RShepherd
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Posts posted by RShepherd
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I wonder how hot the old HV-12 would run with the air conditioner on, especially in traffic.
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I don't think power brakes would make a car with insufficient lining area stop any better; conversion to disc brakes, however, would. I'm pretty sure that all a power brake booster would do is reduce the amount of pressure the driver would have to exert on the pedal. Actually, adding a power booster on a car with inusufficient brakes might even serve to give the driver a false sense of security, mating low pedal pressure with weak brakes.
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I agree. I live just north of Seabrook and have been to this event several times. In addition to the concours, you can enjoy the Kemah Boardwalk, Space Center Houston/NASA, and many excellent seafood restaurants nearby. Lakewood Yacht Club where this event is held is on Clear Lake which is one of the top boating areas in the U. S.
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This is an example of what occasionally seems very odd to me about the CCCA's classic list. If this Buick convertible sedan had been a Series 70 Roadmaster which uses the same body and engine as the Series 80 Limited and is just as nicely trimmed, it would <span style="font-style: italic">not </span> be considered a "classic". The same thing applies to 1941 Cadillacs. A series 63 is a CCCA classic, but the nearly identical 61D is not.
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Are the large-displacement and small-displacement straight eight engines physically the same size on the outside? I'm unable to tell one from the other in photos.
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One thing that I've never understood is the fact that '41-'42 and '46-'47 62 series Cadillacs are considered full classics, but the 61 series are not. The '42,'46 and '47 62's are a little bit longer, but are really basically the same car as are the identically-sized '41's.
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When you mentioned that your friend used fenders off a Chevrolet on his Pontiac, I thought you were in Canada and a check of your profile confirmed that. In the 40's and 50's, Canadian Pontiacs used Chevrolet bodies with only trim differences. This was not the case with the U. S. cars. Also, in the late 50's and the '60's, Canadian Pontiacs used Chevrolet engines and Powerglide transmissions, while the U. S. Pontiacs used Pontiac engines and Hydra-Matic transmissions.
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The car that Jane (Bette Davis) ran over Blanche (Joan Crawford) with (in a flashback scene) was a much older car (late 20's/early 30's) and a Packard, if I remember correctly. The car Jane drives in the time in which the movie is set (early 1960's) is the Lincoln.
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Does your Cutlass have the four-speed manual transmission or the more common and dreaded Roto-Hydramatic Drive (AKA Slim Jim)? If it has the automatic, you've got a challenge to get it to shift acceptably. The Rotos have an extremely large ratio gap between first and second during which the RPM on heavy acceleration can drop by 2000 while the unit makes its very slow, sloppy-slippy shift which often ends with a jerk. The two-three shift is usually fairly well behaved although many times the Roto will just skip past second and end up in third which leaves you even more flat-footed than the 1-2 shift as the very small torque converter is only in operation in first. Even brand new, they often didn't shift well. If yours is so bad you can't live with it, there's a man I've seen referenced in this forum who can reportedly make them shift acceptably.
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Since you said you wanted to enlarge your engine to 330, I'm wondering if you think it has a smaller version of the '64 Jetfire Rocket which was 330 cubic inch. The engine in your '63 is a completely different animal, all-aluminum and originally engineered by Buick with different heads on the Olds version while the '64 330 is a cast-iron completely Oldsmobile-engineered (and much more durable)engine. I'm really doubtful that your 215 could be bored enough to increase its displacement to 330 and, if possible, would likely definitely make the cylinder walls very thin which is an even worse situation than usual in an aluminum block engine.
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Not all 1964 Cadillacs used the four-speed Controlled-Coupling Hydramatics. The Fleetwood 75's and the 62 series did, but the de Villes and Fleetwood 60's used the new-for-'64 Turbo-Hydramatic. It's easy to tell which transmission is in a '64 Cadillac: Park,Neutral,Two Drives, Low, Reverse is Hydramatic;Park Reverse Neutral Drive (only one in '64)and Low is Turbo-Hydramatic.
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Gosh, that's an intriguing problem (sorry, couldn't help myself). Wish I had an intriguing answer for it.
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In those transmission, one upshift is all that can happen as each range (low and high) has only two speeds so you have a problem in low range, but not in high range.
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Unfortunately, it shares one annoying trait with Powerglide: the 'whine' while in Neutral or Park.
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Is is true that the higher the road speed when the driver lifted his foot to await the 'clunk', the longer it took for the shift to occur? I read this once and, if true, that would be another performance-robbing characteristic of the semi-automatic/Fluid Drive combination.
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Does any member of the club have a '37,'38, or '39 with the Automatic Safety Transmission? Eight or Six? How is it operated? How well does it work?
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His '64 394 is more than likely high compression, as the 280 horsepower 2 barrel 10.25 CR 394 was standard that year in the Dynamic 88 series.
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This discussion made me think back to my parents' '66 New Yorker. It was a great car, but it was always very hard to start when warm/hot and the dealer was unable to improve it. It would often require 15-20 seconds of cranking to fire. Was this common in the 440? Our neighbors had a '63 Imperial and its 413 started almost immediately hot or cold.
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Thanks for the info. Am I correct in assuming that the reason they were installed in 1000 cars in the last year of a very old engine design was to gain experience and test durability, etc. in the lifters which would be installed in all 1951 FirePower V-8's?
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Were all of the 1000 1950 Chryslers with hydraulic valve lifters Imperials? My parents owned a '50 New Yorker sedan from 1950-1955 and I remember my dad saying that when he traded it in on a '55 Buick Roadmaster it had a burned valve due to not having the valves adjusted often enough (he said it was a pain having to remove the cylinder head to get to them).
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I've owned two Cadillacs with the Northstar engine and wanted to be sure you know three things about it: First, it requires 6.5 qts of oil with an oil and filter change. Second, they all use oil and 1200-1500 miles per quart is usual and I had one on each end of that range. Cadillac would not consider a warranty claim unless the consumption was greater than a quart every thousand miles and I would assume Buick would use the same parameters. Third, this is an aluminum engine. Even though aluminum engine technology has greatly improved since the 215 V-8 in my first car, a '63 Skylark, and the dreaded Cadillac HT4100, any aluminum engine is still much more susceptible to engine damage in an overheat condition, so watch the cooling system, belt, hoses, and thermostat and should overheating ever occur, turn the engine off immediately and coast to the shoulder.
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What you have is probably a Frantz oil filter (or a knock-off)and I would avoid it like the plague. Growing up, my neighbors were really "Chrysler people"..both drove nothing else for years. A mutual friend of ours was selling the Frantz filters ("you never change the oil, just change the toilet paper every 3,000 miles...saves you worlds of money). My dad (we were "GM people")passed on putting them on his Chevrolet and my mother's Oldsmobile after talking to his brother who was in motor oil research with Humble/Exxon, but Bill had one put on his '66 Valiant with the 225 Slant Six. A couple of years (and several rolls of TP)later he was on a day trip when the engine seized (the only Slant Six I ever heard of to fail)and he had it towed to the nearest Chrysler-Plymouth dealer, got the diagnosis, and traded it in for a new '69 Sport Fury. He and the dealer service manager both blamed the Frantz filter for the failure. Fortunately, he hedged his bet and didn't put one on his wife's '63 Imperial Le Baron which they drove until it had 200,000 miles.
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No need to measure it exactly...about 1/3 was what I remembered from my parents' '55 Roadmaster (I was too young for a driver's license, but did move it in and out of the garage a few times). Thanks a million.
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Thanks, guys, lots of interesting information...but I still didn't find out how far the accelerator had to be depressed to engage the starter.
Straight eight speed
in Packard
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And the Volkswagen Jetta and Rabbit have five cylinder engines. I rented one for a week recently and guess what?
It sounded uh, well, what's the word I'm looking for here?
Oh, yes..... <span style="color: #FF0000"> </span> ODD!!
Besides that, it wasn't as smooth as the four cylinder in my 2004 Jetta.