drhach

Why the change? Is it an availability issue?

I think that thimble sized float bowl was my only real complaint about that carb. I've heard that was why the Thermoquad was developed.

My Mother told me "free advice is worth the price"

When I installed the duals, I added an O2 sensor. Mostly for tuning purposes. But heat soak also shows itself as a rich condition when the fuel gets hot and tries to boil over. If left long enough, it would turn in to a lean condition. The car always starts when it's hot outside, but I have observed the fuel mixture changing quite a bit when idling in traffic. My intention was to add a return type fuel filter to keep processing fresh cool fuel through the system. But generally, it doesn't affect drivability or restarting in how weather. The car now also had much more fuel in the floats than it had with the Q-jet. With the Q-jet, if the car sat more than two days, the float bowl would be empty. Now the car can sit for a week or two and still fires right off. As they say, 'your mileage may vary". But in this regard, I think the duals are quite an improvement over the Q-jet. Regards, Dan

After having installed dual carburetors, I would say the "much added fuel consumption" notion is pretty false. If it is tuned correctly, you'll use the same amount of fuel that you would have used with an appropriately sized 4 barrel. I changed from a Quadrajet to this setup and the fuel economy is about the same. I have a progressive linkage and I can feel in the pedal when the second primary opens. Most of the time, I don't even use the second carb, let alone both secondaries.

Can you just wax everything and not use WD? The wax should protect the bare metal and dust won't collect on it the way it would with WD. Nice find by the way. Got any more pictures? Regards, Dan

I'm glad you've had the tenacity to hold on to it. It sounds like you're the right man for the job on this one.

I really like the blue you've chosen for the car.

Which Sedanet do you have? There was an "A" and a "B". They had different wheelbases. The "A" had the same basic body as the Chevy, so you may have some floor replacement options in that area. The front end of all of the 42 Buicks looks the same. But they all had different wheelbases. I don't know where they made up the differences. I think your best bet would be a parts book. I think at least from a dimensional perspective, you might have better luck looking at Specials from other years rather than trying to find sheetmetal from different models of the same year. Please post some pictures, I have a 42 Special Sedanet too. I would love to see another one. Is it a 46S or 46SSE? Regards, Dan

I think given that the original posting is 18 years old, you may want to call the number rather than respond here. Regards, Dan

A blob of silicone around each spoke nipple should seal it up. Motorcycle guys do this when they want to convert to tubeless on their spoke wheels.

I think this is what he's talking about. I just put one of these in my distributor. This eliminates the ball bearings. The breaker plate kind of "skates" on the black shoes. It looks like it should last a while.

In what application were these typically used? It doesn't look like the typical "hit and miss" engine that you'd see out in hay field. DId these power belt systems in shops?

Does it come with the vodka?

Hi Everyone, time for some updates. I apologize for the lack of pictures, Its really hard for me to stop what I'm doing and take a bunch of pictures. I always have the best of intentions with that stuff, but I end up getting caught up in what I'm doing and forget all about it, So, I installed the new Y-pipe from Waldron. It fits great and the car is much quieter. I also discovered that the muffler is pretty well shot. It's more of a straight pipe than a muffler. So, I'll add that to the list. The previous owner replaced the tailpipe not too long ago. So, once I do the muffler, the entire exhaust system will be as new. I got the correct front carb installed as well as the correct 42' flapper valve. Apparently in 1942, they added a bi-metallic friction thermostat to the flapper wheel to hold it closed before warm-up. It was nice to be able to get a hold of one of those. I had to adjust the accelerator pump to get a little bigger shot, but otherwise, the carbs worked pretty well. In spite of that, the car was absolutely gutless and still had a fairly good bog and really couldn't get out of its own way going up a hill. Bearing in mind that most carb problems are electrical in nature, I moved on to the distributor. Overall, it was in good shape but there were a couple of glaring things. First, the vacuum advance pot was inoperative. I was able to suck air through it. So that left me with a pretty good vacuum leak. Also, the bearings that the breaker plate rotates on were pretty notchy. There was a replacement race in there, which was good. But the three counterparts on the breaker plate were the problem. I had a bearing kit from Bob's but given the issues with the breaker plate, it really didn't work. I was able to find a NOS breaker plate on eBay and that did the trick. I cleaned, regreased and reassembled it. I set the points on the bench and then reinstalled it. Happily, she started right up. The timing was way off so I got that sorted and took it for a drive. What a difference. No bog, no hesitation going up hill, plenty of torque. I was hoping this might also solve another issue, but it didn't do the trick. As the car warms up, the fuel gets super-hot, and the car dies. I think it's more a matter of fuel percolation that vapor lock. I'm thinking about three possible approaches to this. The first is that I want to flush the block with Evapo-rust so that the engine runs cooler. The gauge doesn't really show the car to be overheating, but I want to do all I can to keep it cool. I also put some insulator over the fuel line. I haven't driven it since then, so I'm not sure how this helped (or didn't). Last of all, I have fuel filter with a return line. I can route fuel back to the tank and tr to keep it cool that way. As a possible fourth option, I'm considering rerouting the fuel line to the front of the engine. This would allow the fan to blow on it and possibly cool it off. The pictures in the manual show it routed around the back of the engine. But it seems like it would run cooler with the fan blowing on it. I can say that the line was quite hot to the touch when I opened the hood. The last issue (for now) is the transmission. I started another thread about it, and I won't go into the full detail here. But my findings are that I have a bad synchro in second gear. I've been stalling a little on tackling it. My logic has been to sort out some of the other drivability issues first. I can double clutch it or float the gears and it works fine. But that isn't the long-term solution in my mind. I've driven the car about 12 miles, just around the neighborhood and it gets better every time. So that's encouraging. Still plenty to do before it's really roadworthy and trustworthy.

Great observation about the clock. Are you sure that's a 41? I'm not good enough to spot the differences between 41 and 42 interiors. It's a lot easier from the outside.

Laser welding is far from a scam. We had a setup at an injection molding company that I used to work for. Maybe call a couple of local tool and die places or else maybe an instrument company? Like you said, the equipment is expensive and the people who can do it are still relatively few. But they're out there. I don't think silver solder would be a good joint for a butt weld/solder. I think soldering is typically strongest in a "lap" situation. Maybe a clock repair place would have a line on someone too.

Thanks for sharing those pictures. I lived in Forest Grove back in the 90's. I'm glad to see this event is still going strong.

So close!

Is this for a 320?

I sure do hope this gets resolved. I check for updates to this thread everyday. Your work is inspiring.

Your car looks fantastic. I'm curious about your comment regarding the wire colors not matching the schematic. I guess I've understood that Rhode Island wire did exact replicas. Is that not the case? Regards, Dan

What are you looking for in terms of performance from the TA-20? I'm running a TA-112 (rebranded Crower). The car pulls tons of vacuum (with 10:1 pistons), has plenty of power. I don't know how it stacks up to other cams. But it suits me fine.

Imagine if you'd accepted it as is and then tried to convince them (OCA) that it came from the factory that way :).

I wonder why a person couldn't just put a typical radial (or otherwise) capacitor in the system in lieu of an automotive type condenser. It seems like you could have a more assured supply and get better quality components.