KAD36

Glad great news that’s you’re just about back on the road with a hood on the car, those annoying “little things” sure seem to crop after a big job but you got the critical part 100% as expected. Wish I would have used your approach doing the steering gear! and…lookit that extra room on those shelves and the nooks and cranny’s on the floor for more parts….and is that one of those “custom bend on site for a perfect fit” tailpipes up in the rafters 😁 Great write up and tips as always!

Since everything is going swimmingly and the engine went in with time to spare, what will you be drinking around with next? 😆. An hour…that’s hustlin’….not your first rodeo huh 👍 😎. Good to hear it’s going well.

Johnson.

Remember to tighten the radiator cap… unlike one of your rookie students 🙄 Great job as always. Thanks for the play by play. Looking forward to light off.

Interesting, how do the other motors provision for the arc sweep control. Am riding on your coat tails because I might still want to put a system like this on mine someday. It helps me be more successful at procrastinating re-paint #2 and bodywork. Am also wondering if the 55 RM switch and motor are a 1 year only thing.

2am, last call, bars closing….put it into production and we’ll figure it out and write it up later. That’s my story and am sticking to it. Am beginning to think your vac motor is not quite right for the year. Can’t understand the pump. The large diameter vac hose at the switch should simply port vacuum to the suction side of the pump when the button is pressed. One hose should have suction all the time and the switch seals it when the button isn’t pressed. Press the button and vac is introduced into the second hose. That suction pulls the diaphragm up in the air chamber against the large spring while pulling fluid up in the lower fluid chamber for as long as button is pressed or until the piston goes full stroke up against the spring. Release the button and the spring pushes the diagram assembly back down and out comes water pushed by spring force through the lower chamber and seal. Do not overfill the jar such that liquid enters the air chamber where the plastic assembly is split. If you put raw vacuum into the pump you should hear that big spring making sounds as it is compressed inside the plastic canister. Am maintaining the small hoses have to do with arc sweep. Only the Bowen cable adjusts base wiper speed, augmented by the upper lever if needed. At least that’s how I believe it (the wiper control) works. The washer is supposed to be as simple as dirt until the coordinator showed up, then it got tricky. A number of years ago mine had a vacuum leak at the switch from a corroded internal washer button from overfilling the jar in a past life so I feel your pain in trying to figure it out.

Here’s a related link from a past discussion. Your 2 smaller diameter hoses are likely the arc control. The 70 series switch looks like it had 4 hoses in 55 based on this earlier post. The standard wiper motors without the extra sweep don’t have that cylindrical part on them. Fire it up see what happens.

Does the hose to it go into the wiper switch, maybe that assembly somehow modifies the sweep arc…..

My understanding was only the roadmaster had a cam o matic wiper system standard in 55 with 2 levers on the wiper switch. On off lever on the lower side just like the standard switch, then an additional wide/fast upper lever, Moving the lower lever from off towards on increase the wiper speed just like the standard switch. The wide/fast is a misnomer in my opinion. Upper lever set to wide sets a wide wiper arc for city driving to see better left/right and since the arc is wider the time to complete 1 wipe cycle is longer for a given wiper speed set by the lower lever. That cam thing on the wiper arm kept the wiper pressed against the curved glass on the extreme end of the arc. Moving the upper knob to fast reduces that arc from wide to short arc for highway driving when primarily looking straight ahead, so less arc, less time to complete and a much faster sweep. So my hunch is the wide/narrow control are the extra vac hoses. FWIW I always wanted to acquire one of those and put it on my Super even if it’s not correct. There is mention of upper lever operation for RM series only in the owners manual but no letters are shown on the switch. There is also no distinction for operation of a coordinator - the owners manual documentation indicates pressing the washer and starting the wipers is a 2 step operation, no exceptions. So my belief is the washer without coordinator is right for the car and the switch with 2 levers is right for the car and the extra hoses control the wide/narrow arc - whether the switch is embossed with “wide/narrow”…the owners manual shows no distinction in 55 from the standard switch, but I think they fixed that labeling in 56 along with adding the coordinator. Below is a picture of my owners manual which came out ridiculously large. I don’t think this lower diagram and explanation of the upper lever operation is in the hometown buick document scan. I think the 56 switch labeling was updated for clarification and if not mistaken looks like this - my recollection is this is what’s in JDs 56 Super… I bet there was zero schedule time left in 55 to incorporate the customers feedback of nonexistent wiper control labeling for both levers in the flagship RMs, technicians feedback of the no vac hose routing diagrams for the RMs, the directions weren’t ready for first printing of the owners manual, and nobody reads the directions beyond how to start the car and find “D” anyway. The first rainy day Jackie Gleason probably complained, and marketing caught hell (Gleason just wants to turn on the wipers why did you make that so hard). Someone in engineering then embossed Wide/Narrow on the first 56 switch thinking that met requirements and marketing, still reeling from having been smacked upside the head the year prior, said “Narrow” may be functionally accurate and intuitively obvious but doesn’t fit in the space, is hard to read and is aesthetically unpleasing. Go make up a 4 letter word that is opposite of wide and fix it. Engineering says Fine, hits the bars hard at 5:01 pm and on a crumpled napkin at 2 am with their ties on their foreheads they said if Marketing can spin the word “Fast” as the new literary opposite of “Wide” problem solved. Marketing ran with it and at 9am that morning both the bar napkin and switch rev -001 are sitting ceremoniously in the middle of the board room table. Fast forward to our humble forum today….. But I’ve digressed LOL. Hope this helps.

Thought the coordinator was a new option for 56 and the short/wide angle wipe was std option for roadmasters, which would make me think the washer assembly in your picture is correct for the car and the vacuum hose routing to the switch and wiper motor is for the white angle sweep, maybe I’m not understanding the question

How did the routing off the motor wires to the interior go? This looks like a candidate I was looking at to replace mine a few years ago but the wires appeared to come out the back instead of the top so I hesitated. Mine is acting up and hits a dead spot at low speed, stalls and starts cooking. I use high and whack it with a little hammer if it gets stuck. Not putting up with that too much longer. Am sure the commutators need cleaned, and bearings lubed but just in case…. I bet the higher rpm’s help circulate the heat better. That housing has deflectors for all 4 bottom corners of the car. My car is usually on the road through November or until the first snow, so the heaters get used.

Same for the interior turn signal light bulbs that are on the end of those long flat clips that have to be pushed up inside the speedometer or grounded with a test jumper as mentioned above. Same for the speedometer gauges radio clock etc all have to be mounted and grounded through the dash to light. Assuming the rheostat on the light switch isn’t scratchy and intermittent.

Would shaving cream work there to catch the filings then shop vac it out?

Also, were the heads milled at all? That and or valve seats from X number of valve jobs could affect the geometry. Attaining the valve stem numbers with the reference block Willie mentioned was the process used on my first rebuild and as one might expect it provides a reference point to “compensate” for heads that had been worked on a couple of times with different resulting seat depths - it gets the geometry and preload consistent and back to factory specs. Adjustable pushrods obviously also essentially do the same thing without having to grind the stems - they make up for variation in seats, head milling, wear etc etc so lifter preload and valve lift is all consistent. Either way you go the end game is the same. I didn’t fully appreciate this until doing the math then the measurements with a dial indicator and finding my valve stems were running wild. After a bunch of late night phone calls to some forum folks who had rebuilt their 322s the “Tank” set me straight yet again. Agree it’s best to find root cause and corrective action, but don’t drive yourself too nuts if you can’t find it. Been there done that. Fall back on good shop practices and accurate, consistent measurements. You probably already knew that. I don’t recall the adjustable push rods on my second rebuild being too different a diameter than those other aftermarket ones but there were also no rub marks on mine so might have just lucked out. Plus it felt better to dial in a consistent preload. More things to swear at while holding the locking nut and spinning the adjustment nut and trying not to drop the wrench and wait was that just 2/3 of a turn or 3/4 Cripes better start all over. 16 freakin times. That’s my story and sticking to it Curious if you find anything more. Thanks for keeping us updated.

If am understanding the above correctly, cam rocker arms and inner outer springs are factory original? If so it would seem unlikely that would induce spring bind if factory lift and ratio are retained imho. Are the only new parts in the valve train the pushrods and lifters? How do the lifter and pushrod lengths compare to original? 55 and 56 lifters and pushrods need to stay a matched set due to different lengths between the years - how consistent are they. Some type of interference bent that pushrod, not just rubbing. Adjustable pushrods are a little more expensive but help offset effects of valve stem height and seating differences if the heads were worked on multiple times and help ensure a consistent preload. While not mandatory fwiw went that route on my second rebuild with good results. +1 on filing to accommodate the larger diameter pushrods per Muds video. Let us know what you find

Glad you found it. Assuming these were reproduction? Consider what EmTee said and check the valve bind specs for your inner and outer valve springs compared to the lift on your cam and the ratio of your rocker arms if you’ve not already done so. Myself and others had problems during our rebuilds with some aftermarket valve springs not being able to compress enough to accommodate aftermarket camshaft profiles and valve head work - tolerance stack up issues. Granted I used 1.6 ratio rockers vs 1.5, and the aftermarket cam at the time was promised to “work” but no specs were provided and it had to be dialed in. The factory valve springs will compress to under an inch, some aftermarket ones won’t. Guy on the HAMB forum did the math on a couple suppliers. Giving credit where credit is due, see page 6 of attached post: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/engine-builders-why-is-my-new-322-breaking-rockers.986654/page-6 It could also be a part quality issue if aftermarket. Looking forward to hearing it run right - looks great so far.

Do you recall what adjustments you were making when the rpm moved from idle to off idle. It sounds like something is getting sucked shut if not a misfire or crossed wire. Something mechanical in the valve train would seem more regular imho. Also back to your “ran great before integration” comment - how long and what rom did it run at? What temp did it get to vs the temp it’s at now when noise happened. If noise was happening regularly at idle I missed it in the video

What adjustments did you make that affected the rpm range of the pop. It sounds like a metallic contact click. Like something is getting sucked up at a certain rpm and hits something and starves the engine or cuts the ignition. Trying to get in the ball park of cause and effect. .

Think of all the extra parts you’d have that you wouldn’t need and couldn’t use… just like some of the rest of us 🤣🤣🤣🤣

The pictures are of a 54 sedan and the ad is for a 55 wagon…what’s under the hood?

Then and Now Automotive has done a few for me when I didn’t feel like doing it myself. Kits are reasonably priced, hold up to todays fuels which most should these days anyway. Been awhile since I used them, they did the work on site.

But if there’s vapor in that line ( going by the vapor chamber call out in the cutaway) and it’s reintroduced into the suction line doesn’t that defeat the purpose? That’s why I thought it had to go back to the tank.

When first seeing that filter my assumption was it went after the pump and the 3rd line would go back to the filler neck area to not introduce vapor into the suction line. Having trouble visualizing how it works tied in line just ahead of the pump if I’m understanding the thread properly….

Great seeing you this morning JD. Thanks again for the ride. To return the photo favor, here is how JD packs for vacation…trunk full to the brim of many Buick parts plus a cooler and beach umbrella or three. The banner is awesome, pictures didn’t do it justice for the bit of it I saw. Glad you’re back - that car sounds so smooth after the cross country run. Best thing for it.

That picture of what looks like kids fishing could be a Norman Rockwell print.