Bloo

One key for everything was typical for Buicks as far as I know. I have also heard of the modification to facilitate trunk key removal but have not tried it.

That's 320 only.

Needs to connect to the manifold. Don't use the boosted wiper vacuum from the pump. Connecting to the same line that feeds the intake of the pump should work.

That is how my 36 Pontiac operates. It's probably normal.

Well if it's not in the shop manual(?), and I since don't have one to check, it's time for a SWAG.... So, lets say you are going 60MPH (that's really pushing it in a 39 Chevy). Lets say it gets 10MPG at speed. It's probably not that bad. If you were already moving, and the carburetor was already full, how much fuel would it take to maintain that speed? 60mph 60 mlles = 1 hour 10mpg 60 miles=6 gallons 6 gallons 1 hour = 6gph / 60 min = 0.1GPM Ok so 0.1GPM to keep the car moving at a 60MPH/10MPG steady state. Since your measurements are in oz. (I assume fl oz.) 1 gallon = 128 fl oz. 0.1 gallon = 12.8 fl oz. 0.1GPM = 12.8 fl oz. per minute You had: 3 fl oz. per 30 sec = 6 fl oz. per minute And now you have: 6 fl oz. per 20sec = 18 fl oz. per minute So you have tripled the output of the pump. It definitely needed the rebuild. Also 6 fl oz. is not enough, but that is probably a little misleading. I don't know what RPM you made the test at (I assume idle?), so the output would have been a lot better at speed. In real life driving you would need more than my steady-state 12.7 fl oz. guess, but you have 18 fl oz., and that is going to get higher at speed too. Good that you checked that. Most people don't, and they completely miss problems there. I would, and if it isn't, I would start looking at the ignition. Good luck.

14.7 is about what modern cars do. Yours wouldn't have originally, maybe more like 14.2, assuming room temperature. I wouldn't worry about it unless it continues to rise beyond that. I like them set a little high. In fact, 14.7 is probably what I would shoot for.

Not very long in Seattle.

The lack of a fan or any ventilation holes in front probably dates it to the early 30s I think. I have a sneaking hunch this would be a lot easier if we knew who made the generator for Studebaker. Its from a 1932 Studebaker then? I wonder if by some chance @Gary_Ash would recognize it?

In my opinion, just change the oil every 3000 miles with high quality oil from some well known oil company and watch the level. It doesn't need to be anything fancy or special, just ordinary oil, probably in 10W30 for that engine. It's hard to go wrong with Valvoline or Napa oil (they are from the same source), but any quality brand will do. Avoid cheapie brands you have never heard of. Step up to 20W50 only if the engine proves to be fairly worn out. Don't let it get too low. Above all, don't wait for the oil light to come on. I wouldn't recommend trying to flush it. If you want to do some cleaning, just remove the pan and clean that, and remove the valve covers and pick out the pieces of valve seal @60FlatTop mentioned. I would probably do that, particularly if the valve cover gaskets leak, and they almost certainly do. This^^ Most of that stinky skin-burning nastiness in used motor oil is crap that blew past the piston rings. The more wear the engine has the quicker the oil gets fouled. Even when brand new, a 1964 engine let more of this stinky black ick into the oil than a modern engine does. It gets worse as the miles get higher. We change oil to get that stuff out. That is one of several reasons oil change intervals were shorter back then. At the risk of repeating myself, check the oil level often. In 1964, a gas station attendant would have done it every time you pulled in to fill up with gas. Today, most people don't even check between changes. It would have resulted in a lot of catastrophic engine failures if people did that in 1964. Usually when there was a sudden change in oil consumption due to a new leak or an engine problem, the attendant caught the low oil level before it was too late.

Yeah, I wouldn't try to adjust it at least not at first. The time might come where you have to. How it works: Huge high-current electromagnet moves diaphragm, but also opens points, shutting off the electromagnet releasing the diaphragm. Diaphragm moves back and points close, electromagnet pulls again, etc. Repeat at a high rate of speed..... The electromagnet draws a lot of current. It is almost like a dead short when the points are stuck. On the other hand if the points are dirty the electromagnet can't really draw enough current to give the diaphragm a good pull and get the honking process started.

If anything will help this will. It's made for synchromesh. If the synchronizers are completely shot, or if the clutch is dragging, nothing will help. Many modern gear oils are too slippery for synchronizers to work properly. Synchronizers are brakes. It is a fight between the synchronizer trying to scrape the oil off so it can stop the gear, and the oil trying to stay on the braking surface and keep the gear spinning. One of them is going to win, it's just a question of which one.

I've never seen that failure. Generators are pretty simple. An "auto electric" (starter/alternator/generator) shop can probably come up with a pulley and fan to fit that, though it may not be an exact match. I'd check with CPR and see if they have one laying around. There's a bearing in front. If there's no oil cup, its the same bearing as the alternator (and even if there is an oil cup, the one for the alternator will still fit). In the back there is probably a bushing. Inspect it for wear but it is probably fine. An auto electric shop can get you the bushing if you need it. It is most likely a standard one that fits about 50 years of Delco generators. The brushes wear out. Look at pictures of the new ones for your generator to estimate how much wear you have. When new, the brushes have to wear a curve in the face right away in order to break in, so allow for this when estimating wear. They probably look more worn than they are. Beyond that, the commutator might need machining, and if so that is a job for the auto electric shop., but often you don't need to. The insulation between the segments of copper should be below the surface. If it isn't, make a tool and scrape a little out. On some generators a broken hacksaw blade will work, but on most you will have to find something a little thinner than a hacksaw blade in order to fit between the copper segments. You might need to scuff up the copper a little if it is black. Don't use anything that will leave grit behind. If it works, I would probably just inspect the brushes and see if there's some useful life left in them. If there is, I'd leave it alone.

I'd probably go for the mt-90 out of that lot in an old car because it is the thickest of the three, and they are all pretty thin. I think any of them would be fine, and @plymouthcranbrook already mentioned that his 52 is working great with MTL. GL-4 doesn't mean much when we are talking about transmissions. It and GL-5 are ratings for hypoid gear service, GL-5 being the severe service one. 30 or 40 years ago there was a rule of thumb that people liked to throw around that GL-4 belongs in a transmission and GL-5 is for an axle. It was a happy accident that it sort of worked out then, but has nothing to do with what the ratings mean. In those days GL-5 always had more sulfur in it and was more expensive. Now there are synthetics, and special purpose oils for synchromesh, some synthetic some not. Meanwhile the hypoid rear axle oils have got so good that sometimes gear synchronizers wont even work in them. There are many synchromesh oils these days. It doesn't have to be Redline. Redline is what I like and is readily available here, but I have no idea what other options might be available to you in NZ.

I think these 70s Dodges kill the radio while you are cranking normally don't they? Clean your battery terminals. I don't mean on the outside, I mean take them off and clean the outside of the post and the inside of the hole in the terminal. If the outside of the post is black, that aint gonna work. Scrape it or sand it or something. Oh yeah, wash your hands because not only is it nasty but the posts and terminals are made of lead. Your positive battery cable has a big wire going to the starter and a smaller one going to the starter relay. It is pretty common for someone to have cut the original battery terminal off and replaced it with a universal one that clamps on with 2 bolts. Those never hold up long. If that has been done, take it apart where it clamps on the wires and clean/scrape the ends of the wires real good, as well as the area on the terminal they clamp to. Both wires have to have a good connection for it to start. There might also be a third wire in 1977. If so, clean that up too. Good luck and welcome to the forum.

If that was in the tune up specs, yes.

Redline's synchromesh transmission friendly oils, in order from lightest to heaviest: 1) MTL >> 2) MT-85 >> 3) MT-90 (or 75W90*NS*) >> 4) 75W140*NS* The first 3 are for transmissions only, the *NS* oils are intended for transaxles that contain both a synchronized transmission and some hypoid rearend gears running in the same oil supply. They are fine in transmissions. Since MT-90 exists at the same viscosity as 75W90*NS*, I probably would use MT-90 over 75W90*NS* in a transmission even though either one would be fine. I am using 75W140*NS*, the heaviest one, in the 1936 Pontiac transmission and it works great. I've used MTL (the lightest one) and MT-90 in several other cars. My experience with these has been all good. Note: Redline 75W90 and 75W140 without the *NS* are not suitable for synchromesh transmissions.

How fast is the Buick engine turning at 53-58 mph? The Model A gearing comparisons for quite a few other cars don't hold well because the A engine turns fairly slowly. I also suspect the Buick body might be heavier. Like @billorn, I think if you are starting out at 4.90 then 3.90 might be more like it. Shooting from the hip, 3.55 sounds like too much. If it were me I would want to carefully compare horsepower/RPM and torque/RPM vs the Model A before drawing any conclusions from that. Custom gears are really expensive. You don't want to miss.

Dwell is the number of degrees the points stay closed and the coil is powered on and building a charge. It is the same thing as duty cycle, just expressed a different way. For instance, a 6 cylinder engine fires every 60 distributor degrees, so a 6 cylinder dwell scale would max out at 60 degrees dwell (100% duty cycle), and 30 degrees dwell would mean that the points are closed half the time (50% duty cycle). 31-34 degrees dwell means that the points are closed a little more than half the time, and yes I believe that is typical. It is probably a real good guess anyhow. You could look at some other 6 cylinders to get an idea, but I think they will all be pretty close to your Chevrolet example. There is no conversion from thousandths because a steeper cam lobe would cause a wider point gap at the same dwell setting. For that reason thousandths don't really mean anything when comparing one make and model to another. Dwell on the other hand is likely to be fairly close among different makes and models as long as the number of cylinders is the same. P.S. Make sure your meter reads about 60 with the points closed and about 0 with the points open. Some of them don't do so well on 6 volts.

Toe in really doesn't have much of anything to do with stability in turns. As I mentioned earlier it's reason to exist is to counter tire drag that loads the suspension and attempts to make the suspension toe out at speed. Toe out will make the car "turn in" fast, or respond quickly to steering wheel input, but will tend to make the car unstable in a straight line. Excessive toe in might make the steering less responsive though. One thing to pay close attention to when setting toe is the length of the tie rods. They need to be identical. They are designed at a specific length to follow the suspension without changing the steering angle. If the two tie rods are not the same length, neither will be the correct designed length to follow the suspension. The car will steer itself in corners as it rolls over pebbles and ruts. This is known as "bump steer" and is bad news. Prewar ideas about what a good car feels like are at odds with today's ideas. Part of the Buick experience was a smooth floaty ride. It is intentional. The roads were horrible. Body roll comes down mainly to the anti-roll bars, but also the spring rate and the shock absorbers. Those are the places to look, not toe. Straight line stability is usually better with more negative caster, but on cars with manual steering you can make it really hard to steer at slow speeds if you overdo it. Some manual steering cars did use a degree or so of positive caster, at least in the postwar era. I'm with Ed, I'd run it a degree or so negative. Pick up a copy of "How to make your car handle" by Fred Puhn. That will teach you the basics.

The removable center section of a rear axle if it has one. Punkin, Pumpkin, Third Member, or Chunk.

Back to the matter at hand.... Has anyone brought up "punkin" yet?

Sometime back in the 2000s I was on a random IT job as a subcontractor in a bank or a post office or something like that, and they had a bunch of PCs branded "Real POS". I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I took pictures. I probably still have them, but not easy to get to, I imagine they are on a floppy disk. This pic from the web shows you about what they were like. Some googling shows NCR still makes a line of "Real POS" PCs for cash register use, but they don't seem to be emphasizing the brand anymore, in fact I had trouble finding a picture. I wonder why?

Best sounding diesel engine ever. There really isn't even any close competition. We never had them in the US, but the Canadians got some.

The red lead is the big lead right? Yes, it's for radio interference. No it is not necessary. There are no replacements I know of, at least not original looking types. Electrically there are probably all sorts of substitutes that look different. Capacitance is the most important rating of a capacitor (condenser). I would imagine the capacitance is the most they could stuff in the can, unlike an ignition condenser which needs to have a specific capacitance to prevent metal transfer on the points. That's just a guess. Maybe it is real similar. I don't see how you could hurt anything by putting an ignition condenser there. How do you know it is bad? Is it getting hot? EDIT: I missed the 62mf the first time I read your post. That can't be. Those noise suppression condensers are paper/foil construction and in 1955 62mf would have been bigger than the generator. 0.62 maybe? Twice or three times as big as a typical ignition condenser if so. Maybe I guessed right about them putting in all they could. On the other hand, what did you measure it with? Multimeters usually do a terrible job of this.

The main reason for that is that huge truck and tractor tires are what locking ring rims have been used on primarily for the last 80 years or so. They can and will kill you instantly if mishandled. Nobody brings in Dodge Brothers much since the war, but there are still trucks and ag equipment all over. The trouble with all the stories about "split rims" on the internet is that there are 3 different kinds, and people cross all three up in forum threads without realizing it. One type isn't dangerous at all. The second type, the one that is like carrying a bomb around splits right down the center to remove the tire. It was mainly used on trucks and pickups, and has not been used on any new vehicles in decades. That second type deserves the "nuclear" description. What you have is the third type, a locking ring. They are just as deadly, but only if mishandled. They are still used today. Not a bomb when assembled properly. So do the right thing and inspect it for rust damage, clean up the ring and groove, and make damn sure the ring is seated properly. Then chain it up real good in several places with a bolted logging chain while you put the air in. Use big bolts and washers. Inflate it from a distance like @Minibago suggested. Either that or take it to someone who knows how. Any tire shop that deals with big trucks and buses probably has a cage and can handle it. P.S. a lot of those big ag vehicle tires you were referring to run way less than 35 pounds. @JACK M wasn't kidding. Good luck.