Str8-8-Dave

Terry- you can buy 50/50 OR you can buy what I bought which is PURE STRAIGHT ZEREX ETHYLENE GLYCOL, NOT 50/50. In this case 50/50 is achieved by mixing equal parts CONCENTRATE with water and erring on the safe side I'm using distilled water. It's alot cheaper to buy the concentrate and mix it yourself. The 50/50 stuff is priced nearly as much as the straight stuff.

I wound up buying 2 gallons of Zerex Green Original Formula concentrate, meaning I will add 2 gallons of distilled water to make up the just under 4 gallon refill. I'm gonna remove the old coolant and run the car with petcock open and garden hose nozzle adjusted to keep the radiator full to flush out any crud, the fill er up with the Zerex.

Mark- FYI- the domain for this shock site is expired with no forwarding

Definitely do your adjusting on low beam. On low beam you have to keep the oncoming traffic happy. On high beam there should be no opposing traffic so the only driver you have to please is- well- you...

Part of the reason for the disappointing performance may be the original aiming procedure was written for the old Mazda low candle power lamps aimed the lamps low enough to get a bulb with low performance to usefully illuminate the road over a short range because that range is limited by the power of the bulbs. Those low power bulbs had a very short range. If you aimed them like we do with a contemporary bulb they would not have lit the road sufficiently in front of the car to have been worth running. Aiming the lamps high enough to extend the range would quickly eliminate visible road definition, would be like trying to shine a flashlight at the moon, the darkness just gobbles up the light and you wouldn't know the flashlight was even turned on. If I understand the new lights you installed they are modern bulbs, reflectors and lenses. If that is the case you have a best case scenario, higher power bulb in a matching reflector with a modern lens that all work together to optimize the range and reduce scatter. If you have just replaced the bulbs with high powered units the original reflectors and lenses are probably holding you back. You might do well to find a piece of flat pavement with lane lines on it somewhere like a long straight driveway for a closed business and take your car and another car out there, space them 300 feet apart and and facing each other, then adjust the aim of your low beams up until they just start to get annoying for the driver in the other car. The next test would be to see if the high beams still improve the useful range of the headlight or are they now aimed too high? If you think they are aimed too high try adjusting the headlight aim down a bit and see if you can find a compromise azimuth adjustment for the high and low beams. Its going to be process of trial and error to get the best out of the new bulbs.

What brand and model? My 31 Buick uses a Klaxon 18C and there are good setup and adjustment directions in the 31 specifications and adjustments manual. No resistance or capacitor values were given. My horn had been taken apart so the housings and bell could be painted and whoever put it back together had no idea of how to set it up so it didn't work when I got it. The critical adjustments were armature clearance adjustments an a current draw test. Rest of it was audible adjustment of the stationary point.

So here is an automotive adventure that never left the garage... Over the course of 50yrs I have owned 3 1931 Buicks, an 8-86 coupe, an 8-57 sedan and finally, my current obsession, an 8-66S special coupe. But the first of these cars came into my life before I started counting the 50yrs of actual ownership. When I was 12 my dad was driving home from work one day when he spotted the 8-86 coupe I would own years later on a watermelon farm with a for sale sign on it. My brother Al (RIP) was 19 and graduated high school with honors and was accepted at Purdue University where he would get an electrical engineering degree. My dad, knowing the story of Buick and the OHV straight 8 was fascinated by the car and thought it would be fun for him and son Al to play with, so a few days after, the car came rumbling into our driveway and eventually into the garage. That was summer of 1962. Fast forward to November of 62, Al was at Purdue, my older sister was at Western Michigan and I was home, bored, on an evening when my parents went out somewhere without me and my younger sister. My younger sister went to grandma's and I was at home so my mother got one of my brother's high school buddies to come baby sit- er- watch me. My brother was a ham radio operator, K8DDX, and his high school buddy, Ralph Bugg was also a ham K8HSQ. So I waited for my opportunity to escape Ralph's oversight and it occurred when Ralph became engaged in a QSO (conversation) with another ham. I dug around my dad's dresser drawer and found the carton of Salem filters and helped myself to a pack along with one of his Zippo lighters and off I went to the garage to sit in the Buick and smoke! I was multi tasking, playing with the throttle and headlight switches on the Buick while enjoying my cigarette and not aware I had been joined by the family cat. Claudia was a white Parks Persian long haired cat and unbeknowst to me had hopped up on the driver side running board. About that time I was bored with the steering wheel switch gear and was looking for something else to play with. I spotted the kick pedal for the driver side cowl vent. Now these vents have a powerful over center spring arrangement so when you open it it opens with a pop and stays put. this one was missing the foam vent door gasket so when the pedal was pushed forward it would snap shut with a bang, a feature I was well familiar with having played with it before. It happened the vent was left open when I entered the car so the first move was to flip it closed which I ... unfortunately..... for Claudia...... did! There was a scream and a commotion on the running board of that car as I had closed the vent just as Claudia's tail was fully in the vent opening and when the vent snapped shut the screaming started along with the claws trying to get traction to free her tail. I swung the driver door open and discovered the cat, still stuck in the vent door and reached into the car and pulled the vent door pedal releasing the cat. That brought the smoking hour to a hasty close. Later, poor Claudia got Ralph's attention as her tail, bloodied, crooked and broken in 2 places, dragged across the radio shack floor. Ralph didn't know what happened to the cat until years later but didn't want to be blamed for Claudia's injury either. He found a piece of stiff copper wire and spiral wound the cat's tail in a makeshift splint and fluffed her fur to hide the wire. That worked pretty well except now the cat's tail went on a curios angle from her rear quarters to the floor, very straight, and you could hear the wire dragging on the floor. A few hours later my mother returned home and greeted Ralph in the kitchen and paid him for his baby sitting services and he left for home. Then Claudia appeared and rubbed against my mother's leg and she felt something metallic... My mother got to the bottom of my adventure long before Ralph did... Dave

So to recap- 55, 56- beautiful, 57- ok 58, uh oh, think the bean counters overloaded the styling studio, 59, 60- well better than 58, 61- for everyone, 62, 63, cool, 64- Let Hertz put you in the driver's seat...

An observation, then a funny Ford story... Observation- According to Ralph Nader the 57 could not have been the worst car because he announced the Corvair was. We all remember he wrote a book called Unsafe at Any Speed- wonder how much money he made on that turkey... Ford story- Someone posted about the Ford retractable convertibles. Ford always seemed to have edgy ideas about convertibles. My dad was a manager in Custom Vehicle Ops in the early 60's and one of his lease cars was a 64 T-bird convertible which I was totally mesmerized by- thought it was the coolest car I'd ever seen, but I was 14 then... Pressing the top down button on that car started the trunk panel opening, hinged at the rear bumper, then the top rolled back into the trunk, then a metal tonneau cover deployed from the decklid by which time you needed binoculars to see the top of the thing, then when it worked correctly it all settled down to cover the trunk and the convertible top compartment. If you opened the decklid and tonneau panel under a low bridge the car could become stuck. So my dad packed the trunk with our suitcases which meant the decklid opened but the top stayed up. My dad thought it was great fun to have to reach heavy suitcases over the tops of the rear fenders without denting or scratching anything. Once the car was packed up the happy family of 4 headed up to Jerry's Marina in East Tawas, MI for a relaxing vacation. We pulled up in front of the cottage just as it was starting to rain, opened the decklid, removed the luggage, then attempted to lower the decklid. Nothing happened. The decklid became a big Mercedes air brake sticking 6 feet up in the air. My dad and brother wound up driving the car 20 MPH for 10 miles to the nearest Ford dealer, Inglis Ford in Tawas City. Being a small town dealer they had never seen one of these cars in the service garage. My dad had to call the Thunderbird desk in the Ford experimental garage at Dearborn Research and Engineering Center to find someone who could troubleshoot the failure. It turns out under a cardboard trim inside the trunk across the valance panel lived an army of Ford starter solenoids, 8 of em. The ex garage mechanic told the Inglis Ford garage mechanic which solenoid was the likely culprit. It got replaced and we all lived happily ever after...

Brian- thanks a ton for this information and your PM. I e-mailed Roger fields yesterday and he thinks he has a bumper support bar clamp. Dave Krugler BCA 20435 AACA 911041

Thanks Brian- I've bought parts from Roger Fields in Ohio. Are they related? Do you have contact info for John? I think he did David Landow's 90 roadster? Thanks. Dave

I'm ready to go to the powdercoating shop but have one bumper support bar clamp that is cracked and not a good candidate for repair. These clamps mounted on the ends of the frame to mount a support bar that then supports the bumper bars. If you have one of these from 1930 or 1931 that you would be willing to sell please PM me or email dkrugler@msn.com. Thanks. Dave

I'm ready to take some parts to the powder coating shop but I have one bumper support bar clamp that is cracked. If anyone has a good one of these they would sell please PM me or e-mail me a dkrugler@msn.com. These clamps are bolted to the front and rear ends of the frame to attach the flat bar that the chrome bumpers bolt to. Please see pictures attached.

I'm ready to take some parts to the powder coating shop but I have one bumper support bar clamp that is cracked. If anyone has a good one of these they would sell please PM me or e-mail me a dkrugler@msn.com. These clamps are bolted to the front and rear ends of the frame to attach the flat bar that the chrome bumpers bolt to. Please see pictures attached.

I get a ton of phishing attempts delivered to my junk mail every week. NEVER click a link in one of these e-mails or you may find someone in some remote country has taken control of your computer, can see your files or can track your userid's and passwords for the sites you visit like your online banking, Pay-Pal, etc and some can take away your control and sell it back to you for an exhorbitant blackmail sum you have to send via Bitcoin. I have Outlook e-mail and I can report phishing and block e-mails. Blocking e-mail often reveals an offshore e-mail account that would verify scams sent to look like legitimate bank or utility account requests to verify your signon information after clicking a link in the bogus e-mail. Even when I get a legitimate message from my bank, Pay-Pal or other web based service I NEVER RESPOND DIRECTLY VIA THE E-MAIL MESSAGE, go to your favorites and open the website and look to see if the message is on the legitimate website. This prevents a clever hacker from sending a message with the bank's or Pay-Pal logo to look like it is legit but if yo answer directly to the e-mail may not take you to the legitimate website for teh bank or service, it's just a site made to look like the legitimate site and once you supposedly sign into your account they've got you. If you are a Norton security software user sign up for Virtual Private Network (VPN) to prevent hackers from intercepting your private stuff right from your internet modem. Keep strong passwords in place consisting of upper and lower case alpha + numeric + special character strings, change your passwords from time to time or use a password generator software. If you are actually hacked, report it to local law enforcement internet fraud operations. Pay-Pal, the banks and other web services often have a spoof email like "spoof@paypal.com" you can forward suspect messages to so they can work with authorities to track down and prosecute hackers. The hackers are out there. With just a little caution and common sense you can outsmart them.

I'm wondering about the blue Loc-tite, I have some of that. If I remove the bolts and clean them thoroughly in lacquer thinner, then apply Loc-tite, I wonder if it is better to reassemble right away or should I let it cure, then install bolts? There will be oil residue on the block threads that will not be easy to clean off. I'm thinking if I let the stuff cure on the clean bolt threads first it will have adhered solidly to the bolt threads and be crushed into female threads in the cylinder block and seal. Nickel for your thoughts Matt...

I can testify to that. A kid that lived in my neighborhood worked in the Fisher Body Cadillac plant in 1974 and he had to have a blood test once a month to make sure he wasn't absorbing too much of the lead solder he was paddling onto Cadillac roof seams...

Hi Ken- The oil pan on this car is not cast but it is an unusually heavy stamping and the sealing flange is reinforced with 1/8" thick steel plate. There is no evidence of cupping or depression. You would likely strip threads off either the bolt or the block flange or break the head off the bolt before you deformed this baby.

So I'm leaning more toward a thread sealer of some kind. The threads of the bolts are exposed to crankcase oil and there isn't much room from the bolt holes on the reinforced flange of the oil pan and the vertical sidewalls of the pan. Bar-tite sealing washers are out because the OD of the washer would interfere with the vertical sidewall of the pan. It's either copper sealing washers which invite trouble if they loosen or thread sealer. Who has a recommendation for a good oil proof thread sealer?

Dat's very observatary uv yahs- Im glad yahs brought dat to my retention... And yahs can misquote me on dat...

We had an old guy working in the HVAC lab that always had a strange approach with cars. He was building a house on Grosse Ile in Michigan and he bought a 70 Falcon station wagon from me that I picked out at a Ford dealer many years before to get my mother and sister to Alaska and back in the days when the Alcan Highway was still 1300 miles of gravel. That car survived a lot and actually still looked pretty good. So the old guy decided he needed a roof rack on the Falcon to carry lumber so he had a helper hold a couple of 2 x 6's up on edge on the roof and he drove 16 penny spikes through headliner and roof sheet metal into the 2 x 6"s. Instant roof racks- very affordable too... He drove an old 75 Maverick back and forth to work in Dearborn that was green and had the typical rust out of the 1/4 panels behind the rear wheels. Then one day it showed up in the parking lot and the big holes where rust had claimed the quarters were gone and suddenly the car was a hideous yellow obviously painted with some surplus paint purloined from a road line painting crew. The texture of the paint job suggested it was rolled on. The old guy opened the trunk to show me his quarter panel repair. He used duct tape to re-form the lower quarters, then poured dry ready-mix in the tape pockets and "just added a little water" he bragged. A subsequent rear end collision tendered by an unsuspecting driver one icy day did a lot of unexpected damage to the car that rear ended him...

One area of my 31 Buick 8-66S I have yet to seriously address is oil leakage from the pan bolts. This does not appear to be seal leakage, oil is just dripping from the heads of some of the oil pan bolts and makes a mess on my garage floor. I suspect the leakage is due to the fact the pan bolts are exposed to engine oil in the crank case. One approach I have considered is installing Bartite stainless over rubber sealing washers between the lock washers and the oil pan rail but I'm not sure they will fit between the bolt holes and the sidewall of the oil pan. Another approach would be to remove all the lock washers and go with copper sealing washers to hopefully establish a seal between the heads of the bolts and the oil pan rail. Has anyone done this and if yes was it successful? Other ideas?? Thanks. Dave

Confused boater tries to run the table...

According to the Coker Tire site the original size was 710-15 or in a radial, 710R-15. That's an old size format. They also list 215-75R15. Any of those tires on the original rim should fit without interfering with the ball joint. The 75 is the aspect ratio, I.E the cross sectional height of the tire is 75% of the width. The lower the aspect ratio, the closer the sidest part of the sidewall will be to the ball joint. Go to https://www.cokertire.com/tires/styles/antique.html then do a lookup by vehicle for 1955 Mercury...

Does the car have the original front wheel rims? Rim offset could be and issue. Are the standard size and aspect ratio tires mounted? A wider tire could be the culprit.