DonMicheletti

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

'36 Buicks came in 3 series. 40, 60, 80 and maybe 90. Small, medium and large for the most part. The second digit, the "1" in your case says what body style it is, it is a 40 series model 41 sedan.sedan. I'm not a '36 expert, so others may correct me. The good news is that there is lots of information on these cars. Bobs Automobilia (http://bobsautomobilia.com/shop/) is a good source of parts and information

RSB, Where did you get the laminated shim stock?

What you are experiencing is called "rat holing" when the sand forms a hole at the pickup. Some better commercial units have a vibrator on the feed hopper to address the problem. It works perfectly.

The '38 generator puts out more current than your '36 so that wire would be OK. On something like that - bigger is better

Timing without a light wasnt that difficult when "high compression" engines came about in the early 50's. Once you got the engine running you'd advance the distributor until the engine pinged on hard acceleration, then you'd back it off a bit until it didnt. Harder to do with a 6.5:1 compression engine. To reset the flywheel, just turn the engine via the bolt on the crank front pulley until the #1 piston is at the top of the stroke (poking through the sparkplug hole) and both intake and exhaust valves are closed. Then you'll be able to position the flywheel properly.

A very common problem with the Buick straight 8's is that the flywheel can be put on wrong if it is taken off for some reason. There are 6 bolts and 8 cylinders, so there is only one right way to install the flywheel. Done wrong, the timing marks will be nowhere to be seen. If that happens to be the case with your engine, you'll have to rough in TDC on the firing stroke by putting something in the sparkplug hole and carefully turning the engine until you determine the TDC and then just time the engine by ear, adjusting the distributor so the the engine cranks without balking and then runs without pinging. The flywheel error is very common

I commend you. That is one heck of a project! Nice work. Just a touch more work than i had to do to my '31-67 when I restored it back in about 1966. Then it was just an old car - not a "classic"!

If the car was registered in California for a long time, there is a good chance that the "pink slip" actually has the Engine Number listed and not what we now call the VIN number. I live in CA and as long as the engine number and pink slip numbers match you should be OK. I havnt had problems registering cars with matching paper / engine numbers.

I have had electric pumps used for priming the carb before starting for 50 years (Buicks). It works well. There is no need for a bypass, a properly working mechanical pump will suck gas through the electric priming pump when the engine is running with no problem. To me, it sounds like there is probably crud caught in one of the valves in the mechanical pump and they are not seating and thus the pump isn't pumping. The diaphragm is OK otherwise if it were bad, you'd have gas leaking out of the pump. If it were me, I remove the mechanical fuel pump, take it apart and have a look at the check valves and see if they are OK. Clean if necessary. If you like, rebuild parts are available from Bobs Automobilia.

I have to go along with Mark. Done right, the original packing setup will work perfectly for a long time. The key word is "right". The good news is that we all get to do what we want!

It will be interesting to see how that works out. The specs say it should work. I wonder if it will eventually wear a ring in the stainless shaft? There is virtually no water pressure and the Buick isnt exactly a high speed application.

The original pump shafts are case hardened for one reason.. to resist wear from the pump packing. Overtightening is a very typical problem on all packed pumps. When I was working in a chemical plant that had lots of packed pumps, shaft wear under overtightened packing was called "mechanics art" and really common. Actually, stainless steel isn't a good pump shaft material at all. It is relatively soft and will quickly groove if packing is overtightened. You have to be careful when tightening gland nuts on a stainless shaft. However, I replaced the original corroded and scored shaft on my '18 Buick about 40 years ago and it is still OK and doesn't leak a drop. So stainless does work if you are careful about tightening the packing nuts.

The '31 and '32 Buick radiator caps are the same and very hard to find in good shape. The fragile "tail" of the flying 8 is often broken off. Goog luck in finding one.

None of my Buicks have oil bath air cleaners.or for that matter any of the other cars. However, I believe that there should be no significant difference in engine performance either with or without the air cleaner. If there is, the air cleaner is choking the engine and that isnt good. The old adage of "check what you did last" may well be the answer. Also, doing just one thing at a time may prevent you from painting yourself into a corner. That way if something goes wrong along the way - you know what it is immediately.

I pinched the photo from Wikipedia "herringbone gears"

Herringbone gears are still used in steamship gear reduction units.

Keiser31, Now, those are herringbone gears. However, when it comes to lubrication, they are really just back to back hellical gears arent they? That is one heck of a transmission.

If I remember correctly, on my 31-67 the top latch portion was chromed and the body and attachment were painted black originally - but I am trying to remember 55 years ago.

Those are NOT herringbone gears. They are hellical gears - just like any other modernish transmission and shouldnt require any really special oil other than one that is OK with the bronze of the synchronizers. Look here for a photo of herringbone gears: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herringbone_gear