High speed gears for pre-war Buicks -- again

[scott12180]

Hi all,

Forgive me for not following the group religiously, but I now have the opportunity to acquire a friend's 1938 Buick Special Two-Door so high speed gears comes to mind again.

A while ago there was discussion about making high speed rear axle gears for these cars to improve on the 4.41 stock ratio. I would certainly want a set if I bought the '38.

Has anything come of that? Is someone making these gears, or what was decided or what was the consensus? Would a Mitchell overdrive fit under a '38? They are a pretty nice unit.

--Scott

Troy, NY

[Guest ZondaC12]

http://forums.aaca.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=53&Number=460298&Searchpage=1&Main=105999&Words=+38Buick&topic=0&Search=true#Post460298

Member "38Buick" did indeed get a copy of those 3.615:1 rear end gears that he and a few others had made. He says in a post in that thread that he sold the car though, but still has/had the gears. This was more than a month ago, however. Still, you might wanna drop him a line (unless he gets here first!) and see if he still wants to get rid of em. Worst case scenario he can tell you who made them (I don't even remember a company name being mentioned) and you could buy a set for yourself.

I was thinking about something recently though. If you do a high speed rear end OR an overdrive (the option I like) either will still mess up your speedometer and odometer won't they? Or does someone make different speedo drive gears? And then with the overdrive it would be correct sometimes and sometimes not depending on which you have the speedo set for

Thats good to hear though, glad you found one!

[Only Buicks]

Scott,

I do still have this gear set but gave the other guy who purchased a set with me the first refusal. Let me contact him and see if he still wants them.

[Guest sndtubes]

I have a high speed rear end in my 30 Buick and it's great. Having said that I wish I had known that there is a guy in Ohio (near Columbus) who will install a Borg Warner overdrive unit on a torque tube drive car. That's the way to go in my opinion.

Bob's speedometer in Howell, MI makes little corrector boxes to correct the speedo readings just for this purpose. They're in Hemmings.