Bloo

Welp.... I pulled the head. The reason had nothing to do with cooling. As mentioned earlier my rings aren't too good. I wanted to measure the bores and see if it just needs rings as these old cars did occasionally, or if it really needs a complete rebuild with boring, new pistons, etc. I couldn't plan for what to do next without knowing. Now we all get to see inside the water jacket. In the 1990s I bought a tool that had a tiny grain-of-wheat bulb at the end of a long skinny wire that you can bend around like Gumby. It is great for looking inside things like water jackets. It would have been handy to look inside the block when I did the water tube. But, as cool as it was in it's time, it is incandescent. We could do so much better now. I still have it and it still works but I can't find it. What I can find is a bag of white LEDs I bought on Amazon during lockdown. I needed one then, and I don't even remember what for. There's probably about 99 of them left. So, without further ado, allow me to present.... The Electric Chopstick. Yes, that's a 3mm white led on a chopstick, surplus wire, and some heatshrink tubing. These LEDs were so cheap they don't even have a datasheet. An LED needs a current limiting resistor. A typical normal current is 20mA on a lot of LEDs that do have datasheets, so that is what I shot for with a 9v battery. The 300 ohm resistor is hidden under the red heatshrink tubing at the battery end. The chopstick draws 21mA. Not bad. More coming.....

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/holley-94s-can-i-add-vacuum-port.193993/ Bruce Lancaster's posts in that thread are the interesting ones. Some of the other folks are confused. The version he speaks of has both venturi vacuum and ported vacuum plumbed together to the external port, and only needs a passage to the venturi tapped and plugged. Maybe it is that simple.

I am getting conflicting information about those threads. Here is an article showing how to convert an original 94 to ported vacuum. That port in the picture is not used. https://www.eatonbalancing.com/2010/02/07/modifying-the-holley-94-two-barrel-for-late-model-distributors/ You can consider any Buick distributor "late model" for the purposes of that article. Fords had distributors called "Loadomatic" for a few years. Those were an oddity, and were what used venturi vacuum. Also, that article may not be the last word. It may put you on the right track. The article appears incomplete to me, though it has been a while since I looked at a 94. The bottom line is the vacuum for any normal distributor needs to come from a hole just above the throttle plate (idle) and just below it (throttle cracked). A direct connection to manifold vacuum is the second best option. I have heard of modern reproductions being built with the modern style vacuum port. By "modern" I mean "for everything except loadomatic". It's a pity if they didn't build yours that way.

OOPS hang on... I might be wrong about the threads in the 94. Just a moment...... Is that the only port?

The photo didn't come through. There is no 1/6" NPT. I think you meant 1/16"? 1/16" and 1/8" are the common small sizes. I was confused earlier in the thread, and I think 1/8" is the more common one. Pipe thread stuff is measured by the hole in the middle of the pipe supposedly, but that can be dicey when you are looking at brass fittings. It is best to look up the OD of the size NPT you are interested in. Threaded sleeve stuff on the other hand is sold by the OD of the tubing the nuts fit. EDIT: Here is the threaded sleeve stuff we can still readily get in the US without scrounging at swap meets. https://blackhawksupply.com/collections/plumbing-brass-fittings-double-compression

You should look for 1/8" NPT at the carb side. On a second look I think that's more likely than 1/16" NPT. You probably need Threaded Sleeve at the line side if you still have the Buick line. Threaded sleeve is not pipe thread, It is it's own thing with different threads and a conical (supposedly) or convex (more likely) seat inside to seal that fitting in the photo. Does the line look like the photo? That is all academic if the only vacuum port on the 94 turns out to go to the venturi. If so it will be too weak to pull a vacuum advance, and if it did pull it, it would pull the wrong way.

Now about fittings. I am not sure what I am looking at there, as that plug looks like it might have a copper washer or something. I see you are in UK. In nearly any American carburetor, I would expect the fitting that screws into the carburetor casting to be NPT, and probably 1/16" NPT. 1/8" NPT might also be possible. NPT is the standard American pipe thread, it is tapered, so no copper washers or anything like that, and the thread diameter of a fitting is much larger than the numerical size. On a vacuum advance, as late as the early 60s on some cars, the fitting that screws into the casting would most likely be 1/6" NPT to female "threaded sleeve". As near as I can tell, there is no better name for that fitting type than the somewhat ambiguous "threaded sleeve" here in the US. I learned on this forum that the Australians have a proper name for it but the name slips my mind at the moment. Threaded sleeve fittings are available in the US from Blackhawk Supply in Texas, and possibly some other outlets. I suspect threaded sleeve is what you will find on the Buick. So, most likely on the Buick there is a 1/8" to female "threaded sleeve" brass fitting, and then a "threaded sleeve nut" on a piece of steel or copper tubing. It might have to be copper tubing today even if it was steel before. "Bundyflex" brake tubing is what was normally used when the line was steel, although I don't know offhand where to get any steel brake tubing as small as a vacuum advance line. Copper works fine too, and can be found. After 1963 or so, vacuum advances used rubber vacuum hose. That's the easy way. You would just need an 1/8" NPT hose barb at the carburetor. Hose setups are kind of rubbish today because of the terrible quality of the hose, but they lasted a long time back in the day. At the distributor end, the Buick probably also used a "threaded sleeve" fitting, but the threaded sleeve nut probably connected directly to the advance unit without another fitting, so you would need to lash up a hose fitting somehow at the distributor end. Here is a threaded sleeve nut (male part of the fitting). The nut bites into the tubing the first time it is tightened, and becomes part of the tubing. It can be disconnected from the female brass fitting as many times as you like, but can never be removed from the tubing. So much for the fittings. It is all academic if you cannot find a ported vacuum port on that carburetor. Best of luck.

Could there be another port on the throttle body somewhere? That port looks to go to the venturi. If so, it won't do you any good. I have heard some of the reproductions have a "ported vacuum" port, which is what you want. Find the spot where the port comes out inside the bore. The port you need will be next to the edge of a throttle plate. It will be above the plate (atmospheric) with the throttle closed and idling, and below the plate (manifold vacuum) as soon as you crack the throttle open. You can probably see this on the Buick carb if the new 94 does not have it. If there is no ported vacuum port, probably the best you can do is to hook the vacuum advance directly to manifold vacuum. In that case, there will be extra advance at idle when everything is set correctly. It usually works out OK on hotrodded engines. Sometimes it is OK on stock ones. It is better than running with no vacuum advance if you can get away with it. My laptop battery is dying quick. I'll be back in a few minutes with come comments about possible threaded fittings.

Where is the port located? If it is an original 94 from the old days, the vacuum port is probably venturi vacuum, and completely useless for any sort of a normal distributor (like the one on a Buick). If it is a reproduction 94, you might have a useful port. I believe it would be down in the base if so, not way up on the carb like a typical 94.

I own a copy of the 1936 Fisher manual and have found it completely useless for the purpose of duplicating rear door wood. There is a copy posted online if anyone would like to have a look. http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/fisher/3536fbsm/index.html Here is the much more useful 1926-1931 edition: http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/fisher/2632fbsm/index.html I have the same dilemma on a Pontiac, and these 1936 Cadillac 60 series pics show nearly identical construction. I had those pics but lost track of them, thank you @58L-Y8 for posting them again. There is a finger joint in the curved piece (visible in the pics). At the top of the curved piece (on Pontiac and most likely all others) was almost a mortise and tenon. but not quite. I'll call it a fork and blade because I don't know how to describe it. To the best of my recollection, the hinge attached with 3 fasteners. Two were wood screws, and the third was a bolt that threaded to a tee nut on the inside. The tee nut is almost like the ones in any hardware store, used in the cabinets of a lot of musical instrument and PA gear these days. Fisher's were not exactly the same. They did not have spikes. They had some holes instead, and were attached to the wood with tiny nails.

1935? You could have a stuck piston in a slave cylinder. It happened to my 1936 once. Another thing that happens is a brake hose can collapse internally and block fluid to one side. On more modern cars, brake pulling is usually a suspension problem. I wouldn't rule it out. I would check the front suspension carefully for looseness.

Where are you guys buying it? The last time I went looking I found only modern substitutes that were lightweight and did not contain tar or asphalt.

The place to go in Seattle for custom leaf spring work used to be Benz Spring on S. Forest. A quick googling reveals they have moved to Salem, OR. So much for local.

Yes. It is pretty common to lose one brake light from a bad signal switch, but both at the same time is downright weird. It sure sounds like that is what happened though. The only other possibility is a connector. You are correct that the next stop in that circuit is the turn signal switch. After that wire hits the switch, there is nothing else that affects both sides. That is because the brake light filaments are shared. It has to be able to disconnect one brake light and the connect it to the flasher to make it blink while you are braking.

If that is some kind of an error, it's news to me. I guess I wouldn't know because I am not registered over there.

Yes. If connecting the two wires together doesn't make the brake lights come on, changing the switch won't help. The key probably doesn't have to be on, but turn it on just in case.

This is Citroen's supercar. There has never been anything else even remotely like it. There have been some comments in this thread about the styling, but the styling does not even scratch the surface of what this car is. I worked for a while in a shop that specialized in exotic and strange cars, and used to drive a Maserati to work every day. Not much scares me, but the idea of buying an SM gives me pause. What you have is a chassis with all the Citroen hydropneumatics, in other words a central hydraulic system for the suspension, brakes, steering etc. It will have Citroen's "spheres", presumably coiled hard brakelines in the suspension and all the other stuff that Citroen and no one else did. Nothing about the chassis will be familiar unless you have worked on Citroens like the DS. The engine is a Maserati V6, and has nothing in common with the later turbocharged ones. It is the same engine used in the Maserati Merak, a normally aspirated aluminum double overhead cam wet sleeve design from the days before any Maseratis were mass produced. The timing chain runs up between the cylinders. An SM needs a mechanic that doesn't scare easily, pays strict attention to the smallest details, and doesn't respond emotionally when things go wrong. If that isn't you, it is going to be pretty tough to find someone qualified to work on it. As others have mentioned, buy the best one you can possibly get. Don't buy a fixer.

That might work, but the insufficient engagement problem has already been well pretty documented in this thread. The measurement from the gear to the nose casting is 1/16" as documented in the PDF of Chrysler's own service documentation that @marcapra linked in the 14th post of the thread. Then in post 22, he posted a video showing that the gear is more like 1/2" back when engaged. That is approximately 7/16" less engaged than it should be. How thick is a ring gear?

Here are the pictures from @37_Roadmaster_C :

On more modern cars that is a fairly common technique. I've never heard of anyone breaking a starter that way.

They changed to 5557 by January 1936?! Wow. I have a theory on why that might be though. 5557 is the Pontiac regulator, and the only difference electrically is the Pontiac unit has an extra "GRD" terminal that the Oldsmobile doesn't need... but it doesn't hurt anything by being there. These regulators, like a lot of regulators, have a charging rate that is overcompensated for temperature. It's a normal thing. The early production 5557 though was over-overcompensated, a mistake, and Pontiac provided updated replacements. You can identify an updated one by one or more horizontal bars stamped in the metal next to the 5557 part number. I wonder if the Oldsmobile 5588 had the same over-overcompensation problem? If it did, maybe they used the updated 5557 as the replacement? I suspect this might be 5588 below. It has a flat lid like a 5557, but lacks a "stacked" extra terminal at the lower right. It is on a 1936 Oldsmobile F-36 posted on Bring a Trailer.

Well.. I don't know the answer. If you get it backwards though it's easy to tell. It reads backwards. Accessory loads go to the generator side. I assume that's what they call (+) because it is more positive than the battery. Chevrolet connects the horn to the battery side. I don't know for sure why, other than guessing, but they do.

That ain't right. In fact, it's so far off I am wondering if there is a problem with the linkage or something is incorrectly assembled? Maybe a fork (that moves the gear) has worn through? If the spec is 1/16", then that is what you should see. I agree, it is more like 1/2" and cannot be right. The adjustment is inside the solenoid plunger. Using the Buick diagram again (and partly ignoring the meaning of the legends....). The threads are in-between the arrow that says "adj stud linkage" and the one that says "shift plunger". The linkage must be disconnected at the arrow that says "shift lever" and then the piece labeled "adj stud plunger" can be screwed in or out of the "shift plunger" to change the length. There is built in slop in the linkage, they have even drawn some of it right by where it says "shift lever" so to check the 1/16" dimension you want the "shift plunger" all the way back (but all the linkage running free!) or you wont get the right measurement. I mentioned holding the outer edge of the "shift plunger" all the way back with the boot removed. It sounds like they instead want you to engage it with electricity. That's even better but you have to remove the strap so the starter motor doesn't run. The strap is the one directly southwest of where it says "switch contacts". Correctly adjusted, the gear should come all the way out (except for the last 1/16" so it doesn't hit). It should pull more or less all the way back in when released. I don't think I see enough movement there to accomplish that. I wonder if something could be worn out or misassembled where the fork (the part labeled "shift lever") intersects the overrunning clutch and drive gear assembly directly north of the first "R" in "overrunning clutch"?

The body should be grounded somehow. I'll bet there is a smaller strap somewhere or a wire. It doesn't need to be as big as the others, because as you mentioned you have starter >> strap >> frame >> strap >> battery. That is the return path for the starter (and the generator) and that is where all the current is. The body ground is just for stuff in the body (lights, gauges, etc). It matters, it just doesn't need to be as huge because of the lower current. Fuses don't care about voltage as you suspected. Current is current. You worry about voltage ratings on fuses when the voltages get much higher, and flashover could occur. In other words, not in 6 or 12 volt cars. A lot of the old glass fuses used in cars were rated for up to 250V. One thing to consider is that a 6 volt bulb would need twice the current if it is the same wattage as a 12 volt bulb, so in some cases higher current fuses might be needed on 6 volt cars for similar duty. It is typical to load a fuse to around 75 or 80 percent, although not super critical. It is mainly there to protect the wire, and to prevent an overheated wire from starting things on fire.

Earlier a 7 wire switch was mentioned. The following assumes a 7 wire switch. You need a wire from the switch to each corner of the car. The fronts you have to add. On the rear, the brake light wires usually ran back on one side and then across, so you have to run a second wire back. On the front the easiest way is to just abandon the park light wiring and put in bigger bulbs. On the rear, a 7 wire switch "shares" filaments with the brake lights. To accomplish this, the brake light switch feeds a wire on the turn signal switch instead of the wire going to the back as before. We are up to 5 wires now. There is also power from the flasher ( power >> flasher >> turn switch), and that makes 6 wires. When you turn a signal on, two things happen. I'll pick left for an example. 1) It connects the left front light to the flasher and 2) it disconnects the left rear filament from the brake lights and connects it to the flasher. This is why there are separate wires for front and rear coming out of the switch. It matters which is which. The last wire runs from the third ("p") terminal of the flasher to a single indicator light on the flasher switch. The light grounds through the mounting of the switch housing. That makes 7 wires. This last circuit is necessary if there is only one indicator light inside the car for both sides. Most aftermarket switches are configured like this. There is simply no way to wire a single bulb to work that way, so it has it's own contact in the flasher. If there are separate indicators inside the car for right and left, they connect in parallel to the front signals and the "p" terminal on the flasher is not used. EDIT: I see you posted while I was typing this, so a lot of this post is redundant. Glad you got it figured out.