Sonomatic

JohnD1956, Is this your Super? I'm here in Morgantown and I saw it when I checked in. This is my favorite car I've seen here so far.

What a great looking car! Yeah, we need a few more shots of this beauty

What happens with the flasher when using leds?

For some reason I thought you had a 263, sorry. What adapter you using on your 248?

The vacuum modulator is a vital component of automatic transmissions. It tells the transmission what kind of load is being put on it, allowing the transmission to react with the proper line pressures and shift points. Because of this, you want your manifold vacuum source to be soley manifold vacuum, not a vacuum signal enhanced by the vacuum function of the fuel pump. It’s original purpose of the vacuum/ fuel pump was to “cover up” the low manifold vacuum during acceleration. This low vacuum during acceleration is exactly what tells the vacuum modulator on your TH350 to increase line pressure for firmer shifts and also tells the transmission to raise the shift points for better acceleration. The kickdown linkage is what tells the trans to drop to a lower gear for acceleration such as when passing. Later model transmissions used a TV cable which took over the function of the vacuum modulator and kickdown linkage as EmTee stated. As for the line for the wipers, if you’re not using it, cap it off, otherwise , it’s the same as a vacuum leak. What adapter did you use to mate the 263 to the TH350?

That is a good looking car. As was mentioned, rusted floors and rockers are suspicious for an Arizona then Texas car. Still, very good looking car. I've always wondered how solid a 4 door hard top would be. They are every bit as attractive as a 2 door. Also, I thought I saw something in the forums about some weird, 1 year suspension on these '57's that makes it very expensive to restore the front ends on these. Still, if it were closer, I would certainly go have a look, and, if those bumper ends and the trim were there, I think I'd have to bring that home. Sadly, 55er brings up a harsh truth, it is getting prohibitively expensive to rescue these old gals.

Great pictures, great info, great post. Thanks for sharing this!

So this morning I was admiring JohnD1956's '56 Super and ran across some information he found in his service manual and posted in regard to some charging troubles he was having, ' The manual though, is very clear that anytime you disconnect the battery you need to polarize the generator before starting the car or you could damage the regulator. So it would appear that my failure to polarize the generator for the last ten years may have been the root cause of my situation." How about that. Also, on John's recomendation, I;ve started pricing wiring harnesses, they cost as much as the car did. Will need to do something.

I have such a hard time understanding the '55 Chevy thing when Buick had these. But that seems to always be the case, Buick makes a few, they're gone, and then everyone finds out how great they were. Compound carbs on the straight eights, these '55 Centuries, the GS cars, dual quad 465's, the Grand National....why is this?

That is really interesting. I don't think of the manufacterers as knowing anything about handling until the late 70's. I had a few Mustangs, and couldn't believe the difference when I bought a new Trans Am in '78. I will say, this '50 Buick is making me a believer. Not that it goes around corners well, but how it drives on less than perfect dirt and gravel roads. It rides remarkably well in such environments.

Dan O, you said it! Cruel. Looks like wiring will cost as much as the car did. Further, looks like a ready made harness is cheaper than trying to source wire and do it your self. Frank DuVal, I'm with you, I was sure the regulator was bad, but, on a whim, did the polarizing proceedure and it's working normal.

Yes, the wiring harness has certainly seen better days, and, although I don't have a kill switch installed, the negative battery cable is just slipped on the battery post. I will also take your advice as to disconnecting the battery when it's inside, which is always. The harness is on the list, I had intended to query the forum and see where the best harness could be obatained, particularly the correct gage of wire. I would not be opposed to modern insulation but would like a harness with original gage wire. I am also interested in mobilparts' comment. I wasn't aware that you offered parts. Do you have a website or catalog?

So some of you may have seen my post on replacing the front pump seal on the Dynaflow in my '50 Special. After being down for two months, I got the car back together and noticed that the generator was severely overcharging. I didn't remember having that problem before. Looked in the service manual and found that the regulator can be adjusted for output. Yeah, maybe the original could, but the one installed now has no adjustment. I figured, old car, always need something, so I ordered a new voltage regulator from Kanter. In the mean time, I decided to drive around with the headlights on so as to not severely overcharge the battery that was already long in the tooth, (the previous owner told me it was from 2017 I think). I stopped by a freind's house to show off my recent repair, sat on the porch and chatted for an hour and a half, went to leave and, you guessed it, battery dead as a door nail. Home was withing walking distance, so, I went and got my battery charger and hooked it up for an hour or so, nothing doin'. Plan B: found a battery, in stock at Tractor Supply. Went and got the battery, set it on the ground next to the car, hooked up my jumper cables and she lit right off. Through the battery in the trunk, and, with a red face, drove my Buick home. Next day, I put the new battery in, and, found in the service manual the proceedure for polarizing the voltage regulator, or, is it more corredt to say, polarize the generator. Anyway, manual said, take a screwdriver and momentarily jump the generator and battery terminals on the voltage regulator. Terminals in the first picture, from top to bottom are FIELD GEN BATT. Second picture shows jumping GEN and BATT terminals with Screwdriver. Now the generator is charging as before, and, now I have a spare regulator on the way for $110. I've heard about this proceedure of polarizing the generator all of my life, but have never had a car that required it. A lot of you with experience with these regulator controlled charging systems probably figured out what my problem was right away. That's why we need this forum, to keep all of this knowledge alive. Thanks to all of you that do just that.

Thank you gentlemen. I've been driving around town, using it to run errands and such. I've got about 65 miles on my repair, and, so far so good. I want to drive it to some of the local shows and such and figure out what it needs and I'll do those things this winter. My biggest worry right now is getting rear ended because the back of the car doesn't light up like Xmas like new cars do. There was a guy with a '50 Sedanette down in Florida, doing videos on Youtube who got rear ended. Haven't seen anything about the car since.

Today I got to drive the Buick. No leaks, works really well, as it did before I removed it to replace the front seal. I also replaced the entire exhaust system, new shock links in the rear, new trans mount, new trans thrust mount, new polyurethatne Panhard rod bushings as recommended by Old_Tank. New master cylinder. New heater hoses. Should be able to make some 50 mile trips and not worry too much. Lots left to do, but now we're into cosmetics, not roadworthy things. I kind of fell off at the end with the pictures and such. This was not a really hard task, but I still wound up taking slightly over 2 months. I need to keep taking small, bite size projects to keep this care on the road and keep it from turning into another basket case that winds up scattered all over my garage and never gets put back together. I plan on driving it to local shows and get to know the local Buick folks. I think I've got a fun summer ahead.

So today was the day. I got the car together with the exception of bleeding the brakes. Fired it up, no leaks. I havent driven it yet, but, engaged each gear, no leaks. It drove fine before, I did nothing to affect operation, so, I expect that when I drive it, it will drive just like it did before.

If your heater valve is leaking, this is the solution: Joe Hudacik 6606 Banks Ave Superior, Wisconsin 548808 218-213-8906 Mobile 714-392-6169 Home hudacikjj@chartermi.net Put your old heater valve, with your return address and a check for $100 and ship it to the above address. For me, it was a week and a day and I got this back. $100 includes return shipping, one day turn around. Thanks Joe!

1950 Buick VIN Chassis Serial Number location and attatchment method Check this link out, there are pictures to show you just what and where to look on the left frame rail. Hope this helps.

Thanks Nailhead Bob for you well wishes, they worked! I've been back at it. -Replaced all 26 feet of heater hose -Put transmission in, new thrust mount and transmission mount. WARNING! Look at old thrust mount hard to make sure you have all of the shims -Mated rear axle to the torque ball As you can see in the pictures, I took 3 4" bolts, chopped the heads off, cut a screw driver slot in each one and beveled the edge. My plan was to use these to guide the torque tube into alignment with the torque ball. The bottom one installed and worked as I had imagined, but the other two were too long. 1st, couldn't get a screw driver on them and 2nd, as the torque tube slid forward, they interfered where the torque tube expands in dimension. I think they need to be shortened to 3" and, what would really ideal would be to file 4 flats so an open end wrench could be used to install/remove them. Ben Bruce aka First Born, suggested taking the rear springs out. I believe this would make maneuvering the rear end in and out of the torque ball splines easier, for sure. What kept me from doing it was fear of ripping the nut plate out of the lower or upper spring perch and having to complete remove the rear, which would mean putting it outside for me, or having to leave it on jack stands, restricting movement under the car. This worked out alright, but, if you can, remove the springs and life will be easier. I'll finish up today with linkage, speedo cable, shock links, etc., today. My next hold up is going to be waiting on my heater control valve to come back. I sent it off last week and am at the mercy of USPS, which, I have to admit, has been pretty good here of late.

Sorry, I haven't posted in a while, I was sicck for a bit. I'm back to it, doing a few things before I put the Dynaflow back in. I wanted to share a tecknique I discovered on line for using Rustoleum. We all know Rustoleum is an excellent protective paint. We all also know that it takes forever to dry. I found out that there is a hardener/activator that takes car of this issue. I painted some parts yesterday with satin black and today, it's ready to install. I mixed this 4oz paint, 3oz, reducer, 1/2oz hardener. Sprayed it with a cheap, Harbor Freight HVLP gun, 3 coats. The best part, this method is very inexpensive and bether than most things that come in a spray bomb. Only down side is cleaning the gun. I plan to do all chassis and engine parts, such as the aircleaner and other components with this method. Hope this is of help to some of you.

Got back on the Dynaflow yesterday. Wanted to clean it up and paint it before I put it back in. I think that these transmissions weren't painted from the factory. I decided to go with cast iron colored paint for that reason. You can see how much better it looks in the before and after pictures. My particular transmission was covered with undercoating. I used mineral spirits, then laquer thinner and last acetone to clean and prep for paint. There was really no reason to paint it other than it looks better in my opintion. It will also make working on it in the future easier because details can be made out. I have a new mount and thrust mount to install, also new boot that will be installed on the rear. Today I hope to get all of the hardware clean and ready to go back in. As you can see in the last picture, I have the transmission haning from my engine hoiste, much easier to clean and paint this way. Whatever I was using to clean ran off of the transmission into a pan sitting on the table I had the transmission sitting on while I was replacing the seal. Wont be long now. I'll get to see if it works or not. Then, I get to cruise around in this old gal.

So this is what has been the hold up with the Dynaflow. The original screen, shown in the first picture was damaged while cleaning. I was going to go ahead and run it, had actually put the pan back on, but, after considering what one usually finds when a transmission pan is removed, plus the fact that the oil filter screen only sits an 1/8" or so off the bottom, I decided to fix this problem. A search on line revealed no used oil filter screen assemblies to be had. I did, howerver, run across a post where someone had procurred screen material on e-bay and replaced it. In the second picture, you can see the pickup assembly with the brass screen removed. I had to fashion a tool to bend the retaining lip up, actually two tools. The first was a common 1 1/2" putty knife that I radiused on the grinder to matche the readius of the oild screen housing. Great idea, but the putty knife turned out to be too flexible to effectively lift an 1 1/2" of the lip at a time. I did use it later to try to tuck brass screen under the lip, but I'll get to that. I ended up modifying an old flat blade screw driver by grinding an edge on the end of it to wedge under the lip of the oil screen housing and lift it up. I braced the edge of the oild screen housing against my vice, and tapped the screw driver under the lip and semi successfully raised the lip enough extract both the brass screen and the course support screen. I say semi successfully because I cut some of the strands of the course screen with the sharp edge of the modified screw driver. I would recommend to anyone trying this to either blunt the edge of the screw driver, or, better yet, make a second one with a blunted edge to finish raising the lip. Once I got the brass screen removed, I was horrified to see how ineffective by attempt at clean the oil filter screen had been. I used a couple of large cans of Gumout carb cleaner that had been on sale at the local Advance auto store. This stuff used to be one of the most effective solvents out there. I guess it too has been "EPA'd" and has went the way of nonflamable Brake Kleen and paint stripper. Safe to the point of being ineffective. In the third picture you can see my assortment of screen material. Each one is about 3 square feet and was about $13 each. I started at #120 I think, and finally found that #40 mesh is the best match for the original filter screen. I tried to use #80 mesh, but, it was similar in composition to your wife's sheer curtains and I found it too soft and too fine to stay under the lip of the oil screen when it was bent back down to retain it. I was also concerned that the mesh might be too fine to allow easy passage of the trans fluid when it was winter time. So, I recommend the #40 mesh. You can see in the fourth picture that it is the closest match to original. I forgot to mention the stainless screen on the far left in picture 3. I will be using that to replace the original back up screen because pieces of the old back up screen kept breaking off and I was afraid a piece would wind up in the pump. As a note, I belive solder could be used to reinstall the finer mesh screen, but my problem with that was that I didn't want to expose the rubber grommet in the oil filter screen to heat. It was too hard, meaning the rubber was too hard to take a chance on removing and I wasn't able to find a source for a new one. At this point, I am going to stop with the repair of the original screen, I plan to repair it at a later date and post that repair in a seperate post, and move on to solution #2. I have mentioned Jim Hughes, of Jim's Dynaflow service in Ohio a few times in this post. It occured to me, if anyone might have an original oil filter screen, it was him. I called him up, and, sure enough, he had one. For an extremely reasonable sum, Jim sent me one of his spares and you can see it in picture 4, that's what I'm using to compaire the #40 mesh brass screen. So, at this point, the replacement oil filter screen is installed, the pan reinstalled and the fasteners torqued to 15-18 ft lbs as per the 1950 Buick manual.

Hi NailheadBob. My reference is not what the Buick parts manual calls that seal, I was just trying to be precise in describing which seal I thought was causing the leak. People aroung here refer to a lip seal with the backup spring behind the seal, as a garlock seal. USAF uses this same terminology for this type of seal. Could very well be the same sort of thing as people refering to locking pliers as Vicegrip pliers or and adjustable jaw wrench as a Cresent wrench. Please don't take my description as the correct nomenclature for the front pump seal. Without using the illustrated parts breakdown as the illustration, it's hard to describe exactly what one is talking about with pump seals in a Dynaflow, for me anyway.

This is the seal that is believed to be causing the leak. There is a gasket behind the front pump, but highly unlikely that it is leaking. The converter bolts were tight, this is a late '51 or '52 Dynaflow, the "fix" for the leaking converter cover gasket. This converter uses the "O" ring, very reliable. It is theoretically possible for the converter cover, front pump to converter garlock seal, or the pump to front of transmission gasket to be leaking. The most likely is the front pump to converter garlock seal in the picture. From what I understand, these usually leak due to the seal becoming old, sometimes, bearing wear on the bearing that supports the converter can cause enough play to cause thes to leak, as stated previously by NailheadBob, but that too is not true in most cases. There is no way that I have found to tell what's leaking with the trans installed and running, I wasn't able to see any of the seals. My best clue was the leak in the video. If it were the converter cover, it would have sprayed all around while it was spinning. What I had was a leak that was runnig out of the bottom of the bell housing, just past the centerline, in the direction of rotation. That makes me thing the garlock seal. If it were the gasket between the front pump and the front of the transmission, I would expect it to run almost exactly down the center of the trans and also, some eveidence of the leak between the bell housing and the front of the transmission on the outside. All of this is conjecture on my part, because I couldn't actually see where the leak was exiting the transmission, so, I'm rolling the dice to an extent. As for the oil filter screen, the uniformity of mesh was disturbed, allowing gaps in the screen, which would allow bigger chunks of whatever into the trans, and more importantly, the pump, than I was willing to take a chance on. The pump is $800 on e-bay. Also, this screen sits about an 1/8" off of the bottom of the trans oil pan, so, I was worried, and took it back apart and I'm waiting on one from Jim Hughes. I really appreciate the input from you all. It's always a good thing to have a second set of eyes looking at what you're doing. Thanks to all of you. I also hope this helps someone out, like Mudbone's post helped me. Also, had a lot of good info from Old_Tank. He was my inpiration to pull it out myself.

The only check I did on the front bushing was to grab the 4 bolts that I rotated to the top position on the torque converter and loop my thumbls over the top of the bell housing and lift up and down. I felt no play whatsoever. Unscientific, I know, but, if the bushing was worn enough for that leak, I should have been able to feel it. Also, in discussing it with Jim Hughes @ Jim's Dynaflow Service in Ohio, he told me that the torque convert is bathed in oil from the pump and almost never wears. I will find out soon enough. If it leakes, it will take me half the time to take it next time. There are those that would blow this thing apart, replace everything that can be replaced, and put it back together and have a brand new transmission.....or not! Mudbone's post is the best tutorial I've seen on rebuilding a Dynaflow, and, during his testing, after the trans was back toghether, he found a gasket that was wrong, which he also used the wrong gasket which didn't show up until his testing. The best thing about Mudbone's rebuild was the testing that was done before installing the transmission. Anyway, I am averse to blowing this car all apart, having it scattered all over and then something happens where I'm not able to put it back together, nor am I around to tell anyone where everything is. I see cars for sale like this all the time, someone blows the car apart, then, for whatever reason, it doesn't get put back together, the wife is stuck with it, and no one wants to tackle the job of putting it back together. I don't want to be in that position. I have used the approach I am using in the past, get it running, which, while doing so, you learn alot about the vehicle, what it needs and what it doesn't, and once you have it mechanically sound, you go back and address the issues with a plan. That's my plan. Plus, If I have to take this trans out again, It's not that big of a deal. If it works, my plan is to find another Dynaflow like I have and do the complete overhaul, bearings and all, and put that in my car or another. I do agree that that leak looks serious, it leaked when I got it, but not like that. I'm also not going to fault you for raining on my parade, the chances are just as good that I do have another problem. The main thing that motivates me to go ahead with my path is that ther was nothing on the bearing surface of the torque convert to make me thing the bearing was worn terribly. We will know soon enough.