Str8-8-Dave

That's why Brits drink warm beer- Lucas makes the refrigerators. They tried branching off into the clock business one time too, ever hear of Stonehenge?

Hello to all; This is a quick update of my chrome plating progress. I sent all the small parts to Graves Plating in Alabama with whom I have had good luck before. Some stuff was already plated, notably the radiator shell and headlight buckets so I got a pass on those, that was the way I bought the car. Additionally I bought a set of already plated rear bumpers for the car on E-bay. The last big item I had was the 2 front bumper bars. I decided I wanted to take those to a local plater, if I could find one, to avoid shipping them. Larry Schramm suggested Selfridge Plating as I guess he had them do some parts for him. They told me they were commercial only by the time I called them but suggested Fini Finish in Warren, MI. Just as I was ready to take my front bumper bars into their shop I discovered a weld repair on one of the bumper bars that was poorly finished. I spent a couple of hours on the weld on both sides of the bumper bar, then took them to Fini Finish. The owner spotted the repair on the bumper and said he thought it needed some more work to avoid having it affect the quality of the plating job. He agreed to take them but would not estimate the plating until he could have the bars blasted and inspected. A few days later he called with the estimate and I gave him a down payment. 6 weeks later he called and informed me the unrepaired bar was plated and ready to go but the repair on the other bar turned out to be a stainless steel weld which chrome would not adhere to. I told him bumper bars were not that easy to come by for the car and he agreed to send the bar to a local welder to grind out part of the stainless, them fill weld with steel rod. I took the bars to him in December and decided to check on them last Friday. Tuesday the owner called and said the weld repair was successful and bar was going thru the copper plating/polishing step. Yesterday he called and said they were ready. I went and picked them up and didn't even look at them yesterday, we have a major construction job going on in the house and sleep is kind of hard to come by. Today I got to catch up a bit on the sleep and headed for the garage. I think they look pretty snazzy... Dave These are the front bumper bars. Someone went to the trouble of painting them silver... This is the weld defect. It turns out whoever welded it used stainless rod to which chrome won't bond. I ground some of the stainless weld off before taking these in to Fini Finish. They were not impressed... These are reproduction bumper guards from Bob's Automobilia. They went to Graves Plating for chrome. The bumpers and newly plated repro guards went together nicely. I had to fabricate backing plate for the center guard.

So- Edinmass, my hand tools for changing tires pale in comparison to yours, a couple of big Stanley screwdrivers, a steel drift and ball peen hammer to open and close the split rim locks, a couple of Pony furniture clamps to pull the split rim back into alignment for reengaging the locks, some talcum powder to seat tubes and some soap and water and a sponge to slick up the bead of the tire to help it on. Oh- these are 31 Buick 60 series split rims by the way. I had to take them all apart to send out for powder coating recently, then reinstalled the new Coker repro BF Goodrich 600-19 blackwall tires that came with the car plus a matching tire for the spare, along with new heavy duty tubes. I had lots of experience over the years with motorcycle tire mounting, finally bought a No Mar tire machine for those (which is useless for split rims), but never tried a car split rim until this adventure. When these rims are unlocked they pop into an overlapping condition dictated by the shape the rims were made in. Getting bopped right in the nose and losing copious amounts of blood all over my white work quilt taught me that it is better to work the tire onto the rim from the outside part of the overlap to the inside. I also discovered if the ends of the rim have been filed or mis-shapen in any way they are a bear to align to reengage the rim lock, wife said I invented a couple of phrases she had never heard before trying to close the deal with one of the rims. In earlier experiments with trying to pry on the ends of the split rims back into alignments with a couple of Craftsman medium size screwdrivers I asked a little more of them than they could handle so the guy at Ace Hardware had to replace them under warranty. He didn't ask how I broke the blades and i didn't offer either....

If you are going to get into this car you need a copy of the 1931 Fisher Body manual for closed cars. Here is a link to a reproduction manual carried by Buick Heritage Alliance. This manual will show rear window mounting details, describes how headliners are installed, how to shim the body on the frame to get doors to close correctly and a treasure trove of other body related info. I own a copy of this book and another copy from AutoLit. The BHA book is good but some illustrations are too dark to give good detail. The one I got from AutoLit has much clearer illustrations and includes a 1932 appendix. Unfortunately the owner of AutoLit closed his business in 2019 due to health issues but still maintains a website and suggests if you are looking for a specific piece of literature you use their contact form and if they have it and are able they will respond. BHA link to manual... Buick Fisher Body Manual 1931 | Buick Heritage Alliance AutoLit contact form AutoLit Store

I believe the inside control may be a Buick item but I'm not certain of that. Black blades here https://www.snydersantiqueauto.com/ProductDetail/A-17528-D?fromCategory=Products/model-a/windshield-wiper Black arms here https://www.snydersantiqueauto.com/ProductDetail/A-17530-B_WIPER-ARM-6-3-4-BLACK-30-31?fromCategory=ProductDetail/A-17528-D

Here is a hard to find piece if you don't have it. This bracket mounts the wiper motor to the exterior sheet metal above the windshield. It is a correct Trico piece. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Trico-Wiper-Motor-Mount-Bracket-1931-Chevy-Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac-Chevrolet/154349199664?hash=item23efede130:g:l1IAAOSwj4FgOoxe The other part you are looking for is this control that mounts inside the car with the on-off switch hanging down from it. I hope you have this part, if not you will probably want to start looking for it. Here are a couple of wiper system drawings with parts I made. The right hand mount consists of a hand fabricated 12 gauge steel sheetmetal bracket made from the drawing combined with parts cannibalized and modified from a Mac's tandem wiper system that is available, the pivot post I cannibalized is shown in their photo. https://www.macsautoparts.com/model-a-ford-vacuum-windshield-wiper-tandem-assembly-kit-fair-quality-foreign-made-use-with-inside-mount-wipers-28-16725-1.html The 2 wiper arms in the second picture are reproduction Trico parts from the Snyder's Model A catalog wiper parts with u-shaped sheet metal brackets silver soldered to the Trico pieces to attach the cross car tandem rod. Blades and other arm parts are from Snyder's. I won't get involved in making any of this stuff but am around if you need suggestions. Motor on the Trico bracket Right hand wiper pivot Inside the car, note the wiper switch hanging down from the header below the windshield regulator Outside view of completed system.

To reiterate what carbking said-- DO NOT BEND THE FLOAT ARM-- it is a brass or bronze casting and it will break. Thickness of seat washer is a safe bet. If like other later Marvel carburetors and it has a standing tube idle nozzle the float level should be adjusted to keep fuel level about 1/16" below top of the idle nozzle tube.

Stay tuned- not done yet. Thanks for your kind words...

Yeah- my dad was a manager at Ford Custom Vehicle in the old triple E building when the first reports came in of Econoline vans falling forward off car hoists besides the braking issue. They actually built a few with 1 gallon paint cans filled with cement to place behind the quarter panels under the load floor. I suspect some heads rolled over the matter but my dad thought is was quite humorous...

Good stuff- glad it is working out..

1931... This metal plate with insulator ring fits mounts to the toe board and surrounds the gear shift housing. The base of the accelerator pedal is pinned to the bracket ears in the red circle. Here it is in the car. If you look closely in this picture you can see the accelerator linnkage end collar. A second thru pin connects the top of the pedal to the linkage end collar the arrow points to. Here is the pedal in the car.

So just about this time of year in about 1975 or so I went on a company cold weather test trip in which we traveled from Dearborn, MI to Bemidgee, MN over the course of 2 days in the damndest English Transit vans, all 2 rear wheel drive, all automatic trans, one 2.3L gas, one 2.2L indirect injected diesel, one 2.0L direct injected diesel. The testing was to evaluate severe cold weather defroster performance. Somewhere west of Marquette, MI on M-28 which was 4 lane undivided highway, on a very cold snowy morning, the Ford of England manager who had traveled to the US to participate in the trip from Trafford House in jolly old England, had an unfortunate experience with the direct injected diesel van. You see, the accelerator pedal was a mis-nomer, it was an ON/OFF switch that basically either put the engine to sleep idling or was WFO (F not for family hour consumption). On that slippery section of 28 he touched the throttle on a slippery spot, then made about 5 donut circles from the right lane of westbound 28 across 4 lanes to the ditch next to the right eastbound lane of 28 where it stopped on about a 35 degree angle. We were all young kids then so we alternated between having a free-for-all snowball fight to digging that stupid red van out of the ditch. The good manager's pants were so full of tripe he could not drive more than 10 mph after that little performance so the US trip leader had to take over the driving so we could get to breakfast and then on to Bemidgee. Testing consisted of parking the 3 vans side by side facing into a 30mph west wind just outside the fence at the Bemidgee airstrip and installing some thermocouples to monitor ambient air temp, cowl inlet temp, engine water temp, breath level temps, floor level temps and discharge air temps at the floor and defroster ducts. About 6 AM a mechanic carefully cleaned the windshield then using a Binks spray gun put a uniform 0.050" film of ice on the windshields. A piece of mylar film was attached to the inside of the windshield so every 5 minutes the open areas of the windshield could be traced with a magic marker(the defroster pattern). The engines were not run overnight until the test started at 7 AM. the drill was get in the van, shut the doors and sit tight for 10 minutes with 4 guys to a car sitting in 2 front bucket seats and 2 second row bucket seats. They then recorded a comfort rating from 1 to 10 where 1 was roughly equal to "I'm freezing my butt off" to 10- "Gee this is just like Palm Springs in the summertime". Everybody was a 0 for the first reading, it was 30below zero outside. Then the vans were all started and idled in max warm defrost mode high blower and comfort readings were taken every 5 minutes and cleared areas of the windshields were outlined with the marking pens. So the test ran for 30 minutes with the gasoline doing best with probably 75% clear windshield and comfort level of 8 at the end of the test, 2.2L IDI second best and the loser of the day- the direct injected diesel which narvel-narvel-narvelled so loudly everyone had hearing damage at the end of 30 minutes and it achieved a comfort rating of somewhere between 3 and 4. the windshield pattern was accurately described by the good manager from Trafford House as "2 pissholes in the snow". As the junior member of the trip representing the HVAC lab I got the job of driving the 2.0L direct injected corn popper back to Dearborn and I wore a set of Mickey Mouse ears all the way. Fortunately there was a warm spell as soon as we got south of the Mackinac Bridge so I didn't freeze to death but like Olds 83 said- it does get cold in MN in February.

I have a daughter in Austin TX and have spent time on the phone trying to keep her and her house safe. They have zero degree weather, snow, high winds in houses designed for hot weather. Example- they have neither freeze-proof outdoor faucets or a shutoff valve inside the house. If the local hardware store or Home Depot had heat tapes she couldn't go there because she says the roads are impassable and the city of Austin doesn't own a snow plow. Many parts of TX have rolling power outages due to the high loads imposed by weather conditions which she is escaping because she is on a section of grid that services the local fire station. She has friends with young kids who haven't had power in 36hrs...

frightful! We were led to believe we might get 7-9" in Port Huron. We actually live 5-6miles west of the St. Clair River/Lake Huron shoreline but I'm gonna guess we might have gotten a bit more than that. I've been working on my 31 Buick coupe for a while now, it came to our house in April of 2018 and went on jack stands almost immediately thereafter. I thought about letting the old gal down and taking her out for a test drive today but, umm, maybe I will wait a bit...

If it's the rear seat trim panel, IE. the brown board, thin cotton polyester blend batting material might be the ticket. I assume the brown board had either leatherette or mohair fabric upholstery covering? If yes typical construction would be panel board substrate, layer of the thin batting and appropriate upholstery material over that. I'm doing door panels on my 31 Buick coupe right now and they are tan water resistant panel board with cotton or poly batting, then mohair over the top of that. The fisher Body manual refers to the batting as "blue Lennox wadding" and states the door panels are cardboard with nail strips placed such that nails are 2" apart with a layer of blue Lennox Wadding over the top followed by upholstery material, 1 inch of which is cemented with rubber contact cement, then stretched over the nails on the backside of the panel and pressed firmly into place. I would guess the brown cardboard still nailed in place should be carefully removed and used as a tracing template over commonly available tan panel board onto which you can assemble the padding of your choice, upholstery material, hidem edge nails, contact cemented to the back side edges of the panel board. I would also caution that what is in the car right now, specifically the tan cardboard, is probably not original to the car. It has lots of tacks in it that look like they were installed by someone who didn't do it for a living so to speak.

Are you trying to insulate the floors or seal them? If sealing that sounds like wood sealer, paint or even tar paper. If insulate you can buy a modern version of jute underlayment. Shown top of first picture, original jute mat on an original 1931 Buick firewall insulator assembly Modern jute like that shown here is available in numerous thicknesses

Indeed since I made my post with the web address in 2019 the website has gone dark. I probably should have bought a Mercury Man mascot for my 31 buick while they were still around.

Hello to all- Having gotten the shift lever and handbrake assemblies re-plated allowed me to install those items on the car permanently, install floorboards permanently and install the front floor mat and accelerator pedal. In the next couple of months I hope to have door panels in place, get my front seat upholstered and installed and get the new muffler and tail pipe installed. At that point I would have a drive able car. But one step at a time. after I got looking at the floor boards I had for the car, the Fisher Body Manual guidance on front toe boards and floor boards I learned there was a little pre-work to do to make the toe boards complete and serviceable and be able to attach the toe and floor boards together and screw them down in the car. Once again I am very fortunate to have gotten most of the parts for this car from the previous owner, often in pieces, but pretty much all there. That was the case with the floor boards. There is a somewhat complex sheet metal and felt insulation that makes up the accelerator pedal floor bracket, some steel surrounds and a felt pad for the clutch and brake pedal stems to pass thru, some brackets that attach the floor board to the toe board near the gear shift and hand brake levers and a rubber seal that surrounds the starter pedal. Better than knowing that all this stuff is required is having in present in some repairable form. The pictures below will take you through installation of the floor and toe boards followed by the finishing floor mat. Dave This first picture is of the combination accelerator pedal bracket and center floor insulator disassembled and sitting on top of the toe board.. I took the assembly apart to copy and replace a fabric dust boot that slides down over the hand brake lever to provide some protection for the ratchet pawl at the bottom of the hand brake. I think the idea was to cover the pawl to keep dirt and gravel out of the teeth of the ratchet and pawl teeth. The dust boot was in bad shape and I had to remove about 10 split rivets to separate 2 sheet metal plates and get the felt insulation pad out of the assembly the dust boot is sewn to. The u-shaped piece above the old boot in the second picture is a tired rubber starter pedal surround. I used it as a template to fashion a new surround from 1/8" black neoprene. This is the insulator pad with the dust boot removed. The old starter pedal surround upper left was still attached to the toe board in this picture A new boot was fabricated from some upholstery scrap and sewn to the felt pad. These are pictures of the accelerator pedal bracket and insulator reassembled with the new dust boot installed. Here are pictures of the toe board in place. Note the new starter pedal surround and the clutch and brake pedal stem insulator held in place by 2 identical steel plates, one below the toe board and one above the toe board. In this picture the toe and floor boards are both installed along with the accelerator pedal bracket and insulator assembly toe board fastened with 1/4"-20 machine screws, floor board attached to body wood with #10 x 1-1/4" wood screws, accelerator pedal bracket fastened with a combination of wood and machine screws. A layer of jute pad insulation is then installed to cover the toe and floor boards before the front mat goes in. Finally the floor mat was trimmed and installed along with the accelerator pedal.

Continued from previous post- this post will be updated when the front bumper bars come back from plating and are installed on the car. The interior parts included the ash tray assembly... The shift lever and dust seal bell before and after. The shift lever had to be separated from the transmission housing. This required compressing the heavy spring, then removing a keeper pin that retains a stamped cup washer. I wound up making a tool from a socket and putting the lever in my drill press vise clamped between a couple pieces of wood and using the drill press quill to compress the spring. While the lever was gone I cleaned and painted the housing and made a new gasket to seal it to the top of the transmission case. The last and most complicated part was the handbrake assembly which consists of the main handle, a ratchet pawl linkage rod, the release handle, a trunnion nut that attaches the pawl rod to the release handle, 2 machine screws, nuts and lock washers that attach the release handle to the main handle and the link rod to the release handle, leaf spring that sits under the release handle and pawl rod trunnion nut to prevent side slop, a spring/washer/cotter pin setup at the bottom of the assembly to tension the pawl causing it to lock the handle position when the release lever is let go and the pawl, pivot screw and another cotter pin that attaches the release link rod to the pawl and a grease fitting. The only parts of this assembly that are not plated are the 2 springs, 2 cotter pins, 2 lock washers, spring washer, the pawl, pawl pivot screw and the grease fitting. I spent about 2 hours veeerrry carefully reassembling the handbrake assembly to avoid scratching it. The plated crank hole cover and reassembled hood latch parts are also pictured.

Graves plating pictures continued... Hood latch parts before and after Buick screw on hubcaps before and after Rear bumper trims before and after- I'm particularly happy with these trims. They were a couple of ugly parts when I got them from Roger Fields. I was happy to get them in any condition as they just don't exist. Repairs I did included de-rusting, straightening, grinding off original attaching screw brackets, making reproductions of the brackets and spot welding bracket and screw parts in assembly to the trims. Graves Plating sent the parts out again for more metal finishing, then plated the trims. The rumble steps are parts not previously installed on the car. The bottom step cast in bronze carries the Buick logo on the underside. The upper step is a cast aluminum reproduction. These steps and the original bumper support mounting bracket came from Roger Fields. I cut a 1/8" thick pad from black neoprene to put between the fender and the step which hopefully will provided some protection for the paint and keep the elements out from under the step casting. Continued next post

Hello to all... One of the objectives I set last summer was to get most, if not all of the chrome plating done on my car during winter and spring of 2021. Indeed most of what I planned to get done is done, some items back on the car, others on the car for the first time and a couple of stragglers that have been plated but sit on the shelf waiting for other projects to be completed. One of the significant items in the waiting for other projects category is the passenger door ashtray which awaits the availability of door panels. I decided I will try to make the door panels since to do otherwise means the car would have to go a few hundred miles away to the trim shop that I will give the seat upholstery to. I'm currently waiting for 3/8" windlace to show up that goes around the perimeter of the doors, and some cotton pad to go under the mohair plush velour upholstery material. I have acquired the rest of the material and have already cut the door panel trim board substrates. The other items waiting for other project completion are the 3 front bumper guards. I sent the bumper guards, ashtray parts and a host of other small items to Graves Plating in Alabama. I didn't want to ship the front bumper bars so those were given to Fini Finish, a local plater, to work on. The front bumper has 2 chrome bars and one of them had been repaired. It turns out the repair welding was done with stainless steel rod and the stainless will not accept chrome plating. Fini Finish sent that bar out to a welding shop to see if they can re-weld the bar with plain steel rod. The 2 items for the interior of the car were the shift lever and hand brake lever. I had to get those items plated and back on the car before I could install the front floor boards and the front rubber floor mat. Graves Plating got a box from me in early December containing the following items: 2 Buick screw on hubcaps, Wing 8 radiator cap, crank hole cover, 4 each hooks and spring rods from the hood latches, 3 front bumper guards, 2 rumble seat steps, 2 rear bumper trim caps, shift lever and dust bell, hand brake main lever, release handle, link rod, rod nut, release handle screws and nuts, and the 2pc ash tray assembly. The pictures below show the newly plated parts that are installed on the car. The quantity and size of the picture files may require a couple of continuation posts. Dave The front bumper bars are still out for plating pending re-weld of the circled area originally welded with stainless rod. The stainless will not accept chrome plating. Before and after pictures of the original Ternstedt Buick winged 8 radiator cap Before and after pictures of the crank hole cover Continued- next post...

Second socket is likely a glove box light. It may be switched by a separate switch on the glove box door that makes the ground circuit for the mystery light which answers why the mystery light is wired directly to the feed wire.

Sounds like a matter of taste to me. Is the original clock a manually wound 8-day mechanical clock or is it an electrically wound clock? The method of setting the hands or lack of a way to wind it would indicate electrically wound. If it is electrically wound does it have power and a good ground circuit? Sometimes the electric clocks will surprise you by beginning to run if defects in the power and ground circuits are corrected. Who made it? Does it have wires coming out of the case of it? That would be another indication it is electric. If it is a manually wound clock and not rusted to death a clockmaker or a good instrument repair shop like Bob's Speedometer may be the remedy. I'm restoring a 1931 Buick 8-86S coupe and I'm a clock nut as well so I decided since my car was never sold with a clock I would add a Waltham 8-day clock to the passenger side windshield regulator board.

So some have suggested i not use faux mohair at all because real mohair is still available. The problem with that theory is this car's upholstery is complete except for the door panels and the seat. I have a large enough piece of the material the rest of the interior was done in to support upholstering the seat but I doubt there is enough to do the door panels as well so I will not cut the last large piece of material, it's going to a local upholsterer, Matthew Larder, with the seat. In the meantime I took the most unlikely approach to finding some material for the door panels and bought a yard of JB Nevada Cafe plush velour mohair from Etsy of all places. It was $86 for a running yard and it came in the mail and it is a very generous yard. It is not a perfect color match but is very close, particularly if turned in a direction so the nap direction matches. Additionally I bought a couple of yards of white polyester batting to use for pad under the material, white thread from Superior Threads, a 15yd roll of 3/8" antique Taupe windlace from Rex Pegg Fabrics and 50 door panel nail tabs from CARS. The doors measured 8yds and the next smaller quantity of windlace was a 7yd roll. I will use the covering from some of the surplus windlace to make a new Randall molding for the top of the seat back and some of it will be used as trim to make a pocket for the passenger door panel. I have the original passenger door trim including the wire frame the pocket is sewn over which determines the shape of the pocket. I will use the Fisher Body manual method to construct and install the door pocket on the passenger door panel. That Juki sewing machine languishing in my basement will get some business when I sew the pattern stitch on the door panels and attach the pocket. The original interior of the 31 8-66 had a pocket on the passenger door only which makes me wonder if they did that to discourage texting while driving??? Probably not... The first 2 pictures are of a swatch of the original upholstery material laid over the new piece of JB Nevada material I bought for the door panels. It is not a perfect color match but depending on which direction you orient the new material in relation to the old, the nap tends to hide the color difference. The Nelson material (top roll) has a different backing that the material that came with the car. As time goes by I'm more pleased with my decision to buy a commercial sewing machine and dabble in sewing my own trim projects.

Look- I found a nice definition of manuel brakes....