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cevensky

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Posts posted by cevensky

  1. Steve, clubs with respect for restoration are non-existent here and I find national clubs to be a waste of money for someone who has no income. Large meets are always too far and the knowledge that is the biggest benefit of a club I can get from (1) the internet, which I know how to use well, and (2) all of the older "car guys" I hang out with in my neck of the woods. It's my own club.

    I have several finished or in-progress-but-driving (+/-) restorations and projects on the road, so it's not about satisfaction or confidence, it's about feasibility. There is simply nobody in this area who is willing to do the wood.

    It has been accepted for a while now that this Buick is a back burner project. The best thing anyone could have done for it, I have done. It was dug out of 8" of soil with pine trees surrounding it, literally growing up to encircle it. It is in a garage now.

    My encouragement is intrinsic, I need not a club to cut down 20 pine trees in the 110F heat of a Louisiana June and hand winch it to a place a trailer could eventually back to it. 

    I can also assure you all that I am not spending $10,000 for woodwork. And guess what. When it is done, the car will be beautiful, the doors will close, it will flex without cracking, and the interior will cover whatever I decide to put in for body support. 

    I suppose that process will be cut out of any public documentation, since I don't want to be a street rodder.

    See your words, Greg, they're too negative. Shot after shot. I appreciate realism, to a degree, and I wouldn't consider it "rodding" to use a different material that is not exposed to achieve an original goal of manufacture. Again, as far as wood, wood in the body is largely not visible. It's always off-putting, regardless of age, to be told what is to be done on your own project. I am not in this to sell cars, so I defer to my mantra in this area, "It's mine." 

     

  2. Greg, that’s a defeatist attitude that doesn’t have much of a place in any garage I work in.

    It’s not gonna be a concours car. Too far gone, probably never will be. What will probably happen is me putting angled metal in to reinforce the body, making changes to make things like up and close/open properly. I think your level of fear and over-complication is much much higher than my naïveté or over-simplification. At the end of the day, giving in or being too afraid to even try covers less ground than even an honest effort fraught with mistakes. 
    Food for thought: 3/4 doors closed and opened perfectly, and made it on the trailer and 70 miles on Louisiana roads, nothing flew open. It’s possible to eyeball, cut, cut, sand, scrap it and try again till it’s achieved. I’m 24 and was offered the opportunity to dig into a brain tumor today, if that ain’t complicated then neither is a little wood.

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  3. Hope I’ll have a second this weekend to pop it on. Everything should be set right, will probably have to retime the engine a bit. In the manual, it has specific instructions per the wiring diagram as to the orientation of the distributor (shows where points vs condenser should be in relation to engine) and also where the #1 cap position should be... does this matter?

    (also if anyone needs a functional post-48 distributor, I guess I have one for sale).

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  4. Gary, he never returned a text or call. I did everything short of banging down his door but that was two years ago now. I suppose I’ll have to learn how to do it myself. The wood is just so daunting, partly due to cost and partly to size. It’s not monstrously expensive, but it’s the unknown: other cars I can get an idea of what I need to spend because what I need is made and has a price tag. What I’d love to do is get it out of the garage it’s in now. 

  5. F&J, appreciate you stopping by and sharing the stories. 

    Unfortunately my carpenter ran off with $700 and didn’t do nearly that much work. I tried to reach him many times, so now the Buick sits waiting for some stroke of luck (also known as the day I have any kind of income). I look at it and don’t see a terrible amount of work aside from the wood, but nobody will touch it. Boy, I’d be set if I could just get enough wood in to take the body off and store it some place dry.

    Try the wood grain! It was a lot of fun!

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  6. So... I realized the other day that I’ve been running my engine on the distributor from the later (post-49) straight 8 I got from Georgia. I rebuilt the one that came on my engine after I  found yesterday. Engine’s been running well, but I wonder if this will make it run perfectly... maybe this is the reason I was unable to see timing marks with the engine running well before? We will see. 

  7. It is missing the windshield. They’re expensive, but available. I rebuilt the carb, won’t idle. Time to take all the bolt ons off and find an vacuum leak. 
    I digress. 
    I’ve been driving the Pontiac regularly with great success. The paint is terrible, so I decided to try various grinding methods/tools. I was very surprised by a flap disc and can only say “wow.” I’ve been stripping with wire wheels and could have had the whole car in bare metal in a couple afternoons if I’d known about flap discs. Anyway, for about $50 of supplies, I mostly stripped and painted the front of the car. It looks better because it’s uniform, but needs sanding and another couple coats (plus a buff) to look really good. However, I think it’s very achievable to get a good reflective, glossy black with this $6 paint.

    More work to be done, but I’m pleased with four hours of work. Obviously I’m just playing around because this thing is dinged and banged up... a lot.

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  8. Sure does. I haven’t driven it, but when I went to first look at it, I put a battery on it, sprayed, and it roared. It didn’t do that today with jumper cables to the tractor, but it will be a nice addition and for $3000 I would’ve let it go had it not started. Bit fancier than my Pontiac, but gotta have the best of both worlds. 

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  9. It’s been a tad too hot to be in a closed car doing the wiring that needs to be done, but I have been driving it. Holds at 180°F on the gauge (which may be closer to 165°F I suspect, I need an IR thermometer) as long as we’re moving. If I sit and idle for 5 minutes or so, it gets to 200 on the gauge, and it’s hard to get it back down with any amount of driving. 
    So since I can’t do much work with this heat and school keeps me tired, I decided to spread myself out even more by diversifying the fleet a bit. Couldn’t pass it up.

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  10. Ah but the strength and durability (especially with our humidity) of that white pebbled shower paneling... so much for $32 and it cuts so well without falling apart! I’d encourage you to consider it, I tried that rough/smooth ply board and we didn’t get along. 

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  11. Phil, I used my cheap poking tools to get them off. They’re closer to the business end of the handle than you’d think- get a good flashlight in there and push on that panel. And watch them fly! Making door panels is easy, good materials are easy to come by. I found great substitutes at Lowe’s, text or message for a detailed guide!

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  12. Thanks for the info, Charles. I have chased, and based on the picture there, that valve isn’t in line from the pump to the under seat heater. This means that hot water is always going to travel at some rate-or at least transfer heat- to the under seat core. The valve pictured looks like a component present on the passenger side of my under dash apparatus, which controls the amount of hot water going through the defroster core. Not terribly worried, it isn’t near cold here yet.

    I got my “signal lights” cleaned up and tested, picked up a 6v flasher from napa, and with 75 feet of wiring, I should be able to get the turn signal and brake lights working this week. I slipped some asphalt loom (couldn’t find cloth like it had originally, but this works fine) over the signal wires and have my new hood release in, which works very well.

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  13. Not that it was rough, but it was popping some on idle at the exhaust, so I borrowed a timing light but I’ve been unable to see the marks so far. Even popping the starter along to see the whole flywheel... but with the timing light, is it possible I have the flywheel on wrong? If I recall, there was only one way for it to go on. According to the manual, the flywheel marks are massive and easy to see, but I see nothing. I did retard the timing, it helped things a lot. Carburetor/choke adjustments are now necessary because it’s having a hard time starting, I think mainly due to maladjustment of the starting position of the automatic choke but I’m sure the points need to be replaced or adjusted. Letting it sit and idle for 10-15 minutes gets it running at 200-205°F according to the original gauge, but as long as it’s moving, it’s less than 180°F always. Maybe that indicates I’m idling too fast.

     

  14. So we have no valve whatsoever to the under-seat heater core. I will change that eventually. My transmission has been leaking so I figured I’d put some kind of liquid fix in (that never works in my experience). Well, Lucas stop-slip and 2 quarts of atf made that transmission run like a dream. Wow. Smooth shifting, stopped the leak, and yes it was very dry due to my underestimating the leaks.

    The next day it didn’t shift quite as well, so I’ll put another bottle of the Lucas product in, it’s thick but not terribly so. I let my neighbor (who helped me time it and adjust the choke) drive it up and down the street and he really enjoyed it. Improving day by day.

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  15. Jeff, don’t be afraid to do anything yourself. Worst can happen is you screw up- at least you didn’t pay labor and you know exactly who to complain to. 
    Read above for the explanation about the flashers, LEDs, etc. And previous pages about a 6v alternator off eBay.

    This is my source for the LEDs:

    https://www.ledlight.com/6-volt-negative-ground-automotive-led-lights.aspx
    They have a great array of quality, cheap bulbs made specifically for old cars. I got red LED rears because red is brighter. Also that way I don’t have to buy new lenses for my taillights anytime soon 😁

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  16. Got my order of LEDs today. I think the gauge cluster needs a better ground because the little bulbs aren’t quite as bright in there as grounded to the battery ground, and the temp gauge reads a little high. The tail lights are fantastic, brake switch needs to be hooked up (ran out of wire), but wow! Keep in mind this picture is the bulbs at “dim.” I’ll put the high beam indicator in later this week. Best part is: plug and play.

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  17. Thanks for the advice, Bloo. I think I’ll go with the brighter bulb. I went with red 1157 LEDs for tail lights because of the safety factor (they’re very bright). Apparently, I can use a regular flasher if I use incandescent or halogen bulbs in the front, but if I use LED (thereby making every bulb in the blinker circuit LED), there’s not enough resistance and an LED flasher must be used, but they can be got in 6V too.

    Went for a drive today... with headlights! These halogen are much brighter than the picture tells, even 6V. I highly recommend them. Didn’t take long to put them in, original dimmer switch, and a junction block from a Ford GPW.

     

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  18. Jeff, still on 6. Wires from alt and from ammeter back to the starter post are 10 ga. The rest is 12 ga.

    wires: https://enginebarn.myshopify.com

    headlights: https://www.ebay.com/itm/233479105111

    The tail lights will be LED. There’s great threads in here about using LED but you have to be careful to get it right.

     

    Question: for my turn signal, do the headlights get used as the front signal or is it the parking lights?

  19. Turns out I’m missing the lower chrome strip for the front doors. Let me know if anyone’s got some. I got new halogen headlights in (LED taillights and dash lights coming next week) and wired them up with original hardware. Here we are (notice the little bit of fun I had on the door handle/arm rest, don’t worry it’s just some scraps I had):

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  20. Good question Jeff, but it’s have to be directed to someone more knowledgeable like Charles. All I can say is there’s little doubt in my mind that these panels were in this car when it left the Fisher factory and I didn’t change the style at all (save for my mistakes!). I’ve seen this seat fabric pattern in the Pontiac ads for 48, but other ads that can be found on google for 48 also show the more plush interior with the squares and a tufted seat back. Would love to hear what the experts have on this.

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  21. Well, moving forward I know what to do and what not to do. The nylon Christmas trees worked like a charm (mostly). I’ll have to make the holes that accept them slightly smaller for a tighter fit. This panel is slightly too long, needs more curve where there is corner, isn’t thick enough or lacking support behind the handle bezels, and most obviously, the trim was put on crooked (feel free to laugh, I did). Not bad for a first attempt, 3 hours of my time, and maybe $15 of supplies. The other side will be modeled after this to get a more perfect fit. 

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  22. Cardinal, that’s kind of what I did... but I didn’t see your advice before I went ahead and made my first panel. I discovered there’s a metal piece on the original door card that I reused that clamps to the card, allows an anchor point for fabric, and then sits in a groove on the door itself. I went with only 5 or 6 Christmas tree fasteners through the new card since that lower piece supports the bottom and the window surround holds it up top so I’m not too worried. I was able to reuse all of the original chrome trim. Really, it’s quite similar to the original card in looks. Just a little more durable and easy to clean. There were a few mishaps, but overall I can’t believe someone wanted to charge me $700 to do the doors, it’s pretty easy. Might see if I can fit it on tomorrow night, it may require some cutting of the top edge. Let me know what y’all think, unfortunately the chocolate brown crocodile didn’t make it here for the lower trim.

    ALSO: the heater core under the seat puts off quite a bit of heat on my ankles... is there a control for it or is it always on...?

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  23. A quick torque sequence and no more visible vapors from anywhere. I’m pretty convinced it won’t overheat in normal weather (stay tuned for a Louisiana summer). I began taking off a door panel, seeing that the nail trim inserts into metal, I’m thinking about using nylon push-in fasteners since I can drill holes and save the headache of lining up another nail strip. Anyone have any experience? The plastic I’m using for panels should be sturdy enough.

  24. That’s a lesson I learned on Model A’s, and I did have a little come out of this one’s overflow the first time starting it after the new water pump. Hasn’t happened since, but when I say I’m missing water, I mean the level drops to just below the baffle so there’s not any visible water. But yes, something that can’t be said enough. I got nervous when I saw coolant leaking after putting on a new water pump! 

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