| It was time to
drive the
car back to the shelter for winter. It cranked fine but refused to
start.
I could see from the glass strainer before the carb, that there was no
gas coming to the carb. I thought the gas had leaked back thru the
valves
in the pump and the line was empty. So I opened the sight plug in the
carb
and poured some gas in. The car started and but died in seconds. Then I
discoverd that the tank was empty, and it seemed like a leaky drain
plug
on the tank was the culprit. I changed the copper washer on it but it
still
leaks. I will probably loctite the threads. After getting the car
inside
and letting it sit overnight, I took a peek under the car, and found
numerous
puddles on the floor. Hmmm, let's see, rearend gear oil bleeding past
the
yoke splines maybe (not coming past the seal anyway), power steering
oil,
coolant, front shock oil, and gear oil from the Super T-10 (I did
replace
the front and back seals). I quess the only thing NOT leaking was the
motor
oil!
Exactly the kind of cheer-me-up I was looking for :( |
|
| The steering column I got from a '63 Riviera, features a nice finned aluminum cover. Unfortunately it doesn't match the '46 Buick dash or steering wheel. So I made a sleeve to fill the gap between the cover and steering wheel, out of a piece of stainless tubing. I picked a size that was too small in diameter to begin with, then machined a couple of conical steel bucks of different diameters, and used them to press the stainless tubing into a shape seen here. A straight tube would have looked so cheap - I couldn't have lived with that fact on my conscious. The stainless tubing I found from a scrapyard had deep scratches and was partly covered by concrete, and I worked like an animal sanding and buffing it to give it the final luster. The hole is for the turn signal lever, which I also fabricated. The lower end also needed a sleeve to fill the gap between the column and the dash. This was an easy one. I just rolled a piece of stainless sheet, cut to the right shape, butt-welded it together, ground flat the seam and polished. Every time you deviate from factory original, you can multiply the effort you think it's gonna take, by the factor of 8. Isn't rodding & customizing just great? |
 You
may remember that I discarded the idea of shaving door handles. However
the original handles, being zinc die cast, were badly pitted. There are
stainless reproductions available, but the 1946-48 handle, on the right
here, looks rather boring, don't you think? It would be spot-on for a
toilet
door, but not for your # 1 car. I had to come up with something
better.
The 1949 Buick handle, on the left here, looks extremely streamlined
and
artistic. The teardrop shape perfectly matches the sloping fastback
shape
of the car. Some changes are needed to make it fit, though. The '49
shaft
is shorter, so I fabricated extensions, as seen here. It fastens with a
single allen-head set screw. A new base plate was needed, too, because
of the different shape of the doorskin. I milled new base plates out of
tool-grade aluminum. That is the teardrop-shaped part. They will be
chrome
plated later. It was a tricky one to machine, as the plate is wedged in
both vertical and horizontal directions. I also machined a stainless
ferrule
to act as a bearing, to prevent the steel shaft from wearing out the
bore
in the aluminum plate. |