Buicksplus

Your engine rebuilder wanting $1000 extra for babbitting the rods makes it clear he doesn't want to do it -- but I don't see where those numbers are reasonable. I just had a complete rebabitting job done on 6 Chevrolet rods for $180. This was a local shop in Albuquerque, the last one that does babbitt regularly. I installed the rods on a fresh crank grind and they are doing just fine. Reworking your rods to take inserts is not trivial, and takes quite a bit of machinist time -- and adds risk if not done right. If the 1948 rods will fit, that is a much safer route to go if you want inserts. I have experienced rod bearing failure with babbitt (it's loud and ugly!), but our local machinist insists that a properly done babbitt rod will hold up as well as an insert. He speaks from much experience with Model A engines, with and without insert bearing conversions. Insert bearings can fail too. The real advantage to inserts is easy replacement with no need for precision reaming, not durability. That's what he says anyway. PS I drove my 39 Buick for years and tens of thousands of highway miles with original poured rods. Never had any problem with them.

Gregory: Welcome to the "honey I broke the temperature sensor" support group. This is a common problem. You have done better than most. I soaked mine for weeks in various solvents and penetrating oils before breaking the tube. The bulb on the end can be easily replaced by several vendors who advertise in Hemmings. I have used one called "The Temperature Gauge Guy" from Vermont or Florida, and he has done fine work for me at reasonable prices. You need to send him your gauge out of the dash, complete with capillary tube and all the pieces you can find. You can usually dig the remnants out of the head pretty easily with an easy-out through the hole left by the capillary tube you broke off. Use a large easy-out so you don't risk breaking off the tool inside the bulb. Insert and twist, it will destroy the bulb but should get the remains out of there. Good luck! Bill S Albuquerque, NM

Michael: I put a modern neoprene lip seal in mine. You need to remove the fan blades and look inside the unit. Careful, there is a tiny two-gear pump in there that is essential to pump oil from the annular reservoir to the shaft bushing where it is needed. You will find a crude felt seal towards the engine that is supposed to keep oil from getting out the aft end of the annular reservoir. I removed the original seal and glued in a modern, neoprene seal to the cup with JB Weld. The neoprene fits tightly around the fixed shaft (this shaft is about 5/8" dia) and it really stopped mine from leaking. Many folks with these bushed fan bearings have replaced them with modern ball bearing units. You can either have a machinist rework your original unit or I think Bob's Automobilia sells one. Both options will cost a few bucks. But then you can forget about filling and keeping this unit full and holding oil. ps don't tighten the belt any more than you need to with these cars. That belt only drives the fan and need not be nearly as tight as they are on a modern car. Looser belt will give you quite a bit more life on those little bushings in this thing.

Michael: I have bought several "RV" fan from Auto Zone type stores. They usually have six relatively wide blades that are flexible so they flatten out some at high speed. They cost about $50. This is a replacement fan, not one of those weak electrical units. It usually requires some work to get it to fit on your original fan hub. There is a universal set of holes on the accessory fan that may or may not work. Clearance between the radiator and the new fan can be a problem too. I would buy one locally so you can return it if it does not fit. I put one on my 39 Buick, it barely fit between the water pump and radiator, but it really increased air flow through that radiator and she ran significantly cooler. It is definitely not stock, but was not very noticable under the hood. Our '27 had an original four blade fan. I had a spare fan, and mounted it 45 degrees out of phase with the original unit. This gave me an 8 blade original looking fan and a cooler engine. See you on tour someday, we are long time members of VMCCA and just returned from the Glidden Tour in South Dakota. Lots of fun and we drove our car 2400 miles.

Michael: Your car sounds to me like it is cooling pretty well, especially with only 1000 miles on the engine. I have found that if you want it to run still cooler, try putting on a larger RV fan. I have found fans to be quite effective in cooling my pre-1930 cars. RE: restricting washers in the cooling system. This myth has been around this hobby for years, our Ford flathead friends are great advocates of it. While I am a long time car nut and have heard this one for years, I am also a mechanical engineer. There is no technical reason I know of that slowing down the water through a radiator would increase the amount of heat transfer from water to the air. Believe me, more water flow and more air flow through the radiator will make your engine run cooler, not hotter. Still, this myth still won't die, just like the one that hot water put in an ice tray will give you ice quicker than cold water. The only possible merit to the the restricting washer might be if the water is boiling and cavitating in the water pump, causing the pump to move very little water. A washer could conceivably increase the pressure inside the pump and reduce the cavitation. But this is very unlikely in most operating conditions your old car is going to see. We have driven our 1927 Buick over 10,000 miles, some of it in very hot weather -- with the engine temp above 200, especially on hills. Our babbitt is still holding up OK. You can cover great distances with these old cars. Just take your 1930 on a couple of old car tours, it's a good way to get them broken in and fun too.

I can't add too much to this thread except to say that I have had a number of freshly rebuilt engines that ran very hot initially. Once broken in (broken in means several thousand miles or more on them), they did fine. The extra friction from a tight engine adds thousands of BTU's that much be removed through the radiator. All my pre-war cars heat up considerably on hills. You are burning much more fuel in this situation and have much more heat to remove. The cooling margins on these old cars is not sufficient to keep the temperature in the 160- 180 F range. Remember the thermal efficiency of an old engine is pathetic compared to a modern engine. So, whatever power the engine delivers, there is a proportional amount of heat that much be removed by the radiator. Finally, I don't think running and old car at, say 200 to 220 F is particularly damaging, even if there is some coolant boiling. Boiling takes a lot of heat out of the engine. Just make sure you carry extra coolant so she doesn't drop coolant levels below the top of the radiator tubes. During this winter, I suggest you drive your car long and often. This will help improve the cooling problem and allow you go get more familiar with the car. Good luck!

A Packard like that was sold at the 1996 Barrett Jackson auction, or one like it anyway. Supposedly from the Owen Owens collection. Perhaps B-J will contact the new owner for you, I am sure they would appreciate the materials. Barrett Jackson 1930 Packard Waterhouse

CCCA Friends: I will consider putting a digital photo hosting area on the VMCCA website and I am sure CCCA or AACA could do the same. The Cadillac La Salle club has a nice one that anyone can upload to. Hosting such pictures does not cost much (we have plenty of space available on our server), although high resolution images could eat up space if this feature became real popular. The problem is getting the pictures properly captioned and digitized. For now, Jon's pictures have provided entertainment and nostalgia for this forum while gathering important historical facts about these cars, their owners, and this event. Perhaps this trend will continue and others might digitize and submit their collections. This will be fun while helping us preserve some of these images. So if you have any images you'd like to show, take Jon's lead and load them into a site like Flickr for now. I will look into putting a free uploadable site like CLC on the VMCCA Website that forum lurkers could link too to enjoy and comment on. For undigitized boxes of slides and photos, I hope that some of them end up donated to the CCCA or AACA museums. They might just sit there for years, but someday, some researcher could find them and publish some. Bill, VMCCA Webmaster

Talk to your MVD. In our state, (not Florida) it is possible to acquire a "bonded" title. You have to put up a small bond and MVD will advertise the serial number, make and model of the car you wish to claim. If someone wants to claim it, they need to offer some sort of evidence of ownership and physically claim the car. If not, a title will be issued to you. This is what usually happens because the owners of these abandonded cars are long gone. Your client has a valid reason to claim ownership, since the car was apparently abandoned on his property. I am sure Florida has a similar process. Even if an owner showed up, your client could probably claim the car in lieu of past due storage fees. It takes time, not money, to proceed with this. BTW, if the car is in very bad shape, there is probably no need to title it anyway. Just have your client fill out a bill of sale, claiming the car to be his property by abandonment, and sell the parts. Good luck, and check locally for more information on this. Bill Albuquerque, NM

Friend: I don't know about your part situation, but it is common to pay more for shipping than just the postage. That's why they call it "shipping and handling". Usually, the shipping cost is just an estimate. And also the seller is entitled to recovery of something for his time in packing your item, taking it to the post or UPS office, etc. I sell a few parts myself, and believe me, it is a significant hassle to get things packed and shipped off. That hassle is worth a lot more than the postage in most cases. There are some vendors who make a racket out of exorbitant shipping and handling charges -- and using them as a way to hike up the cost of what you are buying. I don't know anything about your seller, but to me paying $16 to ship your items sounds perfectly reasonable. RE the scratches on your door guide: that looks like a pretty good part to me. You aren't going to find a part much cleaner unless it is represented as being restored and replated. These parts take a beating in the door jamb, and any plating on them originally was minimal.

K8096: Good eye, I agree with you. I think it is a 1929 Cadillac, I found a good picture of a similar car in the Cadillac Data Base, 1929 Cadillac Pictures . The light on the fender looks a bit smaller, but the cut down doors and the unique paint scheme on the rear doors look exactly the same. Lovely car! I wonder if the one pictured in the data base (says it is from Rhode Island) is the same one. It is not the same color.

Thanks for sharing, Wayne I sure wouldn't have figured that one out! So if we pound on the kids we'll have more sociable car shows? Great, I'll get started on that right away.

BCA Friends: I am a big fan of the Driven Award and was delighted to receive one for my car at the Plano meet. I hope interest in the award continues to grow and more folks try to drive their original Buicks to the national meets. It is good for the cars and great for the club to have old Buicks on the road for all to see, hear, smell and enjoy. But as with any award, some fine tuning of the rules and regs is always in order. I can see no problem with entering a car for a Driven Award and 400 point judging, though this is not currently allowed. Perhaps it is intended to reduce the load on judges. I don't think it would happen often, but there are owners of very high point cars who do indeed drive them to the meets -- I see no reason to deny them a driven award. Perhaps a tile on their plaque indicating that the car was driven is a good compromise, but it would probably be better just to award the regular driven award if they meet the criteria. If the car is being judged anyway, the judges could indicate whether or not the car qualifies for Driven. I have never been comfortable with the rule on driving the car from the "county of the owner" or whatever the wording is. Sorry, driving a car that lives in Flint to a National meet held in Flint hardly exposes the car on the road or demonstrates it is roadworthy. I would have some sort of mileage minimum on the driving distance from home to the meet, say 100 miles one way. Locals will simply have to wait for the next meet to drive their Buicks to collect a driven award. Meanwhile, I think it is a great initiative and I hope BCA continues to improve and promote this important award.

I bought Diamondbacks when they first came out. They were definitely a whitewall glued onto a fairly cheap radial. Once I figured that out, I thought they were pretty pricey: It was basically a $50 tire they were selling for $120. I had these tires on my car for six years, we drove it thousands of miles. The car drove beautifully and the whitewalls stayed on there OK, though they did yellow somewhat around the outer edges -- but they looked pretty good anyway. I understand that Diamondback has improved their processes so that yellowing is not a problem. They will also put a whitewall on just about any tire you want, as long as they can get them. Mine wore out in the front, mainly due to allignment issues. I always thought the aspect ratio of the tires was too "fat", the tires had a street-rod look on my 1940 LaSalle with 15" wheels. Diamondback is offering a lot more sizes now, be sure to check the circumference and width to convince yourself they will look OK on your car. A modern 75% aspect ratio tire does not look all that great on an old car -- but there are a few 85% tires out there that look better. I think that the Coker radial is built from the ground up as a WWW radial -- but I have heard people complain that these tires delaminate and don't stay round or in balance. They sure look good, but they are very expensive. Goods luck! Bill. ps. I now have blackwall 700-15 Light Truck radials on my car. These are 85% aspect ratio tires and they cost $100 each. Once I got used to the blackwalls, they look OK and are probably more accurate for the period that WWW's -- and they drive beautifully with very light steering.

Jon: I managed to find the Packard. It is a modified 1952 model, check out this wonderful picture from the Detroit Public Library collections... 1952 Packard Special Speedster It does not say how many were made, or who Ed McCauley is???? There are some slight differences too, such as the chrome slashes behind the front wheel arch and where is the roof mounted searchlight? Bill

Layden B, you did a super job identifying those cars -- not an easy job to be sure. I did check on the Saab, the two stroke Saab 93 came out in 1956. That would have been a very unusual car back then, with its ring a ding ding engine and of course the blue smoke. But many of the folks at this show would have been comfortable with an exotic modern car like the Saab. I did read that the Brits invented the disc brake long ago -- but I don't think they were common until well after WWII, showing up on racing cars first followed by British sports cars in the mid 50's.

CCCA Friends: Check out these wonderful pictures, taken by Authur H. DeLorey, Jr. and sent by his son Jon. There are quite a few classics in there, though more brass era stuff. Can you identify any of these cars or people? Use the slide number if you know. This event was in Brookline, MA. Where have all these cars gone? You don't see many beauties like these at events today. 1957 VMCCA Anglo-American Rally

VMCCA Friends: Check out these wonderful pictures, taken by Authur H. DeLorey, Jr. and sent by his son Jon. Can you identify any of these cars or people? Use the slide number if you know. Where have all these cars gone? You don't see many beauties like this at events today. 1957 VMCCA Anglo-American Rally

Matt: Great photos and commentary. That Goodyear mansion is quite a spot. I stopped there in our La Salle on our way to the 1999 Glidden tour in New Hampshire. It was a good break for us, a front wheel bearing was screaming on the La Salle. By making a few calls from the mansion (this was the pre-cell phone era for us), we were able to find a new one at an industrial bearing supply place in Akron. Bill, Albuquerque, NM

Pete: Just a note to let you know how much I enjoy the Bugle -- especially the series of in-depth articles focusing on a single year of Buick. They are very well done and informative. I hope with your early mailing you can get enough time off to enjoy the Nationals.... Bill Albuquerque.

DUCT TAPE!!!!

Sounds like everyone wants judging and judges who know what they're doing, but few volunteer to do it -- either because they don't have the expertice or time. I can understand it, going to a meet is not nearly as much fun when you must spend hours trying to look objectively at lots of cars, many with fairly severe shortcomings in historical accuracy and quality. If judging is going to survive long term, pre-screening cars is probably inevitable. Judging won't die because people don't want it -- it will die because you can't staff it properly. I note that VMCCA introduced a rather small extra fee ($15) at its events if the entrant asked for judging. That really cut down on the requests for judging! I think BCA should do the same (perhaps they do) it might reduce frivolous requests to judge cars. Bill, Albuquerque, NM

BCA Friends: My cars have never been judged by BCA and have little interest in the judged aspects of the shows, though I love looking at all the cars -- including beautifully restored ones. I have organized several large car events, the problems of finding decent judges and resolving conflicts over results is a genuine pain in the neck. This gets harder and harder every year as the older experts that really know these cars become less able to crawl around cars all day on a 100 degree show field (usually with little shade!) I know that judging means a lot to some members. What some clubs have done is introduce a very difficult to qualify "concours" section of their meets. This at least reduces the load on judging by limiting entrants to just a few very high end entries. These concours cars can be displayed in the shade or inside somewhere and this way the stress and load on the judges is much less. Sure, judging is fine but practically speaking, it is getting harder and harder to do it right. I would expand the easier to administer awards, like oldest car, distance driven, driven award, participant judging, etc. PS I thought the Flint centennial unjudged meet was one of the finest shows I have ever attended. Could you imagine the boredom of simply announcing hundreds of first, seconds, and thirds to the thousands of lovely Buicks that came to this meet?

Gwinn: Your engine should not crank without stepping on the gas. This happens because your throttle may not be closing enough to open the starter switch. The starter switch and starter should not engage until you crack open the throttle, suggest you adjust the linkage and/or switch to correct this. I don't have one with a Carter, so I don't know exactly how to do this, someone will certainly post that info. The slow cranking when hot is a common problem with old cars. This may be caused by many things, such as a worn starter, weak battery, battery cables that are too small, a bad solenoid, poor grounds around the starter, etc. When this slow cranking situation occurs, the battery voltage drops and kills your ignition. So starting is very difficult, especially when hot: then your mixture is probably bad due to boiling of fuel from carb heat. You can check this with a good voltmeter. Measure the voltage at the distributor when cranking your hot engine. If it drops below about 4 volts, you are going to have a hard time getting that engine started. One other clue that low voltage is your problem: try push starting the car without the starter. If it starts right up when pushed, that indicates the voltage drop from cranking is part of your problem. If your battery is old, try replacing it with a fresh one, that should help. Rebuilding your starter is important too, and not too expensive. Don't forget those battery cables, they should be very heavy and no longer than needed to reach the starter. Poor grounds at the distributor should be corrected. New points and ignition parts won't hurt either. Good luck! Bill.

I am selling a 47 Continental convertible project car that includes a 48 coupe for parts. Convertible has some fire damage in the cowl area, an Olds OHV engine and Lincoln OD transmission/rear end. Coupe is very rusty but has original 12 and complete drive train. Both of these cars have been stored indoors for years, but they are still weathered and rough. I believe there is enough there to put together a nice convertible. Price: $8500 for both cars. Cars are in Albuquerque, NM, call or e-mail for more info, 505 265-8113 Sullivan.W@att.net Bill.