Carolina Roadmasters: Taking over where Dad left off - 1930 Buick Series 61

[38Buick 80C]

A little bit of crud came out of the head 😉

 

And painted the back of the head

[38Buick 80C]

Re-installed the oil pump system earlier to get it out of the way.

 

And a nice shiny new copper head gasket ready and waiting.

Edited April 18, 2020 by 38Buick 80C (see edit history)

[38Buick 80C]

So my helper guided the head on to the studs for me

 

I missed taking a photo when I put the push rods and rocker arms back on.

 

I did get all the covers back in place

 

Then bagged the car good

 

and finally got a nice fresh coat of the correct olive green color on the motor. I'll have to touch up with spray bomb a few under car spots later.

 

 

The sun sets in the correct correction to let is bake in the rays... 😎

 

Edited April 18, 2020 by 38Buick 80C (see edit history)

[38Buick 80C]

I am pleased with the results. Excited to start dressing the motor tomorrow!!!

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2020 by 38Buick 80C (see edit history)

[38Buick 80C]

I wonder if the powder coating place is an essential business so I can get the exhaust manifold done. Need to call them Monday along with the radiator guy so I can have it boiled and leak checked.

Edited April 18, 2020 by 38Buick 80C (see edit history)

[buick5563]

Powdercoating in Austin wasn’t deemed essential. 😖

[38Buick 80C]

Some progress this morning

 

[38Buick 80C]

Getting ready to put the generator distributor back on.

 

[38Buick 80C]

Generator in, fan on, water outlet pipe too.

[38Buick 80C]

One splash pan in

[38Buick 80C]

New plug wires installed. Also the oil filter back on the firewall. 

Driver side splash pad and installed steering column back in place.

[38Buick 80C]

Some linkages and oil lines back on.

[John_Mereness]

Great progress and in a short time period

 

[38Buick 80C]

Where does this go?

 

[38Buick 80C]

Oil pan installed.

Missing this cover so far, sure it is here somewhere but I didn't take it off myself so...

 

[38Buick 80C]

I was told I need to clean up for a walk before it rains... Final shot for the day...

[38Buick 80C]

On 4/18/2020 at 8:53 PM, buick5563 said:

Powdercoating in Austin wasn’t deemed essential. 😖

 

Open in NC, or at least the place I use does other things deemed essential.

[38Buick 80C]

if all vendors deliver on promises and all goes as planned by the end of next week I should have powder coated manifold and associated components, cleaned and leak tested radiator and painted radiator shell thermostatic grill slats and surround all back in hand. With those I am very close to being able to fire her back up.

 

In the mean time...brakes...and rear suspension component related clean up.

Edited April 21, 2020 by 38Buick 80C (see edit history)

[Bill Stoneberg]

Looking good Brian.  Are you able to work from home or all of this done after yuour job ?

[38Buick 80C]

 9 hours ago, Bill Stoneberg said:

Looking good Brian.  Are you able to work from home or all of this done after your job ?

 

I'm still gainfully employed for the moment and I worked from home before all this happened I just traveled a lot more than I am now. Then nights and weekends I no longer have to run to soccer practice and games and do all the other activities once on my schedule nor are there any sports on TV I would mindlessly dissolve into for hours of time waste, thus car time...

 

[38Buick 80C]

manifold powder coating is done...damn that was the fastest turnaround ever. well looks like I am putting that back on the motor this weekend.

[38Buick 80C]

Loosely bolted the powder coated manifold (flat black)  and the intake etc together. Haven't even threaded any manifold nuts on yet.

 

Tomorrow I'm gonna tighten it all up and bolt the fuel pump on (had to make a gasket). Then work my way back dressing the trans and remounting the brake linkages etc. Goal is to get all that back together, floor boards in and front seat back in place.

 

If all that goes to plan I may get to work on door and window hardware and latches this weekend.

[Dave Gelinas (XP-300)]

WOW! Looking good. Looking forward to the final photo.

[38Buick 80C]

Last night I did tighten it all up and installed the horn. This morning I put the fuel pump on.

 

Dad brought a fender over so we could use it as a paint match. This car is all done in laquer for the stuff that hasn't been painted or needs to be repainted we will us a base clear but got to match laquer in terms of flattening it some.

[38Buick 80C]

All these little linkages are a pain

 

As is this upper floor board.

[38Buick 80C]

Well mixed bag for the rest of the day.

 

I got the brake linkages all back together and the cross member in the frame and a few other minor things.

 

Then I snapped the E-Brake release lever linkage. I think it can be welded back together and will be fine but if not I have a spare, but that's stalls my progress on putting the floor boards and seat back together.

 

I was able to drain the gas tank and then filled it with water to leak check it. I have one minor leak at the vent so i got to sort that along with a decent layer of varnish in the tank.

 

This was the one floor board. I think it's been that way for a while. I think I may get a new one made.

My Evaporust is out for delivery according to amazon too. Which reminds me I have to figure out how to finish taking apart the water pump so I can rebuild it. Any one have any experience on that front?

 

Final chore for the day was to go through and put away some of the misc parts dad brought over. Found a few things that I need for next steps so that was good. Tomorrow I think I am going to start on the real wheels and brakes and clean the rear wheels and put together the one remaining side of brakes. Then I guess I will see if I can adjust them all so that the seem to work. I've never done a brake adjustment on manual hard linked brakes.I will have to read up on it tonight.

 

 

 

[lancemb]

Awesome work!  What year did Buick come out with Hydraulic brakes?  I thought they had by 1930.

[38Buick 80C]

7 hours ago, lancemb said:

Awesome work!  What year did Buick come out with Hydraulic brakes?  I thought they had by 1930.

 

1936

[38Buick 80C]

Slow progress this AM.

Put the correct shackle bolts in the rear leaf springs.

Cleaned the rear suspension/axel.

 

Then spent 45 min looking for missing pieces of brakes I knew I had seen before. Good news on that front is found them plus a few other items didn't realize I needed. And organized stuff together as I found similar items.

 

Got the right rear brake together which had never been together. Next to adjust the brakes.

 

 

[Matt Harwood]

Brian, you must wake up at like 4 am and work on the car, getting a huge amount of work done in a small amount of time. I can't believe how fast this is coming together. Nice!

[38Buick 80C]

So I adjusted the brakes per the manual.

 

I have more than the 2" of travel and actually am rubbing the floor board. I couldn't get the rear brakes to tighten up per the manual. I must have some adjustment in the drum itself I need to make first or something. I bottomed out both adjuster in the rear.

 

Anyone have any experience to guide me?

 

Here is the brake pedal before and bottomed.

[38Buick 80C]

1 hour ago, Matt Harwood said:

Brian, you must wake up at like 4 am and work on the car, getting a huge amount of work done in a small amount of time. I can't believe how fast this is coming together. Nice!

 

Not 4am. I did now the lawn Friday night so I could get in the garage both days early like 8 is. I have be quiet until the kids are up the garage is under their bedrooms.

[John_Mereness]

On 4/26/2020 at 12:59 PM, 38Buick 80C said:

So I adjusted the brakes per the manual.

 

I have more than the 2" of travel and actually am rubbing the floor board. I couldn't get the rear brakes to tighten up per the manual. I must have some adjustment in the drum itself I need to make first or something. I bottomed out both adjuster in the rear.

 

Anyone have any experience to guide me?

 

Here is the brake pedal before and bottomed.

That "generally" means you either have the engine sitting too low via the mounts (aka engine mount is not thick/tall enough or ...) or that you have the body sitting too high on the mounts (rubber pads under body are sitting too tall).  As a sidenote - you may just have to trim the floorboard as there is not good solution (aka you need doors to align properly on body and ...). 

Edited April 28, 2020 by John_Mereness (see edit history)

[John_Mereness]

Add'l sidenote:  You are going to need to source up a reproduction cowl pad - it will bake you alive without one. If you have the original - just put a reproduction over the top of it (original padding was pretty good stuff).   

https://www.quietride.com/firewall.html  and you may have to ask as I do not see it on their page:  https://www.quietride.com/web/viewer.html?file=https://www.quietride.com/catalogpdfs/Buick_cars_catalog.pdf

 

[38Buick 80C]

Today was a mish mash of not much and a some progress> I've moved on to stuff I didn't take off the car myself so definitely slower paddling trying to figure out where parts are between two house (dad's and mine) and what i am even looking for. I had intended to put all the door latch hardware in place and put all the door handles in. I knew two doors latched and 2 didn't I quickly discovered i didnt have the needed parts at my house. I placed an order to the dad warehouse and he brought these over

 

But it appear i also need to complete the window installation first before i do that and he says he doesn't have any glass. plus i have to install and wrap in felt the window channel rubber

He brought some other stuff over and I found some parts he needed for the 38-81 he's resurrecting a bit so one bit at a time we are clean up our respective "warehouses" of parts

 

In my search for parts i needed i found the elusive bell housing cover. I painted it up and will install it tomorrow.

 

In my various rambling progress for the day I cleaned up a bunch of the glass i do have installed namely the windshield, rear window and rear 1/4 windows. I have a good scratch on the windshield I need to polish out or something and the window doesn't go up and down smooth so i have to fix that. I also played around with bleaching the white walls some. I for got to take a before shot so here is the drivers side and then the passenger side progress.

 

I went a bit further and stopped as I was satisfied when i need to I can clean those up nicely it's just gonna take a lot of Bleachy's and elbow grease.

 

I also played with and sorted out the interior door handle and window cranks. It appears I have new nickle plated interior door and window cranks and the t cranks for the rear quarter windows, but I need to either nickle plate what i have or get repro from bob's (which are stainless) the front windshield crank and the front seat adjustment crank.  I have a spare of the seat crank which is what i need most towards driving so I'm thinking of going to fresh nickle plate route so all matches.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by 38Buick 80C (see edit history)

[Matt Harwood]

1 minute ago, 38Buick 80C said:

Today was a mish mash of not much and a some progress> I've moved on to stuff I didn't take off the car myself so definitely slower paddling trying to figure out where parts are between two house (dad's and mine) and what i am even looking for. I had intended to put all the door latch hardware in place and put all the door handles in. I knew two doors latched and 2 didn't I quickly discovered i didnt have the needed parts at my house. I pler to the dad warehouse and he brought thse over laced ace and ord

 

 

You OK there, Brian? 

[38Buick 80C]

3 minutes ago, Matt Harwood said:

 

You OK there, Brian? 

computer issues. editing now...

[38Buick 80C]

As you can see in one of the photos I ran the hose to the block reverse flow and tried to flush more stuff out of the block. I got a little bit more.

 

Here is the video

 

 

he never did crank it all the way up. I had to go do it, but what came out at the beginning was all.

 

I'm waiting for a new plug and I think I am just going to plug the end of the line and put the evaporust in and let it sit instead of circulating it. then drain it into a bucket so I can reuse it for the water pump which I still have to figure out how to take apart the bushings and stuff on the inside.

[38Buick 80C]

3 hours ago, John_Mereness said:

That means you either have the engine sitting too low via the mounts (aka engine mount is not thick/tall enough or ...) or that you have the body sitting too high on the mounts (rubber pads under body are sitting too tall).  As a sidenote - you may just have to trim the floorboard as there is not good solution (aka you need doors to align properly on body and ...). 

 

So is there adjustment within the drum or do I just need to move the level thing on the came another notch for the rear brakes so i can get them to tighten up. I feel like if I can get those to tighten up I will have tight brakes that only travel the 2" per the manual and then wont rub the floor board.

 

Also will see if the floor board has some play to move it down a scootch.

 

I found what appears to be an interior plate for the same area. Dad had carpeted floor made for the front compartment though I have seen reference to the area as rubber. Regardless does the interior plate go over the carpet/rubber or under it. It appears there is another one I missing so far that goes over the steering column too.

 

As for the firewall pad, dad says he has one, but had yet to bring it over.

 

I'm hoping he has a good oil and water tamp gauge as the ones i have are in need of restoration. we do have NOS speedo's and amp gauges (yes more than one each) and a gas gauge that can be saved.

[38Buick 80C]

I have a few misc things to keep me busy and if the radiator related stuff gets done this week as planned I will have that to put back together next weekend. but from here out it would seem it is going to be more complex as I am putting back together a car I didn't take apart and am generally unfamiliar with overall.