Customs 1949 Buick Sedanette build--Picture heavy

Back in the early 90's I was at a swap meet that used to be held at Lake of the Ozarks in MO. At the time I was building a 47 Chevy Aerosedan. I had always liked the slope backs and as I was ambling through I spotted a note offering a 49 Buick sedanette for sale. The seller had bought the car from the original owner who was in his 90's at the time and brought it back the lot behind his Farm implement dealership at Lake Stockton, MO. A few years had passed and he realized he was not going to get the project going so he was putting it up for sale. We negotiated back and forth the next couple of weeks and I bought it for $700. Back then I didn't have a digital camera so you will have to put up with shots of pictures I took in the early years. Anyway this is what it looked like at the time I picked it up.



No, it wasn't a right hand drive. When the pictures came back from the developers they had produced a mirror image.

 

For some reason the first group of pictures posted twice, but on with the story. I dismantled the car the first Fall which would have been, I think 1996. I started sandblasting body parts and veripriming them.



There were a lot of rough spots and the firewall had all kinds of factory holes. Due to other projects the Buick always seemed to find it's way to the end of my time availability. After a couple of years a friend of mine, Mike Roder was starting a shop and I took him the car to straighten out and repair some body parts. Mike found that the top apparently had some moisture on it at the time of the initial priming so he had to take it back down to bare metal and re work it.

 

Mike did a great job, as he always does. And his business growth over the years reflects it. I was just lucky to get in on the ground floor. About the same time, I engaged the help of another friend, Danny Otis who is a really good fabricator. I had purchased a rear end out of a Chevy Caprice police car that had the same dimensions as the original and Danny tied it into the original trailing arms, using the same spring pockets and pan hard bar.

 

At this point the car went back to the end of the line. Over the next 10-12 years I built a number of other hot rods and customs, moved two times always bringing the Buick with me and collected parts. I didn't realize when I bought the car how difficult it was going to be to find stuff. Danny had installed a rear steer box in the front in my anticipation of just rebuilding the original front end. About 4-5 years ago I decided to drop a big block Buick (455) in it and realized the steering box was going to be a real problem. And after pricing the parts needed to rebuild the stock front end it made more sense to install a M-II. Unfortunately, I can't find any pictures of that work. To be continued.

 

Love them jetback Buicks. Subscribed

 

Sweet

 

watchin' too

 

...let's get this thing righted (lefted ?)



I LIKE that ol' Buick !!

 

Thanks gatz. I'll try to post more tonight.

 

Well, as usual, I didn't search hard enough in my computer. Did find some pictures of the M-II and the rear work. I had purchased a kit from JW Garage in Wis. that was supposedly generic for Buicks of this era. It was based on a 39 chassis and unfortunately they are different from a 49. You can see in this picture that the frame horns are turned down just in front of the frame kick out. If you look closely you can see the black marker lines on the rails just in front of the upper A-arm. I had to pie cut the rails, you can see the weld on the side, to angle them down so I could have attachment points for the bumper. If I had left them coming straight out of the kick out the bumper brackets would have been an inch or two below the frame horns. If you look close you can see the black marker circles on the side of the frame rail where the holes were to be drilled to attach the bumper brackets.
Another problem I ran into is the width between the outside of one frame rail to the outside of the other was about an inch and a half narrower that the original frame rails. Later I had to make a spacer to fit between the bumper brackets and the frame rails.
You can also see the motor mounts for the 455 tacked to the frame.
I also had to make s radiator support bracket out of 1" box tubing. The gray wide piece is the original radiator support bracket. The box tubing, welded to the frame on each side and to the radiator support, plus welding the original support to the M-ll cross member gave it plenty of strength. This was needed because the front fenders and inner fender panels are bolted to the radiator frame. Basically, this holds the whole front clip in place.



About a year ago, I had a little extra time between other builds and decided to pull the body back off the frame and finish the chassis. Although the Buick's are a heavy car and they have a stout front and a good X member the rear part behind the rear end is amazingly light. When I bought the car it had a trailer hitch attached to the rear cross piece. I don't know what the original owner had pulled but the frame was broken on one side and cracked on the other just behind the factory wheel openings. So, in addition to welding up the brake and the crack I added a piece on each side to box the rear side frames.

 

Were they torque tube in '49?

I like the 455 concept.

 

Yes, the Buicks used a torque tube up until, I believe 55 or 56.

I'm sure I am leaving out a lot of steps in this thread because of the years over which I have gradually been building the Sedanette, so if readers have questions please ask and I will try to remember specifics of what I did.

 

A little more info on the rear end swap. In the late 80's, early 90's the state patrol in Missouri was using the big Chevy Caprices as their squad cars. I local junk yard owner bought 3 or 4 of them at auction when they reached their mileage limits. The nice thing about the rear ends was they were the same width as the 49 Buick, they had the same 5 on 5 bolt pattern, they were coil spring, they had good road gearing, and they were attached using a trailing arm set up. At the time I thought I would run the original 49 wheels on the build so the 5 on 5 was important. I tried for about a year to buy one of them from him, but he kept saying he was keeping them in anticipation of putting them back on the road. One day I was at his yard looking for something else and he ask if I still wanted one of the rear ends. Of course. He pulled the whole assembly out, springs, pads, trailing arms, the front frame mount brackets for the trailing arms, everything for $100.

As mentioned above, the 49 had a torque tube rear and the trailing arms went from the axle housings to the front of the tube where they attached just short of the tranny coupling. Unbolting the stock trailing arms from the axle housing and cutting them loose from the torque tube allowed them to be bent outward a bit. By cutting them and graphing them to the Caprice's arms they could be attached to the X member. The Caprice's axle housings are a little smaller in diameter so a spacer had to be rolled to take up the slack. The stock pan hard bar was reused.



As you can see, a top bar with adjustable links was also added to basically create a 4 bar set up. I owe this idea to Danny Otis.

 

After mocking up the rear, I cleaned everything up,reattached it to the frame, installed the springs and the shocks after painting everything chassis black. The end result:



You can see in the middle picture where an oblong hole was cut in the X-member to match the one on the other side where the stock exhaust came through. This will allow for dual exhaust.

 

Remember the chassis work tool place a year ago. With the chassis ready to go it was time to work on the engine/tranny install. I had roughed in the engine mounts using some 4" x 2" box tubing I had laying around. It is just the right size to fit between the ears of the engine mounts. Bothe pieces had been previously cut on one end at 45 degrees. I measured the distance from the front of the 455 to the motor mounts on the engine, then from there to the firewall to get an approximation of location. Also measured the distance I thought I would need between the radiator and the water pump to all for a mechanical fan. Using and engine hoist and, most importantly a friend to help, we positioned the engine with the tranny attached using the above taken measurements as a 1st approximation. Using wood blocks under the engine and tranny mount we positioned the engine and measured for the length of the angled box tubing and its exact position on the frame rails. I mated the angled ends to the frame marked it and then marked where the tranny mount would need to go, allowing for the ability to shim the mount up or down to get the right angle to match that of the rear end. I use 3 degrees.

Raising the engine back out I tacked the engine mounts to the frame and set the engine back in. Once this was checked out came the engine/tranny again and we finish welded the box tubing to the frame and drilled holes through the box tubing to bolt the engine to.



With the engine mounted I took a heavy adjustable truck tie down strap wrapped it around the frame and under the rear of the tranny and rachetted it up to the proper hight (3 degree) and measured the distance between the X member and the angle of the X member so I could make a tranny mount.


With these measurements, I cut a length of 1 x 3 box tubing and some 1/4" plate and welded a tranny mount together.

I inserted the mount between the X member rails and drilled holes for four 5/16" bolts in each side making sure the mount was level between the rails and bolted it in.

 

Good workmanship and common sense. I really like the torpedo cars. Keep us updated.

 

While I had the body back off the frame to finish the chassis work, I went ahead and undercoated the bottom and the back inner fender wells. You can also see, although the picture quality is a little rough, that all the holes in the firewall had been plugged except for the round air vent tunnels on either side.

 

Great start to this project. I have a 49 Buick super sedanette and you've provided me with some great insight and ideas. Thank you. Keep up the good work and I'll be looking for more updates.

 

I have a '48 Cad Sedanet, similar to your body style and just as heavy...I'm about in the same spot you are but I've recently installed a Nova sub-frame in mine...fit like a glove...!!! That's my '55 Cadillac in the background...it has a '78 Pontiac Trans Am sub in it, with disc brakes and power steering. If you'd like to see the 'build" thread on it, go here:http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-best-1955-cadillac-build.329070/#post-3539178



Not wanting to throw cold water on your project, but I just don't think an MII is strong enough for the front of a heavy Cadillac...or Buick...but you can certainly prove me wrong...

Looking forward to your next installment...

R-

 

Roger,
I have looked at your 55 build and your wagon build a year or so ago. I am the one that sent you the back window felt tape for your wagon and was looking for the door latch for the 49. Also followed your Canada trip. Some good Stuff. I did find a replacement latch mechanism that is being mfg. by the guy that sells replacement parts for the Cads. "ALLCADS.com" It was reasonable and worked great.

You could be right about the M-II. I had debated about that but talked to several guys that had Buick's with that front configuration and they said their Buicks rode fine. Time will tell.

 

51ChevPU,

Thanks for note. I Sent you a PM. As indicated in Roger's note, the 49 Buick Sedanetts are almost the same at the 48 Cad Sedanetts and the 48 Olds 98 Sedanetts. A lot of the parts are interchangeable.

 

Fat47, I thot your name was familiar but couldn't remember about what we conversed...and I'm glad you found a latch that would work...and youi are correct about the interchange of parts...my Cad's trunk floor was rotted out at the rear so I found a '49 Olds in the junk yard and had the entire trunk floor cut out all the way up to the rear-end shelf...it fit perfectly in my Cadillac's trunk space, even the "gutters" (where the rubber fits) matched...

FWIW Fat47, I was at the James Dean event in Fairmount last September and will be again this coming September...maybe I'll see you there...???

 

The James Dean show in Fairmount, IN is a great one for customs, especially the 49-51 Mercs. I normally stop by there early Sat morning on my way to the Ducktail run about 8 miles north of there in Gas City. Usually about 1,500-2,000 customs and rods at the Ducktail and a very good swap meet. I missed you last year but will look harder this coming Sept.

 

Super cool. I like the factory look on these cars; especially how the roof slopes back into the rear of the car.
I tried to look the thread over a couple of times, but what was the whole goal of the build? A custom? Is the car still in progress?
Looks great!

 

Ben,
My goal is always to build a car that I can put some miles on. I do a lot of long distance rod run stuff Spring through Fall and I want something that is dependable and, of course, looks "cool". I grew up in the 50's so there is always an element of that era in my thinking, but it's not a period car. A 49 Buick wasn't what we hot rodded or customized then but the lines of the sedanettes have always appealed to me and I thought it would make a great cruiser.

The car is in progress. So far this build thread is covering things that have been done up through last Spring. I will began to show the more recent progress that has taken place this Winter in the next week or so.

 

Before I set the body back on the, hopefully, finished chassis I pulled the engine/tranny out separated them and removed the exhaust manifolds. I cleaned up the manifolds in my sand blaster and coated them with the POR product made especially for exhaust manifolds.

The engine had come out of a Camaro, yes it is a big block Buick, that a friend had dropped into the Chevy and when he decided to sell the Camaro had removed the 455. It was a problem free engine when he pulled it back out. Because the engine had sat in my shop for quite a while I pulled the spark plugs and put some Marvel Mystery Oil in each of the cylinders, let it sit for a day, rotated the engine, let it sit another day and then did a compression check. Good all the way around.

Then I cleaned the engine using degreaser, Simple Green, scotch brite and a lot of elbow grease being careful not to get the cleaners on the aluminum parts. I dropped the pan, sand blasted it, put in a new oil pump and re-installed it. Painted the block, intake, etc with Hi-Temp black paint.

My friend Max and I reinstalled the engine and tranny and bolted the body back on the Chassis. These Buicks have a slug of body to frame bolts and each has a heavy rubber fiber body to frame pad of varying shape and size. Luckily I had found an original shop manual years ago that had great pictures of the this step. I had thought of making the body to frame pads but a lot of them had steel washers embed in the rubber so I bit the bullet and bought a complete set from Steele Rubber. While I hated to pay the price it turned out to be a good investment.

I had forgot to mention that years ago when I first pulled the body off the frame I had a friend who owned a body shop with a frame rack. Using the shop manual schematic and the reference measurements we were able to true the frame. I was very careful to maintain this as I altered the rear end and the front. The shop manual has been the best money spent on this project.

 

Once the body was back on the frame and the engine/tranny in place we covered them and painted the firewall, door jambs and the door edges so we could add the rubber door seals, install the doors and make sure the gaps were OK.

The rubber has been pulled away slightly next to the door latch so I cold insert a keeper through the slot. It has since been reglued.



The color is Verde Charo off a 2015 Fiat. Close to one of the original Buick paints in 49.

 

At this point last year I put the Buick back on the side of the shop. With Spring in full swing here the outside work coupled with Hot Rod travel and the need to get back to the 33 Dodge coupe build dictated that something had to give, so it was the Buick project.

With all of the above winding down six months later in Oct. and Max and I being another year older, both in our 70's, we knew we needed to get back on the project before it was too late. So, we block sanded the body and all the exterior parts one more time to get them as smooth as possible. Then we hung the doors to make sure the gaps were good. Then we DP 90ed the inner fender panels and cleared over them to give it a gloss black look. We painted the edges of the front fenders and then assembled the front clip to check all the gaps there. We spent quite a bit of time adjusting the gaps to get them right. You can see that we had hung the gas tank once we put the body back on the frame. When I went to clean the original tank it was so full of holes that I had to order a new one from TANKS.

 

lookin' good
that color is gonna pop!

 

I'm assuming you painted it where it sat...???

R-