Jim Cannon

Mike- I have several high-resolution photos of my door with the skin off that will help you. I will create a photo album of them tonight and then send you the link to them.

Colin- Sounds like you need to pay for a Master Mechanic, experienced in Rivieras (that would be me!) to fly over there with the parts and fix it for you. I am available any time. Jim

Instructions to remove the lock cylinder for your specific year are in the shop manual. On the '63, you push the pin in and turn the key to the left. I don't know about '64.

Really, what he said. Join the ROA and buy a shop manual. The best money you will ever spend on that car. Save yourself hours of grief.

They slide in and out. Here's the deal: You have a 2 piece drive shaft with a fixed carrier bearing in the middle. When you install the front part into the transmission (splines) and bolt in the support bracket for the center bearing, you lock down where the front splines fall inside the transmission. That end is splines so that each car can vary slightly in the distance from center bearing to tranny. The rear half of the shaft slides in and out of the front half on splines also. You slip it in/out until the mounting flange attaches to the pinion. The splines on the front of this half also allow the rear drive shaft half to go in and out of the front shaft a bit as the axle goes up and down. It can't be a solid system, it needs some ability to slip. Neither slip joints get locked. On a '63 there is a large nut that limits how far out the rear half can go, but it does not lock anything down. I don't know about '64. Look in the shop manual exploded diagram.

That is your rear CV joint. Mark it so that it goes back on in the same position relative to the pinion.

It is a slip joint. Don't worry about it. Grease them up so that they slide easily and they will find the correct spot for your car all by themselves...

Check with Pep Boys.

The bearing support has a rubber insert that will move around if really bad, but not so much if only a little bad. The bearing will probably not move much. It growls when it goes bad. A new bearing can be obtained from NAPA, if needed.

Yes, 2 of them. And 1 U-joint. Check the factory shop manual to see all the details.

Yes. These things will drive you nuts. The signals are fed by a different power source that does not come through the brake light switch (because you want signals even if you are not stepping on the brake). Study the wiring diagram for your car. Determine which wire color comes out of the brake light switch and goes into the turn signal switch. Check for power at the turn signal switch with a test light when you apply the brakes. Look at the wiring diagram to see how the power splits into a right and a left stop light feed. Check the power there without turning on any turn signals.

Check the turn signal switch, not the stop light switch.

I have one of Dave's Small Body HEI conversions in my '63 and I agree 100% with what Tim says above. When my engine is cold and the mixture is kind of lean, that HEI fires every cylinder, every time. It is better than stock in that regard. I saw no real increase in fuel economy once the engine warms up. My points, plugs, wires, etc. were all good before I put the HEI on, so no change. I did not lean out my mixture when I put the HEI on, for all of the reasons Tim mentions. I really like the quick start.

No, you can not use the stock MC with discs.

Contact Tony Gentilcore with the ROA in Australia. He might be able to help you. tonyg at mako dot com dot au

Oh... previous owner messed with it? Then all bets are off. You never know what you will find. Is there a groove in the old master cylinder, like on the new one, but with nothing in it? The seal can't stick inside the booster because it is down in the groove on the neck of the MC. I do not have a photo of the MC to show you. You will need to make up new lines from master cylinder to distribution block and to the existing rear line. You can make them out of whatever size tubing you like and then put the exact correct size fitting on the line before doing the double-flares on the ends. Connect the new rear line to the existing rear line with a flare fitting block with a threaded T in it for the brake light switch. Puts the brake lights on the rear half of the system. The wires on the brake light switch are long enough to go down to the frame without cutting or anything.

Ron- To call it an o-ring is a bit of a misnomer. If you were to cut through the rubber ring with a knife, the cross-section would be a square, not a circle. It drops down into a groove that is cut in the cast iron neck of the master cylinder, where is inserts into the front of the booster. I guarantee your old master cylinder had one. It is all smashed down into the groove and covered with dirt and weeping brake fluid, but it is there. Without this seal, you will have no power brake boost and that heavy car will not stop (trust me). Look at the old MC carefully. Gently slip the old seal out with the tip of a small screwdriver. I recommend you not reuse the old one due to critical nature of this seal. If you can not find a new seal locally, you can buy one from "Booster Dewey" in Oregon -- (503) 238-8882 or Booster Dewey Power Brake Booster Exchange Inc. . If you call him right now, he will put the seal in the mail to you today. I don't recall if this seal is mentioned in the shop manual. They leave out a lot of little things that are assumed to be common knowledge. (Common back in '63 is not neccesarily common now.)

Thanks, Chuck. I'm glad you like it. I initially did all this for my own use, so I put a lot of thought into its organization. You can print any of the pages that you want for reference. I'm glad the mail service got it to you in 2 days.

Yes, you can reduce or stop the "Riviera rattle". With the car up so that you can see all of the steel fuel return line, use your fingers and go down the length of the steel line and smack it to see if when it vibrates, when it hits the frame. In any place where it hits, take a piece of rubber fuel line, split it, and slip it around the steel return line, then slide it into place to serve as an insulator between line and frame. Try to slide it to a point where you jam it between line and frame. I found several places where the line rattled. The rubber hoses seemed to stop it. Interesting that lately I am hearing a slight rattle at times. I need to get under there and see if one of the rubber hoses fell out. The vibration is caused by fuel coming out of the fuel pump in pulses, coming out of the vapor outlet nipple on the fuel filter, and going down the return line back to the tank. When the return line is partly filled with air or vapor and being refilled by these pulses of liquid, you get something like water hammer making the return line pulse and vibrate (knock) against the frame. Eventually the line is solid liquid and the knock stops.

That sounds about right on the PS fluid level. If you overfill, it will leak out the top cover when the fluid gets hot and expands. That does not really hurt anything, it just makes a mess of everything as the fluid runs down the pump and the fan blows it all around inside. Overfilling the transmission can be much more harmful. The PS pump tends to find its own proper level.

Thanks for the kind words, Chuck. I really like how they turned out and I am sure you will be pleased.

I have the 1963 Buick Master Chassis and Body Parts Book that I personally scanned to a CD (all 722 pages of it!) as a series of 22 PDF files, plus a complete, searchable index. It covers all models, not just Riviera. These are high quality, high resolution scans. You will be amazed at the clarity. There are 215 pages of illustrations in 2 files. The rest of the files are page after page of part descriptions, quantities, and part numbers, organized by group. There is one entire section of just "dealer installed options". I organized the files exactly the way Buick organized the book, into Groups. You can search for any word or phrase in any PDF file, or you can search across all the files (if you are not sure which Group the part might be found in). The Search feature even finds little annotations in the illustrations. Here is a link to a file with 3 example pages; go look at it: Example Pages.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage I am selling this CD for $15 (by PayPal) with domestic postage included. Overseas postage will be slightly more, quoted individually. These '63 Master Parts Books are pretty hard to find. If you do, you will pay a lot more than $15 for it. And the book does not have a complete index that you can search, like this CD does. If you have a '63 Riv, or any '63 Buick for that matter, you can really use one of these. As always, contact me with any questions.

Ummm... no, it does not. Lead poisons the catalytic converters. And for reference, so that you know what you are buying, the bottles quote how many "points" they will increase the octane. By their definition, a "point" is 1/10th of an octane number. So if you read their labels, you might expect an increase in octane of about 1 or 1.5 from the pump number. Not much for the money.

The consensus is that lead additive is not needed for the valves or valve seats on the Riv. The Buick metallurgy is hard enough to do OK without it. I have used something like you mention and it did foul my plugs a bit. Octane boost is probably required. You should try driving gently without it one time and see if it pings. If it does, you need some octane boost additive. But it does not need to cost quite as much as the one you mention. There are several different octane boost additives out there, so try different ones and see which one works on your engine. I have had better response from some products than from others.

I recommend you get your existing start rebuilt by a good automotive electrical shop instead of swapping it out for a rebuilt unit at an auto parts store. Put a new starter solenoid on it at the same time and you will be good for another 20 years.