DonMicheletti

You learn something new every day - I had never heard of this distributor improvement. Thanks for the info. I'd like to see a photo of that newer style.

In working on the breaker plate, to get it to work smoothly, you have to be sure to clean the grove that the 3 balls run in. However it sounds as if your breaker plate might have been modified.. On the originals, getting the balls in correctly and then having them work smoothly is a royal PITA! Getting the 3 balls in the right place isnt easy. In any case, there must be no radial slop in the breaker plate, otherwise the point gap will be all over the place.

Since the breather tube is over an inch in diameter, it is very unlikely that it is plugged and not venting. Your engine would have to be in pretty bad shape for blowby to pressurize the engine. Is the oil in the distributor something that developed suddenly, or was it something you just noticed? (did I miss something in previous comments?)

One amazing thing is the number of overheating issues with the Buick straight eights and the lengths the owners go to to try to solve the problem by adding stuff, yet never considering cleaning the block and head of crud. In almost every situation, cleaning the block solves the problem.

39 Buick Eight- wrong. There are rubber washers as shown in "itstom"s photo. I have had several original '38's and both Special and Roadmaster have those rubber washers. There is webbing between the fenders and frame along the bottom and between the radiator support and frame. Just 'fender" washers and bolts where the fenders bolt to the cowell - but there is the welting there between the fender and cowell. No welting at the front between the fender and nose piece.

Those fittings for the oil line are quite unique if they are original. They are an old standard compression fitting and modern fittings will not work in combination with them. Frankly, they are a PITA once they start leaking. The only cheater that I have found to work is to put a very small "O" ring around the oil line in front of the compression ferrule. It has worked for me in the short term so far - no guarantees.

One, read the manual. That distributor does have a grease reservoir chamber under the advance weights. The manual says to pump grease into the reservoir until it comes out a telltale hole on the side. Just maybe someone used oil instead of grease and way to much at that The cork gasket is between the block and the outer distributor shaft. It has nothing to do with oil getting inside the distributor body. it only keeps oil from leaking to the outside of the engine. By the way, does the engine run OK?

I'm in the "worn bushing" camp. I have never seen that much oil in a distributor before! See if you can wobble the rotor, side to side, by hand.

One of the things that can affect seal leakage is excessive main bearing clearances. Since you are going to have the cap off anyway, get some Plastigage and check the bearing clearance to be sure it is withing spec. If not, your seal replacement may not be good for long.

Smart husband!! Don

Old Tank, I was wondering if that old method would raise its head. I have used plain bailing wire to do the job. Not proud of it, but those were the days when you had no money and just wanted to get the thing on the road. The surprising thing is that it "usually" works OK. Tony, I understand what you are saying - I know how "accidental restorations" begin. Don

If you remove the pan, you must have a reason. If there is crud in the pan, then I'd remove the oil pump and check that too. It is no big deal - just 2 bolts. Both clean it and check the clearances. The clearances are important to pump performance. When you put the pump back together, pack it a bit with Vaseline to aid initial pickup. While rare, I have had a pump not prime after cleaning.

1931 Buick? It would be black

Taking a older starter to a typical Auto Parts Store for them to have a look? that is about all that you'll get - a look and if you are lucky a price for a replacement probably not in stock.

It has been YEARS, but, I think I remember the drum just being tough to get off the hub once the nuts are off - nothing else holding them on. I may have also had to remove the bolts - a tough job with them rusted into the wood spokes.

A couple of years ago my '38 developed the same symptoms. It turned out to be that the accelerator pump piston had swoolen (ethanol in the gas?) and it stuck in the pump bore. I just replaced the pump piston and all was well again (I didnt even take the carb off the engine). I had a similar situation with the fuel pump that was also fixed by a pump rebuild. I believe that my issues were largely due to ethanol in the gas now. All those parts have previously been rebuilt when the car was restored about 25 years ago - so maybe I really dont have anything to complain about

If you just want to remove the wheel, the axle and its hub can be taken out by removing the 6 or so large acorn nuts. The axle and hub will come out together. Behind that you'll find yet another large nut that holds the wheel and bearing on. I'm fortunate enough to have the original hubcap wrench. There is a proper sized "socket" on that to remove the bearing retaining nut. The nuts on my care show lots of use of removal by pipe wrench!! Yes, they are left and right Don

The fact that it will run on 4 cylinders OK for a while suggests that nothing major is wrong since it will run OK. You have a crazy intermittent going on, finding it will be the challenge. Hard to diagnose remote control. Maybe a #2 exhaust valve hanging up? Put some oil in the #2 valve retainer ad see what happens. It will be interesting to find out what the problem is - be sure to post the solution

Rusty. 25000 miles on a generator? I have seen them outlast an engine! And even then they only need brushes. My '18 buick is running with all its original guts as are my 2 '38 Buicks. I have seen them go up in smoke, but then it is usually because of a short someplace else. i have to say, my experience is mostly with DELCO equipment.

Boy, Joe has hit the nail on the head. Modern mechanics dont even know what points are! The old generators with mechanical regulators are pretty tough. On a generator about the only thing to go wrong is the brushes. If I remember crorrectly, the usual culpert for no charging was the regulator going bad. I dont remember the details, but if you either shorted the field to ground or put power to it the generator would go to full tilt generating - however, you do have to have an ammeter to do this backyard test. Obviously, if the generator did make power, then the regulator was bad. If not, then it was the generator. We didnt have those 'fancy" tools like a voltmeter!

You might want to consider the fact that the engine did run OK without overheating when it was new. You can add all the bells and whistles on the front, but as mentioned above if you dont get ALL the crud out of the block first, the only thing that will occur is that your wallet will empty. I have had my '38 Roadmaster run at correct temperature going uphill in slow traffic on very hot days. I feel one of the reason it does work OK is that when I had the engine out, I knocked the core plugs out and managed to scrape 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket of crud out of the block. You first have to get the heat into the water.

Great. Thanks. I dont know why I didnt think of Mc Master, I use them a LOT for other things.

"Rear transmission case". Do you mean the flywheel cover or the torque tube ball? Black oil coming from the hole of the clutch cover usually means a bad rear seal. I dont remember if the '48 still has babbit mains with shims. If it does sometimes you can improve things by taking clearance up on the main bearings (do them all). That is a crap shoot. Replacing the rear seal with the engine in the car is not a job for the feint of heart. It is tough, but can be done!

One possible unfortunate thing about doing just a valve job on an old high mileage engine like that is, it may become an oil burner. Everything has gone down hill together at 80K miles, plus the overheating may have damaged the rings. Doing just a valve job may cause it (with the improved vacuum of new valves) let it suck oil past the tired rings. A ring and valve job was a really typical "rebuild" years ago.

Often, folks will use a tough gasket sealer on a pan gasket, making it really difficult to break the pan loose once the bolts are removed. What I do in a case like that,is put a longer bolt in one of the middle holes on each side of the pan (usually 5/15 coarse thread), use a screwdriver and drive it into the gasket in several places, being careful not to bend the lip of the pan, and get the gasket to break loose.It may take some force since the pan is fairly long with lots of surface. With the long bolts, you can work directly under the pan without the danger of the pan dropping and hitting you. The long bolts will limit the drop. After that you can use a jack to hold the pan while you remove the long bolts. thenj drop the pan