60FlatTop

Scott Heise from the Finger Lakes Chapter got coaxed out to his hometown of Holley, New York and gave the old town square a little class with the Centurion he bought in 1975; only 2 years old. What a buy! I had some fun doing levitation tricks: Bernie

Gee I had "Corvette" engines in two of my Roadmasters (1994's). I liked them so much I went out and bought a Chevy. It was just too hard humming "See the USA in your Roadmaster." And "Wouldn't you really have more Buick." wasn't catchy enough. Bernie

Here is a place you can probably get one: Northwestern Auto Supply, Antique Auto Parts, Old Car and Truck Parts For Sale, Engine Parts, Grand Rapids, Michigan Lenny is the guy to get. Radio announcer voice and a real good attitude. Bernie

Brian, That's the kind of Packard I have been studying up on. Although I am leaning toward the '41-47 Super Clipper yours is a model I really like. 2012 appears to have been a big year for both of us. You went crazy and I had a stroke and a heart attack- with the complimentary double bypass. I think some brain damage occurred since I am not gravitated toward project cars as much as I used to be. So I saved your pictures in my Packard file with interest. Sometimes I buy a car just because I like the shape of it sitting in my garage no matter how big a project it is. Thanks foe showing the car. Bernie

I think I would try to integrate a relay box into the terminal blocks. Get or make a small box with air circulation holes that will mount to the existing terminal block holes in the fender. Then mount the block on the box. Sneakily lead your wires in and out of the new relay box and it should look pretty clean. There is a pretty nice 1930's Rolls-Royce out there with an auxiliary fuse panel under the dash that I made with some period Bakelite as a cover. Just blend with the original design and materials. Sometimes a rounded corner is all you need to give that manufactured look. Bernie

Brian, Fill me in on that Packard. Maybe I can help you make the decision. I'm a little spongy between the ears for Custom Clippers and Customs. Bernie

I guess spell checker didn't catch the Snydley thing. I'm a 6 hour drive from the Naw Yerkers, we actually talk like people from Milwaukee (closest I've found anyway). I think I posted this picture once before. It is the view of Toronto across the lake from a little town we like to have lunch in:. We ain't city folks. Bernie

Would you call this a High Five? Looks good and no guesses. Bernie

Surprised? Really? That was one year in the scouts-----53 hanging around junkyards. She's lucky she didn't load the groceries AND take the picture!

The relay idea is not a bad one. As our cars age the full current flow through switches can deteriorate contacts And the potential spark gap can burn the switch over a 50-80 year period. Lots of older Rolls-Royce cars have a condenser on various switches to make life easier for them. I have also pulled some hot keys out of ignition switches over the years. I remember one Caddie that I considered putting an ignition relay on so the switch wouldn't carry all the current of the primary circuit. I know I don't have prewar cars but they are aging. What would this forum be called if there hadn't been a war? Bernie

I like that car. Nice, simple, basic black; apparently found while quilt hunting and no mystery, hype, or BS. Imagine the History Channel getting hold of it! When my son was 3, that's 27 years ago, we had a black '67 Electra 4 door with just a radio for options. My friend Bert Galbraith had been the local Buick salesman for years, but he had left that job and opened a liqueur store, probably in search of happier customers. I parked the black Buick in front of his store on Main Street and he greeted me saying "You ended up with that stripped job, huh." He said it was a base model ordered for stock. A local farmer in Kendal, New York had sold some farmland to a builder and had some cash. He called the dealership and said he wanted a new Buick. Bert drove the stripped job out there that evening all bright and shiny. Sale, it fit the description, New Buick. I liked that car a lot but the trunk floor rotted out. I put some tin it and sold it. The sale of that car had life long implications. I had the car in the front yard for something like $800. A person I knew looked it over and asked if I could come down on the price. It had two new tires on the front that I could have used on another car. I said "Sure, I will put a couple of used tires on the front and keep those. I'll knock off $100 and keep those tires." The guy came back in an hour with the full amount. I guess he called around pricing new tires. Since then I have not lowered a price because I "was flexible". I have always taken something away from the sales in exchange for lowering the price. Great car and worth its weight in Simon School of Business credits. Bernie

I have run some pretty bright bulb headlights and 6 volt lights by soldering a ground wire to the bulb socket and grounding it to the frame. About 20 years ago I had a stock 1935 Nash and drove to a popular cruise night. We were leaving after dark and I was behind a friend with a very high end 1930's classic. He had been looking my Nash over earlier. With my lights shining from behind, he stopped his car, got out, and came back to me. The comment was "What the hell do you have for headlights?" I think he was worried I would blister the paint on his deck lid. Run a ground wire, don't rely on the path through the body panels. I even grounded the Riviera taillights:

I did the capping AND the regrooving thing at my Grandfather's shop, starting at age 11. You can't use too much gas to thin where the regrooving cuts into the cords. Up here where the winters are cold burning the threads and a little of the buffing power will get you nice and toasty, though. The elbow of the stove pipe can get red hot so dust will sparkle when it hits. When I painted the Riviera in 1980 we had a special stove with a door big enough to put a tire and wheel in. We'd stoke her up early so code enforcement didn't see the smoke and the get the panel du jour close the heat. Lacquer goes on good that way. When you are done you take out the short steel rim with the bead wires ready for scrap. Then while the paint drys you can go back to trimming 8.25 X 20 run flats and using a Bernzomatic to melt out the old tube. All done to a car radio hooked to a battery and Hank Williams playing. I wonder what they did in places that weren't New York. Bernie

I usually have a folded piece of 800 grit sandpaper in the wheel washing bucket when I clean the white walls. Liberal use of Westley's and the light sanding leaves them stunning. And makes you smile. Notice each wheel gets raised so you can rotate the tire and do in anally perfect: raising the car and putting it on a jack stand to clean the tires, the priorities some people have.

I think I would wash it and put air in the tires before I tried to sell it, especially if I was haggling over $500. Bernie

I have a pair or Hush Power 12" mufflers on my Riviera at the rear and a full diameter equalizer pipe where the stock muffler goes. Close your eyes and you'd swear it was a Chris Craft. Those mufflers try to make the '50's steel pack sound using laminated plates. I'm real happy with them and that takes a lot. For appraisal purposes: Riviera- no exhaust. Bernie

The old memory just jogged. In 1979 I put a 350 Buick engine in a 1960 Ford pickup. When I started it I had a lower end knock, but the engine had run perfect in the car when I took it out. I had let the engine sit on the oil pan when it was out and being moved around. since the Ford had a lot of room underneath I started the engine and tapped the sides of the oil pan while it ran. I used a couple of medium sized ball pien hammers and worked the center from front to rear tapping both sides at the same time. That took the slight bulge out of the pan and gave it clearance. The baffle clearance is close on those engines. It worked back then, might be your problem now. Bernie

Jim, After being extremely disappointed in the crappy exhaust system I bought from a famous Buick exhaust cobbler, I drove out to Les Flaisher's on Kingston Ave. in Huntington Woods, right around the corner from Woodward. He had a pair of NOS exhaust pipes for my '60. They just fit diagonally in an 8 foot Chevy box. We met Les and his wife and then spent the night on the river in an old drug house: that was made into a hotel. Long pipes are a great excuse for a road trip. Bernie

Be sure you didn't pull off a vacuum line first. Those old wires are probably curved and shaped pretty close to the old routes they took from the distributor to each plug. Just kind of lay each one in place against the newly installed one and see if a light goes on between the ears. If nothing obvious pops up, check each new wire for continuity. You never know. Good so far? Take off the distributor cap and the valve cover over number 1 cylinder. Rotate the engine in the proper direction until you see the intake valve close and the exhaust valve is closed at the same time. Go through a full revolution so you can watch the timing mark come up. Now check that the rotor is just a hair before the #1 terminal. Snap the cap back down and put the wires in following the correct rotation. Adjust as needed. If you do anything that requires removing the distributor remember my rule, about 25 years ago I made it a policy never to remove a distributor unless I turned the engine so the rotor was exactly positioned 90 degrees to the firewall. That has saved a lot of memory, chalk marks, and unneeded BS. Bernie

The youth market is where is is for all of them. I took my driving test in my Dad's new 1963 1/2 Galaxie 500, black with a red interior, my first car was a Buick and I was raised in light throttle and lots of torque. This 3600 cc engined car was mine: I would get livid driving it on secondary roads and the rolling hills of New York State. I have a V8 Silverado for a work truck. After looking at late Jaguars, Lincolns, BMW, Rolls-Royce and just about anything that I could drive at light throttle with lots of torque (regardless of price) I bought this: GM built some enjoyable drives for 100 years. There are a lot of choices. Bernie

In 1969 I was 19 years old and a Boilerman on a US Navy ship. We steamed across the eqator and down to Sidney for R&R. I still remember coming around the Great Barrier Reef and being called out of the "hole" to see the dolphins leaping across the bow of the ship. May in Sidney harbor and Kings Cross, hoping to check it out soon. Bernie

I am using the 401 Electra style. It is a personal taste thing. I thad hat big buffoonish stock one on for a while and it just looked like Buick's marketing team lost sight of the heart of my car. Being extremely opinionated, I wanted my turquoise nailhead showing. My wife has instructions for a deduct if I die and she sells the cars.

I had the same inner city thought as I was reading. Ever notice I have a picture of damned near everything. Like where I wouldn't park, behind the stadium: Or at the plaza. Bernie

Here is the real key guy. He used to set up at Dunkirk. He was friendly and knowledgeable. I bought some keys from him. Welcome to Jesser's Classsic Keys Check that your key actually locks. If the ignition is unlocked any key will turn it. Just from memory GM cars had a hex key for the ignition and a round key for the trunk. Up here where I live we don't know much about door keys; never had much worth stealing and hanging around country bars in the '60's never got us into drugs we needed to lock up. We don't lock the back door of the house. What if a friend came by and couldn't get in? No one we care to talk with knocks on the front door so we keep that one locked. I do think a stranger came in to rob us once. We came home and found a five dollar bill on the kitchen table. Neither my wife or I left it there so we figured someone came in, looked around for something to steal and just felt kinda sorry for us, left a fin on the table. I'm pretty sure a '64 Riviera uses two keys after all that, but a lot can happen in 50 years. Bernie

Hooligan? Maybe I better change my name back to O'Daly. I run my '64 425 with a 401 air cleaner. I put the correct one on a few years back and it covered up that distinctive and very attractive nailhead. Bernie