Str8-8-Dave

You are doing some beautiful work Michal- glad I could help! Dave

Michael- Thats a great looking 8-87! If I've been any help to your effort I've accomplished what I set out to do by documenting my car's progress. Thanks for the compliment and best of luck with your car. Dave

Great news Terry, this story has the best outcome, car wasn't hurt more important, people were not hurt. It's good you were paying attention, you saved your car.

I don't believe that is a 1931 Buick windshield. Closed cars, all series, had crank up Fisher Body VV windshields and all had just 2 lift brackets at the top of a simple windshield frame pressed onto edges of glass on top and 2 sides only. The side frames slid in the cowl-top windshield pillars. An original 1931 Buick windshield. Replica windshield. Glass from Glassman Flat Glass made from factory Buick drawing, I made top and side frames and attached with windshield tape from Bob Drake. Replica windshield with glass run channel from Bob's Automobilia. Windshield regulator board for the Fisher VV windshield vent system. Windshield cranks up about 1-1/2" to allow ram air under the windshield where it encounters the reverse curve of the metal instrument panel which directs air up the backside of the glass. Ends of instrument panels had Fisher patent and VV windshield decals on the ends Finished car

Those cars look spectacular. Very nice eye candy... Dave

My gauge works great. Everything from the gauge outward was replaced. They charged $275. I ran my gauge readings by Dave Dunton who has an original 31 8-66S and according to him my gauge readings are very similar to his. Dave

I bought the rubber for my 31 8-66S at Steele a couple of years ago...

In the old days working in a gas station we had a 61 or so Ford Falcon with 144cu in 6 that suddenly lost oil pressure. We removed the distributor and out came with it the oil pump drive shaft, a fairly well hardened 1/4 or 3/8 diameter hexagonal shaft, one end plugged into the bottom of the distributor rotor shaft, the other into the drive shaft in the oil pump. The once straight lined hexagonal shaft was twisted like a pretzel. When we got the oil pump out of the car it was locked up solid with a shard of hardened rubber valve guide seal that had broken off the valve guide, dropped into the oil pan and that shard was small enough to get past the pickup screen on the pump. We found other shards of it still stuck in the screen. So in that case a very thin piece of hardened rubber was all it took to lock up the oil pump.

Honest boy scout that I am, I'm going to eat some crow. According to articles I just read drovak is right and I am wrong. The W in multi viscosity oil stands for Winter, not weight and the number before the W is supposed to represent how the oil will flow at winter temperatures. The number after the W represents how the oil is supposed to flow when hot. So I got it backwards and I'm sorry if I mis-lead anyone. Here is an article I copied from a Castrol website that explains this. Again- sorry for the misinformation, I am the one who was misinformed in this case. Dave Viscosity is the resistance to flow of a fluid. Motor oil viscosity grades are based on a scale developed by the API (American Petroleum Institute) lubricant organization. The values are defined in a specification known as API 1509 and are based on the resistance the oil gives to flowing at two different temperatures – cold and high temperature. The measurement of viscosity at high and low temperatures are properties of multi-grade oils. Years ago, most vehicles used one viscosity grade oil in the summer and a different viscosity grade oil in the winter. But as motor oil technology advanced, additives such as viscosity index improvers allowed for the use of the same grade of oil year-round. The low temperature viscosity of the oil is a measurement that simulates starting a car on a cold winter day. That value has the letter “W” after the number and has a dash after the W. For example, if the oil is a 5W-30, the 5W part describes the viscosity of the oil at low temperatures. The lower the number, the faster the oil will flow at vehicle start up. The high temperature viscosity is the number after the dash and is related to the viscosity of the oil as it is moving around your engine after the car has warmed up and is at normal engine temperature. In the 5W-30 example, the 30 defines the viscosity of the oil at normal engine temperatures. Again, the lower the number, the lower the viscosity of the oil and the faster the oil will move around the engine. As an example, let’s compare 5W-20, 5W-30 and 10W-30 motor oils. A 5W-20 and 5W-30 will have very similar if not equal viscosity at lower start-up temperatures. But as the engine heats up, the 5W-20 will move with less resistance than an 5W-30. Less resistance results in improved fuel economy but the oil is not as thick and forms a smaller layer of protection between metal surfaces. If we compare a 5W-30 and a 10W-30, they will behave very similarly as the engine heats up, but at start-up, the 5W-30 will provide less resistance and start easier than the 10W-30. The 5W-20 will have a lower viscosity and provide less resistance than the 10W-30 at both start-up and normal engine operating temperatures. In the past, it was common for vehicles to require higher viscosity oils such as 20W-50’s, 10W-40’s and 10W-30’s. But as engine technology has advanced over the years, the size of engines and pathways in engine that oil flows through have gotten smaller and thinner. This has led over time to motor oil viscosity decreasing – currently 5W-30 and 5W-20 are the most popular grade and 0W-20 is the fastest growing grade. These lower viscosity motor oils are needed to move through the thin engine pathways to protect and clean metal surfaces. Lower viscosity motor oils also result in better fuel economy.

You can test the pour point behavior of multi-viscosity oil by putting some in an old quart saucepan and put it in the freezer for a few hours. Pull it out and stir it with a putty knife. Now put the pan of oil on the barbecue grill with a thermometer in it and heat it to 180 degrees. Repeat the test. I think you will find the cold oil stirs like molasses and warm oil stirs like water. 20 w 50 means not less than viscosity of 20 w when hot and not more than 50 when cold. This is an edit so everyone can see I added something. After stirring the oil in first the cold test, then the hot, just pull the putty knife out of the oil and observe how long it takes to stop dripping in each condition...

Terry- Think about it. You said that 100yr old engine had never been apart. Buick, back in the day, would have specified oil in the 10 weight to 30 weight range, there wasn't any 20 w 50 then. So it ran all those years on crappy oils in that lower viscosity range and showed up in your garage in reasonably good shape, amazingly good shape for 100 years old and never apart. Believe me, when the oil is behaving like 50, I.E. its 35 degrees or so outside and you are going to start the engine up cold, that stuff is like molasses and requires a ton of torque at the oil pump drive shaft to get it moving. It is also going to be slow to work it's way into splash oiled bearing journals which is time the bearings may be starving for oil. That oil won't behave like 20 weight until the engine is completely warmed up and working under load. I'm an old hard-headed mechanic and argued for years that thicker oil is just good business until I had an older mechanic convinced me the time it takes heavy oil to warm and flow does much more damage to bearings and sliding parts like cylinder walls than thin oil with decent oil pressure will do in hot weather under load. That's your engine, don't let me, or anyone else tell you what to do with it, but that spring may be trying to tell you that you should re-think oil viscosity because when the oil is behaving like 50, the oil pump drive is taking a beating.

Nothing lower than straight 10w in cold weather, not more than 30w in the heat of summer. Larry Schramm is right too, you would have to use coal oil or 3in1 to find oil as bad as the old stuff. No detergent, no pour point modifiers, no synthetic, just Oklahoma crude. Take a 20s or 30s engine apart for the first time and you see oil burnt onto the metal inside the pan, plugged pickup screens, sludge and rusted out oil pressure control springs.

It was a methyl/ethyl/ketone cocktail of some sort with a layer of water over the top to keep it from evaporating. Very sweet smelling, don't dip you hands in it... They still sell a watered-down version of the kit but last I knew it was not nearly as effective as the original formulation sold in 1.75 and 5 gallon kits in a blue and orange can. Haz-mat sheets may be available for this new version if anyone cares to research.

Yeah- it's a wonder the generator in my 31 Buick 60 series car didn't have a problem with no-load damage. When I got the car it had just enough jury-rigged wiring to allow it to start and run on the battery, the generator wasn't even hooked up. I re-wired the car with a repro harness and wound up adjusting the 3rd brush to reduce generator output, it would peg the ammeter at about 1500 rpm. I moved the 3rd brush and got the output down to about 15 amps. The ignition circuit, as received from previous owner. Note the high-quality speaker wire used... More speaker wire along with very creative throttle linkage to go with the then contemporary wooden gas pedal. Poor Mr. generator, all dressed up and no place to go with the output... No wire connection to the cutout relay! After installation of the repro wire harness, ignition switch now properly wired. No more speaker wire and correct carburetor/heat riser/accelerator pedal linkage. Oh- and by this time I painted the firewall black. Repro wire harness connection to the cutout relay.

Before the EPA made them go away Gunk made a dip kit called Hydro-Seal that ate varnish for breakfast. I could put a set of carburetor castings in the basket and submerge for about a half hour and they came out spotless. I had the big 5-gallon kit and used it to clean lots of stuff other than carburetors. That was then and this is now. The EPA got after the active ingredient and first you couldn't dispose of it and soon after you couldn't buy it.

Right on. Larry is right. You could even re-connect the original wire on the bench and measure the resistance with a good volt ohmmeter as a sanity check for your new resistor winding's resistance. If for some reason you couldn't buy the same diameter nichrome wire, if you knew the resistance of the original wire you could simply find the length of new wire that duplicates the resistance value of the original wire. I would be considering what might have burned the resistor out in the first place. Something likely overloaded it.

I wonder 20-50 oil could be a problem, in view of the spring drive arrangement. I run 15-40 in my 31 60 series and as soon as the air temperature drops into the 50's there is a distinct change in starter load which has me considering going to 10-30 oil. Is there any information from Buick regarding oil viscosity recommendations from back in the day? With modern oils you could probably run lower viscosity oil than Buick would have recommended. I hope you have good luck getting this sorted. Dave

Yeah- this is crucial. It's pretty easy to get it right, set #1 piston at top dead center, pick the flywheel bolt alignment that aims the #1-cylinder timing mark, which will be some number of degrees before top dead center so it won't be exactly centered in the timing opening of the bellhousing, but orient the flywheel so the timing mark will be visible in the timing port. I've owned a 1931 Buick in the distant past where someone didn't get this right and had to time it by ear until I finally took the engine out of the car, tore it apart and sent the pieces out for restoration. There is 1 opportunity to get the flywheel oriented correctly and 5 other opportunities to mount it. My current 1931 Buick straight 8 engine was rebuilt by someone else but they got the flywheel oriented correctly when they put it back together.

If that is a dummy housing with a spin-on filter inside it's pretty cleverly done. The end caps appear to be crimped begging the question how does it come apart for service? Also looks like double compression line fittings.

L&L does seem to have an active Facebook account. I bought 31 60 series running board trim in 2019... (3) L&L Antique and Custom Auto Trim | Rich Hill MO | Facebook

6.) The KS Telegage gas gauge doesn't work 7.) Gotta do something with the inside and right-side rear-view mirrors. So... Let just cut to the chase here. The mirrors were a nuisance, maybe even a bit of a hazard. They both were aimed at things off the road to the right. The inside mirror had a wing nut with one broken off wing that I replaced, adjusted the mirror, tightened the new wing nut and that was that. Right side outside rear view mirror was a Bob's Buick reproduction door hinge pin mounted affair and the ball and socket needed a little persuasion to give enough inward adjustment to get a partial image of the right side of the car for depth of field definition. The hinge pin mounted mirrors do not move with the doors and the stems have to be adjusted far enough forward that the door doesn't hit the mirror stem and change the aim of the mirror when you open the door all the way. I was able to bend the socket on the mirror lens housing just enough to fix that. Now, the main entree in this post is The KS Telegage which suffered from numerous defects. The instrument panel gauge unit I installed in the car had suffered a broken glass envelope near the bottom of the glass and had been epoxied back together. Well, the red oil used in these gauges melted the epoxy and spat it off the glass vial after which as soon as the oil level reached the break it went on the floormat as well. I pawed thru a box of junk I was given to take home with the car from the previous owner and lo and behold I found just the brass reservoir with capillary tubing and glass envelope that make up the heart of the gauge. I disconnected the line from the gauge in the car and managed to get the 2 screws out of the gauge that attach it to the cluster without burning the car down by shorting a hot lead on the instrument light switch to ground a few times with my pretty chrome Snap-on 7/16" wrench! The replacement glass envelope and reservoir were filthy dirty when I found it but a good soak in vinegar cleaned it up nicely. I carefully removed the broken parts and installed the replacement reservoir and envelope on the gauge back, carefully adjusting the height of the reservoir as it had been originally installed to make it read correctly. I then reinstalled my repaired gauge unit on the cluster, which was twice as hard as taking it out, the 2 mounting screws with lock washers wanted nothing to do with being reinstalled with the new gauge unit. I finally got the gauge in the cluster, only to realize I had failed to put red oil back in the reservoir. NUTS. I finally got too much oil in the reservoir and soaked enough back out of the gauge with a Q-tip to get the oil level even with the empty mark on the gauge. I bought a replacement capillary line set but eventually passed on changing it for the line installed in the car. I inspected every inch of the existing line and it is kink free and was probably installed when the previous owner restored the chassis. But after that, the gauge still didn't work. So the last item that is in the chain is the Atwater Kent hydrostatic fuel tank unit. In order to service this item the fuel tank has to come out of the car. At my age, crawling under the car is becoming a bit more intimidating but I finally screwed up enough courage to pull the tank. I jacked the car up high enough on my jack stands to get my 5 gallon jerry can and a funnel under the drain plug on the tank. I lucked out with draining the tank, never spilt a drop of fuel, turned out there was about 3 gallons in the tank. Then I worried I would have to remove the tailpipe which runs under the left end of the fuel tank. After I looked at things I came to the conclusion I might be able to wiggle the tank out of the car without messing with the exhaust pipe. That turned out to be a good guess. I disconnected the main gas line with a wrench. The gauge line fitting on the old sending unit was buried so far back behind a cross member above the fuel tank I just fatigued it off at the fitting. I then removed the gas cap and 2 nuts holding the front end of the gas tank straps and next thing I knew the tank was sitting on a movers blanket on the garage floor. An out-east outfit called KM Lifestyle makes reproduction Atwater Kent hydrostatic fuel sending units for numerous cars that used the KS Telegage system. I called them one day and inquired if they could make one for my 31 Buick 60 series car with it's original 19-gallon fuel tank. The answer was yes, $325.00 and 3-week lead time, all they wanted from me was a tank depth measurement. I typed an order letter with the tank measurement and sent them a check. About 2 weeks later my new gauge unit landed in a sturdy box on my front porch. Having trouble with disconnecting fuel and gauge fittings from the sending unit that came with my car was due to the fact the fittings were inside the perimeter of a crossmember. It could be the fitting arrangement was perfectly fine for bare chassis assembly before the body was installed but that arrangement makes connecting fuel and gauge lines almost impossible with the body on the car. Not quite sure how to get around that I sent a request to Dave Dunton to photograph the fuel line installation on his car. His sending unit had extended connections that neatly passed through the hole in the cross member through which the fuel and gauge lines pass. The sender lines were not only longer, they also featured a right-angle bend toward the right frame rail after passing through the hole in the cross member. The new sender I bought from KM Lifestyle had the short lines on it that would have required the body be off the car to connect. I cut the fittings off the connecter tubes and made up a couple of extensions from 5/16" brass line with the 90-degree bend. These were sweat soldered to the original sender tubes and fittings were moved to the ends of the extensions. After modifying connecter tubes on the KM Lifestyle hydrostatic sending unit I installed it on the tank with new stainless round head slotted screws and stainless lock washers. The next task was to get the fuel tank with it's new sender reinstalled in the chassis. I bought a one-inch-wide ratchet strap to help lift the tank back into the chassis hoping it would provide precision lifting that would allow me to guide the filler neck thru the gas tank shield and the tube extensions thru the hole in the cross member without breaking fragile solder connections between the sender's 3 tubes, (fuel line, gauge line, vent) and the galvanized steel mounting plate that attaches the sender to the tank. On first try I had a catastrophic fail, at just the wrong moment the strap came loose under the tank and when it fell it broke the solder joints on the sender. I took the sender out of the tank and re-soldered the tubes to the mounting plate. I also bent the fuel and gauge line extensions upward just a bit to help me guide them through the hole in the crossmember. I modified my ratchet strap to make sure the hooks on the ends of the straps could not pop off the frame as they did first time around. That all worked and I successfully reinstalled the tank. One other feature about my car that the previous restorer elected to change was use of steel fuel line rather than the original brass tubing. The main fuel line consists of 2 sections, a front section connects to the fuel pump, then curves around the bottom of the bellhousing and ends with a connector at the right side of the frame in front of the battery box. A second, rear section of line connects to the front line, then routes thru grommets in holes through the center cross member of the frame that the brake cross shaft hides in, then down the right frame rail through three routing clips, then makes a right angle turn to route to the hydrostatic fuel sender. Steel is not a great idea because it is too hard for use with brass double compression line fittings that rely on deforming the tube to allow the fitting to grip the line and seal. Also, it just doesn't look right on a 90-year-old car that was born with brass lines with double compression fitting connections. I ordered three 8-foot lengths of 5/16" OD 0.030" wall seamless brass tubing from Online Metals and set about replicating the front and rear fuel lines and the fuel pump to carburetor line in brass. The front line has a dizzying array of curves and bends, and I spent hours getting it shaped like the steel line it would replace. I had one near disaster near the end of the bending when I accidentally put the 5/16" inch od tube in the 3/8" groove of my hand bender. I stopped as soon as the bender effort told me something was wrong and avoided collapsing the tube bad enough to have to put in a repair section of tube or start over. I must have done a pretty good job replicating because this line happily routed round the bell housing to the right frame rail and hooked up easily to the fuel pump on the left side of the car. The rear line was fabricated in the chassis as I installed it. An 8-foot section of brass tube only leaves about 3 inches surplus and the right-angle bend at the rear of the car has to be made in the chassis and has to be within an inch or two of the being located in just the right spot. Also, once the right-angle bend is made in the rear line it can't be removed without wrecking it. The line can be fed from the front of the car thru the grommets in the center cross member. I started making the right-angle bend to route the line from the frame rail to the tank connection in the center of the car and stopped because it looked like I picked the wrong spot and it would not have reached the center of the car. I re-measured and moved my bend about 4 inches forward in car. That turned out to be a very good guess, I didn't have to cut anything off the line where in runs along the chassis, it just reached the front-line connection. I had to use my tubing cutter to remove 3 inches of excess line at the fuel tank connection. With some further massaging I got the line to route through the 3 frame clips and tidied up the gauge line by tying it to the fuel line with brass wire. The last task was to make a brass replacement for the fuel pump to carburetor line. I had to change the adapter fitting on the fuel pump from a modern standard compression fitting that uses a separate ferrule to a double compression adapter fitting so I could use male double compression fittings on both ends of the line. I had to buy another hand bender to make this line because it has a 180-degree bend. My old bender was limited to 90-degrees. I learned the hard way that if the line slips in the 180-degree bender it will collapse. To prevent slipping I put clamped the end of the tube in a flaring die. Bends and fitting orientation is critical for this line. I spent more time tuning the ends of the line to get the line-fitting lined up with the adapter fittings on the fuel pump and carburetor. The slightest deviation in orientation will prevent the fittings from starting. I finally got this line to hook up. Dave This is a picture of the broken glass envelope and reservoir on the right and the replacement envelope and reservoir assembly installed on the gauge backing plate. The Buick Specifications and Adjustments section says the gauge should be replaced as a unit. That's a tough assignment today absent a "United Motors" parts agency so I did service the gauge. One crucial adjustment is the position of the brass reservoir on the gauge plate because the height relationship of the reservoir to the glass envelope affects the gauge accuracy. The replacement reservoir had clear witness marks on the hexagonal tube that bore witness to the reservoir's original position. The gauge face won't win any concourse awards having been attacked by rust from leaking gauge oil. Here is a picture of the front of the gauge with glass envelope in place. The assembled gauge with face back in the retaining clips... The installed gauge AFTER I remembered to put oil in it. In this picture before I took anything apart you can see the fuel line fitting on the right and the gauge line on the left are buried behind the front face of a cross member. I was able to get the fuel line fitting disconnected with open end wrenches. The gauge line I fatigued off. On the left under the fuel line is one of the tank strap nuts. Dave Dunton always has a better idea. While the short straight sending unit connections behind the face of the cross member in the picture above makes sense for fitting connections before the body is decked, Dave's sending unit connecters pass thru the hole in the cross member for easier connection with the body on the car. I didn't know if I could get the tank out of the car without removing the tail pipe which is a job. It turns out once the tank is empty, lines are disconnected. fuel filler cap is removed and straps dropped from the front cross member the tank can be snaked out of the right side of the car. This was how the sending unit looked that came with my car. The solder joints between fuel/gauge/vent lines and mounting plate were all broken allowing the sender to wobble around. A closeup of the original tank unit gauge line connection showed the line was leaking around the compression ferrule and they goobered it up with silicone. Anything less than an airtight seal here and the gauge unit in the instrument panel becomes a useless decoration- it won't read fuel level at all. This is the new Atwater Kent reproduction hydrostatic sender I purchased from KM Lifestyle. Note the short straight connecter tubes, probably correct for body-off line connections, impossible to hook up with body on the chassis. Workmanship on the repro sender is spectacular. Another shot of the straight connecters before I modified. The fuel line fitting supplied was a flare fitting but I exchanged it for a double flare adapter. My modified version of the connecter lines with double compression fuel line connection. First rial fitting on the tank. From the front. It turned out the connecters were angled a little too low to get them safely thru the hole in the cross member. The strap was 10ft long and I took some of the surplus and made the short straps on the bottom of the hooks. The hooks were too slippery for use on narrow painted edges of the cross members in front of and behind the tank and a strap hook popped off and dumped the partially installed tank in my lap breaking the solder joints where the gauge/vent/fuel lines pass thru the mounting plate on the sender. After re-soldering the 3 lines at the mounting plate and bending the fuel and gauge line upward a bit and using my modified ratchet strap I managed get the tank installed, new connecters out in the open for easier connection to fuel and gauge lines. Note that the steel gas lines were not removed from the chassis yet. This is a picture of the brass front line I bent up to replace the steel item. This complicated line successfully connected to the fuel pump... dropped into one routing clip on the frame and passed under clutch and brake return springs to the first bell housing clip then thru 2 more clips then to the back of the frame rail to connect to the rear line. The rear line and the gauge line pass thru holes in the brake shaft cross member grommets... rearward to first routing clip thru the second clip with gauge line following along and brass wired to the fuel line to the third clip, then right angle bend to route along the front tank cross member finally over to the sender. The last steel line connected the fuel pump outlet to the carburetor. The 180-degree bend required I buy another hand-bender. The steel line had a modern com- pression fitting with a ferrule which I converted to correct double-compression fittings. The final line was had to get lined up correctly with both fittings, but I finally got it connected.

Door panels look great Paul, glad to hear you are up and running. Dave

3.) The clutch friction point is too high in the pedal travel Taken care of by backing off the adjustment nut at the throw-out fork 1.5 turns. Picture below. 4.)The brakes require some learning and probably some break-in, pedal travel a bit long, they won't throw me thru the windshield... All brake adjusters taken up 6 flats correcting long pedal travel. The brakes seem pretty effective now. 5.) Not sure about the generator output, seems quite high, at 40mph ammeter is pretty well maxed out on the + side I read the 1931 Specifications and Adjustments manual on this topic and it did a pretty good job of explaining how to adjust the Delco Remy 3-brush generator's 3rd brush. I got the dust band off the generator and located the 3rd brush. Finding the lock screw on the back of the generator and getting screwdriver access led me to set the engine on the 11 degree timing mark and removing the distributor. The brush was quite reluctant to move even with the lock screw backed off. I finally got it to move. In retrospect I should have reinstalled the distributor and run the car to get the output reduced more. I didn't do that but when I did run the car the ammeter is no longer in danger of being pegged, I saw readings of about 14 amps when the engine was run at about 2500 rpm. When I finished with the generator I put a timing light on the car, first timing cylinder #1 and found the 11 degree BTDC flywheel mark appeared half way between the center of the bell housing timing port and the bottom of the timing port so the engine was timed 2-3 degrees faster than 11 degrees. Remembering I timed the car with a Fluke ohm meter with engine stopped with #1 cylinder marks lined up, rotating the distributor until the Fluke indicated points just open, then synchronized the second set of points by rotating the engine to align the Syn 6 mark at the bellhousing timing port and adjusting the movable point until the points just broke, I was totally amazed at the accuracy when I checked with the timing light. After checking cylinder #1 timing I moved the timing light to cylinder #6 and the SYN 6 mark also appeared half way between the center of the timing port and the bottom of the opening, again just like what I saw with #1 cylinder timing, #6 was firing 2-3 degrees early to the SYN 6 mark. The clutch friction point can be adjusted via the large, indexed nut shown in the lower left corner of this picture just above the fuel line. I loosened the nut 1-1/2 turns and got clutch engagement to star at half pedal travel. Brake shoe adjustment is accomplished by adjustment of the big nut on the cam assembly shown below and is typical of all 4 wheels. I adjusted these nuts at each wheel tighter about 6 flats or one full turn. I wound up removing the distributor to get to a 3rd brush lock screw on the rear cover of the generator which is hidden below the distributor and ahead of the oil temperature regulator. That slotted screw on the back of the rear generator bearing housing is the lock screw for the 3rd brush. Once the 3rd brush lock screw is loosened reducing generator output is done by raising the 3rd brush. It is accessed through the opening closest to the lifter cover. I absolutely guessed how much to move the 3rd brush and did reduce the generator output from 20-plus amps at around 2000 rpm to 15 amps maximum. After reinstalling the distributor I verified timing and point synchronization with a stroboscopic timing light. To my total amazement timing was advanced just a couple degrees and point synchronization was-spot on. Both were static adjustments (engine off) done using a Fluke ohm meter connected across first, one set of points, then the other to determine when points just opened.

2.) The car backfires unless I run partial choke Item #2 on the list was carburetor backfiring. I had long since noticed when running the car in the garage it was really fussy about air valve or dashpot adjustment, I could get it to backfire without any road load by opening the throttle rapidly. A long time ago I made modifications to lower the fuel level because the car was running too rich. I discovered the fuel level was above the height of the low speed nozzles allowing gravity to flood the low speed mixture with raw fuel dribbling out of the nozzles. After driving the car it was obvious I was not done with the carburetor. I ordered an overhaul kit #CS 94 for my Marvel model 10-795 carburetor from carbking. I had to wait a couple of months for the kit because the air valve spring has to be custom ordered. The kit cost $250 and after seeing the contents I thought it was very reasonably priced. It had literally every expendable part, gaskets, sealing washers, NOS Marvel float valve assembly, float, calibrated air valve spring, even all the fillister head screws and lock washers. Fabulous kit. The other item I ordered for the car was a pair of #111-22 billet aluminum reproductions of the venturi blocks tooled up and sold by 32buick67. Below are pictures of the restoration. There is no more backfiring since this work was done, the car happily takes throttle and is very responsive. While the carburetor was off the car and awaiting arrival of overhaul parts I freshened the heat riser system with a correct-for-60 series 146-106 heat riser casting acquired from Pet Phillips in Texas. That's the last picture in this post. In the early days I was troubleshooting a rich condition that didn't seem to be affected by air valve setting. I wondered if the original float and float valve may have been a flooding issue. I fabricated and installed a balsa float and cleaned and polished the float valve and seat. Still I had a case of dirty tailpipe, it bore witness to the rich condition. The next area to look at was float level, or more correctly, fuel level. It turned out the running fuel level in the bowl was too high causing fuel to be discharged constantly by gravity instead of on vacuum demand as intended. I removed the float bowl and nozzle plate casting and measured the height of the low speed nozzles. Correct fuel level is about 1/16" below height of the low speed nozzles. Using the nozzle height measurement I scribed a line on the inside of the float bowl. This represents maximum acceptable fuel level in the float bowl. The Marvel TD-2 carburetor used on 31 Buick 60 is model 10-795. This picture gives you some idea of the comprehensive overhaul kit, part number CS-294 supplied by carbking. These are the original pot metal venturi blocks from my carburetor. The air valve spring on the left in this picture is one I removed from my carburetor. It measured almost 2 inches tall. New correct calibrated spring, right, measures 1.5 inches tall. My carburetor was reasonably clean when I took it apart. I did remove each fuel metering nozzle and cleaned with lacquer thinner and compressed air. Early version Marvel TD-2 carburetors had a brass screen over the bowl passage that supplies fuel to the metering nozzles. If it plugs up the nozzles will starve for fuel. I spent a little quality time making sure this one was completely clean. The bottom of the float rests on the cast transverse rib shown in the bottom of the bowl in the picture above. It seemed like the float valve didn't open much before the float bottomed on the bowl rib. I didn't want to remove much material from the bottom of the float to avoid high fuel level in the bowl causing low speed flooding like I had before. I installed the float in the bowl, pressed it down on the rib in the bowl leaving an impression on the bottom of the float. Using a small rat-tail file I filed a narrow trench across the bottom of the float and re-sealed the float with SIG butyrate fuel proof model airplane dope. This is a picture of the 111-22 venturi block replicas I purchased from 32buick67 and installed using new correct flat head slotted screws from the carburetor kit. The air horn gasket, airhorn screws and venturi gasket in the picture are also kit parts. The next 5 pictures show the reassembled carburetor. Here is a picture of the reinstalled carburetor. At idle the engine produces a 19 in/HG vacuum level. Pictured below is my freshened heat control system with correct 146-106 riser casting, new stainless riser to damper link rod and includes a missing support bracket between the air cleaner cover stud and the rear damper manifold bolt.

Hi to all; The last time I posted was summertime and I had just gotten the car off jackstands for the first time in 4 years. A short drive later I had a list of issues that defined my workplan for the car since. So here goes a series of posts to discuss the outcomes. 1.) "It's a little vibratey" My hope was that the source of vibration was something other than the engine itself. The initial complaint was a vibration that seemed to start around 35mph in high gear. I had hoped the vibration was wheel and tire related but the acid test would be roughly gauging engine rpm at 35mph in high gear and running the car in lower gears at the approximate same engine rpm. The hope was at lower car speed and similar engine rpm there would be no vibration which would have supported the idea of wheel and tire vibration. Alas- that was not the case, at similar rpm in any gear I got similar vibration. That would make engine vibration the likely culprit. But what would a previous restorer have done to the engine that caused it to vibrate? If I was doing an overhaul of a typical high performance engine of the 1960's one likely replacement parts group would have been installation of some better pistons. This would have almost certainly required re-balancing the rotating assembly, pistons, rods and crankshaft. Skipping this step would have almost certainly caused an engine vibration. In the case of the now 90 year old Buick straight 8, an overhaul would likely include reboring the cylinders. The likelihood original design cast iron pistons would have been used is very unlikely, the iron slugs couldn't be re-sized by knurling and availability of appropriate oversize cast iron pistons in the original design would be pretty much out of the question. So the engine was probably now equipped with lighter weight aluminum pistons. If the rotating assembly was balanced with the aluminum slugs it should have run smoothly. I'm betting that step was skipped to save money and time. To validate my theory that the engine was now sporting aluminum pistons I needed to verify they were in fact aluminum. Doing this without taking the engine apart seemed like a difficult task. The only access to the cylinders without pulling the head was through the spark plug holes. I decided to try using a borescope and found one on Ebay that was cheap enough but high enough resolution to get a look at the pistons. In the end I not only used the borescope but discovered at top dead center the top of a piston could be reached with the magnet in the handle of a screw starter. I confirmed use of aluminum pistons both visually and magnetically... This is a Depstech borescope I bought on Ebay for about 50 bucks. It attaches to your cellphone via USB wire connection at the charging port. A simple to use software program downloaded from the Google Playstore allows you to display or store still pictures or movies to the photo gallery on your phone. It also features a brightness control and 2 camera modes, front view and sideview. This particular unit has a 10' fiber optic cable with the camera at the end. I started off by rotating the engine to align the #1 cylinder timing marks which puts piston #1 eleven degrees before top dead center. It's hard to understand what exactly we are looking at in the first picture. It was taken in sideview mode which displays a front camera image on the left and the side view image on the right. Looking at the left side image there is quite a bit of black carbon deposit on the top of the piston suggesting rich mixture which was a known problem until a recent carburetor overhaul. The little round image in the center is the center drill divit from the machining process. The shiny spot in the left side of the left image is the cylinder wall. Right side image is what the sideview camera captured and is pretty useless. Still #1 cylinder, front camera view only, cylinder wall on the left. Still #1 cylinder, I moved the camera a bit which allowed better focus on the piston and cylinder wall and part of an overhead valve on the left. Still cylinder #1 in sideview mode, pretty good picture on the left of cylinder wall and piston machining divit, right side of this frame is useless. Aligning the flywheel timing marks for #1 cylinder puts #6 piston about 101 degrees before top dead center which exposes quite a bit of the cylinder wall. With that much cross-hatch hone marking on the cylinder wall I think we can safely assume we are still breaking this puppy in. The shiny portion of the piston looks like it is aluminum. Another view of cylinder #6 from a different camera position. A pit of linear piston ring track appears in this shot. I must have adjusted the light level in this picture... Here is a more useful side camera mode picture, left side captured by front view camera, right side captured by side view camera. Another adjustment of light intensity in this picture. Better camera focus in this shot. Camera moved too close to piston in this shot. A little further up the bore and the deck of the block, head gasket and combustion chamber wall of the cylinder head come into view. A little more of the head casting shows up in this shot. My last test was to insert the magnet end of this screw starter into #1 plug hole. It was not attracted to the piston reinforcing evidence of aluminum pistons.