KAD36

My W.A.G. is it’s an extra part someone put in or a gauge that fell in. Seems odd a dynaflow piece-part would say pat pending on it to me. If it’s not in an exploded parts list or PSB why would it belong anywhere….what happens if it’s left out? Just thinking out of the box no pun intended 🙄 FWIW it wasn’t obvious from any shop manual picture. https://www.hometownbuick.com/1955-buick-variable-pitch-dynaflow-transmission-maintenance/ Scroll to bottom of above link - there are 3 exploded diagrams of various subsystems within the 55 transmission. Didn’t see that part anywhere but please verify. Me thinks so it’s a tool or gauge of some sort that fell in and went along for the ride….

What shop in Batavia did you use and how recently?

As an aside, FWIW my stream of thought of an abbreviated “Top 5” list if your objective is get it to run then see what it needs….lots of different COAs and experience on the forum. This just reflects my approach on a student budget when this was my only hand me down ride in the 80s. Disregard if you’ve already thought it all through or done the steps. 1) my recommendation would be resist the urge to run the engine much until you replace oil and filter, replace the fuel pump and flex line (avoid fuel on hot surface when diaphragm or top seal goes), flush cooling & block so sediment doesn’t foul the radiator, ranco valve, heater core, water pump. Replace radiator and heater hoses, check rad cap so they don’t let loose from dry rot under pressure and scald someone. You can do the panty hose trick in the top hose to catch sediment also. Replace fuel filter, drain tank and fresh gas so sediment/varnish doesn’t foul the carb. Consider a tank sealer to slosh around in there if you decide to drop the tank. 2) Fix the exhaust so you don’t asphyxiate yourself from leaks into the garage. Yeah the old car exhaust smells great and fans work but you get the point. Make sure your exhaust heat riser valve is free and not frozen closed (pass side manifold on your car). Could warp something or cause high engine temps/ poor response if rusted closed. Follow on to 2- Since my crossover pipe was good and the nuts would not budge I did not drop the oil pan to clean it right away. The oil and filter were changed every few hundred miles then every 3k. Did not motor flush. I did drop the pan to clean it many years and miles later when the y pipe deteriorated. During the y pipe removal cracked one of the exhaust manifolds irreparably. The engine had about 80k on it then and I didn’t rebuild it until it had about 100k on it. My pan was full of dirt, rocks and sludge because the car primarily ran the strip mine dirt roads daily between Shamokin, Mt Carmel and Centralia as it’s livelihood but even so always had good pressure. Yours may not be that extreme but likely sludgy. If you choose to drop the pan here’s a link for a look ahead, anticipate its same for 56, it was straightforward when y pipe and idler arm were down. https://forums.aaca.org/topic/67190-55-roadmaster-oil-pan-removal/?tab=comments#comment-273553 3) sounds like you are going through the brakes. Hoses and cylinders all around, don’t skimp, lines too or as needed. Really stand on the pedal before you head out. Check the e-brake too. No reserve hydraulic cylinder on these cars. One leak and your downshifting, ebraking, pumping the pedal and doing fast mental math on rate of closure to obstacle or find an escape path. Obviously you’ll check the shoes, hardware, drums for reuse/replace. Clean and repack front wheel bearings inner and outer while in there. Grease the chassis, look for anything excessively worn. You’ll be getting ready for a drive. 4) if it’s running good assume you can check the charge with all the electrical loads on so you don’t kill the battery as you run it although it will run quite awhile on just the battery alone. Make sure brake lights and signal systems work. 5) it’s easy to drain the trans and torque converter via the drain plugs, drop the pan and wipe it out. I ran it a bit and then changed it again and gtg. Yeah the trans leaked for many years until I had it rebuilt but not so bad that a viscosity improver and a sheet of cardboard worked out fine. 6).Tires and diff fluid level. Nuff said. 7) Assuming it’s a fair weather daylight car at first and wipers check out. They run off manifold and fuel pump vacuume. Check the hoses and the vacuume motor on the firewall if sluggish. Rain X is your best friend. That ought to keep you busy enough to hit the high points and get it a few laps around the block or the backyard, get some time on it before you venture further and see what it needs. Lots of fine tuning to go from there. Like I said the above was just my approach - if I missed something or got it wrong am sure the forum team will help fix it. Back to JDs driveline thread not to hijack it. Have fun!

On a side note - maybe we could make this a yearly thing...someone else with a Buick can enter the contest, and we can all try to get a Buick on the 2023 calendar! Just a thought. Agree - that was fun.

Nice job on that research and write up JD. Enjoyed the read!

‘Bout time you joined the party…..😎👍

You can also lay into it like Ben says until you skin your knuckles real good going counterclockwise, then try going clockwise until you bust your fingers up real good going that direction….then sit on the pavement with your hand wrapped in a dirty shop rag and take stock of the situation….just make it look like you know what your doing at all times. Ok that wasn’t helpful - enough from the peanut gallery. 🤣. Mine were not so encrusted being from the same town 5 miles away such that what Ben advised worked fine and didn’t snap the bolt. I only remember the wheel bearing nut being backwards. Sorry.

Good points above - how bad is the leak - seeping, dripping, dumping? Is it important or urgent to replace now? They do occasionally seal up after use. Also some 1 year only parts on the 56 so take care - awareness only - not meant to scare you off. Flexible brake line is good advice as long as you’re there until you go through rest of the brake hoses/cylinders which assume is high on your list 1) That would work. FWIW some folks use a bumper jack to push the axle back and disengage the torque tube. 2) Think they are standard - can’t recall exactly. See 4) below 3) My method was to put the frame up on 4 jack stands, tires on ground, and ratcheted the axle back. I think my 1 and only floor jack was fit with a big block of wood from a 2x6 or 2x8 and a groove in it for the diff housing to rest on and not get too tipsy. That might be overkill. I don’t seem to recall lifting the axle too high at all, just enough to jiggle the tires and get the driveshaft to reseat during installation. It wasn’t elegant but it worked. See 4) below 4) Listen to the smarter guys with more “practice”. 😆 In the rare event as new old car owner you visualize this procedure over and over in your head while you’re away, the good news is you’ll have thought of everything and it will go almost flawlessly when you get back…😎👍 Question: what’s your overall plan to get from here to “running and driving”. Might be able to get input from the team on best sequence of repairs. Just a thought.

600. Bada-boom-bada-bing

Glad to know you heard something similar - thanks for posting - there were a couple threads on the tri-five Chevy and HAMB sites where guys were fighting this exact same coil mounting and infant mortality issue while others dug in stating they experienced no long term reliability issues. The original 60 yr old Delco coil that was on the car from the 60s still works fine and I must have spun that “new” coil in all kinds of directions to cover the windings in oil and they still failed. I did notice if I shake the original Delco coil when cold I can’t hear it slosh at all but when it’s hot there is a very faint liquid sound. Makes me think they were filled with more oil and of higher viscosity back then but that’s my pure speculation. Maybe the design needed less room to expand when hot and could tolerate less air space. Maybe it was more structurally sound internally also. We could probably all agree current offshore replacement parts are inferior to and have a wider variation in quality and acceptance standards as compared to the Made in the USA products found on our cars when in daily service. For “more better” stories see post 33 and 40 in link below - about summed it up for me. Stupid parts. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/mounting-a-coil-sideways-yes-or-not-recommended.688224/page-2

Thought to summarize my findings after all the word salad trying to figure out the stalling problem when hot … waited until there was about 600 miles before reporting out. So far no misfire, stalling, shutdown or weak spark issues at hot even in the 95 deg heat. coil: pertronix “verified epoxy filled” 1.5ohm primary. Am not totally knocking the new aftermarket oil filled coils but this one fixed my run of bad luck with new oil filled coils mounted horizontally. Carry a spare. rotor: the .5 ohm one with no suppression resistance (out of spec but resistor plugs offer secondary impedance) plugs: auto lite 85 resistor plugs (4K ohms each) wires: solid core no resistance regulator: aftermarket idle speed: 550-575 in D with AC off. Add about 120 rpm during AC season (650-675). Helps w charging and cooling at idle w AC on. ballast resistor: modified aftermarket. Trim about 2 coils off end to give 1.4 ohms vs 1.8-2 ohms. It’s possible to fit the new wire element into the old ceramic housing I just haven’t done it yet. The wire to the right of the meter is what was trimmed off to meet spec in the shop manual. Hope this helps someone. Carry on 😎

Wow Mt Carmel PA - my family was from Marion Heights and Shamokin. Sounds like the story of my car sitting in an unlikely shed behind a house. Looked like that too New ignition coils and ballast resistors put me through hell this spring. If after all the above advice checks out take a look at coil measurements. I’ll take a crack at the hot coil complaint. Am assuming hot is like burn to the touch hot and it from just sitting there with key on? if so my hunch would be too much current going through the primary side of the coil assuming your battery isn’t some crazy high voltage. Why did you get a new coil? Make sure the new coil is one with the right primary resistance, not the .3 ohms ones for solid state conversions. If you have a multimeter, primary resistance of correct coil should be 1.5 ohms, secondary 8-10K ohms. If the primary is too low or shorted it would cause too much current running through the coil. Downstream of the coil is basically a connection to ground through the points. Your ballast resistor on the firewall doesn’t kick in until after the car starts. If suspicious you can jumper across/around if. It should be about 1.5 ohms. Also regarding starting spark, check the ignition rotor -there is a 10k suppression resistor in it. Make sure that’s not “open”. It will run with numbers as high as 100k ohms and new ones are all over the map on values. If you don’t have a shop manual get one or go to hometown Buick there’s online literature. Take careful measurements and follow the specs. Let us know how it goes. https://www.hometownbuick.com/1956-buick-electrical-specifications/ Follow up - What’s the state of the gas and oil your trying to start it on? Folks will probably weigh in on fresh gas, clean oil, filters, maybe a prelube of the cylinders. If you don’t drop the pan right away drop it soon. It amazed me the level of crap in there - the cars oil inlet was basically the size of a quarter because there were 40 years of crud covering up the inlet screen. How it ran and had good pressure we’ll never know. Be prepared for a fuel pump and rubber fuel line too - don’t expect the original to last long if at all - those innards are probably dried out and don’t hold up well to ethanol based fuels. Look for spray out from the top of the pump, or it could also leak into the engine but we are getting ahead of ourselves. Congrats on the new ride!

Have not done the rubber seal but thinking about it, it seems less likely to crush than the rope seal (that was .015 high) so flush might be best. Whether you trim it flush or leave it maybe .005 high try it dry first see how it fits and consider a dab of anaerobic sealer to help ensure it seals. Good luck

479. Did you win yet? What’s taking so long? 🤣🤣🤣

378

One last item I use is a headlight wired up with alligator clips as a test tool, I use this to test wiring to see if it can carry amps to operate circuits. I have found voltage and little to no amps cause problems like this. Steve Yeah - better said. ——————————————^

Well, thats a pretty general description on cold, hot, any mods, and few observables so heres some ideas. Thermally related electrical issues can be tough to pinpoint. Am assuming that engine has a generator and points (analog) regulator on it, and if memory serves power windows and power seats run off the same relay and circuit breaker, and thats a thermal breaker and resets itself when the fault is gone. Maybe someone can check me on that. If the switch or relay aren't stuck on causing a motor "stall" condition to trip the breaker, as suggested above, another possibility is a poor (high resistance due to corrosion over time) connection someplace such that a high current load will have just enough power "source" to appear to work at cold (when charging system is putting out the highest voltage to the battery - have seen well over 15V on mine) and then as the regulator compensates for hotter conditions and lowers the voltage the high resistance of that poor connection robs power that would normally drive a high current load, like a motor, to work. The places on my car notorious for that are where there is that flat blade/socket connection in the wiring harness - they are encased in this brittle clear plastic connector that sometimes shatters when you mess with it to make it more better. So my thoughts are: 1) Visual the current gauge - does it behave any different at hot or cold when the windows are operating? If a relay or switch is stuck, the expectation is it would stay discharging after you let go of the switch until the breaker opened. The gauge behavior would also give you a clue as to if there was a hard short pulling more current at hot (it would show more discharge), or just a lousy connection (maybe not much of a drop at all). Although if temp related it would seem to be the relay under the hood being stuck or high resistance across the contact points when closed vs the switch in the door would be more suspect. 2) If you have a schematic, visual all the mechanical connections you can see or find easily before tearing the door apart - any of the connection points discussed above, the wiring to the breaker, perhaps the impedance across the relay, clean up all the connections. 3) Does your car have power seats? If they run through the same circuit (too lazy to get my book), and the seats behave the same, then it suggests a common failure upstream of the seats/window controls and motors. 4) After that next step would probably be to pull off the door panel and get a volt/current multimeter on the switches and the motors to see what is going on. Just thought to give you some things to try before pulling interior panels off Good luck let us know how it goes

What a terrific story! Thanks for a great read. Glad your hard work and perseverance paid off.

Seems the Special and Century 2 door HT have these pieces while the larger Super and Roadmaster have slightly different cutting and do not have these extra pieces. Shazam. I looked at the 50/70 series pic. Sorry bout that. Learn somethin new every day. Let’s see who chimes in…..

Another bit of failure info that may help - two of the failures the secondary resistance failed hardcover open. The last failed at hot measuring well over 150 k ohms on the secondary and 8.5k ohms room temp (12 v system). If your misfire is at hot only consider a secondary resistance check to see how well it holds spec at hot w everything disconnected at the coil, understanding resistance check is only a quick DIY indicator and not a comprehensive coil test. Even with newer wires, the routing to ensure no induced crossfire between adjacent wires, integrity of primary wiring between coil and distributor and other “easy” things should be considered first.

Went through 3 coils in 2 years. Misfire at hot idle and no misfire at cold or during warmup was early indicator. Cars primary and secondary circuits all checked out ok. The original delco coil was filled with a thick oil as are most today. Maybe I just had a run of bad luck but an epoxy filled one mounted horizontal so far works fine. It seems people are successful if a newer oil filled coil is mounted vertically. Or use an older made in USA one if mounted horizontal. Cannot explain it, just sharing results of my research. I wasn’t comfortable running long distance with a 40 or 70 year old used coil as the primary ignition source and was tired of getting stuck.. Maybe carrying a box of old ones and playing swaptronics would be smarter lol.

I installed 2 carpets in 2drht over the years, most recently a Daytona weave about 3 yrs ago through an ACC dealer, and don’t recall any pieces like that - maybe for a sedan? Is that an actual or representative picture? FWIW ACC site didn’t show those pieces. Be curious what you find out

My money would be on the starter switch and the wires going to it. Have had that exact problem with the passage that the check ball rides in getting gummed up, as well as the contacts inside getting dulled. With the power off or battery disconnected you can also push the pedal down and measure the resistance across the carb switch. It’s easiest to pull the carb off, disassemble the switch clean the contacts and the passages, don’t loose the shims and put it back on. x2 on the power wire to the switch (yellow or pink) being unfused and burning the wiring harness - PITA to fix. Also check the connector ends where they crimp onto the wire. The wires on mine got brittle and started breaking off at the crimp points, had to replace them.

Good point. One thing appears consistent. The guy on the right is overdue for a beer, hand on hip, customer being a PITA, Friday 430….

Yes it would help temporarily, I’d be concerned about point life long term because my coils primary is low resistance and it needs a current limiting (ballast) resistor on there while running. Thats an interesting situation on your car - am assuming you have no issues with point life or cold starting? Might the coil on your car have an internal primary resistance of 3 ohms or more instead of 1.5 ohms and doesn’t need an external resistor? Incidentally 3 ohms is he total max resistance in the shop manual for the primary plus ballast! When the charging system (generator and mechanical regulator) is good and hot (underhood - hood closed) with a mild electrical load at idle (like sitting at a long red light or a chain of red lights) it will dip down to 12.2-12.4 volts and thats where my problems seem to start - any stray losses rob voltage from the coil. Just a few tenths of a volt higher at the battery and it totally goes away like the Dodge in the Hemmings article. Or if the hood is open so the regulator doesn’t get as hot, the problem is minimized. Otherwise normal op voltage is around 13+ volts, 14.9 max cold, zero issues. Seems as long as the primary always sees about 6 bolts or more there’s enough secondary voltage to fire the plugs. I have 2 aftermarket regulators and a very old Delco junkyard one on the shelf and not one of those aftermarkets regulate even closely the same over temperature with a good battery - understanding charging rate is lowered as temperature goes up - the one in the car now was the best of the bunch. One of them actually discharged the battery when it got to normal operating temp at highway speeds with no electrical load, and that might be 10 miles down the road, but worked fine when cool and couldn’t be returned. If a new reason is needed to drink a lot of beer try figuring out how to adjust mechanical regulators without blowing something up. Those spring mount tabs are way super touchy. The original-original regulator busted (and also is on the shelf) and had adjustment screws, which are rare as hens teeth, to adjust the spring pressure.