Senbotsu

Well with herculean effort I managed to get the driver's seat to slide back another inch or so into the back frame, so It can be driven with some level of safety, yay! It's also been registered and DMV has no problem with the original 1935 plates. The number was clear On the down side, the gas gauge apparently doesn't work. I can see a little amber fluid in the very bottom of the glass tube but it's not registering the level. My buick and packards all have float and needle gauges, so I have no clue how to go about fixing this fluid style. Any suggestions?

It may come to that, but that would be a last resort as the interior is the original interior from 1935. It would be a shame to mess with it if I can avoid it, but it would also be a shame to not be able to safely drive it, too.

Interior still looks the same, hehe. I'm fairly certain that I've got the seat all the way back (it's back about an inch past the fixed edge. But between my size 18 feet and long legs it's a challenge to get into and drive. This is as far back as I can get the seat to go:

I've noticed that pre-war cars vary wildly in leg & head room. The few Pierce Arrow's I have sat in were comfortably roomy for the driver. I tried sitting in a Ford Model A once. Forget about it, there's about as much room in those as a tiny little austin healey, lol.

It's a beautiful car, but a little hard to drive. At 6'6" it has even less legroom than my '39 buick roadmaster. I would kill to be able to move the front seat back about 4 inches, but I don't think that's an option.

I have recently acquired this beautiful specimen of a 2 window model K that still has its original nearly pristine interior. However I did have one important question that the seller did not know the answer to, and I can't find in the paperwork. Did this 414 V12 use flat or roller tappets? I know rollers have been around since 1930, and I would expect a high end luxury car like the K to use the more expensive rollers and not flat tappets, but I wanted to make sure so that I can follow the proper maintenance to keep it running great.

Thanks a lot for all the help! After a few misses, Dave was the 'magic man.' He had an entire transmission, and it just arrived today! Going to get it to the auto shop tomorrow so they can get my baby back on the road. So happy!

Dennis didn't pan out, so I'm going to try Dave tomorrow. What time zone is he in?

That's another route I was considering. This place called rushgears.com does a lot of one-off gear fabrications, so I may go that route if I can't find a NOS/lightly used replacement part. The existing gear is just missing enough teeth to kick out of gear if you don't hold it in second, but not so many that it fails to stay meshed if you hold it.

Thanks! I shot him an email. Here's hoping it bears fruit!

Anyone have any leads on where to get a replacement 2nd gear (or whole transmission) for the 81? Mine has been sitting in the transmission shop for a year now with no luck sourcing a part. The mechanic is going to keep looking for a few more months before giving up, which probably means having to replace the original engine and transmission which I really really don't want to do.

As is often the case when restoring old classics, I'm looking for unicorns again. Hoping someone on here has a lead on mechanical hardware for the rear window vents. The ones that slide backwards into the body. My mechanic says the hardware is too shot to even rebuild. We've had no luck finding the crank assemblies so far.

Makes me wonder if my '39 model 81 is missing some trunk components. Mine has no springs and only one sliding lock bar on the left side that operates as expected. (holds trunk door open, lift trunk door slightly to disengage locking mechanism.) But the trunk will drop hard if you don't lower it by hand.

The only set I've found so far was over at 2040 parts website: http://www.2040-parts.com/39-buick-bumper-guard-set-1939-original-gm-parts-i688712/

Perfect, they had 2 nice slim bordered 14" wide chrome frames. Thanks for the help! Google search was being uncooperative and kept sending me to places that only sold modern frames >_<

ACK! The world's fair license plates just arrived and I forgot that these old plates were 2" wider than modern plates. Wonder if anyone still makes nice chrome frames for 14" plates.

That would be nice. I'd love to restore the column properly and fix whatever the previous wingnut did wrong. EG: the horn still works only because it's wired to a push button under the dash now.. WTF?! It really needs the chrome horn ring to look right, too. (easy enough to source, but I'll let a professional fix the wiring issue and figure out why the turn signals don't work at the same time. The light indicator on the shift lever flashes, and I can hear the rhythmic 'click click' inside the dash, but nothing from the front or rear lights. Checked the bulbs, all the filaments are intact.) Even have the cigarette lighters for both front and back sockets, but unfortunately there's no power to either socket so that's another item I need to have looked at. I have two uprights on the back bumper, with no bolt hole for a center connection. I also need to have the left side upright re-chromed:

Yeah California has a lots of sore spots for me. If almost all of my family wasn't here I'd have run screaming from this state long ago.

That's a good idea. I paid a very reasonable price for the Buick, so I think I'll still use the world's fair plates just for the cool factor. I figure I'll have to dump at least $10k more into it before it's completely restored to a level worthy of being a show car, but that won't reflect on registration fees at least

I thought about it but historic plates come with restrictions on where/when you can drive the vehicle. I have heard from others that those restrictions are generally ignored by officers. Unfortunately I live dangerously close to a county that is starving for revenue and the local constabulary are notorious for salivating at the chance to nail you for anything they can. So after consulting an attorney I decided that while I dislike giving this state any more money than I absolutely have to, I don't relish risking a $10,000 fine and a potential felony (violation of VC 4463 - vehicle registration fraud, is a wobbler in california) just because I want to dress up and drive the Buick to a blues concert or take the better half wine tasting 😃

Yours looks quite beautiful! I haven't even had a chance to register mine yet, so no plates, but I did get my hands on a set of 1939 California World's Fair license plates that the plate number is not in use, so DMV is allowing me to register the car under that number and use the plates. *happy* On mine I really want to ditch the non-stock front uprights and go back to the simple 3 uprights like yours has, I think it looks cleaner. It's a bit of a struggle to drive right now. I think I need to see if someone can lower the clutch and brake pedal position by about half. I'm 6'6" and it's a real knee-bangin' good time shifting and braking, lol. I love the car though, and my significant other said it looks like the grinch mobile because the person who did the original restoration really went crazy with the non-stock green theme. The interior is dark and pale green. Here's some more pictures I took today during a break in the rain, after fixing the fuel pump issue (And sorry it's really dusty, it arrived that way and until it stops raining I don't want to go out there with my vacuum kit and detail the car like it deserves):

Thanks! The plate was in surprisingly good condition, and the car isn't the original black anymore, but the green paint is an 'old enamel paint' according to my body shop, so at some point I want to get the paint redone. I'm going to keep the english green color though, I like it. I'll be posting more pictures after it stops raining here in northern california *glares at the clouds* and after I fix a minor little problem it had on arrival. It got jostled a bit on the vehicle transport and the fuel line is loose at the connection to the fuel pump. Every time I turn it over I can hear the diaphragm sucking air, so I need to pull it apart and see why it's loose; then fix that. Then I can pull it back out of the drive way and take better pictures. For now you'll have to settle for the body plate and front view of it sitting in the car port, and one I took with my mobile phone when the vehicle transport showed up.

Would one of the fine experts here be able to decode the info for my new baby? Just accepted delivery of a 1939 Buick Roadmaster 81: 1939 Mod. 81 Style No: 39-4819 Body No: 1769 Trim No: 719 Paint No 530