voltage and current. Usually that only needs to be done if somebody has been poking around in the regulator making random adjustments.

Thats the whole (hole?) idea. It has to be a blind hole. The grease pushes it out hydraulically.

I don't know. There was a 1936 Chevrolet 2 door sedan driver's door on Portland Craigslist a few months ago. The seller was sold this door as a Pontiac door but it wasn't. The ad didn't say if it was Chevrolet Standard or Chevrolet Master. I don't know whether it sold, but if it turns out you can use a Chevrolet door, I saved the contact info, and would be happy to pass it along.

Is it really just a bushing at the back? No bearing? One way to get a bushing out of a blind hole is to put a bunch of grease in the hole, put a bolt (or rod or something) that fits almost tight in the hole in the bushing, and hit it with a hammer. This works on pilot bushings for clutches, too.

Generators don't like overspeed. They often wind up looking like yours. If the pulley size is way different, you should put the Buick one on. Other than that, if it will mount up, go for it. That armature looks pretty bad. The other parts of yours are probably usable but.. $20? If you can make it work, do it!

Ya, I would also try to repair if it were me. You just gotta solder to the end of the one broken wire. You will have to scrape the insulation on the end of that one broken wire. You just want to extend it, and not make electrical connection with anything else (well except the commutator at the other end of the wire). Basically what bhigdog said. You definitely don't want anything bare touching the shaft or laminations (ground).

A rebuild usually means bearings, brushes, and turn the commutator on a lathe. I'm not seeing the damage from that pic. What am I missing? Edit: I see it now. Is the Buick 12v negative ground? The 56 Chevy was. Chances are good the Chevy one could be made to work if it will bolt on and both are 12v negative ground. Does your Buick have autostart? How many terminals on the voltage regulator?

Im hoping the Buick gurus in here will know more about your particular heat riser. On the Chrysler ones I am most familiar with, they HAVE to work for the factory choke to work, and a stuck one will drive you nuts in short order on a street driven car. Other than that, put it in and drive it. If you look too close, you will find stuff. Old cars aren't perfect. When you build this car a new motor, if you still intend to, then nitpick that one and make it perfect. On a used engine for a driver, just drive it!. Check your oil and water a lot, especially the oil. This happened every time the car got filled with gas when it was new. Make sure you are checking it often enough that it doesn't need a whole bunch of oil every time, that way if the oil consumption suddenly gets worse, you wont get a nasty surprise. Change the oil regularly. If it uses a lot of oil, don't fall into the trap of "I'm always dumping fresh oil in there so it must be ok". The real reason for draining the pan is to get the contaminants out. Watch the oil ESPECIALLY CLOSE the first time you drive it across the state. If you have been driving a car around the city for a while and then take it on a long highway run, it might appear to burn a whole bunch of oil. This is because all the gas and water that leaked past the rings all boils out when the car gets really warmed up all the way. Many people aren't aware of this effect and get surprised by it. In any event, you will be familiar with this particular engine's needs soon enough, just drive it!

I wouldn't take too much apart. Get the heat riser working though. The shop manual oughta tell you something about it I think. 99 percent of heat risers work the same way. The thermostatic spring pulls the valve shut. The weight is up high somewhere. as the spring relaxes with heat, the weight pulls down, opening the valve. Any other springs or pads or whatever are there to keep it from rattling. If you think the thermostatic spring might be on backwards, point a heat gun at it and watch what happens.

Sold? To you or someone else?

Get that soaking in diesel, or some high-powered penetrating oil, as soon as possible. Its gonna take a few days at least. I know you are thinking it might be the end. Yeah, I know it doesn't look good. It might not be nearly as bad as it looks, and regardless you'll want to not damage the piston. It's time to go read on some single cylinder engine forums about unsticking a cyinder. In the mean time... DIesel, or Mopar rust penetrant, or Kroil, or liquid wrench or something. Soak the crap out of it and keep it wet. Patience is the key here. I would just fill the cylinder with diesel and keep it nearly full.

If it were me, and I was faced with leaving the car disabled, I would try to get it running. If its good, it still wont be like a fresh engine. I have driven lots of miles in worn out old cars. You have to check the oil a lot. Everyone basically did that back then anyway. If it has a lot of blowby, it might smoke out of the draft tube, etc. It's gonna need tlc. If it has any burned valves, you would have to pull a head or heads and fix them. You just cant work around that problem any other way. On the other hand, maybe this is bad advice because if you need the parts in this thing for your rebuild, they would be tied up. And then again... back on the other hand.... the biggest danger with a project car like this is taking it apart and never getting it back together because life threw you a curve. Were you able to find out anything much about the engine's history? Why was it pulled? If it was a runner when pulled, and it has not been sitting outside, it might be ok. If it sat outside without that carb hole covered up with something it aint gonna be pretty inside. On the other hand, if they covered the hole up with a board or something it might be fine. I live within about15 miles, and the climate here is nothing like Kent. It is dry here. Stuff can sit around a long time and be fine, on the other hand, it gets extremely cold, so anything that did fill up with water is gonna be cracked and broken from frost. If you need someone local to do anything shoot me a PM. I'm sort of tied up today, but I'll be around tomorrow.

Hard to go wrong with Rotella 10-30, and its often on sale. Thinner is better if you can get away with it because it flows faster cold, and most actual wear occurs when the engine is cold. 15-40 is readily available if the particular engine requires something thicker than 10-30. As far as I know zddp was not in use yet in the 1930s, so you have less to worry about than someone with a newer car with a more radical cam profile and stronger valvesprings.

Oops... hes right. 1960 was the changeover year.

That heat riser looks like it had been apart recently and welded? Its stuck? Why don't you take it apart and fix it? On one hand I cant imagine it causing your issue if it's stuck open. On the other hand, the car is never going to really run right with it stuck, so its probably time to fix it. The heat riser is different than mine, so I cant say for sure whether it is open. I will say that the pictures appear to contradict each other. The rusty one does indeed look open (plate tipped in toward the engine). On my Pontiac tipped in like that is "open" and directs most of the exhaust down the side of the plate and out the manifold outlet. If the plate is tipped the other way "closed", out away from the engine, some of the exhaust is directed up into the chamber under the carb, then back down, past the other side of the heat riser plate, and out the outlet. The pictures appear to contradict each other, as the clean manifold's weight looks like a closed position to me. All the weight seems to be up high, and should drop in one direction or the other as the spring relaxes, probably toward the engine on a Pontiac 6. Heat risers do exist that work backwards, and jack the weight up when they open, but that is really uncommon. I think I saw it on a Jeep.

Points will not ground reliably without that wire. The symptom is generally rough running and a bunch of banging in the exhaust, exploded muffler, etc. If the Pertronix is grounding through the breaker plate, it needs the wire. Regarding the carb: If running with the choke partway on fixes it, there is likely trouble in the carb.

I'm not sure. If it were out here in WA, I doubt it would have serious structural rust. Here, I would expect holes in the rear quarters and probably the floors. In the Midwest, I have heard stories of late 50's mopars rusting shockingly fast. A good close inspection is needed.

Oh, and I wasn't trying to give you crap for not knowing theres no frame, not at all. I just meant you better get under there and look close because if theres serious rust, it could be structural. The members that give the unibody its strength are thinner steel than a typical frame.

I don't remember exactly how a 59 is underneath, but what I would expect to find is a front stub frame, bolted on basically under the front floorboard. It probably goes back just far enough to support the back end of the torsion bars.

Wait a minute... How does the pertronix ground? Just through the breaker plate? There should have been a ground wire, a little short piece of special extra-bendable wire, grounding the breaker plate to the distributor case. Is it still there? and unbroken? I suspect the pretronix probably needs it as much as the points did. An intermittent connection there will get you a lot of banging in the exhaust.

Well. the pertronix should have taken care of any points issues. If its ignition I guess it could be the coil. They do go bad, but honestly not often. Maybe take the distributor cap and wires off (as an assembly so nothing gets crossed) and hold the cap up to a bright light and look for carbon tracks. Take a multimeter and check the spark plug wires for resistance. They should all be really low resistance if they are solid core wires. If they are resistance wires, they should be a few Kohm, but all about the same with the longer wires being a little higher. Measure from the plug end of the wire all the way back to the brass or aluminum contact on the inside of the distributor cap. If you cant get a good connection at the spark plug end (it usually turns out this way), use an old non-resistor spark plug at the spark plug end of the wire and touch your probe to the center terminal of the plug. Wiggle the connection if you have to. If you find an open wire, replace the rotor too. Speaking of the rotor, look at the center of it, It will be one of 2 ways. It could be just brass. If it is, there should be a spring-loaded carbon brush in the cap. make sure there is. If the rotor has instead a thin piece of springy metal in the center, then there will be a corresponding contact in the middle of the cap, but probably not spring loaded. The important thing is that it is gonna touch when assembled and not leave a big gap in there. When you look you will see what I mean. Thats about it for ignition. You could take a multimeter and check voltage on the positive side of the coil, and then check it again when it is screwing up. Or you could use a test light and see if it looks about the same during the cold and warm phase. The idea here is to see that the coil is getting enough voltage when things go bad I would be really extremely surprised if its the fuel pump. A cold engine needs more gas than a hot one. Honestly, all of that is grasping at straws considering the symptoms. I'll bet something is up with that heat riser and its boiling the carb.

Its a unibody. Get under there and look.....

Is your heat riser stuck? It needs to be open hot. I don't know exactly what that looks like on a 1949, but on 99% of all cars its "weight down" (as far as it goes) with the engine hot. Look on the exhaust manifold directly below the carburetor. On my 1936 for example, the weight points straight up when cold, and rotates down almost 90 degrees, sticking nearly straight in toward the block when hot. Some, (maybe all?) Pontiac 6's have a steel tube pressed into the intake manifold that separates exhaust from intake. It looks more or less like a piece of exhaust tubing. It is right under the carburetor. The fuel-air from the carburetor flows through the tube, and there is exhaust (for heat) around the outside of it. If it rusts out, exhaust flows back into the intake, causing the engine to run horrible. Maybe someone else can say for sure if the tube exists on a 1949. If you have the carburetor off for any reason, look down in there below where the carburetor mounts for rust holes.

C'mon, guys. I think you all know buying another car is the wrong answer, unless there's just no alternative. It's a good way to get distracted.

Yes, to all of that. The cowl is the whole thing behind the hood and front fenders/wings underneath the windshield, and in front of the doors. It includes the red piece in your picture, and the black cover bolted to it. The red vertical piece of the cowl in your picture would also be called the firewall here. Im not sure how much of that is the same in the UK.