Me and my Buick, no, not that one, not that one either. The 54, no, the other 54, the Roadmaster

[raugusti]

Well, that escalated quickly!

After replacing the brake power booster, I had been trying to get the power seat to move in my Roadmaster so I could more easily get behind the wheel and drive, being 6’ 5” makes this a challenge under the best circumstances.  Having pulled the switch and reconnected the two wires I found loose; I still had no movement.  Looking at the service manual it seemed pretty easy to remove the seat from the frame to gain access to all the motors and wiring, which it was.

Getting Laura to help me lift the seat out lead to the first step down the slippery slope.  Upon seeing this and the pile of powered foam it left behind she says the first place that has got to go is the upholstery shop!

 

So, while I just wanted it to go back farther and throw a blanket over it, we loaded it into the back of the truck and I proceeded to remove the back seat as well and put it into the truck.  Then cleaning everything up so I could work on the power seat mechanism.  Once I got to looking at it, it seems the main issue was bad grounds.  The ground wires were just screwed to the floor pan with tiny sheet metal screws.  Moving them to the bolt that hold the actuators to the floor provided a good, rust free ground and the motors started to move.  After cleaning all the 66 years of junk off the mechanisms and lubing things up the frame moves around great.  Then I even got the fan motor for the under seat heat to work.

At that point I was left with this:

Which gave me a great view of this:

 

So all for the want of a little more legroom I now have a car that has a great working power seat mechanism and heater motor, But I can’t drive it!

 

But I did find some cool things.

I like the inspector stamp and the stamp telling worker what series car it is for:

This tag is under the back seat, that is the model of the car and the trim number:

And this tag;

Apparently, The Universal Wire Spring Co. made the seats for Buick.

 

On another note, there have been several discussions about suppliers leaving the field.  This weekend the upholstery guy I’ve been using for years tells me, “I’m seventy years old, I’ve been doing this for 40 years straight.  I still work 7 days a week.  Something’s going to change after this summer.”  And my sandblast and powder coating guy who I’ve used for 2 body off restorations and countless powder coating jobs tells me “I give it another 5 years at most, then I’m gonna lock the gate and work on my stuff!”  Both these guys work on their own and there doesn’t seem to be anyone around to take over.  I guess I too hope in 5 years or so I’m only doing maintenance on my fleet, not any big restoration work.

 

No questions in this post, just rambling.

Thanks

Scott