October 18, 2004 - miscellaneous

 

On Saturday October 2nd, I finally met one of my Internet friends, Mark Sanders from Norcross Georgia, USA. He came to Finland on a business trip, and arranged an additional day just to come visit us and see the Buick. We had a relaxing day, taking a ride in the Buick and talking, mostly cars. Mark himself used to own a 1939 Century, hence the interest in Buicks.  In addition so some wonderful presents for the girls, which weren't really necessary, Mark brought me a handful of Buick Bugle magazines, which I really enjoyed reading. I found out that the Buick Club of America (BCA) has founded a new Modified Division, just for modified Buicks - great! Besides Mark, what's notable in this picture are the bumper guards, now installed. I have two alternative sets -  the dagmars and these ones. These are heavily sectioned originals, imparting a cleaner look. The licence plate is still held in place with tie wraps. The bombsight hood ornament is also back on the hood again. The original was badly pitted, but I found a much better one from eBay.

Far left :The 1942 - 1948 large Buicks feature swept-back or "airfoil" front fenders, which extend all the way into the rear fenders. The fender extension panel on the door requires a matching sill section. The original part had rusted away ages ago, so I fabricated new ones out of stainless. I folded a suitable straight profile in a brake, and then added a compound curve on it by simply blasting it with glass beads. So I made the same method that ruined my body panels, now work for me in the desired way! Never underestimate the power of blasting. Whether the media is sand or glass, makes no difference - it will stretch the surface you are blasting, and leave a tension on it. That tension will give you gray hair if you have to weld the panel or perform some leadwork, but doesn't matter in this case. Since the former owners had already welded new metal on the floor, there were no brackets or cage nuts whatsoever, so I got free hands to make my own. Left: I kind of ran out of energy and inspiration, and decided not to think of anything "trick" for the cover panels, so I just took some brushed stainless sheet and formed a few beads on it. Plain and simple, yet nicer than the original rubber covering.

Here you can see one completed door with all the panels, moldings, handles and hardware.

By now, I have 320 miles on the car, and so far I haven't pushed it further than 93 mph at 3000 rpm. Between shifts, I have revved it well past 3000 rpm, although it does seem to make best power between 1500 and 3200 rpm. Moving the accelerator pump linkages to yield the maximum fuel volume, helped to alleviate the off-idle stumble. I suspect that my self-designed intake manifolds have an inherent problem - fuel dropout. The plenum and runner surfaces may be too smooth. But then again, Mark brought me some fuel injection related goodies - time will tell if I'm going to choose my Cobra or my Buick as a testbed for a homebuilt fuel injection. Dear reader. I am now going to park the car for winter. My inspiration is now elsewhere, so I won't be working on the Buick for a while. Unfortunately that means you won't be seeing regular updates. But before closing down, I have spared you a surprise. Folks have been requesting a videoclip, and while I don't have a camera with a video feature, my wife Tuula has got one at work. So she borrowed it over a weekend. Now she's an amateur - this was her first video - and maybe my instructions were not clear enough, as what I wanted was a view of the open road, simulating how it looks like while traveling in the car. Instead, the camera is aimed at my neck... Anyways, you can hear me shift through the gears. I don't know if there's something wrong with the AVI file, but the viewers on my computer cannot display it. I hope yours can - now here's the AVI clip of 3 Mt size