SJF1948

Update no. 2, or 3...... Cleaned up, disassembled, and reassembled the two front shocks I got from a yard in Alabama. Both shocks did have good compression and rebound resistance when tested on my stand, and neither leaked more than a drop or so overnight. They worked great for about 100 miles into a 300 mile road trip.... however all of the fluid was running down the cross member!!!! So I'm going to attempt to change the camshaft seals this time, and try again. I'd like to get some info on shocks, valves, calibrations, beyond what's in the shop manual. I have also read the post in The H.A.M.B. In the salvage yard shocks ('53 Roadmaster), the four valves have calibration marks 4E (Rebound) and 4C (Compression), as per the shop manual. The Rebound valve from one of the original '53 Super shocks is stamped "1.25FX"..... cannot find any info on "1.25FX". I would like to stiffen the shocks up a bit by adding shims under the valves, definitely will not add stop leak, or even a heavier oil????? How many shims, how thick? Roadmaster shocks have .015" shims.

Here's the latest on the front shock saga. As I mentioned before, the shocks do what they're supposed to do...... as long as they have oil in them. The good news is, I located a pair of shocks from a 53 Super (may need rebuilding) at a good price. My plan is to disassemble, rebuild, and swap them out. The shop manual has a good description of the operation of the shock, but is vague on how to remove the Upper Arm from the outer camshaft, one section says the arms are welded to the camshaft, another section says the arms are serrated onto the camshaft. Serrations would make sense, and would allow the arms to be removed with a puller. The Upper Arm is a two piece arrangement that appears to be epoxied together near the upper pivot pin. The Upper Arm needs to be removed to replace leaking oil seals on the camshaft. Also according to the manual, the Right and Left Upper Arms are identical and interchangeable. Front end alignment is highly recommended after the swap. Question is, what's the best way to split the Upper Arm?

I got this one from Amazon for my 53 Super. "62MM ALUMINUM RADIATOR For BUICK SPECIAL/for Roadmaster/for Century/Super/ 1954-1956 1955" (Made in Cambodia) Also installed a catch tank. City stop and go, some 65mph interstate, so far temp got above 160, less than190, once during a local drive stuck in traffic. I'm running the stock 4 blade fan with factory shroud. It has the nozzle needed for the defrost return in the correct location. Painted black, it blends in pretty well. The flanges did need some minor trimming.

Yep! It is inevitable that the shocks will be repaired/replaced. I sent an E-Mail to Apple Hydraulics requesting info, I didn't see any mention of a Performance Option. The Panhard bushings are intact, no splits, or signs of rot. I'm sure a set of modern bushings would help. My last 50's era car was a '55 Chevy 2 door wagon, sold it when I went in the Navy in '69. Didn't take long for the body roll memory to return!

Realizing that a stock 50's era Buick was not intended to be a road course car, what can be done to improve the road handling and ride of my '53 Super with stock (original) suspension, steering, etc.? New tires were balanced and front end aligned in October, less than 400 miles ago. Other than riding on Coker 225 75R-15's, at 35psi, the only other modification is the conversion to power front disc brakes. All four shocks are original and do require frequent oil fills. The shocks actually do a good job of limiting the excessive bounce/float when the oil is topped off. The front suspension and non-power steering appear to have no loose fittings, except for the stabilizer bar links, (these will be replaced this weekend!) The car does track straight with normal steering wheel input, but is affected by crosswinds and is skittish on rough roads. My thoughts..... A. Check steering gear, box, pitman, etc. make sure it's all set to factory specs. B. The knee action shocks suck! They are fair at best when they're filled and 70 years ago they served their purpose! They are what they are, I'll have to live with them. The shocks when filled, do reduce the amount of body roll. I started using Bar's Leaks Jack Oil with Leak Stop, the jury's still out on this one! I recently repaired my torque ball and torque convertor leaks, got rid of those huge leaks...... now I have four smaller leaks, one under each shock!!!! C. Adjusting tire pressure from 35 to 32psi doesn't appear to have any effect on handling. D. The stabilizer bar IMHO is too small, I'm not sure replacing the links will help. Has anyone found and installed a beefier bar? And yes, the power disc brake conversion works very well. I would be interested in any thoughts on any stabilizer bar upgrades.

I converted my '53 Super 2bbl. oil bath air cleaner to paper. After gutting the steel wool element, the hardest part was finding a paper element that would fit and seal in the oil reservoir and keep the stock appearance of the air cleaner. I found a Wix Filter pt. no. SA6101 fit perfectly. This is a closed top, open bottom filter. After fabricating an o-ring seal to fit the step in the oil bath housing, the only other thing that was needed to seal the filter was a gasket at the hold down bolt. The filter is held in place with a 1/4-20 nut, the cleaner top is trimmed at the bottom to provide air flow to the filter and held in place with the original wing nut. The 1" aluminum spacer below the carb has a nipple for a vacuum source for PB booster and PCV conversion. There's about 1" clearance between the air cleaner and the hood. Wix SA6101 Air Cleaner top with approx. 1" of lower rim removed.

Skip, please call or text (225) 413-1371 with shipping info to Baton Rouge, 70810. (USPS??) OBTW, would you happen to have a set of hood hinge springs for the '53 Super/Roadmaster? Thanks, Jimmy

Looking for a speedometer head with a good set of input gears

Follow-up on the fuel spitting Stromberg. I replaced the Mr. Gasket in-line filter with the original Carter sediment bowl filter and installed a pressure gauge upstream of the filter. At idle, pressure is 4.5 psi. I removed the float bowl plug and at idle the fuel level is right at the bottom of the hole. No other modifications, and no more fuel spitting! After several local drives at varying speeds there seems to be no problems with the carb. I did contact Carter about any potential problems with installing a dead-head pressure regulator on their pump if necessary. According to them there is no problem throttling their pump a few psi. I have not installed a regulator and at this point don't intend to.

I have not run a pressure check on the line at the carb, but I will as soon as I put the transmission back in.... another story for another topic! I did find a video on YouTube showing a pressure reading of 4.5 psi, deadheaded at the carb running the same pump I have installed. If my pump does in fact exceed 4.5-5 psi my options are a fuel pressure regulator or locate a pump with less discharge pressure. Throttling a centrifugal pump outside it's curve has its problems as well. I'll admit, I'm not up to speed on Strombergs, but I'm getting there. Back in the day it was Rochester, Carter, Holley, Autolite, MotorCraft, etc. Your comment on the fuel level reminded me about the plug in the side of the float chamber which I assume can be removed to check the fuel level while running??? This I can check initially with running the pump only, then follow up at idle. I will add that my rebuild kit from CARS, Inc. is a Daytona Parts Co. kit. This uses a flat disc float valve instead of the usual tapered float valve. Other than spitting raw fuel out occasionally, the carb seems to be doing the job. As for the 1930s AC fuel pump surge chamber, I have no idea what that is, but what the photo shows is a 2022 Mr. Gasket in-line fuel filter. This replaced the O.E. sediment bowl filter only because I was having trouble finding a gasket and filter stone for it. Also not a fan of the Mr. Gasket filter.

I have a Stromberg 2bbl on my 322, I'm running an electric fuel pump with 4-5 psi output. The carb will spit out raw gas every 5 minutes or so from the bowl vent on the air horn. The engine seems to stumble for a second then recover. The shop manual says this is to "vent the float chamber to allow fuel to be smoothly withdrawn through various systems" The amount of fuel spit out is very small, evaporates quickly, but not what I would consider a safe situation! I have cleaned and rebuilt the carb prior to putting my car on the road, float level is set to specs. Any thoughts?

Yep, oldbuickparts seems to have lost the "old" stuff. According to the nice lady who answered the phone the other day, they are in the process of upgrading to the New and Improved web page, but they have a few bugs to work out!!!!! She assured me it will get better! You'd think they would have the new system tested and up to speed before they dumped the old one. I too need the under hood ducting for my 53, I may have to improvise now.

Update on the install. 3 Point Retractable belts are installed. As it turns out, back in 1953, some engineer in the design department was thinking ahead. He must have figured that 69 years later, some dummy was going to try and install a 3 Point Belt System in his car. I dropped the headliner (Piece of cake) and there before me was a mid roof cross brace supported by 1/8" plates at each roof rail, directly above the area I would mount the retractor on the floor. I fabricated new 1/4" backing plates, threaded for the 7/16-20 anchor bolts and two 1/4-28 "capture" bolts. I also fabricated a 1/8" plate drilled for the 7/16" and 1/4" bolts. The most nerve racking part was drilling the roof rail plates and not drill through the roof! But a piece of 1/4 plate between the plate and the roof took away that worry. I supposed the anchor plates could be mounted without any welding required as the roof rail plates are sandwiched between the 1/4" and 1/8" plates. Now, if the headliner goes back up as easy as it came down ...... Hope the photos explain the process. I'll post more of the completed install. Another thing I learned concerned the seat backs. Almost every shoulder belt installation instruction warned against mounting the anchor point below the top of the seat back unless the seat backs had inertia locks to keep the seat back from folding forward in a crash. In '53, Super and Roadmaster did come with Inertia locks on both seat backs as part of the seat pivoting feature as the seat back is tilted forward. I also learned that my brownish/gray/faded headliner was at one time a pale blue. So, for all the design engineers that I cursed for placing fasteners in the most inaccessible places, I humbly apologize!!!!!

So many different ways to answer that question....... I'll go with Nope!

After several years of restoration(?) I'm to the point of finally putting my Super on the road. One of my "must haves" was to make it safe to drive and ride in, meaning seat belts are a definite "must". I've decide on a retractable 3 point system and mounting the shoulder anchors above the quarter windows. Being a 56R, mounting the anchor plate is going to be a challenge! I've watched just about every seat belt installation video out there, but most of these deal with trucks or sedans. There are some YouTube videos on Tri-Five Chevy Hardtops, of course nothing to be found on the early 50s Buick Hardtop. Also I'm not interested in mounting the anchor plate at the top of the door pillar, too low. So my question to the group, anybody added seat belts to their '50-'53 Hardtop, anybody installed 3 point belts, most importantly, anybody mounted the shoulder anchor above the quarter window? Suggestions and photos???? OBTW, the interior is stripped, I have not dropped the original, almost 70 year old headliner yet!

I just made the repair to the horn wire in my '53 Super. Not going to go into why the repair was necessary, suffice it to say , I did a dumb thing! If you are handy with a soldering gun the wire can be repaired/replaced without removing or disassembling the steering column. The horn wire in the column is not a power wire, it is a ground wire. It grounds the horn relay to send 12v power to the horns. To make the repair, if possible keep all of the wire removed from the column, you'll need it to measure the replacement wire. On the '53 there is a contact plate on the column under the hood. Disconnect the connector and remove the plate. Under the plate is a slip ring and soldered to the slip ring is the wire running up through the hollow shaft to the steering wheel. You may have to turn the wheel to position the solder joint under the opening. I used a soldering gun to unsolder the wire from the slip ring, the wire can now be pulled out of the shaft. In my case I had to also unsolder the piece of wire from the button at the steering wheel. The short piece of wire in the button came out clean, even left a small hole in the button. I used a twist drill to open up the button enough to pull the new wire stripped end through. I stripped the wire to the length of the old wire, but left an extra inch or so of bare wire to stick through the button. The tricky part is getting the new wire cut to the right length. I found it easier to insert the new wire from the slip ring opening and push it up to the wheel. I used a section of 14 gauge wire, duplicated the bend in the wire at the slip ring, tinned it and soldered to to the slip ring. At the wheel, tin the bare wire, clean and tin the button keeping the hole open. As an extra bit of protection for the wire, slip a section of shrink tubing over the wire, when the button is soldered the shrink tubing will cinch down on the wire inside the shaft. After making the solder joint at the button, simply cut off the extra wire, file or dress the button smooth. This was all done with removing the column or the steering wheel. This works on a '53, but the principle should be the same. And for the curious, believe it or not, the steering wheel can be removed without cutting the horn wire!!!!! Definitely one of those uh oh moments. Hope this helps.

Adding A/C to my '53 Super. Looking for a set of 2 groove pulleys, (Crank and Water Pump)

Good point, I did test the area with a hose and it did slow down the water a lot. That being said, the door seals are in bad shape. The plan is to start at the top around the vent window and work my way down. I have replaced the vent window frame to windshield pillar seal which also helped. The previous owner used a lot of flexible sealer and over time this stuff has oozed out and created quite a mess. The saga continues!

Great photos Steve. This shows what I was suspecting and dreading! I did read in the shop manual that "if only the upper end of the sealing strip in the area above the upper hinge is damaged, repairs may be made with a patch strip which is available for service". These photos would explain the reason for that! I do have an inspection camera so maybe I'll be able to see what condition the lower half of the seal is in. It will be interesting to see if the Buick dealer has the "patch strip" in stock!!!!😬. Now I'm glad I kept the inner tubes that were in my old tires. Updates to follow.

I was able to slow down the leak by about 90%, not enough to keep from wetting my new padding and carpet. My seals are probably OEM, not very flexible, and have taken a "set" over the years. Working from the top I was able to loosen the seal from the cowl and door, and clean the mounting surfaces as far as I could reach. There is a retainer screw on the top next to the hood bumper and a body plug/pin about 8 to 10 inches down the front edge of the seal. According to the shop manual, there is a retainer screw attaching the bottom of the seal to the cowl. There was also a separate small flap of thin rubber (2"X4") located at the top of the seal. Not sure the small flap is original, or an attempt by a previous owner to keep the water out. I reattached the top half of the seal using contact cement and cemented the small flap so that it acts as cap for the seal. All of this was done with the hood up, and opening and closing the door as necessary to access the top half of the seal, using wood slats to apply pressure to the glue points. The overlapping Super door/fender doesn't provide easy access, especially to the lower half of the seal! I'll try to post some photos later today. As a side note, it dawned on me that the small flap had the same thickness and flexibility as an innertube! (Unlimited possibilities for a suitable repair). I'm hoping someone on this site has experience changing these seals on a car that still has the front fenders installed. The shop manual is almost "All ya gotta do is......"

I have removed the seats, carpets, door panels, etc. and repaired front floor pans ('53 Super, 56R). Before I put it all back together, I am chasing and repairing leaks around the doors. It appears that water is getting past the door hinge pillars, and there is a "Front Body Hinge Pillar Sealing Strip" that may be the culprit! These sealing strips are available, and there is a procedure to replace them in the shop manual. I am curious if anyone has changed these in their restorations, and if so does the shop manual leave out any important steps..... such as, "Step 1, Remove front fender"?

Venti-Ports look to be '53

Great photos and recommendations, thanks. Looks like the best option is fabricating new braces. I do have a lead on an "old/early 50's" Buick in a salvage yard nearby, as soon as the ground dries up from the recent rains I'll check it out. I'll post photos if there's anything salvageable.

Good point, being in the middle of the Louisiana petrochemical production area, there are numerous fab shops and foundries nearby. Before I retired, I worked closely with several of these shops. And you're right, they love a challenge..... might be time to break out my old business card file (Rolodex). Thanks for the suggestion.

Is this still available?