My 1931 Buick project- the saga begins...

[Str8-8-Dave]

The previous post captured all the pre-work to fix mechanical deficiencies in the doors on my car.  This post will be a description of the actual interior door panel fabrication and installation. 

 

I actually originally planned to have the door panels for this car done by a professional trim shop.  There were some other projects I got involved in, making a tool bag, making front kick panels, making the interior seat valance, making the golf door trim panel and making the skirt for the new front seat that required a heavy duty sewing machine.  In February of 2020 I bought a new Juki straight line machine.  I had never done any sewing but decided if I was going to do any of the interior trim I would have to buy a machine, read, roll up my sleeves and learn to work with it.  My only 2 regrets for this machine are the arm length is too short, making some projects hard or impossible to perform, and if I would have known a little more I would have popped for a walking foot machine.  The machine I bought is excellent quality, has servo motor power which is very controllable, has the power to sew through stacks of material and panel board.  But they call it a straight line machine for a reason- it doesn't particularly like making small radius corners.  It's ok for gentle curves and you can make sudden changes in direction such as right angle corners my stopping the machine with the needle all the way down into the work, raising the foot, turning the work, lowering the foot then continuing.  Just don't try to make a quick change in direction while running.

 

The Juki DDL 8700H was just under $700 new delivered to my door in 3 boxes, machine, motor and table...  This is a pretty good beginner's machine I think.

 

Other tools and resources in my arsenal for this project are a copy of the Fisher Body Service Manual for Closed Cars and I got 3 garbage bags full of original soft trim removed from the car by the previous restorer.  I laid the trim out on the basement floor in a forensic style of sorts.  From this layout I got kick panels with original screens that I used as templates for new panels and from which I salvaged the original screens, the original interior seat valance that connects the moveable front seat to the package shelf and pieces of cardboard from the rumble compartment trim, samples of black leatherette, remnants of the golf door trim and samples of original wind lace and door trim.

 

The most important part of the forensic layout for this particular project turned out to be the passenger door panel fabric including the pocket with original frame and tension spring.

 

I think I finally decided to try to make the door panels in January of 2021.  Old buzzard that I am I was cooped up in the house afraid of contracting COVID and I thought I already had a nice sewing machine to work with, why not try making the panels?  One excuse was I only had enough material left from the previous restorer to possibly do the front seat assembly.  How was I going to come up with some more material?  I actually found enough material that closely matched the color of material already in the car to do my door panels at Etsy.  Etsy carries lots of remnants and I bought 2 yards for about $90.

 

This is my forensic layout after sorting through 3 very large heavy garbage bags, much of which was disposed of as useless but the stuff you see here was deemed relevant and important.

 

So here I had the original passenger side door panel fabric with a few smatterings of the original black cardboard substrate and lots of rusty nail strip looking for some fresh skin to dig into.

 

This is a material color comparison.  The bottom material is a close match to the original restoration material used in the rest if the interior.   I found it by dumb luck searching the Etsy website.  The small piece of material on top is a piece of the material the rest of the interior is covered with.  

 

Other materials I rounded up were panel board, some wind lace I never used (more on that later) and individual door panel nail strips from Cars.  Then the real work started with cutting the panel board substrates to size.  I spent quite a bit of time with these, thought I had them sized right and still ended up trimming about 1/4" off 3 sides of the driver door panel after it was completely assembled and 1 side of the passenger door panel before the nail strips were attached and the edges of the fabric were glued over the edge.  

 

I started with the driver side door panel as it is a bit simpler to make up because it does not have a pocket.  This is a picture of a fitting trial for the driver side door panel substrate.  It has holes for door and window regulators, the outside door handle retaining screw and a series of 3 holes for the inside door lock mounting on the left. The spool of wind lace in this picture was eventually not used. 

 

The passenger side panel has no inside door lock but it does have an ashtray that has to be mounted.  The small hole on the right edge is for the outside door handle retaining screw.

 

After cutting the filler pad and mohair fabric to size I used strips of Gorilla tape to temporarily hold the material in place while the decorative stitching was done which holds the 3 layers together.  

 

The door panel assemblies have a layer of 1/4" thick filler pad between the mohair fabric and

the cardboard substrate.  This picture was a shot of a test stitch to see how the sewing machine

would handle this stack of material.

 

This picture is of the finish side of the driver panel after the decorative stitching was completed.  The top line roughly follows the shape of the garnish molding installed to trim the door panel to the bottom of the window frame.

 

 

 

 

After the decorative stitching the temporary tape is removed from the back of the panel and

the door panel nail strips are attached.  If you look closely you can see that I used a pair of 

needle nose pliers to bend the corners of the sheet metal on each nail strip down so when the 

strip is crimped onto the cardboard the corners dig into the cardboard to hold the clips in place. 

 

The Fisher Body service manual states the original nail strips had a nail every 2 inches.  I decided that was overkill and spaced the Cars nail strips 3 inches apart.  I had a terrible time attaching the panel the first time and half the nails didn't engage anything.  I wound up tearing the panel back off the car because of what I was about to learn.  When it eventually went back on the driver door successfully it had a nail strip every 6 inches.

 

The last step before the panel goes on the car is gluing the edges of the mohair over the back side of the panel board.  

 

In my amateur lack of understanding of the wind lace installation and door sealing strategy

I tried to take one continuous piece of wind lace and attach it around the perimeter of the

door.  Big mistake!

 

That wind lace sure didn't want to go around corners!

 

And once I got the door panel nailed on the wind lace kept the corners of the door panel from

seating and the door suddenly didn't want to close.  There was other wind lace already in the

car and once I saw the new wind lace on the door it didn't come close to matching the color

and style of the existing wind lace attached to the body lock pillar.  My attempt to do the

door panels almost died at this point- I was that frustrated.  

 

I posted some pictures of my folly on the AACA website and got an opinion right away that I was trying to install too much wind lace altogether and some of what I assumed was wind lace based on a single picture I had of Dave Dunton's passenger door was really 1/4" trim, not wind lace at all.  Dave Dunton wrote me and confirmed the contributor's opinion that there should not be any wind lace on the rear edge of the door, there was already wind lace to seal the rear edge of the door attached the the lock pillar on the body of the car.  All that goes on the rear edge of the door is 1/4" trim.  All that goes across the top of the door is 1/4" trim.  The bottom edge of the door gets 3/8" wind lace as does the front or hinge pillar edge of the door.  The door trim on the top edge of the door seals to weather boards that hang down in the opening that I had made and installed months ago.  The rear edge of the door seals against the body mounted wind lace.  The 3/8" wind lace on the bottom of the door seals to a ridge formed into the bright aluminum scuff plates.  The 3/8" wind lace on the front edge of the door seals the hinge pillar of the door to the hinge pillar on the body.  Crisp corners are much easier to make by joining 4 separate pieces of material...

 

This is picture of the original passenger door, never taken apart, in Dave Dunton's 31 Buick

8-66S.   The fact that the diameter of the wind lace and trim Dave described differed for

each side of the door made me understand each side was made up of an individual piece

of trim or wind lace that were simply overlapped at the corners.  This solved 2 problems.  First

it solved the problem of making crisp transitions at the corners of the door.  Second, once I 

understood this I went back through the wind lace and trim material that came with the car

and found when broken up into individual pieces and not requiring one continuous piece to

encircle the entire door I had the pieces needed, they came with the car.  The big bonus I got

from this discovery was the fact the color and pattern of the material now matched the color

and pattern of the wind lace already installed on the lock pillar of the body.  What a difference

that made!

 

This is a picture of the wind lace and matching trim attached to the passenger door.  The

corners are crisp, the material matches the color and style of wind lace already installed on

the lock pillar and the door closes just like it did before I installed the wind lace and trim

with a nice solid clunk and not much closing effort.  I didn't take a picture of the driver side

door wind lace and trim but I used the same approach for wind lace and trim on it.  

 

After correcting the wind lace and trim situation and trimming a little more cardboard along the

rear edge of the driver door panel and cutting the nail strips down to one every 6 inches I got

the door panel installed along with top and rear window frame trims and garnish moldings.  It's

not perfect but I think it looks pretty good for a job done by a rank amateur trim guy and the

door closes just like it did before I trimmed the inside of it.- Ka-lunk...

 

 

The passenger side door panel is a bit more complicated having a side pocket and the ash tray installation.  My first move was to carefully dissect the original fabric noting the location of the pocket carefully, then recovering the original inner wire frame and tension spring.   Using the original panel fabric I carefully laid out the location of the pocket on my door panel board and drilled holes for 2 attaching cotter pins so I could easily locate the pocket once the main door panel fabric was installed.  Then I set the door pocket parts aside for later. 

 

 

Next I covered the main panel with the 1/4" pad and mohair fabric and taped the edges on the back side to hold the fabric in place for the decorative stitch operation.

 

 

Then the ashtray opening is cut in the material and the flaps taped on the back of the panel board.

 

Then the guidelines for the decorative stitch are marked on the mohair with a tailor's chalk.

 

 

 

Then the decorative stitching was completed.

 

 

The way the pocket was originally installed on the door panel was to sew a 1 inch hem in the top of the pocket for the tension spring, then assemble the fabric, spring, pocket material and a couple of cotter pin clips to the top corners of the opening.  The pocket was then pinned onto the main door panel and the pocket material was tucked under the frame wire.  Then the fabric was sewn from the top, inside the wire frame, thru the top layer of pocket fabric, thru the fabric tucked under the wire, thru the main panel fabric, padding and panel board.  That wouldn't work with my sewing machine because the arm is not long enough to reach the inside of the pocket frame when the pocket is pinned to the main panel board.  So I took a slightly different approach to work around the capabilities of my machine.  

 

First I cut the pocket material and sewed the spring hem across the top.

 

 

Then I assembled the spring to the frame with the hem of the fabric over the spring and the 2 originally intended cotter pin clips in the upper corners of the frame. I placed an additional 5 long cotter pins over the wire frame, 2 on the lower sides of the frame and 3 more spaced at equal intervals across the bottom of the wire frame.  Then I folded the edges of the fabric over the wire frame, taped the material and faced the cotter pins toward the center of the pocket and taped them in place.  Then I turned the pocket finish side up and sewed it onto the frame around the inside of the wire.     

 

The last step was to bend the additional cotter pins up at right to make them perpendicular to the wire frame.

 

Now  all seven pins were passed thru the main panel board with backup washers, pulled tight and bent over and taped on the back side of the panel to finish.

 

Finally we have a passenger side panel with a pocket.

 

The last step before installing the passenger door panel is adding the nail strips, this time in 6 inch intervals, and gluing the edges of the finish mohair material to the back of the panel board.

 

Then a miracle happens- the panel is successfully attached to the door.

 

Then the door and window regulator handles go on and the ashtray is installed.

 

Next the top and rear  door trim panels are made up by gluing mohair strips wide enough to 

fold over the panel board backing and reach the window frame wood. 

 

This is the side of the trim panels that faces out when they are nailed to the door wood.

 

The panels are nailed thru the panel board to upper and rear door frame wood with the panel

board facing up and fabric facing up across the top and to the right on the rear panel.  Then

the fabric is wrapped over the panel board onto the window frame and tacked in place.  The

tacks attaching the fabric to the door wood hide behind the garnish moldings.

 

Finally the garnish moldings are installed, in this case temporarily as they will soon be sent out

for wood graining.

 

Gee- it's starting to look like a car inside.  Now if it only had a seat....

 

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Str8-8-Dave
add/edit text (see edit history)

[Paul White]

HI Dave, your detailed post has come out as I am in the process of gearing up to undertake exactly the same project on my '3o.  I shall continue to watch with great interest! Cheers paul

[Paul White]

Hi Dave,

 

What type of material are you using for the panel boards?

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[Str8-8-Dave]

4 hours ago, Paul White said:

What type of material are you using for the panel boards?

Interior door panels, kick panels and miscellaneous other flat trim are all on this tan kraft board.

 

Panel Board-Waterproof-Kraft Tan for Auto Upholstery (perfectfit.com)

 

This black panel was used for rumble compartment partition walls, front seat frame back and rumble seat side trims.  The finished side trims have leatherette (vinyl) glued onto the black panel.

 

Panel Board in Black, Treated for Upholstery (perfectfit.com)

 

Door panel

 

Kick panel

 

Rumble compartment partition walls

 

Interior seat back cover

 

Substrates for rumble compartment side trims were upholstered with black vinyl top material with a leatherette grain pattern

 

A finished rumble side trim

Edited September 1, 2021 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)

[Paul White]

On 8/30/2021 at 5:23 AM, Str8-8-Dave said:

The previous post captured all the pre-work to fix mechanical deficiencies in the doors on my car.  This post will be a description of the actual interior door panel fabrication and installation. 

 

I actually originally planned to have the door panels for this car done by a professional trim shop.  There were some other projects I got involved in, making a tool bag, making front kick panels, making the interior seat valance, making the golf door trim panel and making the skirt for the new front seat that required a heavy duty sewing machine.  In February of 2020 I bought a new Juki straight line machine.  I had never done any sewing but decided if I was going to do any of the interior trim I would have to buy a machine, read, roll up my sleeves and learn to work with it.  My only 2 regrets for this machine are the arm length is too short, making some projects hard or impossible to perform, and if I would have known a little more I would have popped for a walking foot machine.  The machine I bought is excellent quality, has servo motor power which is very controllable, has the power to sew through stacks of material and panel board.  But they call it a straight line machine for a reason- it doesn't particularly like making small radius corners.  It's ok for gentle curves and you can make sudden changes in direction such as right angle corners my stopping the machine with the needle all the way down into the work, raising the foot, turning the work, lowering the foot then continuing.  Just don't try to make a quick change in direction while running.

 

The Juki DDL 8700H was just under $700 new delivered to my door in 3 boxes, machine, motor and table...  This is a pretty good beginner's machine I think.

 

Other tools and resources in my arsenal for this project are a copy of the Fisher Body Service Manual for Closed Cars and I got 3 garbage bags full of original soft trim removed from the car by the previous restorer.  I laid the trim out on the basement floor in a forensic style of sorts.  From this layout I got kick panels with original screens that I used as templates for new panels and from which I salvaged the original screens, the original interior seat valance that connects the moveable front seat to the package shelf and pieces of cardboard from the rumble compartment trim, samples of black leatherette, remnants of the golf door trim and samples of original wind lace and door trim.

 

The most important part of the forensic layout for this particular project turned out to be the passenger door panel fabric including the pocket with original frame and tension spring.

 

I think I finally decided to try to make the door panels in January of 2021.  Old buzzard that I am I was cooped up in the house afraid of contracting COVID and I thought I already had a nice sewing machine to work with, why not try making the panels?  One excuse was I only had enough material left from the previous restorer to possibly do the front seat assembly.  How was I going to come up with some more material?  I actually found enough material that closely matched the color of material already in the car to do my door panels at Etsy.  Etsy carries lots of remnants and I bought 2 yards for about $90.

 

This is my forensic layout after sorting through 3 very large heavy garbage bags, much of which was disposed of as useless but the stuff you see here was deemed relevant and important.

 

So here I had the original passenger side door panel fabric with a few smatterings of the original black cardboard substrate and lots of rusty nail strip looking for some fresh skin to dig into.

 

This is a material color comparison.  The bottom material is a close match to the original restoration material used in the rest if the interior.   I found it by dumb luck searching the Etsy website.  The small piece of material on top is a piece of the material the rest of the interior is covered with.  

 

Other materials I rounded up were panel board, some wind lace I never used (more on that later) and individual door panel nail strips from Cars.  Then the real work started with cutting the panel board substrates to size.  I spent quite a bit of time with these, thought I had them sized right and still ended up trimming about 1/4" off 3 sides of the driver door panel after it was completely assembled and 1 side of the passenger door panel before the nail strips were attached and the edges of the fabric were glued over the edge.  

 

I started with the driver side door panel as it is a bit simpler to make up because it does not have a pocket.  This is a picture of a fitting trial for the driver side door panel substrate.  It has holes for door and window regulators, the outside door handle retaining screw and a series of 3 holes for the inside door lock mounting on the left. The spool of wind lace in this picture was eventually not used. 

 

The passenger side panel has no inside door lock but it does have an ashtray that has to be mounted.  The small hole on the right edge is for the outside door handle retaining screw.

 

After cutting the filler pad and mohair fabric to size I used strips of Gorilla tape to temporarily hold the material in place while the decorative stitching was done which holds the 3 layers together.  

 

The door panel assemblies have a layer of 1/4" thick filler pad between the mohair fabric and

the cardboard substrate.  This picture was a shot of a test stitch to see how the sewing machine

would handle this stack of material.

 

This picture is of the finish side of the driver panel after the decorative stitching was completed.  The top line roughly follows the shape of the garnish molding installed to trim the door panel to the bottom of the window frame.

 

 

 

 

After the decorative stitching the temporary tape is removed from the back of the panel and

the door panel nail strips are attached.  If you look closely you can see that I used a pair of 

needle nose pliers to bend the corners of the sheet metal on each nail strip down so when the 

strip is crimped onto the cardboard the corners dig into the cardboard to hold the clips in place. 

 

The Fisher Body service manual states the original nail strips had a nail every 2 inches.  I decided that was overkill and spaced the Cars nail strips 3 inches apart.  I had a terrible time attaching the panel the first time and half the nails didn't engage anything.  I wound up tearing the panel back off the car because of what I was about to learn.  When it eventually went back on the driver door successfully it had a nail strip every 6 inches.

 

The last step before the panel goes on the car is gluing the edges of the mohair over the back side of the panel board.  

 

In my amateur lack of understanding of the wind lace installation and door sealing strategy

I tried to take one continuous piece of wind lace and attach it around the perimeter of the

door.  Big mistake!

 

That wind lace sure didn't want to go around corners!

 

And once I got the door panel nailed on the wind lace kept the corners of the door panel from

seating and the door suddenly didn't want to close.  There was other wind lace already in the

car and once I saw the new wind lace on the door it didn't come close to matching the color

and style of the existing wind lace attached to the body lock pillar.  My attempt to do the

door panels almost died at this point- I was that frustrated.  

 

I posted some pictures of my folly on the AACA website and got an opinion right away that I was trying to install too much wind lace altogether and some of what I assumed was wind lace based on a single picture I had of Dave Dunton's passenger door was really 1/4" trim, not wind lace at all.  Dave Dunton wrote me and confirmed the contributor's opinion that there should not be any wind lace on the rear edge of the door, there was already wind lace to seal the rear edge of the door attached the the lock pillar on the body of the car.  All that goes on the rear edge of the door is 1/4" trim.  All that goes across the top of the door is 1/4" trim.  The bottom edge of the door gets 3/8" wind lace as does the front or hinge pillar edge of the door.  The door trim on the top edge of the door seals to weather boards that hang down in the opening that I had made and installed months ago.  The rear edge of the door seals against the body mounted wind lace.  The 3/8" wind lace on the bottom of the door seals to a ridge formed into the bright aluminum scuff plates.  The 3/8" wind lace on the front edge of the door seals the hinge pillar of the door to the hinge pillar on the body.  Crisp corners are much easier to make by joining 4 separate pieces of material...

 

This is picture of the original passenger door, never taken apart, in Dave Dunton's 31 Buick

8-66S.   The fact that the diameter of the wind lace and trim Dave described differed for

each side of the door made me understand each side was made up of an individual piece

of trim or wind lace that were simply overlapped at the corners.  This solved 2 problems.  First

it solved the problem of making crisp transitions at the corners of the door.  Second, once I 

understood this I went back through the wind lace and trim material that came with the car

and found when broken up into individual pieces and not requiring one continuous piece to

encircle the entire door I had the pieces needed, they came with the car.  The big bonus I got

from this discovery was the fact the color and pattern of the material now matched the color

and pattern of the wind lace already installed on the lock pillar of the body.  What a difference

that made!

 

This is a picture of the wind lace and matching trim attached to the passenger door.  The

corners are crisp, the material matches the color and style of wind lace already installed on

the lock pillar and the door closes just like it did before I installed the wind lace and trim

with a nice solid clunk and not much closing effort.  I didn't take a picture of the driver side

door wind lace and trim but I used the same approach for wind lace and trim on it.  

 

After correcting the wind lace and trim situation and trimming a little more cardboard along the

rear edge of the driver door panel and cutting the nail strips down to one every 6 inches I got

the door panel installed along with top and rear window frame trims and garnish moldings.  It's

not perfect but I think it looks pretty good for a job done by a rank amateur trim guy and the

door closes just like it did before I trimmed the inside of it.- Ka-lunk...

 

 

The passenger side door panel is a bit more complicated having a side pocket and the ash tray installation.  My first move was to carefully dissect the original fabric noting the location of the pocket carefully, then recovering the original inner wire frame and tension spring.   Using the original panel fabric I carefully laid out the location of the pocket on my door panel board and drilled holes for 2 attaching cotter pins so I could easily locate the pocket once the main door panel fabric was installed.  Then I set the door pocket parts aside for later. 

 

 

Next I covered the main panel with the 1/4" pad and mohair fabric and taped the edges on the back side to hold the fabric in place for the decorative stitch operation.

 

 

Then the ashtray opening is cut in the material and the flaps taped on the back of the panel board.

 

Then the guidelines for the decorative stitch are marked on the mohair with a tailor's chalk.

 

 

 

Then the decorative stitching was completed.

 

 

The way the pocket was originally installed on the door panel was to sew a 1 inch hem in the top of the pocket for the tension spring, then assemble the fabric, spring, pocket material and a couple of cotter pin clips to the top corners of the opening.  The pocket was then pinned onto the main door panel and the pocket material was tucked under the frame wire.  Then the fabric was sewn from the top, inside the wire frame, thru the top layer of pocket fabric, thru the fabric tucked under the wire, thru the main panel fabric, padding and panel board.  That wouldn't work with my sewing machine because the arm is not long enough to reach the inside of the pocket frame when the pocket is pinned to the main panel board.  So I took a slightly different approach to work around the capabilities of my machine.  

 

First I cut the pocket material and sewed the spring hem across the top.

 

 

Then I assembled the spring to the frame with the hem of the fabric over the spring and the 2 originally intended cotter pin clips in the upper corners of the frame. I placed an additional 5 long cotter pins over the wire frame, 2 on the lower sides of the frame and 3 more spaced at equal intervals across the bottom of the wire frame.  Then I folded the edges of the fabric over the wire frame, taped the material and faced the cotter pins toward the center of the pocket and taped them in place.  Then I turned the pocket finish side up and sewed it onto the frame around the inside of the wire.     

 

The last step was to bend the additional cotter pins up at right to make them perpendicular to the wire frame.

 

Now  all seven pins were passed thru the main panel board with backup washers, pulled tight and bent over and taped on the back side of the panel to finish.

 

Finally we have a passenger side panel with a pocket.

 

The last step before installing the passenger door panel is adding the nail strips, this time in 6 inch intervals, and gluing the edges of the finish mohair material to the back of the panel board.

 

Then a miracle happens- the panel is successfully attached to the door.

 

Then the door and window regulator handles go on and the ashtray is installed.

 

Next the top and rear  door trim panels are made up by gluing mohair strips wide enough to 

fold over the panel board backing and reach the window frame wood. 

 

This is the side of the trim panels that faces out when they are nailed to the door wood.

 

The panels are nailed thru the panel board to upper and rear door frame wood with the panel

board facing up and fabric facing up across the top and to the right on the rear panel.  Then

the fabric is wrapped over the panel board onto the window frame and tacked in place.  The

tacks attaching the fabric to the door wood hide behind the garnish moldings.

 

Finally the garnish moldings are installed, in this case temporarily as they will soon be sent out

for wood graining.

 

Gee- it's starting to look like a car inside.  Now if it only had a seat....

 

 

Hi Str8 8 Dave,

 

I have started sewing the upholstery for my'30 and was wondering what needle size you used on the kraft board.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[Str8-8-Dave]

8 hours ago, Paul White said:

I have started sewing the upholstery for my'30 and was wondering what needle size you used on the kraft board.

Paul- I'd have to go look.  I didn't worry about needle size for the Kraft board, I did try to get thread sized for the needle...

[Tmann]

This is some beautiful hard work and a highly informative thread.

[Str8-8-Dave]

16 hours ago, Paul White said:

I have started sewing the upholstery for my'30 and was wondering what needle size you used on the Kraft board.

Thread is Superior threads white bonded nylon 501-138-002 and I've had the best luck loading this particular thread in a bobbin and getting the thread to pull up from below.

 

Needle pictured, stamped Organ 20 on the shaft

Edited October 26, 2021 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)

[Paul White]

On 10/27/2021 at 9:58 AM, Str8-8-Dave said:

Thread is Superior threads white bonded nylon 501-138-002 and I've had the best luck loading this particular thread in a bobbin and getting the thread to pull up from below.

 

Needle pictured, stamped Organ 20 on the shaft

Thanks for taking the time to get this information to me, Cheers Paul

[Paul White]

Hi all,

 

Just a couple of photos as we start installing the interior.  Other upholstery components went in but my phone ran out of power and I was enjoying myself so much I couldn't drag myself away to go plug it in.  I am currently working on sewing up the front seat fabric and pulling my hair out trying to get the fabric to sit correctly for the door pockets despite having the originals to work from, Cheers Paul 

 

 

[Str8-8-Dave]

Hi to all;  Hope everyone is getting ready for a nice Thanksgiving Day holiday, the one we have been missing for awhile...

 

So the latest project was the making of a missing rumble seat back frame.  My car came with a good interior seat base cushion still wearing it's original mohair, no interior seat back spring and a broken down wood adjustable seat frame still wearing most of it's original hardware.  There were no rumble seat springs and the previous owner was apparently at a loss as to what the springs consisted of as he suggested doing simple foam seat parts and skipping the springs.  The previous owner wasn't even sure if the rumble lid could be opened without scratching or chipping the paint and there wasn't any exterior deck lid handle to open the deck if you wanted to.  

 

During the months while I was working on all manner of other things this car needed I struggled with how I would ever account for all the missing seat parts.  One day I happened to be looking at an early Chevrolet parts catalog when I stumbled onto an ad for Snyder's reproduction seat springs for 1931 Chevrolet sports coupes with a rumble seat.  The 31 Chevy sports coupe bodies are very similar to the Buick bodies.  The springs were bargain-barn priced, I bought all 4 springs for about $900.

 

Some of the previous projects I documented here tell how I got past the front seat frame issue, the front seat is now in the hands of Shelby Trim for upholstery.  Other posts detailed how I installed a latch and deck lid handle on the rumble lid, got it to open and close safely, how it wound up with a rubber weatherstrip seal and there are some entries related to early attempts to install the seat springs.  

 

I had good luck with the seat base spring, the only major thing required to get the base spring to install correctly was I had to narrow the assembly by 2 inches to allow 1 inch clearance on each end of the spring assembly to the side trims in the rumble compartment.  I also had to figure out what held the assembly in place on the compartment floor.  On the rear of the spring there are 2 wire tabs that insert into slots in a wood sill behind the springs.  There were a couple of mushroom head nails on the vertical surface of another wood header in front of the springs and there were 1/4" high by 2" wide slots in the wood sill just above the mushroom heads.  I finally figured out the front of the spring was held in place by leather straps attached to the bottom rail of the spring that pass thru the slots in the front sill and then lock over the mushroom head nails. 

 

The big project with the seat base spring was narrowing it 2 inches to allow clearance to the rumble seat side trims.

 

I cut four 1" pieces out of the base frame and riveted steel channel over the cuts to reattach the bottom rail.  The top rail is a continuous piece of wire rod which was shortened 4 inches and re-bent to re-position the springs and accomplish the narrowing.

 

The rear of the seat base spring is held down with the wire tabs that enter slots in the wood sill behind.  One of the side trims for the rumble compartment is in the background...

 

The front of the base seat spring is held down by a couple of leather straps that slide through slots in a wood header in front of the springs.  The leather strap hooks over the mushroom pins shown here.

 

This is one of the leather straps I installed on the seat springs to secure the front of the springs to the rumble compartment floor.

 

This picture shot through the golf door opening shows the leather strap and pin arrangement at work.

 

It took me awhile to realize there was even supposed to be such a thing as a seat back frame,  I happily installed the Snyder's reproduction 31 Chevrolet rumble seat back spring directly to the woodwork on my rumble lid.  It passed one test, with both seat base and seat back springs in place the lid closed with no interference from the springs.  But it just didn't seem to fit the rumble lid well.  I bent the hell out of aluminum rail of the frame to dodge around a couple of big square nuts on the lid hinges that definitely looked wrong.  There were a couple of steel straps on the rumble lid woodwork that looked like receivers for some sort of attachment for the seat back and once the seat springs were covered the 4 attachment tabs on the spring would not be accessible.  Looking at pictures of other cars like mine the perimeter welt around the seat back rested on the rumble lid woodwork neatly in a way that would be impossible to achieve by simply covering the spring assembly without some sort of frame.  

 

This is a shot of the seat back spring incorrectly attached directly to the rumble lid woodwork.  If you upholstered just the springs with no wood frame how would you put screws in the attachment tabs on the springs, then have them hidden behind the upholstery?

 

And pray-tell what do these metal straps do?  Could they be attachment points for a correct seat frame assembly?

 

 

Finally I asked Dave Dunton, my friend in Georgia who has the original 31 8-66S, to just run his fingers around the edges of the seat back and tell me if he could feel a wood frame of some sort under the upholstery.  That was a yes.  I reached out to the AACA community, including the library, hoping to find someone who had pictures of an un-upholstered seat frame and springs, no luck.  My only hope was if I could convince Dave Dunton to remove the rumble seat back from his car and photograph and measure it.  Dave has never let me down, he spent hours photographing and measuring per my request.  

 

This is Dave Dunton's original rumble seat back turned upside down and displayed on the hood of a 1961 Corvette he has had for years.

 

The metal tab at the top of this picture slides into the mystery plates attached to the woodwork on the rumble lid a couple of 

pictures above.  If you look at the lower corner of this picture you can see how the wood is milled out to dodge around the 

rumble lid hinge and it's attaching hardware.  At the bottom is a simple steel strap which has a hole in the bottom of it so the 

seat back assembly can be screwed in 2 places to the rumble lid woodwork.

 

You can see the side frames are curved to fit the curvature of the rumble lid woodwork.  Also visible

is a finger joint.  The original 4 inch wide side frames were steam bent to give them their curvature

and finger joined together.  One can only guess what kind of machine was used to cut the reliefs

in for the hinges.

 

Besides taking pictures per my requests Dave measured everything for me starting with the metal pieces.  The seat is upside down in this picture, that's one of the hooks that attaches the top of the seat back to the rumble lid.

 

This is one of the bottom attachment straps.

 

Then I marked up 3 of Dave's pictures and assigned reference letter and asked Dave to provide a measurement for each

reference point.   Below is one of the 3 pictures I sent back to Dave requesting measurments.

 

 

Finally I had a good idea of what the wood frame was supposed to look like and how it would attach to the rumble lid.   Now the question became how to attack making a replica?  There's no way I could make the side frames the way Fisher Body did, I have no steam bending or finger jointing equipment.   What I finally decided to do was to make a profile template of the curvature required for the side frame to be fitted to the curvature of the  rumble lid woodwork.  My idea was if I had a template like that I could cut the shape in 1 inch thick ash lumber, 4 pieces per side, then laminate the 4 pieces together.    This led to purchase of a band saw, something I had been considering for some time.  Initially I wanted a metal cutting band saw that could be sped up for cutting wood but that gets to be expensive and would occupy a lot of floor space in the garage.  I settled on a 14" Grizzly Classic band saw which is wood only but I found one at the Home Depot website at the best price and bought it and a roll around stand.   After using it on this project I'm really happy with my choice.  It cuts 4 inch thick ash with no problem.  Most of my cutting was 1 inch thick stuff.   I will let the pictures and captions tell the rest of the story...

 

Cheers-

 

Dave

 

 

I made this profile template after quite a few tries.  I later traced the shape onto 1" thick ash lumber I purchased from Baird Bros in Ohio.

 

I found this wood-only 2 speed band saw at Home Depot's website.  It turned out to be perfect

for this project.  

 

While waiting for the bandsaw and lumber to show up I decided to fabricate the 4 metal attachments.  I ordered 3/16" x 1" steel bar from Metals Online.

 

A few days after the saw arrived and I put it together and adjusted it I started cutting the 1" thick ash ribs that would eventually become the side frames of the seat frame.

 

For one rib for each side frame the template is close to the final shape.  The rib that is glued to the unmodified rib is cut about 1/8' smaller on the back side only to provide a tacking channel for the upholstery material.  The narrowed rib also gets a hole saw cut to clear the square nut that attaches the upper rumble lid hinge. 

 

The other 2 ribs are glued together and are marked for recess slots the cross slats are glued into.

 

Finally all 4 ribs are glued together to form one side frame. 

 

 

Then the fitting trials begin, here with a fully assembled side frame on the right and just the narrowed rib that fits over the hinge and attaching hardware on the left.

 

 

 

The top rail of the frame is flat but requires 90 degree circular end cuts, a cutout in the top for clearance to the handle attaching bolt on the rumble lid handle and latch, and a 1/8" deep dado around the edge where the seat cover material will be tacked.  Hard to see here but two 3/8" dowl rod holes are drilled near the ends to attach the part to the side frames.  

 

Here the top rail is just sitting on the side rails.

 

Here the right side of car (left side of picture) side frame is being glued.  Note the dowel rod that aligns and strengthens the corner joints.  The first cross slat is also glued in this picture to lock in the position of the side frames.

 

 

 

Here is a picture of the frame now with the bottom rail of the frame glued and screwed in place.

The bottom rail is cut 1 inch short of the ends of the side rails to provide clearance for the bottom

hinge bolt.  The 4 pieces of attaching hardware are installed in this step.  

 

Here the frame is attached to the rumble lid woodwork the way Fisher Body intended with 2 hooks hooked into the attachment points at the top of the rumble lid and screwed thru the 2 straps at the bottom.

 

Now the other 2 cross slats are added.

 

Then I made a test installation of the seat back springs to the new frame.  Not pictured is a trial fit of the assembly as shown here to the rumble lid with the seat base springs in place.  Horror of horrors the back spring then caught on the base spring when trying to close the rumble lid.  Subsequent measurements of Dave Dunton's seat assembly heights revealed that both the back spring and the base spring will have to be partially compressed, likely by tying in some areas to give the seat cushions the correct completed height profile.  I did that later with the back spring and it will definitely clear the base spring when the seat cover is installed. 

 

As I did with the interior adjustable seat frame the rumble seat back frame was brushed with

Woodlife Coppercoat wood preservative, then stained black.

 

A jute cover was installed on the inside of the original seat back frame.  Likewise I installed a cover on mine.

 

 

Snyder's recommends painting the spring assemblies to prevent rust out so a can of Rustoleum gloss black was applied.  If you look closely the back springs have also been tied with plastic Zip ties at strategic locations to contour the springs like the original seat.   

 

These are pictures of the completed seat back spring and frame sub-assembly installed on

the car.  It will become a complete assembly after Shelby Trim sees it for upholstery.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by Str8-8-Dave
Add pictures, descriptions (see edit history)

[lancemb]

Wow!  That is some impressive work!

[Daniel McCusker]

Dave,

You did a wonderful job with your restoration, and your descriptions and pictures are very helpful.

Thank you

[John_Mereness]

Very nice !!!

[John_Mereness]

[Str8-8-Dave]

Gee- I didn't know all you guys heaped so much praise on my project.  Thanks to all for the kind words.   Anyone who has followed this thread probably knows I enjoy writing about this stuff.  If my work is good enough the bigger payoff for me is it provides some guidance to others to help with their projects.   

 

It's pretty for the Buick right now, it's very cold in the garage and I have seat and garnish moldings farmed out and am waiting for others to finish their work so I can continue mine.  We had a big stumble with the interior seat job because my trim guy discovered we were 2 yards short of enough material to finish the seat.  The material I gave him was left over from the previous interior work and most of the interior is done in that particular material.  Finding more of it 10 or 15 years after it was purchased sent me on a hunt with numerous suppliers.  I gathered lots of samples, none was even close to what was in the car.  I finally sent a swatch to SMS in Canby Oregon and asked if they could match it.  They sent 2 samples back, one is very close on color, sheen and luster under different light situations but the nap is shorter and the backing is lighter.  The other sample had the right nap and backing but color, sheen and luster when exposed at different angles to a bright light was way off.  I finally ordered 3 yards of the first sample and directed my trim guy to use it on the wood seat frame where it won't be subject to the wear and tear of sitting on it.  He will use the rest of the leftover matching material on the seat cushions.  When he is done with the interior seat I will give him the rumble springs to upholster.

 

Keith Payne at Old Dominion Oyster in VA is working on refinishing my garnish moldings.  He advertises his services in the Buick Bugle services offered want-ads and has a good reputation for high quality work.  Once I get those back I can finish the door trim.

 

What I have been doing over winter is gathering and organizing a spare parts inventory.  Once the car is finally done and off the jack stands I'm hoping it will be a reliable driver. Back to the Bricks in Flint, MI is the nearest big Buick gathering, with some luck my car might be shown there.

 

Thanks again for the encouragement, highly appreciated.

 

Dave

 

 

[Str8-8-Dave]

Hello to all; This has been a whirlwind spring for cars and other things.  We sold our cottage in Michigan's upper peninsula in January, so I don't have to go open and get it ready for summer.  Selling the cottage was a hard decision but it freed up some money to play with in the car sandbox.  I missed a chance to buy another partially restored car, a beautiful 33 Cadillac V-12 coupe got away from me.  After trying for a few months to locate another Cadillac 12 coupe I changed course 180 degrees and bought a 2015 Porsche 911 S4 coupe which only has half as many cylinders but is a hoot to drive.  The car is 7 years old but had just under 6,000 miles on it when I bought it.  It was behind on recommended service and had original tires which I wouldn't trust on the car, so I bought tires and handed the car off to Motor City Porsche Monday and picked it up, fully serviced, today.  This car was subject of some posting I did on buying cars on E-bay which is where the Porsche came from and where the Buick came from.  Needless to say, I was pleased to hear from the local dealer Porsche that I bought a great car.   But, then there's the Buick.  I don't want you to think it has fallen by the wayside.  

 

Early this month I got my repaired and freshly wood-grained garnish moldings back from Keith Payne who owns a wood graining business in Purcellville, VA known as Old Dominion Oyster Restorations.  Keith runs an ad in the Buick Bugle.  I sent Keith my window and dash moldings in November 21, and just got them back the last weekend of March.   That seems slow but Keith's main business is helping his dad with re-habilitating homes for the elderly and poor.  As it turned out he was pretty busy for a while with that and some other wood-graining jobs.  That timing was not a problem, the weather was too cold to work in the garage until a couple of weeks before I got the moldings back.  Finally, we got weather in the 50's and I set about installing the restored moldings.    

 

The other project that has been cooking in the background was the interior seat upholstery which was farmed out to Shelby Auto Trim in Sterling Heights, MI.  The shop is about 50 miles from our home in Port Huron and it has been in business for many years.  GM Historical has had cars upholstered there and my Porsche dealer is a frequent customer.  Steve Baker is the seat technician that did my seats, and he spent a good deal of time reviewing pictures of Dave Dunton's original seat, Dave has a 31 8-66S that has never been apart and still has the original upholstery, before starting on my seat.  I provided several yards of material for the seats that came from the previous owner's upholstery job, but it turned out we were 2 square yards short of enough material to finish the seat.  I struggled with several suppliers trying to locate matching material without much luck.  Lesson learned, if you are going to replace the upholstery in one of these old cars make doubly sure you buy enough material to do the whole job before you start.  Shelby Trim was finally able to find some material that was not a perfect match but was close enough to finish the job. 

 

I dropped the Porsche off for service in Eastpointe, MI in the morning, then went to Sterling Heights in the afternoon and brought the newly upholstered seat home.   I also dropped off the rumble seat springs for upholstery so sometime later this summer I will finally have a complete car. Tuesday, I got the seat frame with seat back cushion attached into the car and onto the seat track.  Wednesday, I wound up lifting the seat frame back off the track one side at a time to grease the tracks.  The original seat adjuster installed on the new seat frame I made for the car works really well.  Wednesday afternoon I installed the base cushion.  I still have to attach the seat valance to the back of the seat frame and install a molding Steve made for the car.  Then the interior seat will be finished.   

 

The new resident in our garage, it displaced a 2020 Subaru Outback Touring XT, but a 2021 version of the Subaru is still in residence.

 

The first of the restored moldings to go back on the car was the dash molding.  

 

 

 

 

These are the rumble seat springs I just dropped off the Shelby Auto Trim.  I made the wood subframe for the seat back spring.

 

This is the seat frame I made for the car by carefully copying what was left of the original seat frame.

 

The interior seat parts arrive at Shelby Trim.

 

Steve Baker begins to work his magic...

 

 

 

 

 

Last step before the new seat covers were installed.

 

The completed seat I picked up this past Monday, 4/11/22.

 

Tuesday, I got the seat frame and back cushion installed in the car.   I got it in the car by myself but that wasn't easy.  The seat doesn't fit thru the door opening unless it is tilted up on a 45-degree angle so the top of the seat back and the front of the bottom rail of the frame with the seat adjuster are basically arranged vertically against the hinge pillar side of the door opening.  Somehow, I got it in there without scratching, tearing or breaking anything.

 

Wednesday, I started by removing the seat track keeper slides, one side of the seat at a time, then lifting the seat off the track to apply grease to the tracks and keeper slides.  Finally, I installed the base cushion and like magic, we have a car....

 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)

[dibarlaw]

Dave: 

 The workmanship is fabulous! The finished product looks so rich and comfortable.

[Str8-8-Dave]

Shelby Auto Trim in Sterling Heights, MI was a godsend find for this project.  They are top-flight and only 50 miles from our home in Port Huron, MI.  I had the seat in line for Matthew Larder Upholstery out west of Lansing, MI but he was up to his eyeballs in early brass car upholstery jobs and just couldn't get to my job which was small potatoes compared to the museum jobs he is working on.  Shelby Trim took my job right in and would have completed it in 2 or 3 months, but we had trouble scrounging up enough material to complete the seat.  Then, Steve Baker had to set my job aside for a bit to take care of an Autorama car.   We had trouble coming up with appropriate welt and Steve made the welt and several cloth-covered trim moldings for the job.  Bottom line- Shelby Auto Trim is just an excellent resource, Steve Baker, who is the lead trimmer and Ann Ditri, the owner, were just super to work with.

[Str8-8-Dave]

This is a quick update on my interior seat project.  Today I finished installation by tacking the valance that fills the open space between the seat back and the package shelf to the top of the seat back frame, then concealing the edge of the valance with a matching cloth covered molding similar to the Randall molding Buick installed.  The molding was made by Shelby Trim.  The interior of my car is essentially done.  The 8-day Waltham clock I installed in the car at one time needs to go back in the car.  Currently it is sitting on my computer desk.   

 

Dave

 

 

 

This is a picture of Dave Dunton's original seat and valance.  The Randall

molding covers the joint between the front edge of the folding valance cloth

to the top of the wood seat frame.   

 

I managed to find the original valance for my car in a trash bag full of interior parts removed by the previous restorer.  I tried my best to make an accurate copy seen in the pictures below.

 

 

This is my reproduction valance installed on the package shelf frame.

 

This is what the valance looks like with the seat adjusted all the way forward

in Dave Dunton's car.

These pictures are of the seat adjusted all the way back, so the valance folds over onto the seat back cushion.  The cover over the package shelf compartment on my car is a different color because it still wears it's original mohair.  I may or may not recover it with the modern material used in my car today.

 

 

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave
Arrange pictures, captions (see edit history)

[Str8-8-Dave]

Hi to all- hope you all had an enjoyable 4th of July.   We sold the cottage in the UP, so we wound up taking a 3-day short trip to northern Michigan's Lake Huron shoreline, ate at favorite bar/restaurant, fireworks at Harrisville, MI and took in a parade at Tawas City, MI.  Very enjoyable.   

 

Today was a beautiful weather day in Port Huron so I pulled the cover off the front of the Buick and ran it.  It's been probably a month since last run and I weaned it off the portable boat tank and it is now being run off the 18- gallon car tank.  It runs just fine, takes a bit of cranking to fill the carburetor bowl, but after that we're off to the races.  A particular reason to run the car today is I had a lot of trouble with oil leakage at the tappet covers.  I ordered a set of new cork gaskets from Olsons and just to make sure I bought a tube of 3M yellow gasket and trim cement.  When I actually got around to doing the job and after pulling the tappet covers, I wound up reusing the nice cork gaskets I made for the covers.  They had been contact-cemented to the tappet cover.  I simply cleaned the cylinder block side of the gaskets up with lacquer thinner and coated gaskets and the block with a bead of the 3M stuff and reinstalled them.  I ran the car for a good 30 minutes today and happily, a couple hours later, there's nary a drop of oil on the garage floor.  It's almost time to let the car down off the jack stands where it has been perched since April 2018.    Then- I'm waiting for Shelby Trim to upholster my rumble seat cushions to finish all but the last details.  

 

Dave...

 

The car is running in this picture.  You can see it is still on jack stands and the stains on the garage floor bear witness to the fact it had an oil leak problem at the 

tappet covers.  I also campaigned the pan bolts for leakage.  The one remaining minor leak is it drips a little from the rear main, not enough to make me pull the pan.

 

A view of the wide-open radiator shutters which correctly operate from the Sylphon-style bellows thermostat in the top tank of the radiator.

 

Good oil pressure (30psi), good water temp (185f) and good rate of charge at idle.  

 

The car idles nicely...

 

A shot of the right side showing the tappet covers trying to hide behind the right side accessories.  Kinda like an elephant trying to sneak across the top of a pool table.

 

The view thru the passenger door...

 

 

 

Edited July 9, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave
Arrange pictures, captions (see edit history)

[Str8-8-Dave]

Hello to all, hope you are enjoying your summer.

 

One day last November I was summoned to Shelby Auto Trim in Utica, MI to pick up the newly upholstered interior seat for my 1931 Buick 8-66S.   The seat frame I dropped off was a faithful replica of the original frame.  The original frame had so deteriorated it simply was not useable.  The front seat I got back was spectacular, I was very happy with the workmanship of Steve Baker, the seat tech at Shelby Trim, that did my seat.  When I picked that seat up, I dropped off the rumble seat springs for upholstery.  The rumble seat cushions were the last major project to make the very incomplete E-bay car I bought into a complete car.

 

When I got the car there were no rumble seat springs.  The only original seat spring assembly I got with the car was the interior seat base springs which were still wearing their 90year old upholstery.  I got no interior seat back springs or seat base or seat back springs for the rumble compartment.  More importantly I did not get the wood subframe that attaches the rumble seat back springs to the woodwork on the rumble lid.  I had no idea at the time this crucial part was even missing.  I came across a deal on Snyders replica 1931 Chevy rumble seat coupe springs and bought a complete set, including the interior seat base spring. 

 

I spent some time on the rumble base springs revising the overall length.  The base springs appeared to be too long to me, the ends of the spring assembly rubbed on the compartment side trims scratching the finish on the vinyl upholstery material on the trims.  I figured by the time the base cushion had padding added and a seat cover installed wouldn't even fit in the available space.  As a result, I cut the spring assembly perimeter frames a to shorten the assembly 2 inches or 1 inch per side.  This job was pretty straight forward requiring some minor rearrangement of spring coils and spacer wires.  The hardest part was trying to figure out how to re-join the bottom frame, which was extruded steel, where I had cut the frame.  It turned out steel window run channel I had on hand was just the right size and shape to bridge the cuts in the frame and I riveted the channel over the saw cuts in the frame to hold it all together.  Fore and aft the spring assembly was perfect.  There were metal locating tabs in the right locations along the bottom rear frame to engage the locating slots on the rumble compartment woodwork.  I added some leather straps to the bottom front frame rail of the spring to pass thru other slots in a header on the floor of the rumble compartment and hook over some retaining pins Buick installed for that purpose.

 

Then I started trying to mount the rumble seat back springs directly to the rumble lid woodwork, not yet realizing I was missing a wood subframe intended to attach the seat back assembly to the rumble lid.  The more I screwed around with this project the more I thought I was missing something.  Finally, I consulted Dave Dunton in Georgia, to see how the seat back attached to the rumble lid of his unrestored original car.  First, I asked him to use his fingers to explore how the cover on the seat back attached.  Dave reported he felt some kind of frame that the base of the seat cover was attached to.  Eventually I asked Dave if he ever took the seat back out of the car, could he send me some pictures of the back of the cushion assembly.  Next thing I knew Dave removed the rumble seat back cushion assembly and I got a picture of the back of it laying on the hood of an old Corvette Dave had for years.  And there was the wood subframe.  Dave has been a great resource, helping me confirm all kinds of details in an effort to do a faithful restoration of my car.  He took a ton of measurements I requested and eventually I crafted a replica rumble seat back sub-frame, fitted the subframe to the rumble lid of my car and correctly attached the back springs to the sub-frame.

 

Long before I got heavily involved in the rumble seat cushions, I got Dave Dunton's input on rumble compartment upholstery material.  Was it leather, typical of rumble compartments or open car seats?  No, it was a grained Naugahyde.  I discovered Haartz Landau Tuxedo Black vinyl top material, which is grained, was similar enough to use on flat rumble compartment trim panels.  I showed a sample to Steve Baker, and he said he material, which is vinyl over cloth, should work just fine for the rumble cushion upholstery.    

 

I did not want to surrender my car to Shelby Trim to facilitate the upholstery work.   I made a gentleman's agreement with Steve Baker that I would be responsible provide enough information to allow Steve to upholster the seats in the car without having to tow the car to his shop and having it tied up there.  The interior front seat wasn't too much of a problem because the seat frame, along with the original base cushion assembly, pretty much defined the build of the interior seat.  I provided Fisher Body upholstery pictures and the faux mohair seat fabric.  The biggest challenge with that seat was coming up with trim welt and Steve wound up making that.  When the seat came back to me it predictably went in the car without much hassle.   But the rumble cushions are a little more challenging.  Not only do assembly dimensions have to agree so the seat doesn't have a big gap where the bottom of the back cushion meets the back of the base cushion when the rumble lid is opened for use, he assembled cushion heights must allow the rumble lid to close correctly.  The profile of the top of the back cushion assembly must also fill the space on the top of the rumble lid woodwork but it must not interfere with the latch and drain gutter on the body of the car when you close it.  I used zip-ties to compress seat base and seat back springs to get a combined profile that would allow for about 1-1/2" of padding to be installed over the spring assemblies before the seat covers were installed.

 

All I can say is it all worked out.  I picked up the rumble cushions, Monday, August 8, right after I took our Subaru Outback wagon for routine service, 45 miles from my house but just 10 miles from Shelby Auto Trim.  Shelby Trim had a really busy early summer, cushions originally promised for April weren't ready until August.  But the job came in $800 under the low estimated price and they looked great.  We were heading for vacation Wednesday, August 10, and I thought at first, I would just wait until we came back from vacation to try to install the rumble cushions.  I stood the back cushion up in the rumble compartment because it seemed like the safest place to store it until we got home.  But, like a young kid trying to sneak a peek at the presents under the Christmas tree I was out in the hot garage about 10 o-clock to see if I could install the back cushion.  The only thing I had to do to get the back cushion to fit correctly on the rumble lid was I had to bend the hooks at the top of the subframe out away from the subframe woodwork about 1/4" to get them to engage he receivers on the rumble lid.  15 minutes later it was installed.  It really looked nice.  The next afternoon I dropped the base cushion into the rumble compartment and spent about another hour getting the rear locating pins into their notches in the back of the compartment, a little harder to do because they are not visually accessible with upholstery installed on the springs, and fishing the leather hold down straps thru the slots at the front of the base cushion.  I finally got it done.  But did I get it right?  Did Steve Baker get his part right?  I nudged the rumble lid forward for the acid test... Kerplunk- it closed perfectly; you wouldn't know the cushions were in the car by the way the lid closed.    

 

Enjoy the pictures below, updates will probably be few and far between now.  The car is ready for a shakedown drive.  There will be some paint detailing and I may swap out the fully functional Marvel heat control system on the car currently for an even nicer system that is currently an interesting paper weight on my bench top.  Thanks to all who have followed this project and the kind comments and advice you have sent.

 

Dave

 

What you see here is all I got with the car from the previous owner, a dilapidated old seat frame with base cushion.  

 

Using the original seat frame as a pattern I fabricated a complete new seat assembly only reusing metal side pans and reinforcements, the seat adjuster mechanism,

seat track slides and track retainers.  The rest of the original hardware, 104pcs, were replaced in same style stainless.

 

I gave the pictured parts, new seat frame, original base cushion and Snyders seat back spring assembly to Shelby Auto Trim, spring of 2021...

 

I got back the upholstered front seat you see here in November of 2021.   

 

Loading it into the car by myself was a challenge but I got it in.  Fits nice and the adjuster works great.

 

 

This is a Snyders reproduction rumble seat base cushion spring for 31 Chevy rumble seat coupe.  It was too long and rubbed against the side trim panels in the rumble

compartment.  I took 1 inch out of each side of the springs.

 

I then moved the springs around and re-joined the bottom frame with pieces of steel glass run channel riveted over the original frame in 4 places.  The u-shaped hooks

sticking out of the back of the base spring frame insert into slots in a wood header on the floor of the rumble compartment behind the seat base.

The leather strap shown here feeds thru a slot in a wood header in front of the base seat cushion,

 

then hooks over a retention pin on the front face of the rumble compartment floor riser. 

 

Before I understood the seat back spring attaches to a missing wood subframe I didn't get with the car I tried to mount the springs directly to the rumble lid woodwork. 

It didn't look right.  How would you hide the mounting tabs after the spring was upholstered?  Why were there no mounting screw holes in the top rumble lid header?  

 

I finally shared my concern with Dave Dunton who has one of these cars that is unrestored.  I asked if he ever happened to

take the seat back out of his car if he could send me a picture of the back of it.  About a day later he happened to take the

rumble seat and sent me this picture of the back of the cushion assembly revealing the fact it was all built up on a wood

subframe I never knew existed.  The metal hooks shown on the left side of Daves seat frame slide into receivers on the

rumble lid to attach the top of the subframe to the lid while hiding the attaching hardware.

 

Making a replica of the subframe had quite a few challenges.  The two side rails on the frame were

made in two, 4" wide, steam bent pieces of ash lumber joined by a finger joint, something I could

never do at home.  On the right side of the picture you can also see there are some deep pockets

in the subframe that have to fit over the rumble lid hinges on both sides of the cushion assembly.

 

My solution required I buy a good bandsaw.

 

I decided the only solution to getting the two curved side rails was to make a curved template, then cut 4 sections from 1" thick ash lumber and glue them together.  

 

The outer 1" section of each curve rail would be contoured to fit over the rumble lid hinges.

 

The 2 inner sections of curve rail would have relief slots cut into them to recess the 3 cross braces into.

 

Eventually I wound up with a wood subframe that looked like this.

 

 

The final step before handing the rumble cushion springs off the Shelby Trim was adjusting

the spring heights to get the desired cushion shape and assure the installed upholstered

cushions would allow the rumble lid to close.  This was accomplished by tying the springs

down with 12" zip-ties.  The rumble cushion springs and lots of pictures and pages of

instruction were handed off to Shelby Auto Trim in November of 2021.

 

The following pictures show the finished cushions successfully installed in the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave
Arrange pictures, captions (see edit history)

[32buick67]

On 8/19/2022 at 8:06 PM, Str8-8-Dave said:

Hello to all, hope you are enjoying your summer.

 

One day last November I was summoned to Shelby Auto Trim in Utica, MI to pick up the newly upholstered interior seat for my 1931 Buick 8-66S.   The seat frame I dropped off was a faithful replica of the original frame.  The original frame had so deteriorated it simply was not useable.  The front seat I got back was spectacular, I was very happy with the workmanship of Steve Baker, the seat tech at Shelby Trim, that did my seat.  When I picked that seat up, I dropped off the rumble seat springs for upholstery.  The rumble seat cushions were the last major project to make the very incomplete E-bay car I bought into a complete car.

 

When I got the car there were no rumble seat springs.  The only original seat spring assembly I got with the car was the interior seat base springs which were still wearing their 90year old upholstery.  I got no interior seat back springs or seat base or seat back springs for the rumble compartment.  More importantly I did not get the wood subframe that attaches the rumble seat back springs to the woodwork on the rumble lid.  I had no idea at the time this crucial part was even missing.  I came across a deal on Snyders replica 1931 Chevy rumble seat coupe springs and bought a complete set, including the interior seat base spring. 

 

I spent some time on the rumble base springs revising the overall length.  The base springs appeared to be too long to me, the ends of the spring assembly rubbed on the compartment side trims scratching the finish on the vinyl upholstery material on the trims.  I figured by the time the base cushion had padding added and a seat cover installed wouldn't even fit in the available space.  As a result, I cut the spring assembly perimeter frames a to shorten the assembly 2 inches or 1 inch per side.  This job was pretty straight forward requiring some minor rearrangement of spring coils and spacer wires.  The hardest part was trying to figure out how to re-join the bottom frame, which was extruded steel, where I had cut the frame.  It turned out steel window run channel I had on hand was just the right size and shape to bridge the cuts in the frame and I riveted the channel over the saw cuts in the frame to hold it all together.  Fore and aft the spring assembly was perfect.  There were metal locating tabs in the right locations along the bottom rear frame to engage the locating slots on the rumble compartment woodwork.  I added some leather straps to the bottom front frame rail of the spring to pass thru other slots in a header on the floor of the rumble compartment and hook over some retaining pins Buick installed for that purpose.

 

Then I started trying to mount the rumble seat back springs directly to the rumble lid woodwork, not yet realizing I was missing a wood subframe intended to attach the seat back assembly to the rumble lid.  The more I screwed around with this project the more I thought I was missing something.  Finally, I consulted Dave Dunton in Georgia, to see how the seat back attached to the rumble lid of his unrestored original car.  First, I asked him to use his fingers to explore how the cover on the seat back attached.  Dave reported he felt some kind of frame that the base of the seat cover was attached to.  Eventually I asked Dave if he ever took the seat back out of the car, could he send me some pictures of the back of the cushion assembly.  Next thing I knew Dave removed the rumble seat back cushion assembly and I got a picture of the back of it laying on the hood of an old Corvette Dave had for years.  And there was the wood subframe.  Dave has been a great resource, helping me confirm all kinds of details in an effort to do a faithful restoration of my car.  He took a ton of measurements I requested and eventually I crafted a replica rumble seat back sub-frame, fitted the subframe to the rumble lid of my car and correctly attached the back springs to the sub-frame.

 

Long before I got heavily involved in the rumble seat cushions, I got Dave Dunton's input on rumble compartment upholstery material.  Was it leather, typical of rumble compartments or open car seats?  No, it was a grained Naugahyde.  I discovered Haartz Landau Tuxedo Black vinyl top material, which is grained, was similar enough to use on flat rumble compartment trim panels.  I showed a sample to Steve Baker, and he said he material, which is vinyl over cloth, should work just fine for the rumble cushion upholstery.    

 

I did not want to surrender my car to Shelby Trim to facilitate the upholstery work.   I made a gentleman's agreement with Steve Baker that I would be responsible provide enough information to allow Steve to upholster the seats in the car without having to tow the car to his shop and having it tied up there.  The interior front seat wasn't too much of a problem because the seat frame, along with the original base cushion assembly, pretty much defined the build of the interior seat.  I provided Fisher Body upholstery pictures and the faux mohair seat fabric.  The biggest challenge with that seat was coming up with trim welt and Steve wound up making that.  When the seat came back to me it predictably went in the car without much hassle.   But the rumble cushions are a little more challenging.  Not only do assembly dimensions have to agree so the seat doesn't have a big gap where the bottom of the back cushion meets the back of the base cushion when the rumble lid is opened for use, he assembled cushion heights must allow the rumble lid to close correctly.  The profile of the top of the back cushion assembly must also fill the space on the top of the rumble lid woodwork but it must not interfere with the latch and drain gutter on the body of the car when you close it.  I used zip-ties to compress seat base and seat back springs to get a combined profile that would allow for about 1-1/2" of padding to be installed over the spring assemblies before the seat covers were installed.

 

All I can say is it all worked out.  I picked up the rumble cushions, Monday, August 8, right after I took our Subaru Outback wagon for routine service, 45 miles from my house but just 10 miles from Shelby Auto Trim.  Shelby Trim had a really busy early summer, cushions originally promised for April weren't ready until August.  But the job came in $800 under the low estimated price and they looked great.  We were heading for vacation Wednesday, August 10, and I thought at first, I would just wait until we came back from vacation to try to install the rumble cushions.  I stood the back cushion up in the rumble compartment because it seemed like the safest place to store it until we got home.  But, like a young kid trying to sneak a peek at the presents under the Christmas tree I was out in the hot garage about 10 o-clock to see if I could install the back cushion.  The only thing I had to do to get the back cushion to fit correctly on the rumble lid was I had to bend the hooks at the top of the subframe out away from the subframe woodwork about 1/4" to get them to engage he receivers on the rumble lid.  15 minutes later it was installed.  It really looked nice.  The next afternoon I dropped the base cushion into the rumble compartment and spent about another hour getting the rear locating pins into their notches in the back of the compartment, a little harder to do because they are not visually accessible with upholstery installed on the springs, and fishing the leather hold down straps thru the slots at the front of the base cushion.  I finally got it done.  But did I get it right?  Did Steve Baker get his part right?  I nudged the rumble lid forward for the acid test... Kerplunk- it closed perfectly; you wouldn't know the cushions were in the car by the way the lid closed.    

 

Enjoy the pictures below, updates will probably be few and far between now.  The car is ready for a shakedown drive.  There will be some paint detailing and I may swap out the fully functional Marvel heat control system on the car currently for an even nicer system that is currently an interesting paper weight on my bench top.  Thanks to all who have followed this project and the kind comments and advice you have sent.

 

Dave

 

What you see here is all I got with the car from the previous owner, a dilapidated old seat frame with base cushion.  

 

Using the original seat frame as a pattern I fabricated a complete new seat assembly only reusing metal side pans and reinforcements, the seat adjuster mechanism,

seat track slides and track retainers.  The rest of the original hardware, 104pcs, were replaced in same style stainless.

 

I gave the pictured parts, new seat frame, original base cushion and Snyders seat back spring assembly to Shelby Auto Trim, spring of 2021...

 

I got back the upholstered front seat you see here in November of 2021.   

 

Loading it into the car by myself was a challenge but I got it in.  Fits nice and the adjuster works great.

 

 

This is a Snyders reproduction rumble seat base cushion spring for 31 Chevy rumble seat coupe.  It was too long and rubbed against the side trim panels in the rumble

compartment.  I took 1 inch out of each side of the springs.

 

I then moved the springs around and re-joined the bottom frame with pieces of steel glass run channel riveted over the original frame in 4 places.  The u-shaped hooks

sticking out of the back of the base spring frame insert into slots in a wood header on the floor of the rumble compartment behind the seat base.

The leather strap shown here feeds thru a slot in a wood header in front of the base seat cushion,

 

then hooks over a retention pin on the front face of the rumble compartment floor riser. 

 

Before I understood the seat back spring attaches to a missing wood subframe I didn't get with the car I tried to mount the springs directly to the rumble lid woodwork. 

It didn't look right.  How would you hide the mounting tabs after the spring was upholstered?  Why were there no mounting screw holes in the top rumble lid header?  

 

I finally shared my concern with Dave Dunton who has one of these cars that is unrestored.  I asked if he ever happened to

take the seat back out of his car if he could send me a picture of the back of it.  About a day later he happened to take the

rumble seat and sent me this picture of the back of the cushion assembly revealing the fact it was all built up on a wood

subframe I never knew existed.  The metal hooks shown on the left side of Daves seat frame slide into receivers on the

rumble lid to attach the top of the subframe to the lid while hiding the attaching hardware.

 

Making a replica of the subframe had quite a few challenges.  The two side rails on the frame were

made in two, 4" wide, steam bent pieces of ash lumber joined by a finger joint, something I could

never do at home.  On the right side of the picture you can also see there are some deep pockets

in the subframe that have to fit over the rumble lid hinges on both sides of the cushion assembly.

 

My solution required I buy a good bandsaw.

 

I decided the only solution to getting the two curved side rails was to make a curved template, then cut 4 sections from 1" thick ash lumber and glue them together.  

 

The outer 1" section of each curve rail would be contoured to fit over the rumble lid hinges.

 

The 2 inner sections of curve rail would have relief slots cut into them to recess the 3 cross braces into.

 

Eventually I wound up with a wood subframe that looked like this.

 

 

The final step before handing the rumble cushion springs off the Shelby Trim was adjusting

the spring heights to get the desired cushion shape and assure the installed upholstered

cushions would allow the rumble lid to close.  This was accomplished by tying the springs

down with 12" zip-ties.  The rumble cushion springs and lots of pictures and pages of

instruction were handed off to Shelby Auto Trim in November of 2021.

 

The following pictures show the finished cushions successfully installed in the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dave,

The Grizzly bandsaws are great, a good product for us woodworkers, but when are we going to get to hear the sweet rumble of the maiden shakedown drive as you climb through the gears?

Your skills and craftsmanship and attention to detail are impeccable, we await the vicarious performance experience of hearing your car running and driving with baited breath...especially since you are no stranger to these Buicks...for a Ford guy...ha ha

 

Don't relent with impressing us all,

Mario

 

 

 

[Str8-8-Dave]

21 hours ago, 32buick67 said:

when are we going to get to hear the sweet rumble of the maiden shakedown drive as you climb through the gears?

So today was the day.  I got the car down from jackstands after 4.5yrs, got it started after a fashion, drove it in the subdivision briefly just to make sure the basics worked, then out on the road at about 40mph.  Now I have some things to work on. 

 

It's a little vibratey 

The car backfires unless I run partial choke

The clutch friction point is too high in the pedal travel

The brakes require some learning and probably some break-in, pedal travel a bit long, they won't throw me thru the windshield...

Not sure about the generator output, seems quite high, at 40mph ammeter is pretty well maxed on the + side

The KS Telegage gas gauge doesn't work

Gotta do something with the inside and right side rear view mirrors. 

 

I will start tinkering tomorrow.  It got me 3 miles to the Sunoco station that sells 90 octane ethanol free unleaded and back home.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)

[32buick67]

It certainly has been a long journey Dave, congrats on this next phase.

The list of sorting tasks looks pretty good and short, all things considered.

 

Hopefully you had a few neighborly waves and got a chance to honk the horn a few times on the maiden voyage!

 

[Bloo]

1 hour ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

Not sure about the generator output, seems quite high, at 40mph ammeter is pretty well maxed on the + side

Unless your battery was sort of dead, that can't be right, and might very well cause the generator to burn up, and soon. Even if the battery was dead, you don't want the current to get out of hand. Do something about that right away. I assume this is a third brush generator with a cutout. If so, turn down the third brush setting. You can always set it higher later if you need to.

 

The car is beautiful! 

 

 

[EmTee]

9 hours ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

Now I have some things to work on.

This is the fun part! 

[Str8-8-Dave]

11 hours ago, Bloo said:

Unless your battery was sort of dead, that can't be right, and might very well cause the generator to burn up, and soon

The battery is a big heavy duty Napa truck battery that had been on a battery maintainer.  I always disconnect the maintainer before attempting to run the car.  I had to crank for a long time as the float bowl was empty when I started the car at home.  It was then driven for 15 minutes at speeds from 10-40mph to the gas station where I started the car twice, once to move closer to the gas pump, then to leave for home.  So that's the battery history yesterday. 

 

According to the 31 Specs and Adjustments manual it does say the generator will charge at 15-20 amps in some circumstances, but I think the charge rate is set too high.  It is a 3rd brush generator, and the manual says not to adjust the 3rd brush closer than 2 commutator bars to the main brush.  I'm anxious to get the dust cover off and see how it is set.  I plan to move the 3rd brush further from the main brush to reduce the charge rate.   There is also supposed to be a thermostat in the generator that reduces charge rate as the generator warms.  Somehow, I need to determine if that thing works correctly.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave
add text (see edit history)

[Bloo]

2 hours ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

 There is also supposed to be a thermostat in the generator that reduces charge rate as the generator warms.  Somehow, I need to determine if that thing works correctly.

I don't know exactly how you would test that, but the device itself is pretty simple. It is a normally closed bi-metal  switch. There is a resistor, probably wirewound, in series with the field coils. The points of the bi-metal switch short the ends of the resistor together, so the resistor normally does nothing. When the generator starts to overheat, the bi-metal switch points open. That puts the resistor back in the circuit and lowers the charge rate.

 

[Str8-8-Dave]

On 8/23/2022 at 10:18 PM, Str8-8-Dave said:

It's a little vibratey 

The car backfires unless I run partial choke

The clutch friction point is too high in the pedal travel

The brakes require some learning and probably some break-in, pedal travel a bit long, they won't throw me thru the windshield...

Not sure about the generator output, seems quite high, at 40mph ammeter is pretty well maxed on the + side

The KS Telegage gas gauge doesn't work

Gotta do something with the inside and right side rear view mirrors.

Hi to all;  The last time I posted was summertime and I had just gotten the car off jackstands for the first time in 4 years.  A short drive later I had a list of issues that defined my workplan for the car since.  So here goes a series of posts to discuss the outcomes.  

 

1.)  "It's a little vibratey"

My hope was that the source of vibration was something other than the engine itself.  The initial complaint was a vibration that seemed to start around 35mph in high gear.  I had hoped the vibration was wheel and tire related but the acid test would be roughly gauging engine rpm at 35mph in high gear and running the car in lower gears at the approximate same engine rpm.  The hope was at lower car speed and similar engine rpm there would be no vibration which would have supported the idea of wheel and tire vibration.  Alas- that was not the case, at similar rpm in any gear I got similar vibration.  That would make engine vibration the likely culprit. 

 

But what would a previous restorer have done to the engine that caused it to vibrate?  If I was doing an overhaul of a typical high performance engine of the 1960's one likely replacement parts group would have been installation of some better pistons.  This would have almost certainly required re-balancing the rotating assembly, pistons, rods and crankshaft.  Skipping this step would have almost certainly caused an engine vibration.  In the case of the now 90 year old Buick straight 8, an overhaul would likely include reboring the cylinders.  The likelihood original design cast iron pistons would have been used is very unlikely, the iron slugs couldn't be re-sized by knurling and availability of appropriate oversize cast iron pistons in the original design would be pretty much out of the question.  So the engine was probably now equipped with lighter weight aluminum pistons.  If the rotating assembly was balanced with the aluminum slugs it should have run smoothly.  I'm betting that step was skipped to save money and time.

 

To validate my theory that the engine was now sporting aluminum pistons I needed to verify they were in fact aluminum.  Doing this without taking the engine apart seemed like a difficult task.  The only access to the cylinders without pulling the head was through the spark plug holes.  I decided to try using a borescope and found one on Ebay that was cheap enough but high enough resolution to get a look at the pistons.  In the end I not only used the borescope but discovered at top dead center the top of a piston could be reached with the magnet in the handle of a screw starter.  I confirmed use of aluminum pistons both visually and magnetically...

 

This is a Depstech borescope I bought on Ebay for about 50 bucks.  It attaches to your cellphone via USB wire connection at the charging port.  A simple to use

software program downloaded from the Google Playstore allows you to display or store still pictures or movies to the photo gallery on your phone.  It also features

a brightness control and 2 camera modes, front view and sideview.  This particular unit has a 10' fiber optic cable with the camera at the end. 

 

I started off by rotating the engine to align the #1 cylinder timing marks which puts piston #1 eleven degrees before top dead center.   It's hard to understand what

exactly we are looking at in the first picture.  It was taken in sideview mode which displays a front camera image on the left and the side view image on the right.

Looking at the left side image there is quite a bit of black carbon deposit on the top of the piston suggesting rich mixture which was a known problem until a recent

carburetor overhaul.  The little round image in the center is the center drill divit from the machining process.  The shiny spot in the left side of the left image is the 

cylinder wall.  Right side image is what the sideview camera captured and is pretty useless.  

 

Still #1 cylinder, front camera view only, cylinder wall on the left.

 

Still #1 cylinder, I moved the camera a bit which allowed better focus on the piston and cylinder wall and part of an overhead valve on the left.

 

Still cylinder #1 in sideview mode, pretty good picture on the left of cylinder wall and piston machining divit, right side of this frame is useless.

 

Aligning the flywheel timing marks for #1 cylinder puts #6 piston about 101 degrees before top dead center which exposes quite a bit of the cylinder wall.  With that

much cross-hatch hone marking on the cylinder wall I think we can safely assume we are still breaking this puppy in.  The shiny portion of the piston looks like it 

is aluminum. 

 

Another view of cylinder #6 from a different camera position.

 

A pit of linear piston ring track appears in this shot.

 

I must have adjusted the light level in this picture...

 

Here is a more useful side camera mode picture, left side captured by front view camera, right side captured by side view camera.

 

Another adjustment of light intensity in this picture.

 

Better camera focus in this shot.

 

Camera moved too close to piston in this shot.

 

A little further up the bore and the deck of the block, head gasket and combustion chamber wall of the cylinder head come into view.

 

A little more of the head casting shows up in this shot.

 

My last test was to insert the magnet end of this screw starter into #1 plug hole.  It was not attracted to the piston reinforcing evidence of aluminum pistons.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave
Add pictures, descriptions (see edit history)

[usnavystgc]

Man, that's sad.

[Str8-8-Dave]

On 8/23/2022 at 10:18 PM, Str8-8-Dave said:

The car backfires unless I run partial choke

2.) The car backfires unless I run partial choke

Item #2 on the list was carburetor backfiring.  I had long since noticed when running the car in the garage it was really fussy about air valve or dashpot adjustment, I could get it to backfire without any road load by opening the throttle rapidly.  A long time ago I made modifications to lower the fuel level because the car was running too rich.  I discovered the fuel level was above the height of the low speed nozzles allowing gravity to flood the low speed mixture with raw fuel dribbling out of the nozzles.  After driving the car it was obvious I was not done with the carburetor.

 

I ordered an overhaul kit #CS 94 for my Marvel model 10-795 carburetor from carbking.  I had to wait a couple of months for the kit because the air valve spring has to be custom ordered.  The kit cost $250 and after seeing the contents I thought it was very reasonably priced.  It had literally every expendable part, gaskets, sealing washers, NOS Marvel float valve assembly, float, calibrated air valve spring, even all the fillister head screws and lock washers.  Fabulous kit.  The other item I ordered for the car was a pair of #111-22 billet aluminum reproductions of the venturi blocks tooled up and sold by 32buick67.  Below are pictures of the restoration.  There is no more backfiring since this work was done, the car happily takes throttle and is very responsive.

 

While the carburetor was off the car and awaiting arrival of overhaul parts I freshened the heat riser system with a correct-for-60 series 146-106 heat riser casting acquired from Pet Phillips in Texas.  That's the last picture in this post.

 

In the early days I was troubleshooting a rich condition that didn't seem to be affected by air valve setting.  I wondered if the original float and float valve may have

been a flooding issue.  

 

I fabricated and installed a balsa float and cleaned and polished the float valve and seat.

 

Still I had a case of dirty tailpipe, it bore witness to the rich condition.

 

The next area to look at was float level, or more correctly, fuel level.  It turned out the running fuel level in the bowl was too high causing fuel to be discharged 

constantly by gravity instead of on vacuum demand as intended.  I removed the float bowl and nozzle plate casting and measured the height of the low speed 

nozzles.  Correct fuel level is about 1/16" below height of the low speed nozzles.   

 

Using the nozzle height measurement I scribed a line on the inside of the float bowl.  This represents maximum acceptable fuel level in the float bowl. 

 

The Marvel TD-2 carburetor used on 31 Buick 60 is model 10-795.

 

This picture gives you some idea of the comprehensive overhaul kit, part number CS-294 supplied by carbking.

 

These are the original pot metal venturi blocks from my carburetor.

 

The air valve spring on the left in this picture is one I removed from my carburetor.  It measured almost 2 inches tall.  New correct calibrated spring, right, measures

1.5 inches tall.

 

My carburetor was reasonably clean when I took it apart.  I did remove each fuel metering nozzle and cleaned with lacquer thinner and compressed air.

 

Early version Marvel TD-2 carburetors had a brass screen over the bowl passage that supplies fuel to the metering nozzles.  If it plugs up the nozzles will starve for 

fuel.  I spent a little quality time making sure this one was completely clean.

 

The bottom of the float rests on the cast transverse rib shown in the bottom of the bowl in the picture above.  It seemed like the float valve didn't open much before

the float bottomed on the bowl rib.  I didn't want to remove much material from the bottom of the float to avoid high fuel level in the bowl causing low speed flooding

like I had before.  I installed the float in the bowl, pressed it down on the rib in the bowl leaving an impression on the bottom of the float.  Using a small rat-tail file I 

filed a narrow trench across the bottom of the float and re-sealed the float with SIG butyrate fuel proof model airplane dope.

 

This is a picture of the 111-22 venturi block replicas I purchased from 32buick67 and installed using new correct flat head slotted screws from the carburetor kit.  The

air horn gasket, airhorn screws and venturi gasket in the picture are also kit parts.

 

The next 5 pictures show the reassembled carburetor.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a picture of the reinstalled carburetor.

 

At idle the engine produces a 19 in/HG vacuum level.

 

Pictured below is my freshened heat control system with correct 146-106 riser casting, new stainless riser to damper link rod and includes a missing support bracket

between the air cleaner cover stud and the rear damper manifold bolt. 

Edited November 30, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)

[Str8-8-Dave]

6 hours ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

The clutch friction point is too high in the pedal travel

The brakes require some learning and probably some break-in, pedal travel a bit long, they won't throw me thru the windshield...

Not sure about the generator output, seems quite high, at 40mph ammeter is pretty well maxed on the + side

3.) The clutch friction point is too high in the pedal travel

Taken care of by backing off the adjustment nut at the throw-out fork 1.5 turns.  Picture below.  

 

4.)The brakes require some learning and probably some break-in, pedal travel a bit long, they won't throw me thru the windshield...

All brake adjusters taken up 6 flats correcting long pedal travel.  The brakes seem pretty effective now.

 

5.) Not sure about the generator output, seems quite high, at 40mph ammeter is pretty well maxed out on the + side

I read the 1931 Specifications and Adjustments manual on this topic and it did a pretty good job of explaining how to adjust the Delco Remy 3-brush generator's 3rd brush.  I got the dust band off the generator and located the 3rd brush.  Finding the lock screw on the back of the generator and getting screwdriver access led me to set the engine on the 11 degree timing mark and removing the distributor.  The brush was quite reluctant to move even with the lock screw backed off.  I finally got it to move.  In retrospect I should have reinstalled the distributor and run the car to get the output reduced more.  I didn't do that but when I did run the car the ammeter is no longer in danger of being pegged, I saw readings of about 14 amps when the engine was run at about 2500 rpm.  When I finished with the generator I put a timing light on the car, first timing cylinder #1 and found the 11 degree BTDC flywheel mark appeared half way between the center of the bell housing timing port and the bottom of the timing port so the engine was timed 2-3 degrees faster than 11 degrees.  Remembering I timed the car with a Fluke ohm meter with engine stopped with #1 cylinder marks lined up, rotating the distributor until the Fluke indicated points just open, then synchronized the second set of points by rotating the engine to align the Syn 6 mark at the bellhousing timing port and adjusting the movable point until the points just broke, I was totally amazed at the accuracy when I checked with the timing light.  After checking cylinder #1 timing I moved the timing light to cylinder #6 and the SYN 6 mark also appeared half way between the center of the timing port and the bottom of the opening, again just like what I saw with #1 cylinder timing, #6 was firing 2-3 degrees early to the SYN 6 mark.  

 

The clutch friction point can be adjusted via the large, indexed nut shown in the lower left corner of this picture just above the fuel line.  I loosened the nut 1-1/2 turns

and got clutch engagement to star at half pedal travel.   

 

Brake shoe adjustment is accomplished by adjustment of the big nut on the cam assembly shown below and is typical of all

4 wheels.  I adjusted these nuts at each wheel tighter about 6 flats or one full turn.

 

I wound up removing the distributor to get to a 3rd brush lock screw on the rear cover of the generator which is hidden below the distributor and ahead of the oil 

temperature regulator.  

 

That slotted screw on the back of the rear generator bearing housing is the lock screw for the 3rd brush.

 

Once the 3rd brush lock screw is loosened reducing generator output is done by raising the 3rd brush.  It is accessed through the opening closest to the lifter cover.

 

I absolutely guessed how much to move the 3rd brush and did reduce the generator output from 20-plus amps at around 2000 rpm to 15 amps maximum.

 

After reinstalling the distributor I verified timing and point synchronization with a stroboscopic timing light.  To my total amazement timing was advanced just a couple

degrees and point synchronization was-spot on.  Both were static adjustments (engine off) done using a Fluke ohm meter connected across first, one set of points,

then the other to determine when points just opened.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave
Arrange pictures, captions (see edit history)

[Str8-8-Dave]

On 8/23/2022 at 10:18 PM, Str8-8-Dave said:

The KS Telegage gas gauge doesn't work

Gotta do something with the inside and right-side rear-view mirrors.

6.) The KS Telegage gas gauge doesn't work

7.) Gotta do something with the inside and right-side rear-view mirrors.

 

So...  Let just cut to the chase here.  The mirrors were a nuisance, maybe even a bit of a hazard.  They both were aimed at things off the road to the right.  The inside mirror had a wing nut with one broken off wing that I replaced, adjusted the mirror, tightened the new wing nut and that was that.  Right side outside rear view mirror was a Bob's Buick reproduction door hinge pin mounted affair and the ball and socket needed a little persuasion to give enough inward adjustment to get a partial image of the right side of the car for depth of field definition.  The hinge pin mounted mirrors do not move with the doors and the stems have to be adjusted far enough forward that the door doesn't hit the mirror stem and change the aim of the mirror when you open the door all the way.  I was able to bend the socket on the mirror lens housing just enough to fix that.

 

Now, the main entree in this post is The KS Telegage which suffered from numerous defects.  The instrument panel gauge unit I installed in the car had suffered a broken glass envelope near the bottom of the glass and had been epoxied back together.  Well, the red oil used in these gauges melted the epoxy and spat it off the glass vial after which as soon as the oil level reached the break it went on the floormat as well.  I pawed thru a box of junk I was given to take home with the car from the previous owner and lo and behold I found just the brass reservoir with capillary tubing and glass envelope that make up the heart of the gauge.  I disconnected the line from the gauge in the car and managed to get the 2 screws out of the gauge that attach it to the cluster without burning the car down by shorting a hot lead on the instrument light switch to ground a few times with my pretty chrome Snap-on 7/16" wrench!   The replacement glass envelope and reservoir were filthy dirty when I found it but a good soak in vinegar cleaned it up nicely.  I carefully removed the broken parts and installed the replacement reservoir and envelope on the gauge back, carefully adjusting the height of the reservoir as it had been originally installed to make it read correctly.   I then reinstalled my repaired gauge unit on the cluster, which was twice as hard as taking it out, the 2 mounting screws with lock washers wanted nothing to do with being reinstalled with the new gauge unit.  I finally got the gauge in the cluster, only to realize I had failed to put red oil back in the reservoir.  NUTS.  I finally got too much oil in the reservoir and soaked enough back out of the gauge with a Q-tip to get the oil level even with the empty mark on the gauge.  I bought a replacement capillary line set but eventually passed on changing it for the line installed in the car.  I inspected every inch of the existing line and it is kink free and was probably installed when the previous owner restored the chassis.

 

But after that, the gauge still didn't work.  So the last item that is in the chain is the Atwater Kent hydrostatic fuel tank unit.  In order to service this item the fuel tank has to come out of the car.  At my age, crawling under the car is becoming a bit more intimidating but I finally screwed up enough courage to pull the tank.  I jacked the car up high enough on my jack stands to get my 5 gallon jerry can and a funnel under the drain plug on the tank.  I lucked out with draining the tank, never spilt a drop of fuel, turned out there was about 3 gallons in the tank.  Then I worried I would have to remove the tailpipe which runs under the left end of the fuel tank.  After I looked at things I came to the conclusion I might be able to wiggle the tank out of the car without messing with the exhaust pipe.  That turned out to be a good guess.  I disconnected the main gas line with a wrench.   The gauge line fitting on the old sending unit was buried so far back behind a cross member above the fuel tank I just fatigued it off at the fitting.  I then removed the gas cap and 2 nuts holding the front end of the gas tank straps and next thing I knew the tank was sitting on a movers blanket on the garage floor.

 

An out-east outfit called KM Lifestyle makes reproduction Atwater Kent hydrostatic fuel sending units for numerous cars that used the KS Telegage system.  I called them one day and inquired if they could make one for my 31 Buick 60 series car with it's original 19-gallon fuel tank.  The answer was yes, $325.00 and 3-week lead time, all they wanted from me was a tank depth measurement.  I typed an order letter with the tank measurement and sent them a check.  About 2 weeks later my new gauge unit landed in a sturdy box on my front porch. 

 

Having trouble with disconnecting fuel and gauge fittings from the sending unit that came with my car was due to the fact the fittings were inside the perimeter of a crossmember.  It could be the fitting arrangement was perfectly fine for bare chassis assembly before the body was installed but that arrangement makes connecting fuel and gauge lines almost impossible with the body on the car.  Not quite sure how to get around that I sent a request to Dave Dunton to photograph the fuel line installation on his car.  His sending unit had extended connections that neatly passed through the hole in the cross member through which the fuel and gauge lines pass.  The sender lines were not only longer, they also featured a right-angle bend toward the right frame rail after passing through the hole in the cross member.  The new sender I bought from KM Lifestyle had the short lines on it that would have required the body be off the car to connect.  I cut the fittings off the connecter tubes and made up a couple of extensions from 5/16" brass line with the 90-degree bend.  These were sweat soldered to the original sender tubes and fittings were moved to the ends of the extensions.

 

After modifying connecter tubes on the KM Lifestyle hydrostatic sending unit I installed it on the tank with new stainless round head slotted screws and stainless lock washers.   The next task was to get the fuel tank with it's new sender reinstalled in the chassis.  I bought a one-inch-wide ratchet strap to help lift the tank back into the chassis hoping it would provide precision lifting that would allow me to guide the filler neck thru the gas tank shield and the tube extensions thru the hole in the cross member without breaking fragile solder connections between the sender's 3 tubes, (fuel line, gauge line, vent) and the galvanized steel mounting plate that attaches the sender to the tank.   On first try I had a catastrophic fail, at just the wrong moment the strap came loose under the tank and when it fell it broke the solder joints on the sender.  I took the sender out of the tank and re-soldered the tubes to the mounting plate.  I also bent the fuel and gauge line extensions upward just a bit to help me guide them through the hole in the crossmember.  I modified my ratchet strap to make sure the hooks on the ends of the straps could not pop off the frame as they did first time around.  That all worked and I successfully reinstalled the tank.

 

One other feature about my car that the previous restorer elected to change was use of steel fuel line rather than the original brass tubing.  The main fuel line consists of 2 sections, a front section connects to the fuel pump, then curves around the bottom of the bellhousing and ends with a connector at the right side of the frame in front of the battery box.  A second, rear section of line connects to the front line, then routes thru grommets in holes through the center cross member of the frame that the brake cross shaft hides in, then down the right frame rail through three routing clips, then makes a right angle turn to route to the hydrostatic fuel sender.  Steel is not a great idea because it is too hard for use with brass double compression line fittings that rely on deforming the tube to allow the fitting to grip the line and seal.  Also, it just doesn't look right on a 90-year-old car that was born with brass lines with double compression fitting connections.  I ordered three 8-foot lengths of 5/16" OD 0.030" wall seamless brass tubing from Online Metals and set about replicating the front and rear fuel lines and the fuel pump to carburetor line in brass.   The front line has a dizzying array of curves and bends, and I spent hours getting it shaped like the steel line it would replace.  I had one near disaster near the end of the bending when I accidentally put the 5/16" inch od tube in the 3/8" groove of my hand bender.  I stopped as soon as the bender effort told me something was wrong and avoided collapsing the tube bad enough to have to put in a repair section of tube or start over.  I must have done a pretty good job replicating because this line happily routed round the bell housing to the right frame rail and hooked up easily to the fuel pump on the left side of the car.

 

The rear line was fabricated in the chassis as I installed it.  An 8-foot section of brass tube only leaves about 3 inches surplus and the right-angle bend at the rear of the car has to be made in the chassis and has to be within an inch or two of the being located in just the right spot.  Also, once the right-angle bend is made in the rear line it can't be removed without wrecking it.  The line can be fed from the front of the car thru the grommets in the center cross member.  I started making the right-angle bend to route the line from the frame rail to the tank connection in the center of the car and stopped because it looked like I picked the wrong spot and it would not have reached the center of the car.  I re-measured and moved my bend about 4 inches forward in car.  That turned out to be a very good guess, I didn't have to cut anything off the line where in runs along the chassis, it just reached the front-line connection.  I had to use my tubing cutter to remove 3 inches of excess line at the fuel tank connection.  With some further massaging I got the line to route through the 3 frame clips and tidied up the gauge line by tying it to the fuel line with brass wire. 

 

The last task was to make a brass replacement for the fuel pump to carburetor line.  I had to change the adapter fitting on the fuel pump from a modern standard compression fitting that uses a separate ferrule to a double compression adapter fitting so I could use male double compression fittings on both ends of the line.  I had to buy another hand bender to make this line because it has a 180-degree bend.  My old bender was limited to 90-degrees.  I learned the hard way that if the line slips in the 180-degree bender it will collapse.  To prevent slipping I put clamped the end of the tube in a flaring die.  Bends and fitting orientation is critical for this line.  I spent more time tuning the ends of the line to get the line-fitting lined up with the adapter fittings on the fuel pump and carburetor.  The slightest deviation in orientation will prevent the fittings from starting.  I finally got this line to hook up.

 

Dave

 

 

This is a picture of the broken glass envelope and reservoir on the right and the replacement envelope and reservoir assembly installed on the gauge backing plate.

 

The Buick Specifications and Adjustments section says the gauge should be replaced as a unit.  That's a tough assignment today absent a "United Motors" parts

agency so I did service the gauge.  One crucial adjustment is the position of the brass reservoir on the gauge plate because the height relationship of the reservoir

to the glass envelope affects the gauge accuracy.  The replacement reservoir had clear witness marks on the hexagonal tube that bore witness to the reservoir's

original position.  

 

 

The gauge face won't win any concourse awards having been attacked by rust from leaking gauge oil.

 

Here is a picture of the front of the gauge with glass envelope in place.  

 

The assembled gauge with face back in the retaining clips...

 

The installed gauge AFTER I remembered to put oil in it.

 

In this picture before I took anything apart you can see the fuel line fitting on the right and the gauge line on the left are buried behind the front face of a cross member.

I was able to get the fuel line fitting disconnected with open end wrenches.  The gauge line I fatigued off.  On the left under the fuel line is one of the tank strap nuts.

 

Dave Dunton always has a better idea.  While the short straight sending unit connections behind the face of the cross member

in the picture above makes sense for fitting connections before the body is decked, Dave's sending unit connecters pass thru

the hole in the cross member for easier connection with the body on the car.

 

I didn't know if I could get the tank out of the car without removing the tail pipe which is a job.  It turns out once the tank is empty, lines are disconnected. fuel filler cap

 is removed and straps dropped from the front cross member the tank can be snaked out of the right side of the car.

 

This was how the sending unit looked that came with my car.

 

The solder joints between fuel/gauge/vent lines and mounting plate were all broken allowing the sender to wobble around.  

 

A closeup of the original tank unit gauge line connection showed the line was leaking around the compression ferrule and they goobered it up with silicone.  Anything

less than an airtight seal here and the gauge unit in the instrument panel becomes a useless decoration- it won't read fuel level at all. 

 

This is the new Atwater Kent reproduction hydrostatic sender I purchased from KM Lifestyle.  Note the short straight connecter tubes, probably correct for body-off

line connections, impossible to hook up with body on the chassis. 

 

Workmanship on the repro sender is spectacular.

 

Another shot of the straight connecters before I modified.  The fuel line fitting supplied was a flare fitting but I exchanged it for a double flare adapter.

 

My modified version of the connecter lines with double compression fuel line connection.  

 

First rial fitting on the tank.

 

From the front.  It turned out the connecters were angled a little too low to get them safely thru the hole in the cross member.  

 

The strap was 10ft long and I took some of the surplus and made the short straps on the bottom of the hooks.  The hooks were too slippery for use on narrow painted

edges of the cross members in front of and behind the tank and a strap hook popped off and dumped the partially installed tank in my lap breaking the solder joints

where the gauge/vent/fuel lines pass thru the mounting plate on the sender. 

 

After re-soldering the 3 lines at the mounting plate and bending the fuel and gauge line upward a bit and using my modified

ratchet strap I managed get the tank installed, new connecters out in the open for easier connection to fuel and gauge lines.

Note that the steel gas lines were not removed from the chassis yet.

 

This is a picture of the brass front line I bent up to replace the steel item.  

 

This complicated line successfully connected to the fuel pump...

 

dropped into one routing clip on the frame and passed under clutch and brake return springs to the first bell housing clip

 

then thru 2 more clips

 

 

 

then to the back of the frame rail to connect to the rear line.

 

The rear line and the gauge line pass thru holes in the brake shaft cross member grommets...

 

rearward to first routing clip

 

thru the second clip with gauge line following along and brass wired to the fuel line

 

to the third clip, then right angle bend to route along the front tank cross member

 

finally over to the sender.

 

The last steel line connected the fuel pump outlet to the carburetor.  The 180-degree bend required I buy another hand-bender.  The steel line had a modern com-

pression fitting with a ferrule which I converted to correct double-compression fittings. 

 

The final line was had to get lined up correctly with both fittings, but I finally got it connected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave
Arrange pictures, captions (see edit history)

[Michal 1931 8-87]

I have to say, its unbelievable perfect story, documentation as well, pretty good job. I bought my Buick 1931 87 two years ago, since that lot of work, your experience and photos helped me a lot! You invest so many time and money...

[Str8-8-Dave]

Michael- Thats a great looking 8-87!  If I've been any help to your effort I've accomplished what I set out to do by documenting my car's progress.  Thanks for the compliment and best of luck with your car.

 

Dave 

[Michal 1931 8-87]

Dave, you helped me a lot. It probably doesnt look now so, but my car was dissasembled a lot. You documentation helped me to I know, how the parts look out a how to remove them. I wish you a good luck! Now I solve a crack in head, it seem like neverending work...But I solved a lot of similar problems like you, inclu fuel gauge:-) here only a few of my a few hunderst photos...:-)

[Michal 1931 8-87]

Dave, I solved the backfiring too, especially, when the engine was cold. I found, big influence had a very old oil/vaseline in spark advancer. The small weight did not react quickly to the change in revolutions untill the old oil/vaseline was getting hot and soft. After completely cleaning and oiling with soft oil, it regulates much much better. It must work absolutely smoothly. Together is of course connected right settings of carburator, but whats right? Todays fuel is totaly else than in 1930s. I experimented a lot, till today I havnt final settings. In low speed I had too reach mixture, so the fuel level is now about 3 mm under top low jets. The engine starts well, runn well, doesnt smoke so much and the fuel consuption is much much lower! For higher speeds, if still comes backfiring, just turn more 2-3 steps IN, it increase air speed around middle jets and mixture will be reacher. I repeated this steps minimum 50times, I drove like BUS, because I stopped an every busstop to I change the setting...:-) But I took no passengers:-) Everytime I than changed the fuel level, I repeated it...I dont want to run too much reach mixture and also no backfiring. This spring, when the engine will be again ready, I will continue with settings..

A short info to fuel gauge, I spend also very long time, to it shows correct fuel level, I had to use the cooper micro tube only 0,6mm inside diameter, 0,8mm doesnt worked well, it showed about 5 gallons less! In fuel gauge are also small calibration wires.

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Michal 1931 8-87 (see edit history)

[Str8-8-Dave]

You are doing some beautiful work Michal- glad I could help!

 

Dave

[Str8-8-Dave]

Hello to all; I started a thread a few weeks ago to get some input on fixing another sorting problem for my car, engine related vibration, not extreme vibration, but annoying, knowing the original build quality of the car.  That thread turned out to be very productive.  In my ignorance of how mechanical things actually work I suspected the entire source of this vibration was the fact when the engine was overhauled the original iron pistons were replaced with considerably lighter aluminum pistons.  How did I know this?  I bought a cheap bore scope and went looking in the cylinders through the spark plug holes, and there they were, bright shiny aluminum pistons.  Where I really mis-led myself was I assumed changing piston weight should have resulted in re-balance of the rotating assembly which I suspected had not been done.  Brian Heil from the Flint chapter of the Buick Club chimed in and said as long as ALL the pistons were changed and assuming they all weighed the same as on another, the engine would still be in balance.  That was a watershed revelation for me because It meant I didn't have to fear pulling the engine, disassembling and balancing it again.  Other suggestions related to rotating assembly problems such as a defective crankshaft torsional balancer I ruled out because A- the weight stack components of the balancer were factory welded, and there is no rubber in its construction, and B- the engine runs very quietly, free of major mechanical noise.  Other suggestions were engine tuning related such as cylinder misfire caused by low compression, carburetion, ignition synchronization or timing, bad wiring, fouled plug, etc.  The engine timing has been verified including point synchronization.  The carburetor was overhauled with a Carburetor Shop overhaul kit and reproduction venturi blocks from 32Buick67.   The engine really runs well, idles right down, pulls well under load, it just seemed to vibrate enough to be annoying.  

 

But there was one more suggestion, it could be engine mounts.  If it finally turns out to be specifically rear engine mounts, that would still be a major job to fix.  The rear engine mounts are rubber-over-steel vulcanized units and they are riveted to the frame rails.  I'm hoping they are not the problem.  Whether the rear engine mounts are or are not a problem I finally discovered the front engine mount WERE a problem.   Careful reading of the 1931 Buick Specifications and Adjustments manual revealed front mounts are intended to isolate engine vibration from being transmitted to the chassis by composite pads made of canvas reinforced rubber.  There should have been a pad between the timing cover of the engine and the frame bracket the front corners of the engine are bolted to.  The 1/2"-13 thread grade 5 bolts pass thru tubular reinforcements in the timing cover, then a composite pad, then thru the chassis bracket, then through an identical composite pad, then flat washer, lock washer and nuts.  What I discovered was the 1/2" bolts passed through the timing cover, then through a very tired looking pad with no sign of rubber, then through the chassis bracket with flat just a lock washer, no insulating pad, no flat washer to distribute the load.  I decided I might have stumbled onto the source of the vibration and set about figuring out how to fix it.

 

The hardest part of the job really, was trying to find replacement reinforced rubber pads ready to go or at least finding appropriate material to make new pads from.  I checked with Bob's Automobilia, Steele Rubber, Cars, and Straight Eight Classic Car Parts and they had nothing.  On E-bay I discovered a seller who was selling round rubber washer insulators for 1933-up Buick for just $75/pr.  That would have cost $150 for 4, 2 for engine to chassis, 2 for under the chassis bracket.   I checked McMaster-Carr and they had lots of 6" x 6" x 1/4" thick rubber sheet for $110-up depending on material spec.  Finally, I discovered a seller on E-Bay who sold 2" x 2" x 5/16" thick cloth reinforce rubber pads salvaged from aircraft tires for $7.95 for 4pcs.  All that was missing was the 1/2" bolt hole in the middle of the pads.   I ordered a set of these pads and got them in 4 days.  I made a drill press fixture to hold the rubber pads to the drill press table and drilled them with a 1/2" wood cutting Forstner bit.   

 

The last part of the job was installing my new insulators.  Buick warns the rear mount attaching bolts at the flywheel housing must be loosened before the engine can be lifted or moved.  Failure to do so will damage the rear mounts causing them to transmit engine vibration to the chassis.  I dutifully loosened all 8 rear mount bolts before I attempted to raise the front of the engine.  After removing the front engine mount bolts I jacked the front of the engine up less than 1" with the end of a piece of 1" x 6" ash lumber lifting at the mounting flange of the oil pan.  this allowed me remove the 2 old, tired insulator pads which were installed between the timing cover and the chassis bracket and replace them with 2 of my new pads.  Then I let the engine down and after some trimming, installed 2 more new insulators under the chassis bracket and installed a heavy-duty flat washer, then a lock washer and the nut on each side of the car.   The last step was re-tightening the 8 rear mount bolts.  I won't know if I fixed anything until spring when I can drive the car again. 

 

The engine mount/vibration issue is one major sorting project I won't have results of until spring, the other is whether or not my gas gauge works after removing the tank, replacing the hydrostatic sending unit and rebuilding the instrument panel gauge.  I have my fingers crossed on that one for sure.  The last sorting project I will work on in the spring is setting front end toe.  I bought a toe-gauge but the car has to be on the ground for that adjustment.  It is still on jack stands and before I take it down I will loosen the tie rod clamps and get the barrels turning. 

 

Dave 

 

The first 3 pictures are scans of the engine mount description in the 1931 Buick Specifications and Adjustment manuals.   My car

is a 60 series car so sections on 60/80/90 series apply.  The short 60/80/90 paragraph bottom right of Page 81 describes pad

material and states there should be pads between timing cover and chassis with a second pad under the chassis bracket.

 

Under Engine replacement on Page 82 importance of loosening rear engine mounts is discussed.  

 

 

Page 83 discusses installation of shims at the rear engine mount locations.

 

This is a picture of the left front engine mount with the original pad sticking out of mount between the timing cover and the

top of the chassis bracket.  Note there is no insulation between bolt head and timing cover.

 

Here is what I found UNDER the chassis bracket.  Note the picture is still of the left front but the image is transposed, left to

right, because I used the selfie setting on the camera for this picture  Lookin at the bottom of the picture, all there was was

the nut and a lock washer, no insulating pad.  So now you have metal to metal bolt contact at the top of the timing cover

transmitting vibration from the engine thru the bolt, lock washer and nut directly to the chassis at the engine mount frame

bracket.   

 

this is the bottom of the right front engine mount, again transposed left to right, again no rubber insulator between mounting bolt and frame.

 

The original and only insulators that were in the car were the bottom 2 tired looking examples.  

 

I made this snappy drill fixture to allow me to securely anchor the rubber insulator to the drill press table.

 

A pad is installed in the center ply of the fixture.

 

Then the fixture is assembled to the drill press table so the drill press operator doesn't wind up tangled in an angry drill.

 

The 1/2" Forstner bid did a pretty clean cutting job.

 

1 down, 3 to go...

 

Here is a picture of a new pad installed between the timing cover and chassis bracket.

 

This picture is not transposed and shows left front mounting bolt with insulator pad and flat washer 

added.  Now the metal-to-metal connection between mounting bolt and frame is interrupted so

engine vibration no longer is transmitted directly to the chassis through the mounting bolt.

 

Right side mount with new pad.

 

Insulator, flat washer, lock washer, nut under the right chassis bracket, metal to metal vibration

path interrupted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)