Bloo

That is the patient in the middle. It is a simple pump. And yes, it was previously rebuilt badly. It was on the car and working fine, but was getting no lubrication to the back bushing. It probably would have failed. This pump was used in production for half a year only, and I am trying to restore it to original condition. Information is sparse and not all the part numbers made it to the parts book. I have managed to identify and collect all the correct parts, except for the giant oil cup that goes on that tall boss that feeds the rear bushing, and I have an oil cup that's probably close enough. The previous rebuilder apparently reamed the outer bearing bore oversize, but Bhigdog already made me a sleeve to repair the bore. All my back plates are rusted out junk, I'll have to get some of those made eventually. This picture is actually the stuff that came out of the left pump in the picture above, but it's the same shaft, large rear bushing (more or less), fan flange, packing nut, etc. that belong in this pump. Only the needle bearing and felt washers at the front are different. Well that and maybe the hardness and finish of the shaft(?). I'm afraid I don't have a picture of all the correct parts yet... soon.... Here is a correct impeller. I don't think my pump would have exploded like your customer's did, but the fan worries me. I've wanted to get it magnafluxed as long as I have owned the car. It's construction looks a lot like a certain Hupmobile part that is noted for exploding. I had never heard of one of the Pontiac ones coming apart, but it happened to someone on the way to the Flathead Reunion earlier this year. I've not found anyone to magnaflux locally, so I suppose I'll have to mail it somewhere next spring when I get the car back out. I don't know where to send it.

Wenatchee, WA

I am restoring a pump that uses a bronze bushing on the rear (against the water and packing) and a needle bearing in front for the fan. Specs for the original needle bearing have proved elusive, though modern needle bearing catalogs from Torrington and Koyo who own (or recently owned) Torrington lead me to believe the shaft hardness should be in the high 50s Rockwell C to run on a needle bearing. They also specify shaft finish, though I don't remember the number for that offhand. Fairly polished. I have amassed several NOS/NORS shafts. I don't know how many of the ones I have were intended to run on only bronze. Some may be hardened and correct for the application, but at this time I don't now for sure. One of them has a part number stamped in the flange that implies it might be for this application. If I made a new one, to get to Rockwell 58-59 or so, I imagine it would entail buying drill rod, turning it close to the screwball shaft size (it's not anything standard in US or Metric), having it hardened and then ground. I've not ruled this out, but might have a correct shaft already laying here. I just don't know. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Regarding the "Is the postition of the lower pulley correct?" question, when I was checking the water pump, I also checked alignment to the generator. I did pry the crank pulley looking for endplay and didn't see any. I didn't put a dial indicator on it. Obviouslly there had to be some endplay but not much. At first I thought the generator was a bit off. That green round thing just above the 3 silver bolts is where the front plate of the generator bolts on. As it turns out, the generator agrees with the crank pulley. It lines up perfectly using no shims. The slider bracket on top was a wee bit off, but that is just a stamped part. I stuck a washer on that for a shim to make it slide nice.

Thanks! How big is the dent? I want to check some water pump shafts, and still use them.

The engine looks like it shares a lot of engineering features with the Oakland and Pontiac V8s, although I believe the Oakland and Pontiac used a flat crankshaft. Is it a related engine?

The title says it all. What sort of shop, other than an automotive machine shop, might have this equipment at their disposal? Thanks.

Those Vacula things are wonderful. I love them. They are way better than the cheapies with a hand pump, although the cheapies do work. I prefer vacuum bleeding for the reasons I already stated, but let's not forget that @GARY F is looking for a pressure bleeder.

Take your alternator off and take it to a good auto electric shop and get it checked specifically for bad diodes. They should be able to spin it on their tester and tell. I don't really think this is the problem, but due to the way GM turns the system on I would like to know this detail is OK right up front. I don't think an ohmmeter will do you a lot of good on a charging system, but I'm sure someone will disagree. If you have made sure all those connections are clean and tight, that is what's needed. Make sure the regulator is well grounded to the body. There might be a ground wire under a mounting screw that goes back to the alternator case. be sure its good-clean-tight if it is there. Note: copper wires never stretch, and ones that do are broken inside the insulation. I recommend NOT screwing with that. There is no reason for that to be OK and then suddenly wrong under a metal cover. There are probably books posted online that tell you how to do it, and it is probably in your service manual as well, but the last step is setting the little springs to get the charging voltage right and the field relay voltage right. That is a lot of unnecessary headache. Don't do it. The charging voltage, which is set with a spring, is the only thing you would ever normally change in service, and rarely ever then. You would change that after verifying beyond any doubt that the charging voltage is wrong, and checking it against a charging-voltage-vs-temperature table from the manual, taking into account the ambient temperature around the regulator. I don't think that guy knew what he was talking about. Either that or he misunderstood what you were asking him. A tiny tiny bit of barely perceptible chattering is probably normal. Excessive chattering, is most likely caused by excess resistance between the alternator and the battery. The excessive resistance could be on the positive or negative side. Make sure the connection at the big alternator post is clean and solid, and follow it all the way back to the battery. You may need to look at the wiring diagram in the manual (I don't have one here for Riviera). It may go to the horn relay or something (?), and then on down to the starter (probably) and then through the battery cable back to the battery. All connections must be clean and tight. This does not mean that they look clean on the outside, it means that where they are clamped to each other by a screw (or whatever) that the surfaces are clean. On the ground side, some GM cars have a nice big ground wire between the alternator case and the engine block or head. That is nice, but not strictly necessary as long as the alternator is well grounded to the engine through the brackets. Continuing from the engine, follow the current path back to the battery. The negative battery cable is probably(?) attached to the engine, and goes back to the battery terminal, completing the circuit. Make sure everything in that path from the alternator case back to the battery is clean and tight. One more thing, way back in my second paragraph I mentioned that there might(?) be a redundant ground wire from a regulator mounting screw back to the alternator case. If it is not there, then the regulator is getting it's ground another way, and that way is probably the negative battery cable. Some GM cars, (and if memory serves me right this includes the Riviera), have a battery ground cable with a small pigtail that grounds the body. On cars without the redundant ground wire from the regulator to the alternator case, the connection between the big wire and the little wire at the negative battery post could be a big deal, because that connection is functioning as the regulator ground. I have seen cars where someone has replaced the terminal, and there is corrosion growing where the two wires meet at the negative battery terminal. I have the same charging system the first generation Riviera uses on my truck. It is a 1966, and has been in the family since 1987 when I won it in a drawing. I have never had to work on the charging system. When it finally fails I imagine I will need to blow the dead spiders out of the regulator, and drag some paper soaked in brake cleaner between the points. Most guys with the "upgrades" change parts a lot more often than that. Your mileage may vary.

Spot on, 1935 Oldsmobile.

There is lots more I'd like to know about this subject as well, and now I've had time to think on it a little and find some old pictures..... Here is the Pontiac's transmission hump. A little over 1-5/8". A huge difference from the Buick. I once got a 36 Buick owner to measure it, but cant find the info. It is there, but just barely. I still think the Buick mat might be the best option if you could get one. It occurred to me when I couldn't find a pic of the Pontiac mat to see what the other GM divisions at that time were doing. After all, Fisher Body was probably the source of the mats. The mats are always in the Fisher section of the parts manual. I mentioned before that Chevrolet mats always seem to have a bunch of Chevrolet logos on them. What I didn't mention is that in Chevrolet, I've been told by a reliable source, is that in 1936, Chevrolet Standards (cheaper model) had black mats and Chevrolet Master (more expensive model) had brown floor mats. He didn't say anything about the firewall pads. You have probably noticed that all the Buick ones seem to be reproduced in both black and brown. I suspected something similar in Pontiac, but it probably isn't true. At least by the time my 1937 manual was published there was no color choice. There were no black/gray interiors in 1936 Pontiac, but I believe there was one gray option in 1935 Pontiac. Did they put a brown mat in a gray interior? The 35 mats are the same as 36 in the 37 manual. And that brings us to this 1936 Oldsmobile, an allegedly original car with a gray interior, and the only 1936 Fisher body I have seen with what I believe is an original mat. Some of the seat upholstery might not belong. It's kind of hard to tell. Look at this floor. A few things of interest here. One glaring thing is the black floormat, and under a brown firewall pad too. It must have been possible at Oldsmobile. I think that plate around the steering column and pedal holes can be ignored, that is an Oldsmobile thing they had been doing for a while. Chistech's 1932 Oldsmobile DCR had a plate about like that and he reproduced one for his restoration. To the best of my knowledge, 1936 Pontiac and Buick used no such plate. Notable that the plate is black and the pattern matches the mat, giving weight to the idea that this mat is original. There is just a hole for the dimmer, no molded lines or anything. I have seen pedal pads like these with the horizontal tread on a 36 Pontiac somewhere, but I don't quite think they belong on one. That pic isn't so hot, but if we blow it up.... What I notice is that the transistion from horizontal to vertical stripes is almost at the door, like that factory 36 Pontiac photo I posted. It's not exactly the same spot, but it's close, and it sure has the same look. By contrast, my cut down mat makes that transistion where the toe board kicks up (bottom of the gas pedal), as does the 36 Buick repro, more or less. Here's that 1936 Pontiac factory photo again.. A few things really glare at me here. The biggest is the transmission. It is a Chevrolet type. Those were gone by mid-year 1935, and I don't think they ever intended to use those in 1936. This must be a really really early pre-production sample, before they even had any Buick-type transmissions available. Now, what is that gigantic oval hole around the parking brake? Should a boot be there? We won't get any help from Buick or Olds on that point because they no longer had the brake on the floor in 1936. Chevrolet had no boot, and as I recall no gigantic hole. Buick had a boot about that shape though, a few years earlier. 1933 maybe? It is reproduced for a sum that seems absurd, and comes only in brown. If memory serves, there is no boot in the Pontiac parts book, only a "felt". I can see that working fine with a much smaller hole, but probably looking really unfinished here. Pontiac would have done something to stop the draft. They even tacked something over the clutch linkage relief slot in the driver's floorboard. I don't know what it was, but I can see the tack holes in my car. Nobody can even see that. It's buried under the mat. It is interesting to see that piece of carpet along the seat. That is a common Fisher trick. The 2 pieces of binding are sewed together and that is how it is held together once bound. I have seen it in a bunch of postwar Pontiacs, and also in an early 30s one that had full carpeting (front too, and original). In the mid 30s though, I have only see a few cars that had original carpet and none of them had carpet there. None were 1936. 2 of them had rubber there, with a finish or grain that looked like it had been belt-sanded. I think that was a 1934 and a 1937, but am no longer sure. On the others whatever had been there was missing. This car in the picture is a Deluxe, as it has brown knobs, and the deluxe sewing pattern in the door panels. I'd say it is a Deluxe Eight like yours because there is no starter pedal. I see the hole in the mat is punched for the speedometer cable but there isn't one.

Keep it in a cedar chest if you have one!

I have been told that the cars you should never lubricate springs on, via 1930s logic, are the ones with no shock absorbers or snubbers as the only damping they have is the friction between the leaves. Also a spring builder once told me that steel springs made after the war are a different alloy, and really shouldn't use grease at all. I can't prove any of this, but I do know that a lot of postwar springs have liners or plastic buttons inside, and wouldn't need the lubrication anyway. Your mileage may vary. In the prewar era some cars had gaiters to hold the grease in. It was graphite grease, and had more graphite in it than grease, so not at all like most of today's graphite grease. My Pontiac uses a "lubroclamp" like @Larry Schramm posted to get the graphite grease inside the gaiters and between the leaves. There's even a picture of a lubroclamp in the shop manual. Some Chrysler products with no gaiters used a different tool that wedged the leaves apart to get the graphite grease in. Later on I think this whole graphite grease idea was frowned upon, as well as the gaiter idea, because of contamination and grinding as well as the possibility of galvanic corrosion from the graphite, especially if the graphite grease were allowed to dry out. I still shoot old fashioned graphite spring grease in my Pontiac springs every year or two with a lubroclamp. Penrite still make grease like that if you want some.

A PCV port is special. It needs to mix the incoming air and vapors with the air/fuel coming from the idle jets and transfer ports. Teeing the power brakes into that should work I guess, but the power brakes can be connected to manifold vacuum literally anywhere, and are usually not teed into the PCV port on most cars. There's probably a pipe plug in an intake manifold runner somewhere. Get a right angle hose barb and hook your power brakes there. PCV needs "air in" and "air out" so it ventilates the crankcase. The "air out" is the PCV valve and the PCV port. The "air in" was usually a breather cap in 1964. When they put the hose up to the air cleaner in the 70s, that was the "air in" to the crankcase that had previously been handled by the breather cap. No PCV system can move enough air to ventilate 100% the time. The engine wont tolerate a vacuum leak that big, even with proper mixing in the carburetor. Sometimes PCV systems blow backwards. The vapors come out the breather cap when that happens, and make a mess around the cap. If you have a hose up to the air cleaner housing, it makes the mess in the air cleaner housing instead.

WHAT?!

I wish I knew, but I don't. In the mid to late 70s, the cost cutting on new cars in general was reaching absurd levels. The "traditional" yearly changes sometimes went out the window to a degree not seen since the crazy scramble to make more cars of the late 40s. It's entirely possible there isn't any difference. Back in the 70s, someone wrote into Mechanix Illustrated and asked Tom McCahill "what is the difference between the 1949 and the 1950 Ford?". "One year". All kidding aside, there are enough subtle differences between a 1949 and a 1950 Ford that you can tell. I looked at a bunch of pictures of 1976 and 1977 LTDs. Nothing is jumping out at me.

Even the cheapies hold vacuum long enough. If it's not even trying to hold vacuum, the leak must be massive. They're annoying to use because the cup wants to fall all over the place, but you just pump a bunch of vaccuum up and let 'er rip. Don't let it run out of fluid. Pump more when it starts to get low. You'll do that anyway to speed up the process. Yes, the bleeders leak. I always do 2 or 3 squirts the old fashioned manual way at the end just to be sure there's no air left, but lately it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Wired correctly, the lights will be brighter. Less current through the switch would be an added benefit.

Yikes! That ought to keep you busy for another day or 2....

I imagine you saw this. It's just an aluminum rod tied to the pulley with 2 tiny bungee cords. The idea was to get a measurement. After screwing up what should be simple math more than once, I was doing this with a water pump and pulley in place, and just checking for error. It would be close to impossible with the car all assembled, but I'm thinking you would have to do some variation of this... unless a spec exists for the flange height and you could just make the pump right with it off the car. Such a spec exists for 49-54 Pontiacs, but I never found any specs for older ones, even after digging deep in both AACA and POCI's literature collections.

Do you mean Custom 500? In any event, I think that's an LTD emblem on the c pillar.

Was that seriously for the International engine? Flathead or OHV?

And they're at it again...

Evporust is very sugar-like, and will wash off with water or soap and water. That is probably quickest if you just want it gone.

That is especially true of early solid state electronics. PNP Germanium transistors were the most common by far, and they adapt much better to a positive ground. Most solid state equipment of that era was positive ground internally (on the circuit boards), no matter how it was configured on the outside.