JoelsBuicks

Since you say that "Any suggestions would be nice." I have a nice one for you. Take your acetylene torch and apply heat to about 1/3 of the round on the spring coil. Whenever the car squats the amount you are looking for, quit heating and go to the other side. You might go a little at a time and if you get spooked, start heating another round of the coil. And, you can't fix it if you over-do it. Joel

A few months ago I acquired this 1931 Model 67. The car belonged to an elderly gentlemen who has since passed. He began replacing the wood and didn't get too far on that as you can see. This car is mostly complete but there are a few pieces that I'll have to find. The engine looks to me to be a later 248 and I was really hoping that I could find the right one. There is a Craigslist pic that I've attached of a burned car for sale in Texas. It was posted the Buy/Sell Forum recently. I do not know if the engine will fit but someone here will likely know. I will start on wood replacement as soon as I finish my woodshop. My recent move back from Texas left me with a bunch of wood working tools with no place to go. Some other items that I will need include a back window garnish molding, a few pieces of side window garnish, and some interior door handles and cranks. I cannot find any rust through on this car, not even the bottom of the doors. I have no history of the car beyond what I've mentioned. My goal is to get her back like new.

The very big deal with wood replacement is that you have to put new wood into a metal shell and not put a metal shell onto wood as was done at the factory. It would be like trying to replace the insulation in your refrigerator and wondering why it was so much more difficult than when it was being built. Another problem is that it is like building Serial Number 1b and you have to come up with patterns and assembly processes just like the engineers did many years ago for their Serial Number 1. With the right tooling, Serial numbers 2-10,000 were easy. Wood replacement is a lot like chrome plating; you need to have the right equipment and then you have to pay for the time.

I figured the best way to not own this car was to see to it that somebody else bought it. I just love the look of this car, but I also say that about every old Buick I see. Mostly, I want to see these cars saved and enjoyed. Still, it's tempting.

This 41 Special is on the Tulsa Craigslist: 1941 Buick Special 4-dr I've just got way too many Buicks or I'd be looking at this one. This is probably less than 15 miles from me and I'd be happy to help any BCA'er who might need a remote eye. I haven't called on this and I have no association. Let me know if I can help.

Sent you a PM on contact for leather washer supplier.

I don't have any pics but these "rollers" originally had two leather washers each, one would fit inside the slide track and the other on the outside and mostly prevented rattling. As you know, the riveted "rollers" don't roll at all, they just slide. I found a person who made and sold the leather washers and BTW, there are two different inside diameters for each roller. You can see this after close examination. There was no way to get these leather washers on without removing the rollers. What I did was grind away the back of the rivet and then drilled and tapped each roller with threads that would allow me to put them back on and hold with screws once I got the washers installed. In retrospect, it would have been far easer to just put a dot of weld instead of using screws. I also looked long and hard for some type of improved replacement but found nothing suitable. Good luck!

All 13 pieces of glass for my 36 Roadmaster cost $550 at a local auto glass shop. They polished all viewable edges. Joel

Sandy, I'm going to give you my suspicion and opinion. Your problem sounds familar to something I've dealt with but on a very grand scale. Ethanol in gasoline, even at just 10% drastically changes the solvent characteristics of gasoline, I'll come back to that. Over time, old systems that once handled 100% gasoline became coated with a varnish like material, the fuel industry calls this gums. Simply, gums are polymers formed through the oxidation of certain chemicals that make up gasoline. This used to be a much bigger problem than it is today because now, almost all of the gasoline goes through at least one additional refining step which occurs at high temperature and high pressure. Additionally, this step uses hydrogen to saturate (coincidentally) those gasoline components that were unstable and quick to form gums. The ethanol in gasoline will now dissolve those old gums in those old systems and whenever this gum laden gasohol is left to evaporate, the gums are left behind because they do not evaporate. If I'm correct then I suppose that a thorough solvent cleaning of your tank, lines, and pump should remedy this. Or, just avoid the ethanol. Imagine running gasohol through a 1000 mile pipeline that has been in service 60 years and you will see the grand scale that I'm talking about.

Well there's nothing like having a picture! I now see what you mean but have no idea what that stuff is. Joel

Tom, I don't think that thick material under the screen is a filter. I think it's 76 years of gunk. I don't remember exactly what this looks like but you may have to bend things a bit to take that screen off. I remember trying to clean one of these with the screen on and that's when I discovered that you could bend some tabs and remove. The stuff was set up nearly hard as coal.

Robin, I've seen several of these bypass valves but I have yet to see any that seated, even the ones not rusted. When I first seen this, I thought maybe there was rubber or leather missing but I've read somewhere, perhaps on this forum, that a complete seating was never intended. I now see it as being "self cleaning" because a completely seated bypass valve that actuated by pressure, would soon become plugged. The engineer in me wants to plug this bypass valve but I'm going to give it a chance work.

Ernie, I'm willing to bet that there are creative solutions and ideas awaiting you if you could either post some pics or drawings or both. I've done some of this work and would like to help but I'm not familar with the 1930 assembly. When I rewooded my '36 Roadmaster, I came to realize that the sequence and method of assembly would be significantly different than the original build. With this in mind, I reconfigured my joinery and assembly techniques accordingly. This meant that some parts ended up with say a glued mortise joint instead of a screwed lap joint. I recall that for one joint at the bottom of the rear door body hinge post, I used a loose finger joint that was tighted with thin wedges which were glued, dowelled and screwed. Also, and at least for 1936, there would be no way to create a rigid door frame and then try to put it in its metal jamb. The wood pieces had to be assembled into the metal frame, piece by piece, and following a well-rehearsed sequence. A few pics might open this up to all kinds of ideas!

Dave, I think your Dad's car would get a lot of interest, It seems mostly complete and there doesn't appear to be rust issues, it's a fine candidate for a total restoration and my opinion is that it is a desirable model. Just making some assumptions that less than 50% of the wood would need replacing and that indeed this car does not have serious rust issues, I think you can expect it to fetch in the range of $5000 to $8000. If you could spend a bit of time and make it run, you would be certain to get off that lower amount. Of course you know that this isn't the best time to get top dollar for these and I'm not predicting a great change for these cars even with economic recovery, but that's just me talking. Also, the top paying buyer may be 1000 miles away and you can bet that's they'll be figuring transport into their cost - but you may get lucky and sell it to someone next door. Good luck with it and thank you for sharing it!

Is that driver's side door post boogered up or is it a reflection? It's hard to tell from the photo but it looks like somethings going on around the strike plate area. Can you get side pics of the engine and also the front of the car? Thanks, Joel

Yep, it's 2K.

The attached picture shows the bullet point end of the headlight bucket for my '36 RM. There is engraving on this end and I've been trying to preserve it as I prepare it for painting but I'm beginning to wonder why bother and isn't it possible that by the time I'm done with the paint, it will be so subtle that it will look more like a bad prep job as opposed to something meaningful. I don't recall what this looked like with the original paint and that is part of my point. My plan was to clean out the engraving, lightly coat with primer and then topcoat - thinking that this would leave everything somewhat legible. I'm now having second thoughts. So what would you folks do with this? Thanks for your input,

I checked my manual and the adjustment goes as follows: With the starter removed, push the solenoid plunger all the way forward (to the front of the car) and then remove the pin between the plunger linkage and shifting lever. Then, use your finger to hold the clutch and pinion gear to allow for 1/8" clearance between the end of the pinion and the starter housing. Now, adjust the screw in the end of the plunger so that you take up all the lash and are able to just put the pin back into the shifting lever. Hope this helps, Joel

I'm a little puzzled with this. So you're saying that the starter pinion gear is sometimes hitting against the flywheel ring gear without the starter being engaged? Do you know if the manual specifies a pinion gear clearance? If it does, the adjustment can be made but only with the starter removed, due to the need to measure the clearance. Of course you do this only with the solenoid energized and not the starter motor. To adjust while on the car, I guess you back out the solenoid plunger screw until it indicates that it no longer is hitting the flywheel (sound?). Also, what is getting damaged?

That is very nicely done! So how do you get pieces like this made? Do you just go to a machine shop with a drawing and some metal and tell them what you want or do you have to know somebody somewhere that has access to those kinds of tools? I've got to do exactly the same thing for my '36 Roadmaster. Did you do the welding with a mig or oxy/acet torch? How did you keep things straight and without all the warping that comes with the welding? It's very impressive and thank you for sharing.

Another elegant old Buick finds an owner who cares. One who appreciates her lines and curves that so perfectly define a bygone age and era. Her new caretaker will be a steward of her many needs, wants and desires, particularly those that make her do best the things she was first assigned to do. Her graceful gait once again sustained, may she forever return the gratitude of those who cared. Congratulations old girl on your most treasured find. Joel

Excepting only about 6 pieces that were still worthy, I replaced all of the wood in my '36 Roadmaster. At the time, I had a fully equipped woodshop and when I first met my Roadmaster, I figured this would be a softball pitch right up my power alley. I was wrong. While I found that no cut was beyond my ability, I allowed myself to be fooled by two important facts that unfortunately stayed elusive far too long. The first is that old wood will distort and warp and the second and most important is that you cannot replicate the original method by which these doors received their wood frames. That is, you cannot build a wood frame and fit the metal onto it - you have to build the frame, one piece at a time, and understand from the beginning, just how it will join with the other pieces that make up the total frame. Knowledge of the joining and the assembly sequence will impact the final shape of the pieces. Now I will tell you that I have all of those tools that Pete mentioned and they are heavy duty. I also have a sawmill and solar kiln and I tell people that I start my projects with a chainsaw. I chose white oak, felled in Missouri and a cypress that a friend pulled out of the Mississippi River in Memphis. Both woods offer great rot resistance but the oak is for strength and the cypress is for the horizontal boards that accept all the hardware for the door latch and window regulators. With plenty of wood and plenty of hardware, I set my sights on duplicating the badly decayed "patterns." I should note that upon removal of the old wood, I was first compelled to get the metal skins back in shape. This took a lot of time, doing gentle blasting and metal replacement at the bottom of all the doors. I had already bent back the nailing tabs along the metal jambs to get the old wood out and I also had to separate the metal jambs at the top corners of the doors - originally these were brazed. It is almost shocking just how flimsy and twisty the metal skin and jamb are without its skeletal wood. In fact, I began to get concerned about ever getting the doors built back without imparting some unintentional twist. After checking on my '36 series 90, I knew that the top of these doors had the same plane as the bottom of the doors and so I built a wooden cradle that held the metal skins such that there would be no twist. I started making the new wood pieces by laying the old atop the new and tracing. Nothing seemed to be fitting right and so I began to question the old wood and sure enough, most pieces had warped, curled, or twisted. I started used 1/4" plywood and with a hand plane, I would duplicate the curvature of the metal and then use the plywood as the pattern. I did this for all of the remaining wood and got very good results. In making the many cuts required for the wood pieces, it becomes important to know the sequence of the cuts. For example, you don't want to cut away a square or flat face of a board only to find out you needed the flat face first to facilitate making another cut. And, every cut is important dimensionally because in the final assembly, hardware for the wing glass, window channels, window garnish, window regulator and door latch all have to fit and work together. When I finally got around to being ready for gluing the pieces into each door, I first did a dry run rehearsal. With a pencil and paper I noted each step and then religiously followed the steps when the glue was wet. You only get one chance. So why do I tell you about all of this? In short, to warn you. It goes back to what I said at the start. I would have called myself an expert woodworker and with all the right tools but it seemed to demand even more than that. It was just mentally exhausting. But with these old Buicks still calling to me, I'll someday be doing it all over again and hopefully retired by then. I wish you the best of luck,

Keith, it will be a fine car when it is done and I think you'll quickly put the "Century" thing behind you as you progress with the resto. And, a sidemounted Special is pretty rare. Not to stir things up, but if the person that sold you the car is the one who did all the work, I would have a very difficult time believing that he didn't know the car was a Special and not a Century. At this stage in a restoration, the difference in value would approach a couple grand and so your disappointment is justified. Perhaps it is just the difference in a good deal versus a great deal? It does look like someone started off doing this one the right way. When someone goes to the trouble to remove the door center post, you know that they were serious at some point. Good Luck with it, the '36 is still my favorite!

Bob, sorry about that, I did learn once again that for some reason, I cannot post with a Blackberry. I very much appreciate the kind offer and I can get you dimensions when I get back this weekend. I will be modifying the size from original so as to pass two wires through. I will PM you with a sketch. Thanks again, Joel

Thank you both very much - now I need to find a way to order just a small amount. Joel