Str8-8-Dave

I licked my wounds and came to the same conclusion- it wasn't meant to be. The Buick is mechanically done waiting for interior seat and rumble seat upholstery and some detail painting. Wife is recovering amazingly well. I'm having a hard time keeping her from just resuming her normal activities which the doctor says is a no-no for 90 days.

So I'm almost done restoring a 1931 Buick 8-66S coupe that I purchased from an estate. The previous owner of the Buick was in the midst of a good quality restoration, most of the big stuff was done when he died. I bought it from the restorer to settle the owner's bill. Then, about a year ago, I spotted a listing for another car someone had mostly completed restoring, then died before completing it, a very similar story to the Buick. The prospect car had been treated to a really good quality professional restoration and correctly painted in some of my favorite colors, black fenders and lower body and maroon upper body. All the heavy work was done, body painted, chassis and driveline all beautifully restored, it needed carpets, small items like interior door handles were in boxes awaiting chrome plating, Jaeger clock needed restoration but was present, windshield wiper restore and install, spare tire rims and covers all there but needed restoration. It seemed to be pretty reasonably priced too. I had inquired on the AACA website about cars of this make and model and had been warned it was a complicated design and had a lot of technical stuff that could go wrong and was expensive to fix, "Not a car for beginners" I was told. I bought a service manual for the car which did show it was a complicated car but I'm fascinated with things mechanical so that didn't really stop me. What was holding me back was I didn't have the money, so it was just a dream... Then life changed, my wife hurt her back while doing some house cleaning at our summer cottage in the upper peninsula town of Garden, MI in anticipation of the annual visit of friends from Port Huron. I bought the cedar half-log in 2004 when it was still under construction. It wasn't waterfront, it was one lot behind the frontage cottages, up on a hill overlooking Garden Bay, a small bay in Big Bay De Noc, Lake Michigan. The cottage sat on 6 acres and was built upside-down, living, dining, master bedroom all on the second floor with a wraparound deck that offered million-dollar views of Lake Michigan and plenty of bird watching and good view of common visits from the local deer herd. We have many memories of good times we had there. But- it was a 7hr drive to the cottage from Port Huron, followed by a flurry of activity unloading a car full of junk and moving it up the steps to the second level. Then the next day and a half was consumed with lawn mowing, window washing, etc. to make the place livable for a week. Then at the end of the stay leftover food had to be loaded back in coolers, clothes and bedding got packed up and the car got loaded for the 7- hour drive back home. In October, knowing my wife had to have major back surgery, I decided enough, called a local realtor and put the cottage up for sale. It did sell, the closing is coming up end of this week. Now my mouth was watering, my next dream car was still available, all I had to do was wait for the cottage to close, then go look at the subject car and make sure there wasn't some hidden story that would disqualify it. And now I was on the cusp of having the money. The car was a 1933 Cadillac 5 passenger coupe with the Cadillac V-12 engine. It was on consignment from the estate of the late owner at a New York classic car dealer, Gullwing Motors in Astoria. I had visions of making a 6hr trip to go see the car and potentially make a deal to buy it as soon as the cottage money came in. I would buy it and have it shipped to Port Huron and put it in the garage there and finish the restoration as soon as the current project, my 1931 Buick 8-66S was finished. Then about a week ago the car disappeared from E-Bay and Hemmings where I had been tracking if for months. It was no longer listed in inventory at the Gullwing Motors website either, someone bought my car right out from under me... So heart broken... These pictures are from the Gullwing Motors listing. The previous owner must have lived where it is warmer than Astoria, NY... The car is a pretty standard coupe, no rumble seat, interior seating for 5, but it's not the standard flathead V8, it has the OHV V12 which I think is light years better than the V8 because of the OHV and I think it is better than the V16 because it makes almost as much power and is lighter. I'm a sucker for this color combination. You can see the spare tires and covers and windshield wipers are missing from the exterior. Inside the car note the missing interior door handles, carpets and the big hole in the instrument panel where the Jaeger clock should be. I enquired about all this and got pictures back from Gullwing Motors of the boxes of parts awaiting restoration, it was all there and went with the car. The real attraction for me is the V12. Cadillac only made about 900 of these cars as the country was still reeling from the depression and there were not that many customers for cars like these. Henry Ford was making a killing selling more affordable cars I expect...

You are correct Bloo- Not the UK diff- the Japanese diff... Hell- I'm getting so old by the time I get half done writing I can't remember what I was talking about... Dave

Ahhh- but there is a huge difference. Look at the picture of the Chrysler differential and note how the pinion gear housing is centered over the ring gear. Then compare it to placement of the Land Cruiser differential and note how the pinion gear housing is offset low on the ring gear. In the old days the body of the car was mounted with floorboards above the frame and driveshaft. Later bodies began to drop over the frame and a tunnel appeared in the floor pan sheet metal to package the driveshaft. To minimize the tunnel height the differential was redesigned to lower the driveshaft line and minimize tunnel height. That was a paradigm shift in third member gear design, manufacturing and lubrication requirements. In the early days of differentials (like 1900-1920) the pinion housing was centered and ring and pinion gears were straight tooth bevel gears and they were noisy. Gear sets for these early axles could be made with pretty simple tooling. Mineral oil, common at that time, provided adequate lubrication. To get rid of the noise they improved the gear sets in the centered pinion differential to spiral bevel which required serpentine teeth made on much more advanced tooling. The spiral bevel gearsets like the ones in the subject Chrysler differential were much quieter due to their much longer tooth engagement and they were still happy with mineral oil. When the pinion gear housing was offset, like the Land Cruiser differential, the gear design requirement moved to hypoid gear design which is quiet and favorably packaged but requires special tooling and these gearsets require hypoid oil to keep the gears happy.

All I can say is I hope I don't have to do this in my lifetime... Hard to believe Buick wouldn't have a way to inspect the clutch without tearing the car apart.

I think what you are looking for is black panel board like the stuff I bought from Perfect Fit. Some areas of the rumble compartment in my car are just the panel board, some I covered with Haartz Tuxedo vinyl top material because it has grain somewhat like the original panels in Dave39MD's 31 Buick 8-66S. Some material used originally is just N/A. I did what I could to make my car at least support the original theme. Panel Board in Black, Treated for Upholstery (perfectfit.com) Shot thru the golf door the side panel with the drain hose going thru it was covered with Haartz black vinyl top material. To the right in the picture is the raw panel board.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been chasing a few details for my 1931 8-66S. All my restoration pictures are organized in sub-folders by subsystem or topic. These are pictures I added to various folders this week... Interior Trim folder: I got an e-mail from Shelby Trim that they are 2 yards short of a picnic for my interior seat upholstery job. I have been buying material samples from various fabric vendors and today I finally sent a sample of what is in the car to SMS Fabrics in Canby OR to see if they can match it. Parts Department folder: I bought a pair of rear axle roller bearings and felt seals to go with the rest of my rainy-day selection of wheel bearings... I'm building a fully functional and correct spare heat riser and exhaust diverter valve... Fabrication projects and tools folder: I made the connecting rod that coordinates the diverter valve butterfly position with throttle and heat valves on the riser. The original heat tube set screws for both riser and diverter are square head. I can buy the 1/4-20 set screws for the heat riser casting- I have a bag of 100. The diverter valve casting is another story. The set screws for it are also square head but not 1/4-20, not #10-24, you can buy those, try finding #12-24 to fit the original threads in the casting! I spent a couple of hours center drilling and tapping 1/4" square rod to fabricate heads, then installed #12-24x3/4" Allen head set screws in the square heads and silver soldered the heads to the set screws. Such a simple thing... Do you think I'm getting a little too involved here? I'm just sayin...

I hadn't really studied a UMS parts book but looking at the advance vs engine RPM of the 50 series vs 60/80/90 the basic difference appears to be how much centrifugal advance is allowed. That variable is likely controlled by the diameter or placement of the hole the advance limit pin travels in. if the weights and springs are identical and 60/80/90 allows more centrifugal advance the diameter of the advance limit pin hole for 60/80/90 would likely be larger than 50 series. 1931 660E parts Rotor assembly with weights and springs. Shims are used to limit end-play of the rotor in the housing which, if excessive, alters intended advance total. Gear has 15 teeth. Hole size in the main rotor shaft plate controls how much total advance the centrifugal advance can produce. 60/80/90 cars with the 660E are supposed to see 34 degrees total at 3,000 rpm. The 60 series initial timing is 11 degrees so the centrifugal advance needs to provide 23 degrees of advance at 3,000 rpm. I would expect to see a smaller advance limit hole for 31 50 series which calls for only 21 degrees max advance at 1600 rpm. With 12 degrees initial flywheel advance setting the centrifugal advance mechanism only puts in another 9 degrees at 1600 rpm.

Another thing that will really drag down starting in cold weather is too heavy oil. I'm guilty of that arrangement but I don't try to start my car in cold weather anyway, it gets stored as soon as temps start to drop in the fall. It has hard enough time in the summer with 15w40 in it's belly. I'm eventually going to go to 10w30 or 10w40 oil. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

So when the first of 3 1931 Buicks, an 8-86 coupe, came into my life in 1959 it showed up with a braze patch next to #6, aluminum pistons with rings sitting on top on cylinders 6, 8 and a terminally cracked cylinder head. My older brother was the keeper of that car at the time and after learning of the cracked head and my dad coming home from Ford with 8 new pistons for the car my brother paid for a teletype search that turned up an 80/90 series chassis with engine in Spring Lake, MI, not far from Hickory Corners where the Red Barn car museum is today. He loaded his Kennedy toolbox and me into his 1962 Austin Healy Sprite and off we went. When we got there we were issued a 53 Plymouth yard car, the yard owner saw the roller skate wheels on the Sprite and decided to save a trip to where the Buick was with a tow truck to rescue a stuck shportz kar. After getting our hands good and dirty removing the head and miscellaneous items from the Buick we took said yard car for a short jaunt around the old car section of the yard and it was amazing, it had a ton of cars from the mid 30's to early 50's with the odd 1920's car. There were old bus bodies with engines, transmissions, axles, lights, gas tanks, radiators and on and on. Many years later when I became keeper of the first Buick I tore the car all apart hoping to do a pretty good restoration. I discovered the car was missing some parts and needed replacement of some parts. I drove out to that old Spring Lake yard and it had been totally bulldozed, no old cars, no busses full of parts, just late model stuff to be crushed and sold for scrap.

You might try L&L Antique and Custom Auto Trim. They make all the running board moldings and say they will custom make other stuff... (20+) L&L Antique and Custom Auto Trim | Facebook

I noticed that guy running the band saw was cutting a lot faster than I do...

So as far as vendors go I am working with Mac's/Eckler's, Kovi and The Fabric Co St. Louis for samples only, I'm not sure what I will get. SMS is supposed to be the best but I had a go-round with them and my trim shop guy has had issues as well so I'm a little shy about going there. Your seat back frame and springs look quite similar to mine. Amen to the slanted top, my springs are tied to give that angle and when the cushions go to the trim shop I will make sure my trim guy knows there are certain boundaries he can't cross if the cushions are going to work. I'm surprised the Olds rumble has cloth instead of either leather , vinyl or Naugahyde, rumble compartments are notoriously wet places for seat trim to live in.

One of the reasons I have enough money to not have to work anymore this year is because I retired. The ratio of money on hand to money needed went up exponentially after I quit sitting in rush hour traffic chasing my tail every day...

Epifanes is the best of the best marine varnish and Jamestown Distributors is a good place to read about and buy the appropriate product. I used it in restoration of my 1965 Chris Craft and it was fabulous... Epifanes Clear High-Gloss Marine Varnish (jamestowndistributors.com)

I also did this with an old Craftsman deep socket. I have a stamped steel tube wrench in my tool kit that fits without dragging on the sides of the spark plug tunnels which the Craftsman socket always did. The tube wrench has thinner walls which are not nearly as strong as the drop-forged Craftsman socket and if you abused it you could break the tube wrench. But if you are starting to threaten the integrity of the tube wrench you are tightening your plugs way too tight. I would want to be very careful and kind to the spark plug tunnels, tearing one loose may require getting acquainted with cylinder head removal to repair. This is a tool kit I made up for my car and store under the seat in a tool bag copied from an original Buick design. This was a snowmobile tool kit item which was just thousandths of an inch too small to fit the Buick's spark plugs. I force-fit an old plug and mad a mandrel from an old bolt. The tube wrench fits plugs just snug enough to keep them from falling out of the socket which is handy for r&r.

This is kind of what I concluded from just monkeying around tying springs with zip-ties. I have mine tied to give about 1" clearance from bottom of seat back spring to back of seat base spring un-covered, no upholstery. I figured there could be just enough padding under the seat cover in that area to close the gap between the 2 spring sets. My big fight for now is my upholsterer is working on the interior seat which was originally covered in real mohair and will likely be covered with 100% polyester plush velvet faux mohair. I gave him some material I got with the car that matches the rest of the interior trim and he says I'm about 2yrds short of a happy meal. This stuff is hard to find if it has to match. I've got a bunch of samples coming from various vendors. If I can find some that is close I will order 6 yards so the whole seat and frame can be covered in one material with a little left over...

Have you opened the drain cock on the radiator or removed the radiator cap and looked to see if the cooling system has coolant in it? If yes and it has anti-freeze in it it may be ok...

They used 2 different model distributors in 1931 as well, 660L for 50 series with set flywheel timing of 12 degrees BTDC had cut-in rpm of 400-480 and provided 10-14 degrees crankshaft advance at 800 rpm and 17-21 max crankshaft advance at 1600 rpm. The 60/80/90 series cars used model 660E with set flywheel timing of 11 degrees BTDC for 60 series and 10 degrees BTDC for 80/90 series had cut-in rpm of 400-480 and gave 10-14 crankshaft degree timing advance at 800 rpm, 19-23 crankshaft degree timing advance at 1800 rpm and 30-34 crankshaft degree timing max at 3000 rpm. Short story is the 2 distributors are curved and limited differently. I would assume same case scenario for 1932 distributors.

I did apply so we will see what happens. I'm interested in the venturi blocks and any tuning info you posted there and have a friend whose Marvel venturi blocks are a mess and he is considering casting them in some high quality aluminum alloy. Enjoy the rest of your holiday... Dave

Hi Hugh; Is the "create password" link automated or do you have to approve application for membership to your group? Numerous attempts to get a login link sent to my e-mail address have not resulted in receipt of a link. Thanks. Dave

I'll eat some crow on this one, I thought they really were 2 different companies.... Live and learn I guess...

No you didn't- you had Trippe lights on your car. Trippe Lights and Tripp Lite are 2 entirely different companies, the former making automotive lighting equipment, the latter making industrial electronic equipment. I'm sure the poor lady that answered the phone didn't know Trip Lite made automotive lights because they didn't.

Hi Hugh and thanks for your reply. The seat springs you see in my pictures are reproductions and modified ones at that, they are intended for the rumble seat compartment of a Chevrolet rumble coupe, my car is a Buick and the width of the compartment is a bit narrower. While your info is good for the front seat the questions I had that are now resolved are for the rumble seat, not the interior seats. Spacing for the rumble seat base cushion to the back cushion is different because they cannot be allowed to drag on each other as the rumble lid is opened and closed. I got this all straightened out by working with Dave Dunton in Georgia who has and identical 31 Buick 8-66S rumble seat coupe that had original seating in amazingly good condition to use for an example. His rumble seat back is removable from the rumble lid and so is mine and there is a gap between the top rear of the base seat and bottom of the back cushion. There has to be clearance there and there has to be clearance from the face of the base seat to face of the back cushion when you close the rumble lid or it won't close. Thanks. Dave

I'm looking for someone who has a burned out or broken heat riser from a 1931 or 1932 Buick 60 series that I can harvest component linkage parts from. Specifically, I need the cam link and throttle shaft assembly, the large screw and tension spring, the bearing ball that hides under the brass detent plate and the cam and free link from the warmup throttle lever at the other end of the throttle shaft. If you have a burned out or broken heat riser look first at the casting number, the ideal candidate is casting number 146-106. That is, however, not the only casting used on 31/31 60 series cars that have these parts. I can help with other information to verify linkage parts fit. If your riser has the parts shown in the pictures and are willing to sell them, please message me or e-mail dkrugler@msn.com Thanks. This is a 1931 60 series riser casting #146-106. If you have one of these with this casting number that is burned out or broken but still has the linkage parts shown in the next pictures and are willing to sell either the entire assembly or just the linkage parts please contact me via PM or e-mail. The linkage parts in casting 146-106 will definitely work but if you have a different number casting that looks like this one there are other ways to check compatibility, please contact me for details. The next 2 pictures show the cam link and throttle shaft assembly both removed from the heat riser and assembled. I also need the big screw, the spring under the screw and the bearing ball under the brass detent plate identified by the arrows. The next 2 pictures show the warmup throttle cam and free link that are operated by the throttle lever on the steering wheel hub.