Century Eight

The Super Bowl is the bowl where I put my car money!

JohnS. That’s a shame. I saw it on Direct TV. Maybe you will see it on the internet sometime under VW retro commercials. Phil

Did you see the ‘50 Buick in the showroom in the VW commercial? There was a Beetle and two ‘51’s also! Good retro VW commercial.

I have a 2wd old Silverado and a 4wd Sierra and hardly ever use the 2wd except locally and on flat ground. I live in a Mild climate, Delaware, and still use the 4wd for towing big Buicks or Chevelles. I have pulled into shows, and they pointed for me to go up that wet, grassy hill and park and unload. You never know when you are going to need it, which fortunately rarely happens. But with my fwd, I have never heard that strange, unpleasant noise coming from the vicinity of the passenger seat when I am slip-slidin’ down the hill!

Joelj Joelj I just found a great tutorial on bad fuel pumps. I was re -reading an old Hemmings before I threw it out, and came across this short but great article on defective fuel pumps. I can take a picture of it and email it to you, or snail-mail it. I found it on page 38 of the May ‘21 Hemmings in the advertising section sponsored by “Chevy of the 40’s”. You may find it on their website , if they have one. The article is entitled “Life’s a Gas” and describes poor grounds, stuck gages, gage empty, gage full, gage read wrong etc. It tells you simple diagnosis’s , and simple fixes and is short, and direct to the point. Phil

Joelj. I was ready to get another sending unit but I started hearing about floats that failed (or sank). So we just got another float, a friend had several sitting around so we tried one of those before going for the sending unit. Mine were brass, both the bad and the good. We got lucky and got a good one. I don’t know about the plastic ones, but I suppose they could have a hole too. I know they have cork floats but you should varnish those first, to keep them from getting as water-logged, only with gas instead. Parts stores like NAPA used to carry them and still may, but you can get them from places like Bob’s or CARS etc. You should also check if the sending unit works, either by checking the ohms, as mentioned in other posts, or you can do it manually off the car. You can use a jumper wire and connect that to the wire that goes to the gauge plus a ground. Then work it up and down. If it works you can also put it in the tank while the tank is still off the car and check it and bend the arm slightly to get the needle where you want it. You can experiment so the float shows empty before you actually run out of gas. Who cares if it doesn’t show full, but you don't want the tank to run out while the gauge shows gas in it. I find the floats are under $10 while the complete units are maybe close to $90? I have done it enough times that it’s just more or less a pain in the … but not really that difficult and I am 75. It’s just nice to know it’s all going to work before you put it all back together. And then it’s really nice to know how much (or little) gas you have in the tank. Good luck. Phil

I am still hoping someone will post a picture of Willcockson Motors in St Lous ( mid twenties to 1946), my grandfather’s Buick/Pontiac dealership. On line, you can see when it was an electrical supply store prior to demolition, but there are no pictures of the twenty years it was an auto dealership. It was a big building and unusual Spanish architecture.

Beautiful car from another ‘50 Buick owner. I occasionally visit my son in Lexington but I never see much old car activity there. What am I missing?

Check with the “Buick Barn” in Clayton DE and found on line. I recently got one for my ‘50. They have lots of nos stuff

Joelj. Did you ever fix this? I have had the very same scenario twice on two Buicks. The sending units they sell today are mediocre. The floats have microscopic pin holes and will work at first but then fill up with gas and sink to the bottom. Just get a new float for a few bucks and put it on the sending unit. In my case, that was the fix. That will probably fix it.

My very first car was also a ‘31 Chev. Got it for $700 in 1971 and sold it five years later for double the money. I thought I had done something. I guess I did, but now have a different opinion of what I did!

Ken, As for the orientation on the oil drain plug, I have two original ‘40 Specials and a restored ‘40 Century. All three have the orientation of the plug hole at the bottom, in the six o’clock position.

Forget the numbers. Put them all together (assuming you have them off the car.). Lay them down and put the tallest one in the middle. Then they are handed, right to left. They get shorter as you go out to the edge. Then you will be able to see if they lean in or out. They are mirror imaged or angled as the middle of the bumper comes forward. This way I think you can figure out which one goes where, even blindfolded. Haven’t had mine off for a long time but thats what I noticed. Each one is different but they are mirror imaged.

I will side-step this discussion with the exception that at my 75 years of age, maybe they can trim the distance I have to walk between empty spaces from the no shows. It would be pretty hard to do however, when spaces are prepaid. But maybe like the airlines that give away your seat if you are not at the gate on time, the region could consolidate spacing after a certain point. Then they could sell tickets to watch the fisticuffs from the poor vendors they just ticked off, lol. Anyway just dreaming.. Wish everybody would just show up to vend unless there was a real emergency.

Even on a new floor and more so if dirty, see if you can get a diamond grinder and rough it up. That will promote adhesion, especially on a floor that has had dirt or oil. I’m very happy with mine. All will get some degree of tire pickup especially on an unclean floor.

As a correction here, my car came with US Royals, not Firestones, although I think they were offered. What I wanted to ad is that i replaced them with 7.00 x 15 bias belt. Theses seem to ride better as they are a little bit bigger by the shape (dont ask me to explain that, I once knew) and of course newer and not as hard. I am willing to take the points correction by a sharp judge for the size difference and I want the same look on the big white wall, because it’s my car.

Ha Ha, reminds me of the time I took Bleeche-White to just one of my father-in-laws whitewalls on his daily driver. Then he had to clean the rest of them after much protesting and fun. He failed to see the humor that day! I have threatened one of my old car friends to do the same to his Buick that needs a set of tires. But he says it’s for “go and not show”. You can still have a lot of fun in the hobby just for free

I see this is an old post and started about ten years ago, but there is always hope. As an example, a little over a year ago, a lady posted about her family’s long gone ‘40 Buick Special convertible. She was able to post the serial number and a few other details. At the time, I was sitting in a movie theatre waiting for the show to start, and was perusing my phone. Well,I looked at the serial number and recognized it right away. The long lost car has been sitting in my garage since I bought it from her nephew 44 years ago! You never know! Good luck to you in finding your fathers car.

Don’t know about ‘49 but my all original ‘50 Super came with 4 inch whites on 7.60 x 15 Firestones. Check your spare, it may be original and you might verify that way

I had a cousin to that car, an ‘’85 Olds 98. It had the v6 3800 Eng and took a lot of abuse for 145k miles from me and my two teenage boys learning to drive. You should still be able to enjoy it for awhile.

Jolly John is right. Also, the Interior has not been done and will suck a lot of money but otherwise it looks like a good practical car for the money

There are a lot of good points on this forum however one if the easiest ways to verify, is to check the spare tire in the trunk. You will find that many cars that lived an easy life still have their original unused spare in the trunk. My 1950 Buick was fortunate to have ALL of its original tires on it when I bought it, but the spare had never been on the ground and still has the mold marks on it. (Tits). So I can show you the brand, the size, and the width of the whitewall with certainty. Of course the manufacturer would have used more than one brand on the assembly line, but you could get on this forum and ask who has their original tires and then have a pretty good idea of what modern tire to go to.

Steve, when will you put the itinerary out? I want to know what to sign up for if I cant make the whole thing

I got an old guy near where I live to rebuild mine and it came out pretty well. With yours I would check the BCA Bugle for people in there who rebuild them. Also they advertise in Hemmings and someone on this forum may have some good names.

I’ll stick to bourbon by the fireside!