1940 Super, model 51

[kgreen]

Mr. Earl honored me with ownership of this little gem; part of his barn find adventure.  It has had a minor restoration by the owner previous to Lamar, and does not appear to have been substantially disassembled.  This is good because it is for the most part the way Buick sold the car.  It sat in a garage for the last 25 to 30 years after the previous owner (not Lamar) passed away.  It has a spray can refresh on the underside, though very little rust and an exterior paint of acceptable quality for a driver.  The interior smells distinctly of Buick, but is mostly retired to dust.

 

The engine was locked up, but is now free.  This weekend I removed the gas tank to clean it of old fuel.  The PO reportedly used aviation fuel which has a longer shelf life than auto gas, but after 25 or so years it reeked of that smell that only old gas can have.  I also disconnected the fuel line at the carburetor and blew it out.  I might run a little solvent through the line then rebuild the fuel pump and carb.

 

I removed the radius bar while I was under the car, to replace the bushings.  Also the bars that connect between the frame and the rear shocks.  All bolts came loose without breaking anything.  I'm thrilled with the condition of this car as far as rust is concerned, taking these bolts off today really tells me the car hadn't seen a yankee winter.  The flanges of the fenders are rusted somewhat, but the fenders themselves are fine.  I can see all sorts of places on this car where salty slush would accumulate causing these cars to rust away in no time in a northern winter environment.

 

Here's a couple shots of the car:

 

Interior rear seat and headliner.

 

Left side engine

 

WIndshield area, roof-mount antennae, missing wiper arm

 

Driver quality chrome turn signal

 

Beautiful grill, very little pitting.

 

Dash with instruments in need of total restoration.  The PO replaced the steering column wit one from a 51 Buick.

 

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

MORE, MORE!

 

  Ben

[kgreen]

Tell me it isn't true!  I'm about to replace the radiator and I'm vaguely aware that I will need to remove a substantial amount of the front sheet metal.  If this is true, I'm going to consider a trade-in on a brand new '49 model.

[kgreen]

Oh...

[kgreen]

When I got the car, all window glass was missing on the drivers door, the wood trim on the sill, vent window mechanism and the garnish molding.  This past summer I picked up an entire door with all of this in place.  Today was the day I finally disassembled the parts door to replace all that is needed on my car.  The hard part was figuring the vent window at the top of the rail that separates the vent from the larger window.  (I almost called Gary W about his '37 since he has such great hands on skills!).  I finally figured it out - nothing is broken, just worn out.

 

While I have the front end disassembled for the radiator, I took time to photograph everything under the hood for placement and configuration.  This will be a huge help re-assembling the 76C which was mostly stripped out.

Edited October 30, 2017 by kgreen (see edit history)