1938 Buick Spl 2dr Sdn

[MCHinson]

Here is another photo...

[EmTee]

Those last two photos show the Panhard bar - not what I would call a "stabilizer bar".  That bar keeps the rear axle centered (more-or-less) under the car as the suspension articulates.  It doesn't apply any reaction torque to the side of the car that lifts during a turn.

[DonMicheletti]

EmTee is correct, that is a Panhard rod not a stabilizer.

[Wm Steed]

Ditto to EmTee and Don's comment about the pix only showing a Panhard/track bar in lieu of the stabilizer bar. I was going to post a comment earlier, wanted to do some research through some of my Shop Manuals first. My September 38 Shop Manual does not show any thing for the rear stabilizer bar. My August 1940 does, Section 3-8., fig 3.14, A copy of which is attached.

A careful review of the pix will reveal the stabilizer bar and the panhard/track bar.

I know the pix is of a 41 rear end, however, the illustration is very similar to the stabilizer bar that was on my car.

If anyone has a later issue, Sept 38, of the 38 Shop Manual, the correct rear suspension should be shown therein. Wm.

[Shootey]

16 hours ago, MCHinson said:

Here is another photo...

That’s a great evolution-of-a-restoration picture. Is that you in the photo?

Edited May 27 by Shootey
Typo (see edit history)

[MCHinson]

2 hours ago, Shootey said:

That’s a great evolution-of-a-restoration picture. Is that you in the photo?

No. I am not a painter. That is a local friend who did the chassis painting for me. 

[Shootey]

Attached is page 196 of the Master Parts List of Chassis Parts for Buick effective January 1, 1941. It has a drawing of the rear stabilizer and listings at 7.241. Part 1314537 fits 1940-40-50-60-70 and 1941-40 except convertibles; 1941-50-60-70. The 1942 parts book has the same listing. For years before 1940, rear stabilizer brackets are listed for 1934, 1935 and 1937.  So 1938 and 1939 are missing. See the attached 1937 shop manual photo for that year. 1938 had tubular shocks. Could that be relevant?  Did 1939 have the lever shocks?  My 1940 shop manual issued in August 1939 pictures and discusses the rear stabilizer.  
 

i have no parts books issued prior to the 1941 one mentioned above. 

[MCHinson]

I was confirming by checking the Chassis parts manual while you were posting, but if the lateral bar in the photos that I posted is not what Mr. Steed was referring to as a "rear stabilizer bar", there is a very simple explanation why he can't find the original "rear stabilizer bar"... the 1938 Buick did not come with the bar that he was thinking was supposed to be there. The rear suspension was originally composed of the components shown in my photos. 

[DonMicheletti]

My original (not reprint) Shop Manual is Dated August 1, 1937.

It shows only the front sabilizer bar and  calls it that.

 

What we have been calling a panhard rod is called a Radius Rod (Fig. 3-20) by Buick.

[Wm Steed]

Hmmm? It would appear that we have an anomaly on our hands when it comes to the rear stabilizer bars/ and the Panhard/track bar that Buick refers to as the Radius Bar.  Buick's description of the rear radius bars function is exactly what a Track Bar does and is generally required on vehicles with rear coil springs.

A suspension track Bar first appeared on a French car called a "Panhard" therefore the name was most likely patented just like Pearce Arrows builtin headlights, ergo until Henry Ford put the headlights on the 37 Fords into the front fenders.

Google 'Panhard Bar'  and the function/intent is clearly spelled out.

I know my 38 had a stabilizer/track bar on the rear axle, I saw it, my mechanic has a pix of it in his phone. David Tacheny in Minnesota has taken one off of a '38 Century to send to me.

For many years a tract bar on a vehicle was referred to a a 'Sway Bar', the term also applied to the 'roll stabilizer' on the front of vehicles. In recent years the correct name and intended function is used more commonly.

As to why some '38's have a rear stabilizer (radius) bar and some don't is a good question. Did the factory opt to not use them on cheaper cars, or with the passage of time were they eliminated due to failure and/or the unavailability of repair parts.? Wm,

[neil morse]

3 hours ago, Wm Steed said:

I know my 38 had a stabilizer/track bar on the rear axle, I saw it, my mechanic has a pix of it in his phone.

Can you post the photo from your mechanic's phone?  Is it possible that a former owner of your car made a modification to add the stabilizer bar?  And what happened to the one that was on your car?  Why can't you just re-use it?

[EmTee]

Maybe I'm confused, but my understanding is that the "stabilizer bar" that is being considered for installation on Wm's '38 is the rear stabilizer from a '40 or '41 Buick as shown in the illustration posted earlier (and below).  I'm pretty sure there will be some substantial modification required to make it work on Wm's car, but the trailing arms added to allow the open driveshaft do provide attachment points similar to the illustration.  There is already a front stabilizer and I really wonder whether the performance to be gained by adding a rear bar is worth the effort on an 85 year-old chassis...

 

[neil morse]

1 hour ago, EmTee said:

Maybe I'm confused, but my understanding is that the "stabilizer bar" that is being considered for installation on Wm's '38 is the rear stabilizer from a '40 or '41 Buick as shown in the illustration posted earlier (and below).

I don't blame you for being confused, and I'm confused as well.  But Mr. Steed seems to be saying that he is trying to replace the stabilizer that was originally on his car, but was somehow misplaced during the job on the rear end.

[Wm Steed]

The mystery as to what happened to the stabilizer bar that was on my car when it went into the shop will probably never be solved. Four different mechanics have worked on the car, the mechanic that disassembled the car was young and inexperienced, the mechanic that was assigned to the car for the reassembly had words with the young man for his lack of care in how the organization and safety of the parts were handled.

As to the question posed by EmTee "worth the effort on an 85 year old chassis". My intend is to bring the 38 up to modern standards for safety and creature comfort , with added reliability.

The Chevrolet C10 rear suspension we installed under the car is very  similar to the '41 and latter shown in Fig-14 of the '40-41 Buick Manual. The C10 system is very robust and well designed.

It is interesting to note, that even "thrifty Henry Ford" saw the importance of Panhard/track Bars and  body roll stabilizers, starting in 1940 on the Delux cars, and 46-48 on all models.

Another interesting anomaly about the '38 Buick's is that they used tube shocks on the rear of most models, 40-50 for sure whereas Buick used hydraulic lever shocks on the other models. Wm.

[DonMicheletti]

Unless the confusion over "stabilizer Bar", "radius rod", "panhard bar", etc aren't cleared up, this confused conversation can go on forever.

 

In my mind:

Stabilizer bar = a rod in torsion that links the left and right suspension to inhibit roll in a turn.

Panhard bar, radius rod = a bar that links the chassis to the differential housing that prevents the body from moving from side to side.

 

Comments?

[Wm Steed]

I just got off of the phone with David Tacheny in Minnesota. David informed me that he had made a mistake in his thinking that I wanted the rear Panhard Bar (Buick's terminology. Radius Rod). Once he really thought about it, it dawned on him that he had never seen a rear Stabilizer Bar on a '38 Special/Century. Through out the years he has probably parted out in excess of 100 38 Buick's.

David told me that during the 1960/70's he sold hundreds of C10 Chevy rear suspensions to the hot rodders for use on their Buick's.

Now the question comes up, what was on my car? My car is so stock, as manufactured, it's general condition is a testament to a vehicle that has only 37,k on the odometer.

Documentation that came with my car showed that there were no miles put on the car from 1939 until 1946, which could explain the low mileage.

Don's comment about the "confusion' pertaining to the correct terminology to describe the suspension components on a vehicle will never go away so long as people insist on using slang terminology.

I can guarantee  you that if you go to your local parts store or call one of the online vendors, looking for a sway bar, you will get a "roll stabilizer bar" when you ask for a sway bar. If you ask for a Panhard Bar the counter person will  not know what you are talking about.

I think I solved my problem this morning, I found a '40-48 Buick rear stabilizer bar assembly, the same item as shown in the Buick Shop Manual F.-3-14 on ebay.

 

[neil morse]

Not to beat an expired equine, but can you post here the photo that your mechanic has on his phone?  It might help us to help you figure out what your rear suspension looked like before you began your job.

[EmTee]

11 hours ago, Wm Steed said:

Once he really thought about it, it dawned on him that he had never seen a rear Stabilizer Bar on a '38 Special/Century. Through out the years he has probably parted out in excess of 100 38 Buick's.

Whew - that's good!  Maybe I haven't lost all of my marbles (yet)... 

 

11 hours ago, Wm Steed said:

I think I solved my problem this morning, I found a '40-48 Buick rear stabilizer bar assembly, the same item as shown in the Buick Shop Manual F.-3-14 on ebay.

OK, so that sounds like an actual roll/stabilizer bar (like the one already used in front).  It will need to somehow be anchored to the frame with bushings (rubber or Delrin) with the ends connected (through articulating links) to the C10 trailing arms.  The stabilizer will then generate a counter-torque proportional to the amount of body roll.  Can you post the Ebay link or picture of the bar you're buying?

[Wm Steed]

The ebay listing was a Buy it now or Best Offer. The minute I saw the ebay listing I pulled the trigger. Received an email from ebay this morning that the item was shipped, ETA June 6.

 

[Wm Steed]

Copy of pix showing the rear roll stabilizer bar that I purchased yesterday on ebay.. Wm.

[MCHinson]

Can you post the photo of the "lost" rear stabilizer bar that your mechanic had a photo of? We all really would like to see that photo, since the car didn't come with a rear stabilizer bar when it was new. 

[EmTee]

This is definitely what I call a stabilizer bar.

 

 

It will be interesting to see how this is integrated into the modified rear suspension on Wm's '38. 

[Wm Steed]

I received the '41-48 rear stabilizer bar on Monday, it is a little dirty, the rubber bushings look good. We are going to bead blast the bar and try it on the car for fitment. Should know by the first of the week if it is going to be a big deal to install the bar.

While working on the car for the past eight months we have come across some very unusual items that needed attention, I say unusual because you would not expect to find the things we encountered in a car with only 37K on the odometer that for all practical purposes appears to be an unmolested stock car.

The first item was the remote foot operated starting system.. It had been disconnected and a remote modern push button switch was mounted up under the dash.

The second item was the choke.. The original one was disconnected, an aftermarket pull cable type had been installed,there again located under the dash..

The third item (s) were the heater/defroster units,Deluxe style with separate motors and switches... The switches were located up under the dash out of sight..

The forth item was the BLC driving lights on the front bumper. Hooked up directly to to an un-fused toggle switch under the dash..

The last item was the head light switch, which has Park On, Head On, Park/Off, Dimmer switch turns on right high beam.

The question is, was someone trying to hide something, or were they working on a tight budget. Wm.

[MCHinson]

We would still love to see the photo of the "missing" rear stabilizer bar. 

 

If the dimmer switch only turns on the right high beam, you need to do some more work on the lights or the wiring. While the multibeam headlight switch and system is a bit usual, you should have both headlights on in both high beam and low beam settings. If you need explanation of exactly which filaments should be on in all of the switch positions, I can dig that information out for you. 

[DonMicheletti]

The starter bypass is a common modification. Originally it involved the choke mechanism and a 5 pole voltage regulator. A very complicated system.

 

The original choke mechanism was very complicated and difficult to get operating correctly - especially when they aged, thus the hand operated cable was a replacement.

 

Since you have modified the carburation, you do not have that feature. It is pretty common to have the 5 pole voltage regulator replaced too and that part of the start system disappears too.

 

Check out the wiring diagram

 

I think you are stuck with the added push button.
 

The heater and defroster switches were a variable resistor type and and were mounted in 2 holes under the dash to the left to the steering column.

 

That DeLuxe heater can drive you out of the car it provides so much heat (if you do not turn the water off in the summer)

[EmTee]

2 hours ago, DonMicheletti said:

That DeLuxe heater can drive you out of the car it provides so much heat (if you do not turn the water off in the summer)

That's for sure! 

 

In fact, there's still a fair amount of heat coming from the engine bay even with the water to the heater shut off.  I made a 'gasket' to better seal the gaps in the floorboard around the clutch and brake pedals.

[Wm Steed]

EmTee' suggestion about controlling the heat of the hot water heater is well taken. I did not think about that, I should have because I have used heater temp control valves on many vehicles that did not come with one from the factory.

I have had great success with cable operated manual valves that can be controlled from the inside of the vehicle. I'll be sure to add one to the 38 Buick, locating the pull cable knob under the lower edge of the dash. Wm.

[EmTee]

I just added a manual ON/OFF valve without any remote control.  Normally it is off/closed during the summer driving season.  I'll open it later in the fall when it starts getting chilly.

 

[Wm Steed]

The controversy that has arisen about a rear stability bar on the rear of my 38 has created more questions than answers.

As I have stated before, I can very clearly remember there being a stability bar and a track bar (Radius Rod Buick's terminology) on the rear of my 38. when I was doing a parts survey of the chassis in September of '23, I noted on my list that the car need bushings and link pins, front and rear on the bars. When I ordered the parts from Bob's Automoiblia, I was told that the rear parts had not been available for many years.

There were four different mechanics working on the disassembly, I voiced my concerns about a lack of identification, bagging and tagging of the parts. I took several pictures of the various areas and parts, for some unknown reason I did not take pictures of the stabilizer bars (s). It was not until the reassembly of the car started that the question about the rear stabilizer bar came up.

The mechanic that that had been assigned to the Bucks final assembly came up with a pix in his camera of a rear stabilizer bar, I glanced at the pix, did not study it. As the problem grew, peoples memories grew dimmer. The pix in the mechanics camera went away, deepening the mystery, I guess the fault falls on my shoulders, had I been more careful about taking pix a problem could have been avoided. Wm.

[EmTee]

I think we've established earlier in this discussion that a rear stabilizer bar was not installed on the '38 Buick 40/60 series from the factory.  If your car had one, it must have been added at some point by a previous owner.  I'm curious to see how easily the '41 bar that you bought can be adapted to work on your modified rear suspension.  It would be best (IMHO) if you can first drive the car without the rear bar to get a sense of the baseline performance before adding the rear stabilizer.  That would be the best way to assess the performance impact.

[Wm Steed]

An interesting sidebar as to who and why would have modified the suspension on the car. Another mystery is why the car was converted to 700 X 15 tires in lieu of the original 16". could have been due to unavailability of 16" white side walls.

It will be very easy to compare the ride/handling of the car with or without the stabilizer bar, I can disconnect the stabilizer bar link pins from the spring perches, reattaching same after the test ride.

I got the Owners Manual out that came with the car a couple days ago, I wanted to check on some of the features described in the manual about the car. i had not looked at the Manual in over two years.

Perusing through the manual I noted that there was more info noted in the book than what I had recalled. All of the info was written in ink, very small neat script like a woman wrote it. no mention of repairs, maintenance, mundane stuff like serial/engine number, license plate numbers, city vehicle fees

and cost based on HP.  

The annual city tax (Kansas City) went from a low of 2.50 for 12 hp to a high of 12.50 for 72 hp or more.

The original owner, a woman worked for Bendix Corp in Kansas City, the style and neatness of the writing I would guess the woman was a bookkeeper, etc., in lieu of a production worker.

The last entry in the book was in 1961, same hand writing as the other entries. Wm,

[EmTee]

4 hours ago, Wm Steed said:

Another mystery is why the car was converted to 700 X 15 tires in lieu of the original 16".

7.00-15 was the factory installed wheel/tire for the Century.  Maybe someone thought the car would perform better with the 15" wheels?  The Century had a numerically lower rear axle ratio (3.9 : 1) to go along with the 15" wheels.  Using the shorter wheels on a Special (4.4 : 1) would increase engine RPMs at a given speed.  How hilly is it around Kansas City...?

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

WM, you right on on the reason for 15" wheels.   In the 50's,   16" tires began to go away.  EVERYTHING used 15.   So 15" tires were plentiful and less costly.   16" wheels were scarce as well.  

 

  Ben

[Wm Steed]

EmTee, your are mistaken regarding axle ratios. The 3.6 ratio in a Century is a high speed ratio which lowers engine RPMS. Buick considered the Century to be a 100 mph vehicle, ergo; the term "Century", the terminology which started with the '36 Century's.

The 4.40 ratio is very low, even for 1930 standards, that is a common gear ratio for a 3/4 ton pickup up through the early 1970's. A 650 x 16, 700x 16, a 750 x16 and a 235/7515 are generally speaking the same OD measurement 28,9, 29.10 and 29.29.. I have 235/R75R.

As I have mentioned in an earlier thread in this forum. I was suspect of the wheels on my car, they were not pin-stripped and they were only painted black on the outer facing side, The tires looked good, however, they were old, actually before they started dating tires.

Upon close examination of the wheels I found that they were not a matched set, no two of the wheels had the same back-set, varying from 6.0", 6.25"and 6.5..

I had an extra set of Century 6.5 x 15" safety wheels, had them powder coated satin gray.

The area around Kansas, City is quite flat, I don't think Buick generally geared their cars for a particular terrain. When the vehicle was being build that factory had no idea where the car would end up. Of course special order vehicle would be a different matter.

I had 3.90 gears put in my new differential. The 3.90 ratio with an OD trans will put my RPMS at about 2,100 Rpm's at 70 Mph, The 2,100 RPM's at 70 Mph is pretty close to what modern vehicles run at. Of course I will have to drive the car in 4th gear in the city. Wm

Edited June 10 by Wm Steed (see edit history)

[EmTee]

6 hours ago, Wm Steed said:

EmTee, your are mistaken regarding axle ratios.

No, the 3.9 in the Century lowers the RPMs at a given speed relative to the 4.44 ratio that was standard for the Special.  My mistake was assuming the difference in tire diameter between the Century (7.00-15) and Special (6.50-16) would make a difference.  It looks, however, that the overall diameters are within 2% of each other, so the rear gear ratio is the dominant factor.

 

[neil morse]

My research indicates that EmTee is correct: the '38 Century had a 3.9 rear end, not a 3.6.

[Wm Steed]

Opps, made a mistake on the Century axle ratio, trusted my memory in lieu of looking in a book/manual.

I looked in the 38 Buick Owners Manual to see what it had to say about the light switch..Wow! The manual has over three pages devoted to explaining the functions of the headlight switch/dimmer switch and the automatic starter procedure.

The headlight switch has four positions, that are controlled by the dash switch and/or the floor mounted dimmer switch.

I would suggest that the easy way to grasp the various functions of the switch (s) is to be sitting in car, with the car pointed at a blank wall.

I wonder, how many owners of 38 Buick's know that the dash mounted hand throttle is a secondary starter over-ride? Wm.

Edited June 10 by Wm Steed (see edit history)

[Shootey]

Yes but the automatic transmission Special had a 3.6 ratio which could be installed in a Century or stick shift Special.  Hard to find such gears.  They would be good in a Century but not so much in a Special. 

[EmTee]

My Century will run 55 ~ 60 mph with occasional spurts to 65 mph without complaint.  My car is stock (3.9) with 700-15 bias ply Firestones.  I avoid interstate highways as much as possible, but it is very capable and comfortable on 2-lane highways which are mostly posted at 55 mph around here.

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

2 hours ago, EmTee said:

My Century will run 55 ~ 60 mph with occasional spurts to 65 mph without complaint.  My car is stock (3.9) with 700-15 bias ply Firestones.  I avoid interstate highways as much as possible, but it is very capable and comfortable on 2-lane highways which are mostly posted at 55 mph around here.

 

 Just loafing, Em, just loafing.

 

  Ben