KAD36
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Posts posted by KAD36
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1 hour ago, EmTee said:
Sounds like it was running too lean; probably due to all of the accumulated crud...
^ that plus check for timing retarded (I.e. late timing) when you get your timing light…a couple degrees of advance usually helps with cooler running.
I had a shop instructor once tell me that he could hold onto the #1 wire and when the coil fired he would blink his eyes to time an engine. He is probably not teaching any more. Just goes to show you there is no place for not listening to your own common sense. I remember my friends saying “ I’m not gonna try it, you try it”. 🤣
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Good find thanks for posting the pics - helps others understand since it’s not something easy to illustrate when installed. Clarifying earlier points, that piece in the 11:00 position to the left of the spring is the spacer previously mentioned that goes over the chrome actuating ring and is held on the shaft by the wheel nut so it can’t pop off. The flange on the spacer is what keeps the actuating ring retained on the steering wheel. The contact on the horn wire rests inside that dimple on the piece in the 6:00 position which fits over the other end of the spring.
The spring and isolators, when compressed and installed between that pocket in the spacer and the piece in the 1:00 position with the clips pushes the actuating ring outwards, toward you, until the ring rests against the flange on the spacer. Turning that piece with the clips clockwise, which threads it into the actuating ring, sets the sensitivity of the ring (how far to push it) to blow the horn.
Hope that helps…..
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15 hours ago, Kosage Chavis said:
would be a cool excavation to put on youtube!
It would be the BCA version of "The Curse of Oak Island'. Bunch of us running around the field with metal detectors and we find a nail or an Ox shoe.
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Stock (worn) exhaust or something different?
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That is so cool. Makes me want to dig up photos of mine in black and white from the late 50s at my grandfathers place when it was out doin it’s thing…..
Probably drag racing usnavystgc 56 Buick up the Kulpmont hill…
So….why did the Buick get buried but not the Model T? So you could make tea in the Model T? ( great video btw). I mean, if you could plow a field with a model T couldn’t you do it with the 56? It has power steering. I just don’t get it.😎
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You’re welcome.
Yes I think it has to come off unless you can ascertain by visual inspection all parts are accounted for and properly installed. If you take it apart in sequence and take your time my hunch is you’ll figure it out else there’s a couple dozen of us armchair mechanics who have swore at this project prior to success.
Nothing special that I’m aware of. Am going off memory but mind how the contact button comes out so the wire if still soldered to the slip ring collet on the steering shaft inside the column doesn’t break off. There’s videos floating around of folks who did it if you want a look see, but I think it will be self evident. I recall simply unscrewing the nut then the circus really freakin started and back then I had no drawings or shop manual but my photographic memory still worked. It still works but it takes longer for the film to develop and occasionally some negatives get lost.
If you pull the steering wheel its location is marked on the shaft with a mark on the wheel and mark on the shaft. Line it back up right then go drive the car and blow the horn to your hearts content.
Good luck
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Look at the first diagram in the link. It looks like the spacer piece is missing? I believe the chrome ring goes on the wheel then the spacer plate then the wheel nut holds the spacer plate on. The chrome ring will then be held loosely on the wheel. When installing the remainder of the illustrated parts in sequence per diagram, the spring will lift the chrome ring off the steering wheel. That space of the lift between the ring and the wheel is governed by how far the adjusting nut is turned, and hence sensitivity of the ring to blow the horn.
Horn stuck on all the time if actuator ring is properly assembled and adjusted is a short in the steering column at the slip ring based on realized community experience. Different problem, search forum for repair and see Old Tanks tech tips page. is that clear RTV around that piece on the steering shaft? If so it’s not supposed to be there unless someone was trying to make an insulator.
Pictures are worth a thousand words for this repair, you have to lay the pieces out in sequential order to get it right. Often not intuitively obvious but doable.
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It appears like the chrome actuator ring is assembled wrong.. I’m not understanding how it was on working beforehand. If assembled right it can’t just pop off. In brief, the plastic black center cap gets pried off the ring. Then there is a retainer that unscrews from the chrome actuator ring. I believe, from memory, that retainer gets held on the shaft by one of the washers already assembled to the column in your first photo. When the chrome ring is on the wheel, you insert that threaded retainer into the chrome ring and tighten it down against the spring. The more you tighten it the less travel to actuate the horn. Then that black cap snaps on top. When pressing the ring you are closing the circuit to ground.
Try searching the forum? Someone had a similar problem a few months ago and we posted assembly and exploded installation diagrams of the contact ring spring and insulators, unless someone has it handy. If I can find it quick I’ll post it. The drawing may have been in addition to what was in the service manual.
Update. Search forum 1955 Buick horn ring. QED.
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Had a metallic green Schwinn Sting Ray with the “5 speed stick” and a rear slick pie crust tires, sissy bars and the banana seat. Likewise I mowed alot of lawns and put up alot of fences to pay for it.. I always thought that bike and my Schwinn Continental 10 speed were special but Dad threw them both out when I moved out. Isn’t it something how “ordinary” things of “the time” stick with us even years later.
… but this is about Buicks. Nice dual exhaust on that Centiry Mud 🤣
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2 hours ago, usnavystgc said:
This data bolsters Willie's @old-tank statement about the carb.
I know better than to contradict my 55 Buick mentor but I have to go look at a drawing and refresh my WCFB understanding. Always learning something new here. 😎👍
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Out of curiosity how long does it take after the problem happens for it to be able to refire and keep running. And in the time of running it up to the time of stopping and idling it in the driveway what’s the engines behavior like - normal, sluggish, missing….
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Base gasket at WCFB carb to manifold has given me unexpected trouble, and as EmTee said I had actually tuned around it never hearing or suspecting the leak to begin with and it’s certainly easy enough to spray the base and hear the idle go up.. it eventually came around and screwed up the idle when I fixed other things. The washer control was the next unsuspecting leak. The wiper motor and vac advance not so much.
My recollection is you put the new electric pump as well as mechanical pump on - it sure sounds like a fuel problem being temperature related. Just as in going through 3 coils in a year before getting one that worked, I’ve gone through electric pumps in a year unexpectedly.
When you get the problem to happen on demand ( let it idle in the driveway in D after a short run until it dies and won’t refire) you can check down the carb for fuel from the accelerator pump or check for spark while hot. When the engine is preferably cold you can check the electric pump. When my electric pump went it still would agitate the fuel in the glass filter bowl which gave me a false positive but found afterward it produced negligible pressure. The other hint was flipping the pump on and off - if it got hot at idle and started to stumble there was no difference in idle quality. And if it croaked I could get it to refire on a quick shot of starting fluid only for about 5 seconds. If you’re vapor locking at hot idle there’s no electric pump to make the save if it lacks flow and pressure. Are the fuel filters clear? Just asking - that would also be an all the time thing.
If it’s not fuel it might be weak spark at idle which FWIW was another of my issues and actually depended on the under hood temperature and if the hood was open or closed. Closed it would eventually die. Open it would idle in D all day. Had a number of contributing factors - coil intermittent, ballast resistance too high, regulator regulating too low - all at hot fine at cold. Condensers can do this too, you can do a static test with a DVM but that’s only a rough indicator of a condensers health. If you can find the old delco ones personally I’ve had better luck with those. Will need some testing to substantiate which to look for unless you want to shotgun it.
Take your pick which to start with, my bet would be fuel delivery if it’s temperature dependent, but first get a method down to replicate it, then change one thing at a time. Just my 2.5 cents, curious to hear what other folks on the team come up with.
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4 hours ago, NailheadBob said:
check for a small vacuum leak first,
+1
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Welcome and congrats on the ‘34.
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34 minutes ago, Pete Phillips said:
The block seems to be fine.
Thank goodness glad to hear it. Hope you get to root cause. Will be following.
Assume all the connecting rod hardware was replaced - not that that’s a potential cause but you’d avoid relearning my mistake.
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Feel your pain on this one Pete. How did the block fare?
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On 2/13/2023 at 10:55 AM, old-tank said:
Martin Johnson exhaust has supplied me with NORS (stock) mufflers that fit period.
Only guy that made 2 full systems, a 55 and 56, for my car that fit perfectly. And a real Y pipe with no crimped down restrictions where the L/R sides meet, although I specified that and it came out perfect too.
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8 hours ago, Hot Rod Jim said:
I can't even tell you how many times my searches end in dead ends or forums that no longer exist because everyone has moved to the dreaded social media groups, so this has been a blessing so far!
The bench depth of this forum team is beyond impressive, has kept my projects out of the ditch more than once. Would be great to catch up sometime, it appears a short hop. Maybe consider joining some of us at the Northeast Car Museum next time we go, EMTee and JD1956 aren’t too far up the road and Machine Gun even made the trek. Let us know how the project goes, and would also be curious what you choose for pistons when that time comes.
I was able to find Beemons Cam Card for the stock 56 cam for reference if interested.
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That’s good to hear and sounds like a reasonable approach. If you want to get fancy in the future, there are folks on the HAMB forum who took a 401 cam and turned down the journals to fit the 322 and said they liked the results. Although I am not sure how many folks would try that experiment and say they hated it if it didn’t work.
Not being an expert, but I have used and “dialed in” a cam from Centerville on my first full rebuild because the specs were not published and I wanted to know what I was buying. I did all the math more than once and had my final calculations and measurement process independently “peer reviewed” at the machine shop to make sure I got it right after admittedly making some errors first time through. It was different than the factory profile (apples to apples measurement methods from then to now) and had the same “blank” part number stamping as a current 401 stock replacement cam which suggested they all start with the same blank and mill their specific profiles on the blanks from there.
That being said, the Centerville cam worked ok, it idled very smooth, which is what most folks want in their stock restorations, less remarkable change in drivability than I expected and I verified all other component measurements prior to install (although Old Tank got a ride and thought it pulled fairly well). The Centerville lobe separation angle (LSA) was wider and lift and duration higher than stock. If I had not been able to find a good 56 stock cam for my second rebuild that 401 cam profile was my next choice to try. I rather like sound of the idle of the stock 56 cam which has a narrower LSA and “by the numbers” pulls the torque curve in earlier, lowered vacuum and slightly roughened the idle. My second rebuilt motor pulls from a stop better and gets to 70 more effortlessly than my first rebuild when you don’t want to diddle around. The cam is probably one of the contributors to the 1956 PSBs indicating that lower engine vac at idle (16 in Hg) compared to prior models should be considered normal. I believe the difference in LSA was 114 deg on the Centerville cam to 110 or 111 stock 56 cam going off memory although understand all cam measurements need to work in harmony to achieve a good operating point. Beemon kindly published the 56 322 cam specs somewhere on here while going through a similar exercise.
The car will run fine with the Centerville cam and hope you report back what you think after the swap. Careful putting it in so you don’t nick the cam bearings in the engine.
If you want to get more fancy pants, put in a set of 1.6:1 ratio rockers from a 401 for more lift, they will work (proven by demonstration) with the Centerville cam, but would advise doing the required math for other cam profiles to avoid valve spring bind or interference.
Bottom line - any aftermarket cam you get have awareness of the cam profile and consider it’s ability to make low end torque as close to off idle as possible if mated to a Dynaflow, especially a non switch pitch Dynaflow, unless you expect to do a lot of higher rpm spirited driving. Also factory valve springs will tolerate higher lift of a generic aftermarket cam but some aftermarket springs will not, so get the spring bind specs and do some basic math. That’s what my project taught me so passing it on - YMMV. Lots of articles out there advising what parameters work best for low end torque if you really want to get into it.
Or…go with Option 2: slap in vendor X replacement cam using good shop practices, fire it up and enjoy the ride. 😎
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51 minutes ago, EmTee said:
...or budget.
Omg ain’t that the truth.
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When you do your full rebuild definitely replace cam lifters pushrods cam bearings and have the machine shop fit the bearings to the cam. And you have some choices on cams. The 56 stock cam if you can get one is great, most aftermarket cams are a “blended” profile to work across all years of 322s.
My input on swapping the lifters/pushrods only for now was just an interim option if you wanted to address it, just to clarify. Often the full engine rebuilds don’t start or finish on schedule.
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Progressive spring is a good input. That’s on my next time list.
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I’ve swapped the 56 lifters and pushrods into a 55 with stock cam to quiet down stuck lifters from shed sitting and drove it probably 20,000 miles (over 10 years) with no issues until a bigger headache was desired and chose a full rebuild to provide that. They also had visible wear pattern and some galling. Obviously if going the 56 route you have to swap all 16 of both pushrods and lifters as they are a matched length. Are you looking to swap only the worn lifters, and is it more economical to do that? If you are looking for advice on wear some pictures might help get opinions. What are your concerns with leaving it alone for 3-5K miles if the engine is being replaced in the near future?
The swap is typically not recommended for high mileage longevity but depending how you use the car you can get away with it. When I pulled mine apart years later there was no visible wear and I would have run it another 20. Use good quality motor oil. Do your research on additives or not. I’ll avoid that discussion, thank you. It’s like the radial tire question. 🤣. Good luck with the project
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Your car looks great. Little late with advice but I did something very similar to you quite a few tears ago because that met budget before a rebuild was affordable. Had driven the car for 20+ years after sitting for probably 15. Somewhere on here I have a thread from 2006…
Basically the lifters and pushrods were replaced with 56 parts because the lifters had been really noisy. This is after I tried rebuilding them and running detergent with limited success. I was not concerned about mating new lifters to an old cam because it was only running 1500-2500 miles/year, and had no issues for my purposes. The motor was finally quiet and ran fantastic. I also replaced the rocker arm shafts and select rockers arms that were badly worn, maybe half of them or less. No need to adjust lash with hydraulic lifters. I didn’t worry about lifter preloads or valve stem heights I just put it all back together. Later when rebuilding the engine I used adjustable pushrods and got all the valve stem height, preloads, and rest of the valve train geometry right. The oil pan was dropped and the sludge shoveled out after the topside was done and plastic sheet was used to avoid dropping any gunk or debris into the lower end. Drilled the spot welds out and cleaned the breather in the valley cover. New gaskets and decals. Have fun matching up the paint. At the time CARS had a perfect factory match. I bought the same paint years later and it was different. Bill Hirsch is supposed to be bulletproof paint FWIW.
No need to remove water crossover if not leaking. Consider addressing the fuel pump as recommended for its age, that is for preventative maintenance. If you have vacuum wipers hook up the vacuum line from the fuel pump so the wipers work more consistently as manifold vacuum varies under load. Follow JDs advice on the water pump bolts. There are 2 or 3 that are smaller diameter than the rest and they take time and patience to get out, plus they are drilled into the water passage. If you do ever need to take them out replace with stainless and permatex #2 on threads. Consider replacing the points, cap, rotor and condenser after 30 years unless they are not pitted or worn upon inspection and dwell is in spec. Your call.
Update: https://www.teambuick.com/reference/casting_numbers_nailhead.php. <- Look here for engine block manifold, and head casting numbers for your year the casting numbers should match year of production. The carb if a Carter should be a 2347 on the tag. You’ll have to hunt down the Rochester number unless someone has it handy. Good luck with the project.
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'56 Century woes
in Buick - Post War
Posted
Yeah that was the second or third word that came to mind LOL. Power Technology 102.
In his defense he did teach us to use a matchbook cover to set points when in a jam, so not all screws were loose.