Guest 53 Roady Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 (edited) Thanks to guidance from 37 Roadmaster Tom and Buick Convert 53 Tim I bought the Eastwood flaring tool which works great and have recreated the 81" line from fenderwell to rear of front seat. I don't have patterns for the rest, just clamp holes here and there and the convertible pics in the book and from Tim. Our car is the 76R hardtop.Is the line to the seat basically straight with 2 mild offsets and about 20" long or is it about 27 " long with a crook on the cylinder end? This would be the same on the convertible.Does the T under the rear seat sit down in the well (meant for the convertible valve) or just stay level with the floor which is more direct?PS. The Eastwood tool is enormously fun to use but I just uncovered its weakness which derives from its strength. It has twice the clamping area relative to the old bar type flare tools. This is why it does not slip. But you lose 3/4 inch when trying to duplicate a tight factory bend near the fitting. Edited February 4, 2015 by 53 Roady (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trp3141592 Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Hi,But you lose 3/4 inch when trying to duplicate a tight factory bend near the fitting.Did you see Eastwood's bending tool #49074 that works mighty darn close to a fitting? --Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
53buickconvert Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Wow, wish I woulda had one of those when I did my lines:cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 53 Roady Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 Eastwoods tool says it does only 3/16 1nd 1/4 lines but I bought the Harbor Freight knock off and am going to try a die grinder and rat tail to see if it will adapt to the 5/16. I am also experimenting with a 5/16 union and a 1/2 inch sae bolt to give me some leverage bending around a pulley. Any other ideas will be appreciated.I was studying your pics Tim and saw pans covering the seat tube and behind the heater! I didn't even know about them but searching the parts shelves I found them. Once again our car was disassembled 25 years and 2500 miles away. The interior and trunk were full of everything sometimes labeled with deteriorated masking tape. The only thing I know is missing is the extra "valve covers" for the plug wires though. It is a fascinating puzzle but I can see that this car has more pieces than my 57 98 or my childhood 57 model 46R.Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trp3141592 Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Hi, Amazon offers a 5/16" close bending tool. I don't know how good it is--it doesn't look like it would be friendly with stainless. But it should work for CuNiFer tubing. It is their listing of:[h=1]V8 Tools (V8T809) Inline 5/16" Tubing Bender/Plier[/h]--Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD1956 Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Experiment with filling your tube with sand ( leave a little wiggle room and then masking tape on the ends). Then clamp the line down and use a pliers on the fitting parallel to the run of the line, for maximum leverage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 53 Roady Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Thank you both. I think the sand would work and I wonder about fluid and 2 caps? The V-8 bender looks interesting as well. I have developed a technique using the Eastwood bender and a union and 1/2 SAE bolt above the usual place on the bender . When my guru gets home I will try to post pics.The outer rear quarter belt weatherstrip sweeper has a stainless bead, the fuzz, and a mounting strip. Nothing in Restorations Specialties catalog looks quite like it. Does anyone sell kits on this stuff? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric W Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I have the '51 76R, with incorrect/unattached front seat, and incorrect rear seat bottom. I'll lift that stuff out & take some pics of the lines. I'm considering converting to 12V and changing over to the electric window motors from NuRelics, but I'm trying to secure the major missing items before really starting restoration... My car too was partially disassembled years ago - and somewhere along the way the parts didn't stay with the car... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 53 Roady Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 (edited) Thank you Eric. I fit the rear windows today and adjusted them as best I could. Then I removed them to get the new cylinders and hoses in. This car seems to have twice as many parts as a 57 let alone a 67. As hard as they are to work on I can only imagine that reinventing them might be worse. I am going to try to get the lift apparatus to work and then one window. The glass installs with the window "almost down" and I can't think of anyway to do this but hydraulically. Here are some pics of my tubing adventure.The first pic shows how somebody tried to run it with hose. The third pic shows use of the Eastwood bender makes a long stub to the fitting.The 4th pic shows how to get a shorter stub Edited February 12, 2015 by 53 Roady (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric W Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 Sounds like your question is around the back seat area - looks like you have most of the rest of the under front seat figured out, so here's what I have for the back seat area: - center - leftside - rightside Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD1956 Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 53 Roady, Picture 4 is a good idea. Extending the tube with a brass union gets you much closer to the line fitting end for the bend. I would have never thought of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 53 Roady Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 Thanks Eric. Those pics confirm what I suspected. They are exactly what I needed. This system is really elegant ...if I can get it to work. And thanks John for the compliment.Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric W Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 Pat - when you get the under-back-seat part done, please post photos of what a new/clean example will look like... As for my thought of converting to 12V and using electric, it appears the motors for the 4 windows are $850 from Nu Relics. My car doesn't have the correct front seat, so I may end up with a more recent vintage of power seat (12V), and I will probably add air conditioning (12V) and some sort of stereo (12V). So I have several things lining up that point towards not investing in restoring the hydraulics, aside from removing the opportunity for leaks... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 53 Roady Posted February 12, 2015 Share Posted February 12, 2015 (edited) Nothing wrong with a little hot rodding. I modified my first car 57 Buick in 1964 and my current 57 Olds beginning in 1984. But I am older now and don't need to go as fast.I don't know how the NuRelics mount in the inner door panels. The rear access is pretty limited. Jerry G did his beautiful 52 76R though. Look back about a month on this forum. Having said that your floor was not cleaned up and the pipes thrown away. Mine has 2 coats of POR 15 and some primer. I couldn't see a thing with the black floor. I do not expect leaks to be a problem because I have gotten rid of the damned brake fluid and will use ATF. You could use 12 volt cylinders and pump from Hydroelectric. {The 53 Roady is 12 volt}. And a prefabbed line set is probably available. I just had to learn to bend and flare and my "profit" on this job is the flaring tool. It doesn't have to make $ and sense if you get a new tool out of it. Edited February 12, 2015 by 53 Roady (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 53 Roady Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 Thanks again to all of you who helped. I've got the lines run now. Can I test the cylinders without the weight of the glass if I'm careful not to extend them fully or will they shoot out and wreck themselves?In 1964 I raced my 57 and won some but there was this one embarrassing episode against a 57 Ford. I saw the answer at a car show today and slipped in a couple of pics at the end of my stuff.Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric W Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Looks like you got it done. Out of curiosity, I pulled the arm rest on the left side, and this is what's under there: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 53 Roady Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 Oh well. The jury rigged hose system I had {not even any clamps} had 90 degree elbows on the outer ends. But the cylinder hoses I had reproduced seemed long enough with no elbows. I copied your pics as best that I could but it seems that I came up 4 inches and a 90 short.Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric W Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 Your routing where the rear window cylinder hose bends to the rear saves a probably more expensive pair of 90 brass elbows. That hose-to-tube joint is covered behind the arm rest sheet metal, so I don't see that there's any functional difference at that point. What you have done looks really good. The routing under the front passenger's feet also looks different on my '51, but the floor sheet metal might be shaped differently there as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 53 Roady Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Thanks for the consolation Eric. I never tried to keep a car stock before so I was disappointed to find out how hard it can be. The tube in the front floor seemed strange to me but I was working off of 2 clues. Our car came with the front half of that tube "replicated" in copper and the rear half original so I figured the last guys had a good pattern. Secondly, I saw a pic of Tim,s BUICKCONVERT53 on this forum and his tubes looped around the A pillar brace like mine does. At this point having done my best and Cunifer tubing being $80 a roll I,m gong to try to test the system soon. Your car is a wealth of accurate information. Thanks for sharing. Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now