KAD36

Flying Dutchman rebuilt my originals. No issues, happy with work each time. Last I had done was 2018, can’t speak for how the shop is faring post Covid if you choose rebuild route. You’ve got multiple options.

Just stumbled onto this. Wow that’s a nice looking Buick. Congrats!

Ditto - that’s usually what’s requested when mine have been turned. There’s no one left I know of in my area that will arc the shoes to the drums any more - I’ve gotten by with 80 grit glued to the drum, and run the shoe by hand along the drum to get it pretty close and wear it in on the car the rest of the way. Not the best but works plenty good enough for the few times new shoes are installed. Car stops straight - gtg.

Is it done yet?

They be kingpins needing a BFH for sure. Probably same GM design of the era with upper and lower shafts and bushings but that’s a WAG - no 54 Chev experience here. Number of places carry quality replacements as well as shafts and bushings unless you’re modifying. What are your plans or still mulling it over? Sounds like you’ve done this before.

Welcome. Here to help. Special with factory AC - seems your car is uniquely optioned. Looks like a pretty complete starting point. Look forward to the fun

Oh sorry, misunderstood. I had tried some pieces of brass flat and thin rubber if memory serves right.

Yes sir. Seals for vac piston, water piston, check valve and springs. http://www.fusickautomotiveproducts.com/prodinfo.asp?number=WPRK507 They also have the large spring that vac acts against and forces water out, plus new lids. I silicone spray the rubber seals yearly FWIW. I got mine at McVeys Cadillac site a few years ago. 55 Chevy sites carry them also. McVeys used to have some stuff that “swapped” to Buick. Fusick seems to have best price currently. My switch used to hiss all the time leaking vacuum. Fixed that but apparently fixed it backwards. I don’t keep water in the pump jar to prevent the innards from rusting especially that big spring. Maybe you can take audience video request on rebuilding the washer switch so it seals well and works right….hint hint….🤓 Returning to build thread - didn’t mean to hijack.

Wonderful, mine seems to work backwards. 🤪. Fortunately the newer pump kit keeps it sealed, I think…

Mud - how well does the vac valve for the washer pump seal up on your wiper switch assembly - anything special you did to it? I “cleaned up” the seal on mine - is there supposed to be vac at the washer pump all the time and pushing the button breaks the seal, or is it the other way around (vac at washer pump only when button pushed).

Agree …that can be one of the trickiest parts…..which is off, the width of the groove, the mounting surface of the pulley, or the “parallelness” of the base of the pulley around its circumference to the mounting surface of the pulley. It can be like squeezing a balloon. 🤣

Think it would be doable but dicey to tap on the flat part of the pulley and try to square it up Might end up chasing that “compensation” around the pulley - great way to spend an afternoon - ask me how I know. Have to keep its position syc’d up to the shaft so you’d know which area to raise and lower. Is the flange of the water pump true - all bolts equally torqued and have equally drawn the pulley onto the shaft? How snug is the fit of the pulley onto the end nub of the shaft? Maybe I missed that. Perhaps a thin piece of aluminum would hold up if the tape didn’t? In the meantime, thank you for sharing your successful hack to true up a slightly “off” pulley. Duly noted in the margin of my shop manual. With my #2 yellow pencil. 😎

No glass help here, experience is limited to breaking windshields. If it’s a day/night mirror unsure where to find that type glass assuming you or a glass shop cuts it to fit the housing?

^——- Concur. Save the recored one for your restoration. Is the Amazon one intended to provide primary cooling, not auxiliary cooling (like to help with trailer towing?). Probably want more than 4 single rows to operate standalone vs in conjunction with factory cooler but that’s a total WAG. Maybe someone has some objective guidance to help ensure it’s not undersized.

Close. To keep the Cratex stick straight and true when buffing the aluminum, it was pressed into a 1/4 inch hex bit holder & shank typically used on a cordless drill. That’s what is chucked into the press in the picture. The Cratex stick is an abrasive cylinder that looks just like a wax crayon. Wrap the end of it with masking tape so it fits snug into the hex bit holder. Trim the Cratex end square so it extends between 1/16 - 1/8 inch beyond the bit holder. As it gets ratty, retrim it square, break it in about 10 times on a scrap piece and then pick up where you left off on your workpiece. To advance the Craytex as it is used up just shove spitballs of newspaper into the hex bitholder and pack it tight. Flush the bitholder out with water when done. Cratex comes in various grits and diameters. I think medium was used for this project, they were the dark grey ones. Here’s the product link: https://www.cratex.com/Products/Rubberized-Abrasives/Blocks-and-Sticks/Round-Sticks Think Bhigdogs approach was a pencil eraser and valve grinding compound…

Nah. Very doable. Just keep hummin “ the bear went over the mountain” until the dudes in the white van show up or you finish the last swirl, whichever comes first.

Found some. Setup and trial runs, Driver side complete, Pass side complete. In looking closer at the top pic, I think this was one of the setup experiments where the graph paper was used for vertical placement and the tick marks were on sled for horizontal placement. Less drawing. The swirls nested “offset” was probably marked on the graph paper. Once a row is started with that offset it’s just maintained as the piece is indexed left to right. Another observation - note on the graph paper below the 18 and 9 on the ruler, there is a line drawn at an angle with dashes on it and that angle was the offset that nested each swirl inside the one next to it. Also a slight raised edge was added on the bottom of the sled to help position the piece. I don’t have any pictures of the final setup but this was pretty close to it and should get you started. Hope this helps out.

Oboy. It looks like the old pictures from the forum are gone. It will take me some time to find them if I can find them…I know, I know (no video + no picture) = it never happened 🙄. I had to beat someone to that. 😀 Here’s the word salad basics of a simple jig and surely improvements can be found on this approach. 1). Find flat smooth surface. Cover with graph paper. I used an old piece of countertop. It needs to fit within the throat of your drill press. 2) Use calipers to determine the vertical and horizontal spacing of each swirl. Draw straight horizontal lines along the graph paper, each line separated by the same height as the swirl pattern height on the door piece. This sets vertical distance as you will be lining the top of the sled (explanation coming up) up with this line. Get a steel ruler and transfer the left/right dimensions as “tick marks” to the graph paper with a sharp #2 pencil. 1 tick=1 pencil dash. No thick line coloring. Follow the graph paper while marking so things stay straight. Take breaks, go slow, keep pencil sharp, be precise as possible. 3) Using a flat sheet of steel slightly larger than the Aluminum piece to be turned, tape the aluminum to this metal “sled”. The sled edges needs to be cut perfectly square and the edges smooth and straight. Cut a small slot in the top edge of the sled on center with something like a dremel wheel. This is like your “sight” that you will index the sled and view (aim) each tick mark with when you drop the press on the aluminum. 4) There is a subtlety that escapes me but basically each row going up the aluminum is offset left from the one below it to get the proper nested swirl pattern. You have to replicate that offset on the graph paper with tick marks. Just keep track of the measurements. I’d like to say it’s intuitive but its not that obvious; look closely and the pattern should be evident. If not you’ll see it on your first test pass, which you can ((should) do on a cheap, clean blank/scrap. 5) Clamp a straightedge to guide the sled left to right as you slide it so it stays in line with the horizontal lines drawn for each row. Slide the sled along each row, stopping at each vertical tick mark, and drop the Craytex to make 1 swirl. I fastened a 2 lb plate weight from the drill press arm and timed 2-3 seconds to get consistent pressure and dwell time for each swirl. 6) Practice on lots of scrap. When going for the money take a break after 1 or 2 rows. Remember everything is relative. The aluminum doesn’t have to be sitting at the top of the sled. It just can NEVER move around or get repositioned on the sled once you start. I did not have good luck trying to fill in only the missing swirls worn off the door. My work looked like hell. Consistency is the key and I could not perfectly match the factory swirls “optics”. Maybe you will find a better recipe and crack the code. I had to polish the door panel down smooth (unnerving) basically erasing the factory swirl to start over. I didn’t do that until I was confident I could replicate it however and it’s the consistency and overlap that will make them come out really nice. Craytex mgmt is also important ; cut square with razor blade, don’t let it get too ratty, keep it short. Small wire brushes, erasers with valve grinding compound or toothpaste are other approaches. Seems I had a spare panel off eBay for the driver side in case of disaster, and think I might have made a blank from scratch, can’t recall exactly. By the time I did the passenger side some time later, I just went for it. That actually came out better than the driver side. I have to acknowledge Bhigdog on this - he has a thread as mentioned earlier and fabricated a more precise tooling fixture to successfully do his whole dash plus doors. Many of his tips, lessons learned and inspiration got me over the finish line with a high standard or my door panels would still look crummy. More than one way to skin this cat. Hope this helps. Good luck!

55 Super: 3.40. Just a little taller than the 3.36 in 56, probably because the 56 transmission had an extra stator for more torque so could get away with a slightly lower gear - or was there a different reason?

Agree with Ben - That 3 core HE radiator has tubes on 3/8 vs 9/16 centers, works well, and saved my 322 after installing AC. Really interested to hear the numbers on how the Al works especially when the big heat comes. Regarding the web information on Al not cooling as well as Cu that might be true when considering the properties of the two standalone materials but when “assembled” into a subsystem (the radiator), depending on design and construction techniques, Al radiators can cool better if their design happens to employ larger tubes (more surface area) plus they lack the lead solder which impedes the heat transfer between joints. As with any of these things the answer is it depends and the devil is in the design details. Just sharing some info from my past AC project when talking to the old school radiator shop owner in Endicott that helped size and rebuild mine - twice - I really really wanted to try Al but preferred the upper tank look of original for my cars purposes. Feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong - no firsthand experience.

Congrats! Drooling over the 6 way power seat. My vote is horseshoe a 401 into the roadie and make it a sleeper. BTW your Super is still capable of “carrying watermelons”, which is in some vernaculars is reflective of a restorations starting condition. See it ain’t so bad……

Have you access to a master parts book? That might give some clues. Seems the power tracks could be same as manual tracks less the spring loaded ratchet and notches that holds position but that’s just a WAG. I bet a manual one could be made to work. Sorry can’t be of more help.

Good point.

Al radiator will extract more heat than Cu radiator and we have a situation of more heat being driven into the system than can be extracted from the system on a cool day both at speed (typically not enough radiator) and at idle (typically not enough air). Make sure nothing abnormal is driving more heat into the system or preventing efficient transfer of heat from/to the coolant. My thought is it’s still worth it to flush the block or, albeit harder, taking your easiest accessible freeze plug out to see how much sediment is in the motor after sitting for 50 years with who know what was left in it soaking before you put a new radiator in, then yes concur for your purposes popping one of the aluminum rads in after everything else is ruled out. That should offer enough heat extraction to keep the car cooler and closer your to your thermostat setting (I.e. min operating temperature) and your oil pressure high enough even during your hottest Arizona season until you want to take the spiritual plunge on an engine refresh or rebuild. 1) Heres an older link and discussion: https://forums.aaca.org/topic/53733-1956-buick-overheating-problem-help/ 2) Interesting reading from a caddy site in my bookmarks on effect of timing advance and temperature. In my casual research both sides of this equation come up regarding temperature readings being lower in advanced (but not enough to detonate) or retarded timing situations. Not wanting to start a debate but FWIW this reference matches my observations/experience and what was taught to me so just passing it along. BTW am not advocating any changes to the vacuum source on this motor for idle purposes, just reinforcing the teams inputs on proper vac advance operation during off idle, normal operation and it’s contribution to temperature.. https://cadillacmagazine.com/forums/threads/the-effect-of-vacuum-advance-on-cooling.19024/ BTW - How’s that new radiator cap holdin’ up 🤣. Keep up the good work you’re on the right track.

My car had same wear pattern on the door panels. Used Craytex, made a simple indexing grid with a metal sled and some graph paper and a drill press and was able to replicate them. The trick is consistency of pressure applied, dwell time, and spacing/offset. It’s really not too hard for the door panels since it’s a straight piece of metal, the dash is harder to do. If you’re ambitious you can do it yourself, here’s a thread. It looks like the pictures are long gone from the database if you’re really interested I can try to dig them up. https://forums.aaca.org/topic/192575-door-panel-engine-turning-project/#comment-972713 Bhigdog also has a thread somewhere - he made his from scratch and they came out flawless. A number of his techniques helped me in my project. Clear coat as per Muds video when done. BTW it took about 2 months of trial and error on my settings until getting it right, but it’s satisfying when it works. Screw up 1 swirl and the whole thing is junk. Sand/polish and start over. This process must be done without beer. Just sayin…..