Bloo

If you are going to do that, take the following things into consideration: 1 ) Does the engine have real seals? It will be sucking dirt through any open hole. Positive seals on the crank, etc are a must. 2) There needs to be a way in and a way out for air. You must filter the air going in (a breather cap will do). 3) It is far better if the inlet and outlet are far away from each other to promote better air circulation. Note "modern" systems on carbureted V8s usually have the air intake on one valve cover and the suction (PVC valve) on the other for maximum coverage. Too close isn't a dealbreaker if you can't do it, but it would be preferable if the PCV valve and breather were not right next to each other. 4) The vacuum port cannot be put just willy-nilly anywhere, or connected to some random existing port. If you do that it will screw the fuel distribution all up, and be worst at idle. The carburetor will have to be way rich to compensate, some cylinders will be getting washed and the car will still not run quite right. Put the PCV port directly under the carburetor, either by using a carburetor with a dedicated PCV port, or a plate under the carburetor. To work properly the crankcase air must be mixing with the air/fuel coming from the carbuetor. Right under the idle jets and transfer ports is best. Most factory systems are like this because it is the only thing that works. 5) It is still a vacuum leak, and there is only so much leakage you can get away with. Get a valve for an engine with similar displacement (or smaller if the engine getting PVC added is a low RPM engine). You can't have enough air to ventilate all the time. The engine wont let you have enough air to do this perfectly. Sometimes the system will blow backwards out the air intake (often a breather cap) and make a mess. That's part of the deal. In the 70s, the automakers put the breather filter inside the engine's air filter housing. That made the oil mess all over the air filter element instead of the outside of the engine. It also sucked the vapors in through the carburetor and burned them during the periods when the PCV system could not keep up. The "not keeping up" times increase as the engine ages. When the engine gets really tired, the PCV system may never keep up. 6) Not all carburetors will deal with the extra air without being rejetted/recalibrated. In my experience though, it works out OK more often than you would think, but not every time. To answer your question though, the only time I even really thought about it for my flathead Pontiac was on the trip home when I bought it. As it turns out, my car has a gigantic breather filter and scoop that catches air from the cooling fan. Air goes in that breather and out the draft tube constantly, even at idle. They actually brag about it in the owners manual. I have checked, and it works. I suspect it works better than PCV because my engine uses a lot of oil and I get hardly any blowback oil mess at the breather. I have seen similar looking but much smaller breather scoops on other cars that didn't seem to do much.

I'll have to see if my local parts store can come up with a stick of green stripe hose. As for Bobs, obviously I don't need Buick script, but are these wrapped things really what a 1930s hose looks like? I like Bob's but his pictures are awful, the absolute worst. Filling Station has this: And what about clamps? The ones on my upper hose look about like these. I think Ford when I look at them. Did GM ever use these?

HAHA I wouldn't bet on it but I would love to see original engine paint.

I can finally see the front of my engine! Even more silicone! I think that guy must have bought the tube that goes in the caulking gun. And whats this? Oh Look! It's our old friend JB Weld! Well... its out of there... finally. Not stuck, at least after I chipped the JB Weld off. I almost lost it inside once, but hooked it with a brazing rod. There are several holes that shouldn't be there, but it is far from the worst I have seen on the internet. I think this hole at the bottom is probably pretty significant.

Hey @EmTee, do you have a pic of the Buick repro hose? Was that one of Bob's?

Central Washington State. We are on the wrong side of the Cascade mountains to have the Washington weather everyone is familiar with. Hot summers and cold snowy winters here, and not much rain. The 100F+ stuff came early this year though, and last year too. I don't think I have any kind of a metal tube. That hose ran straight. My upper is curved but that is a molded hose. I saw your pump rebuild thread. It sounds like you have a nicely rebuilt pump now, and things should be looking up very soon. I wouldn't use stop leak or anything. I hate it. It can be frustrating but keep chasing those leaks until they are gone. Well, all of them except the packing if it is still a packing pump. It looked like it was still a packing pump in the pictures. Let the packing leak at first while it breaks in. Later on make the leak really really tiny but never stop it 100%, because stopping it completely burns the shaft. It should be wet/damp underneath the packing nut or shaft. Indian head sealer will seal gaskets and threads from coolant like nothing else, and is worth a try if there is a gasket you just can't get to seal. It does make things very difficult to get back apart, so maybe it's not best as a first try.

Well, you need 6 volt bulbs for sure, and you need the brighter ones. Are these separate add-on light housings for the blinkers? That is how it was usually done when retrofitting old trucks but not always. If that is how it is, the bulbs should be like the ones for brake lights on a 6V car from the mid 30s or earlier. In other words, it should have a large globe the same size an 1157 12 volt tail/stop light bulb has, but have only one contact tip at the bottom and only one filament inside. This is a 6 volt bulb of course. Sorry, I cant remember what number those bulbs are. Try a bulb on 6 volts and see what it looks like! You should run dedicated ground wires out to the signal light housings. Run them from the frame or body, (whichever is grounded better to the engine and battery). The frame is usually a good choice. Photos of what you have and how you have it hooked up would probably help. If these are not separate signal light housings, and the signals are instead integrated with the old tail, stop and parking lights on the truck, that is a whole other matter. We can still sort it out, but we need to know. I hear painting the inside of light housings white can help. This would be in situations where there is no reflector or the reflector is really bad. White reflects more than gray or black. I'm probably getting way ahead of myself with that. It sounds like you have an electrical problem.

If you depend on that I think you are going to have a bad time. Not really. @neil morse's post is spot on. These gauges peg when you disconnect the sender. That's half of it. When you ground the sender wire, they go to empty. That's the other half. If it does go to empty when you test it by grounding the sender wire to a good ground (like the body or frame), the problem is either the sender or the tank ground. If it does not go to empty, then either the wire going forward to the gauge is broken, or the problem is in the gauge or dash.

Does anyone in here know what the measurement is from the back of the pump to the spot where the fan mounts on 1933-36 Pontiac? And whether it is measured with the backing plate on or off? I guess I can work it out from measurements on the front face of the engine... If I ever get access to it. The picture below is for a 1949-54 pump but shows what I am talking about. No backing plate shown on this one. At 5-1/64", 1949-1954 pumps are much taller.

Nothing wrong with that. The plastigage idea was to possibly save you pulling the piston if the problem did turn out to be lower end clearance. Small undersizes were made in bearings for cars of that age. Of course if the crank has been ground, that option probably doesn't exist.

I believe most GM cars of that period have the chassis number, which was supposed to function more or less like a VIN of the time, on a metal tag up in the drivers door jamb, about where the wing window section of the door lives when the door is closed. Others will be along shortly who will know more. There is no guarantee that it would be titled to that number. Some US states for instance used the engine number instead. There weren't "matching numbers" on most cars in that period, so the engine number would most likely be different. Welcome to the forum!

And now I just realized Y-Block is in the thread title....

I mentioned this earlier, but the 1936 shop manual just shows two oil cups on the water pump, and says to use light machine oil. The oil has to soak through the sintered bronze. From the Early Times Chapter article: There is no way for grease to soak through, so on the pump that was on my car, I figured it was an original type pump and either some previous owner just put zerk fittings where oil cups should be, or some rebuilder changed the design in a way the grease could get in to lubricate the pump. Either way I wanted to go back to oil cups. That's why I bought the Ebay pump. Here are the 2 water pump bodies, the Ebay one with the oil cups on the right. As it turns out they are quite different. Have a look inside the front bushing hole on the one with the oil cups. That groove is an oil reservoir. It's not for a wick or anything like that. In normal operation it would be full of liquid oil, waiting to seep through the bronze. Now here is the pump that had the zerks. The bushing bore is larger, and there is.... no oil reservoir. It had a stepped shaft on the pump to fit the larger bushing at the fan end. Maybe this pump had a zerk on the outer position from day one. I suspect it did. The bushing I took out (at the right) had a pinhole drilled in it for the grease to get through. Meanwhile at the back, my suspicion turned out to be true. It was running without lubrication. These inner bushings are made of a solid bronze shell with a sintered bronze bushing inside. The groove around the outside forms the oil reservoir, and the 4 round holes allow the oil to soak into the sintered bronze. That is the bushing from the pump with the zerks shown at the top. No pinhole for grease or anything else to let lubrication in here, and in the next pic you can see where the unlubricated bronze was smearing on the face of the impeller. Meanwhile, inside the bore this rear bushing was pressed into, the area where the groove lives has rust pits. This should have been submerged in oil, but instead water had apparently been soaking through the bronze and getting in here, making rust. This definitely should have had an oil cup of some sort at the back, not a zerk. The hole for the rear fitting is threaded, unlike the front where the zerk was pressed in, and unlike the other pump where the oil cups were pressed in. From the Early TImes Chapter article: Here is what I think the happened. I think Pontiac implemented the 1937 changes in the pumps early, before the 1937 model year change. This can't be a 1937 pump, because a 1937 pump does not physically interchange with 1933-1936. I think this pump had the 1937 needle bearing at the front originally, and as my car is a late 1936 this pump might even belong on it. Look at this step or relief at the back of the oversize front bore. And the pump with the smaller bushing bore and the oil reservoir groove does not have it. From the Early TImes Chapter article again, a service bulletin from late 1936, early in the 1937 model year: Well that sounds like a slam dunk, except it isn't quite. It doesn't say anything about what sort of a bushing or bearing was in front. I'm guessing the 1937 needle bearing and a grease zerk. A "large oiler" could have been threaded in at the rear. It had to be an oiler of some sort. From the 1937 Master parts book, effective January 1 1937 (so a few months into the 1937 model year): Ok so there's a replacement roller bearing water pump for 1933-36. It existed. Part 546396, and that is probably what this mysterious pump is. From the manual again: This picture in the 1937 parts book is definitely of a 1936 or earlier engine. The cross flow radiator, the position the water pump mounts on the block, the pulley and fan, etc are all not like 1937. It doesn't really mean anything, because these pictures are only meant to point you to the right group number. Of interest here are 1.083, a truly huge oil cup, 8.984 which looks like a zerk in the drawing, 1.089 and 1.078 which don't exist on the original sintered bronze front bushing setup, and 1.074 which could just as easily be a roller bearing as a bushing. So 1.089 (488958) and 1.078 (494840) are probably what go in that little recess at the back of the front bushing/bearing bore. And 1.074 (493298) must have been the bearing. It must have had a hole in it to let the grease in. Interestingly, 3 pictures back no different shaft was mentioned for the roller bearing pump except for 1937. I would like to know the dimensions of that bearing. I'll bet the stepped shaft I found in this pump does not belong. I've seen shafts that look about like that in Oldsmobile and LaSalle pump kits, but so far never Pontiac.

All good accurate advice so far. Just use the battery but check the water. The nominal charge for a 6 volt battery is 6.3v. It may be somewhat overcharged, or it may just have a bit of "surface charge". A little surface charge is pretty common in batteries in automotive use. Look at the water. If the plates are still covered it is extremely unlikely you did anything bad to it. Even if they are not, just put enough distilled water in to cover them up and try it. It isn't going to hurt your car. The worst thing it could do is work badly.

I thought so. I do.

Not in Canada, they had the flathead one more year..... I thought we had sorted this out earlier in the thread but..... Except he didn't. I just went back and re-read it. The post is not marked as edited, so I don't think he changed it. Furthermore, @rockinrebel is in Canada. I think he is going to have to sort out this detail for us.

Early Times Chapter http://www.earlytimeschapter.org/ has a well researched article on water pumps. It is here: http://www.earlytimeschapter.org/waterpumps.html http://www.earlytimeschapter.org/waterpump2.html 1933-1936 pumps as I mentioned all physically interchange with each other. In 1937 the front of the block (and a few other things) changed, so the 1937 pump is different. 1937-1948 pumps also all physically interchange with each other, except some 6 cylinder ones for a couple of years that had a longer shaft, and in that case the longer shaft was the only difference. From 1938 on, all had modern bearings and carbon seals. 1937 though even though physically interchangeable with later cars, was still a packing pump for at least part of the year, but with a needle bearing out at the fan instead of a sintered bronze bushing. At some point during 1937 the 1938-1948 style pumps with modern bearings and seals appeared. See the Early Times Chapter article for details. They devoted a whole page to the 1937 weirdness. Automotive technology was changing fast in the mid 30s, and GM had scads of mid year changes, and not just at Pontiac. In addition to the technology driven changes, GM had changes that seem almost random. The Chevrolet Standard got all steel doors near the end of the 1936 model year, on a body design that would be dropped a couple of months later for in favor of a version of the new wider all-steel body that would also appear on all Pontiacs, all Oldsmobiles, and smaller Buicks for 1937. There was also a floor with less wood in it for the old 1936 wooden body that appeared in Chevrolet Service news partway through the year. It is unclear what cars got that (if any). Not Pontiacs. There are early and late generators for 1937 Buicks, as I discovered while rebuilding a couple of them. What is the difference? In the early one, the shaft size at the rear of the armature is bigger, and the bushing is bigger. The end bell is also different to support that oversize bushing, which was apparently never used in anything else and nobody has for sale. The late 1937 Buick uses a smaller bushing back there that is the same one used in a whole bunch of Delco generators for decades. You can buy that bushing anywhere. Oldsmobile had 3 wildly different generators in 1937. Pontiac's mid year changes for 1936 included baffling things like changing the tail light shape from teardrop to round, changing the flanges on the rear axle housing and the brake backing plates to match the new shape while keeping the same rear axle design and the same brakes, and so on. @Bob Shafto and Andy Lee's excellent document "A Guide to Restoring Your '36 Pontiac (What the Manuals Don't Tell You)", also hosted on http://www.earlytimeschapter.org/ mentions a few of these. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, water pumps. Here comes the deep dive.

It depends on the regulator. Some of them you bend the spring mount (on the voltage regulator relay), others may have a screw. The spring tension on the voltage regulator relay is what does it. It is really fiddly to do because the temperature matters, and the setting changes with the cover off. You have to keep putting the cover back on to get an accurate test, run the engine up to cruise speed (because generators don't keep up at idle), recheck, try again, etc., and it is a tiny change. Tenths are a big deal in charging rate. Better yet is to set up the equipment as shown in the shop manual, but that is not always possible. If you know where you are or were with the voltage and are making a relative change you can probably get by not doing that.

Agreed. There's probably lots of way to do it.

So here they are, all cleaned up, in order of approximate age, I guess. One important thing, because this is about to get weird, and I am going to post a bunch of details I don't quite understand in the hope that someday I or someone else will make sense of it. Hopefully someone out there has more master parts books than I do. Keep in mind that all 1933-1936 Pontiac water pumps, for both the Six and the Eight, are completely interchangeable as whole pumps. It is the stuff inside that is different. On the left is casting (or maybe stamped) 494951, the NORS "Peters" remanufactured pump with 2 oil cups I bought on Ebay about 3 years ago. In the center is casting (or maybe stamped) 493297, that had 2 grease zerks (that can't be right). It was removed working from my car. On the right is casting 184-496992, the rusty pump found in the trunk that had a bolt glued in it with silicone. I suspect 496992 is a Pontiac casting number or part number. This one uses a modern cartridge bearing and a carbon seal, like Pontiacs do from 1938 forward. Speaking of the 496992, there is not much else to do other than find a kit for it if I am going to rebuild it for a spare. Well, that and figure out how high the pump flange should be. All three pumps were a little different as found. It has no back plate, but I hope to start pursuing back plates again this week or next. The threads cleaned up in it OK and you can see it has a proper pipe plug now. The threads were more damaged from rust than from cross threading. Those are new bolts in the hub too that fit, 1/4"-20. The other two pumps take 1/4"-28. The bolts I removed from the car were mangled. Before: The reason I think 496992 is a Pontiac number is that I have seen it mentioned on a couple of aftermarket rebuild kits like this one (picture shamelessly lifted from Ebay): I think 504179 and 496992 will turn out to be Pontiac part numbers, because I doubt they would print that if it just referred to some random aftermarket casting. That is wild speculation at this point. My books do not go new enough to prove or disprove it. This pump is much newer (but made to fit the 1933-1936 application).

I am still trying to get the radiator out. It has cooled off a little (99F now). I took the lower radiator hose off to get a little more clearance. It is one of those universal bendable ones. Remember those? Normally I consider those as a sign of bad maintenance. They hit the trash as soon as I buy a car. They are usually put in to replace a curved hose, and put a bunch of extra stress on the radiator nipple, which sometimes breaks off. Back when I bought the car I saw it and laughed. I decided to leave it alone because I haven't seen one of them in 30 years or more, and it was replacing a straight hose, and there was no pressure in the system, etc. It sort of fits with the old ratty used car look. But, for more room off it came and.... They didn't... They couldn't.... they wouldn't.... They did. Look at the left side. They cut it off in the middle of the flexible part. How did that not leak? It didn't leak. Bonus points for the hose being hit by the fan belt at the other end. It wasn't hitting there recently, but obviously it did sometime. I wonder what they used for straight radiator hose in 1936? Something like that wrapped hose they use on big trucks? That truck hose is pretty stiff, but this engine is mounted pretty solidly and does not move around near as much as a three point mounted one. Or maybe I should just go buy a molded radiator hose for something and cut a straight piece off. Hmmm... I have the headlight mounts off now, and managed to get it to slide back, but, true to the shop manual the harmonic balancer is in the way. I thought it might be possible to snake the radiator out the side. I have even seen a picture of a 1936 Eight with the radiator out and the balancer still on, but this is a Six. Now I have to either take the whole nose off (relatively easy), or I have to get the grille shell out of the nose. I'm stubborn, and I don't want to take any more of the wiring harness out. I've already taken out so many rusty bolts I have lost count. What's another 20 or 30? Where was I? Oh yeah, water pumps.

True enough, but it opens up more (and cleaner) possibilities when the bellhousing comes off.

It's complicated. The short answer is that the bellhousing comes off of the C4 making aftermarket bellhousings possible, while the AOD is cast integral leaving you to adapt with a plate at the engine flange like you would probably have to do with most GM or Chrysler automatics. C4's bellhousing was cast up in a version to fit the early 60s 221-260-289 "5 bolt" engine and also a version to fit the later 289-302-351w engine everyone is familiar with, (and also a version for some 6 cylinders?) Those are probably the only ones. AOD with it's integral bellhousing would have been cast in a 289-302-351w version and a 6 cylinder version I am fairly sure. I don't know offhand what else they might have cast.

Wow. Well...have the rod checked for straightness while it's out. I'd be tempted to plastigage that bearing before taking anything further apart.

https://www.flat-o.com/carproducts/yblock.htm No personal experience with this company or this adapter. YMMV.