Customs 1949 Buick Sedanette build--Picture heavy

Dang. Your luck doesn't sound much better than mine!

 

Sometimes age can be a positive. I became so frustrated with all the little issues that kept popping up that I just walked away from the 49 project for a couple of months. Slemi-recharged. Back on it an hour or two a day now. Looking at Rockable's trunk work on his 49 I found a local place that had plastic sheets and with my heat gun bent some panels.




Also, like Rock, I am trying to work through the overheating issue. Bought a bigger fan and am moving it closer to the radiator. I think a 1' spacer will work. Had to cut off one of the nuts on one of the four studs holding the fan and the pully system together. It was a bitch but I did manage to get the four studs out of the mounting plate. Cleaned out the threads and will replace them with bolts long enough to re-attach the pully's, spacer and fan.

Got the power steering pump off after much work trying to determine where the PS fluid leak was. Looks like it was in the seal on the pump itself and not one of the various connections. Have the pump apart and am waiting on a rebuilt one from NAPA. Hope it cures that problem.

I could not get the engine to idle down. I think it is the choke idler diaphragm on the Quadrajet. So, I have one of them ordered as well.

Brake pedal arm is hitting on the new custom exhaust so I am going to have to head one side of the pipe where the brake arm hits and indent it a little so the arm clears.

Then I am going to have to redo the suspension to get the car back up a couple of inches for various clearances. Then redo the emergency brake cable set up.

More to do on other things but I'm having enough fun for now.

 

@Fat47 The panels look great! What sort of store had them available?

Ray

 

Great work on that trunk, Walt! That stuff is pretty easy to work with, isn't it? Post some pictures of the inner fender openings near the firewall. Part of my problem was that I sealed off the exit flow area there.

 

Love your trunk panels, I'd be willing to let you do mine also. All the little stuff takes for ever to do and you need to be in the right mood to do them. I have my newly rebuilt transmission sitting on my shop floor. Haven't been in the mood to put it back in yet. Keep at it, Brian

 

Hnstray--I just looked up "Plastic Sheet Material Indianapolis" and there were 6 or 7 Suppliers. I went to the one closest to me--Piedmont Plastics. I thought the 1/4" was too thick so I opted to try the 1/8th". All of the various thicknesses come in 4X8 sheets. I lucked out because the Office Manager said they had recently received a pallet of 1/8 sheets with some damage and the supplier had sent them a replacement pallet so I could have a sheet for free to try out. Using a heat gun and the edge of a work table I was able to easily bend the stuff. I did make cardboard patterns first and when satisfied with them I traced out the shapes on the plastic. Cut it with a utility knife. It worked so well I went back to buy a couple of more sheets for a 50 Ford project I have. He still had some left over from the damaged pallet and gave me two more. But, they are kind of pricy otherwise. I think $60 a sheet.

Rock----I just used the original inner fender panels. They leave about an 8" gap between where they 90 at the back and the firewall.

BJR---Trick now is to find an upholsterer that actually will do the work. Latest one was three months out last April so scheduled me for end of July. Called him several times in the interim to confirm and he said yes I was on his calendar. July came and went and no call back. Went to his shop several times but he was never there. Found out last month he is now doing work for a local hot rod shop. So, the search begans anew.

 

The wife and I took three months off and went south for the Winter but before we left I realized that one of the fluid leaks was from the power steering pump so I pulled it and rebuilt it Ran the engine and it seemed to have cured the problem. Also the pump was still full when I got back home. I still have to tackle the tranny leak issue and I didn't think the brake pedal was going down far enough to get the lines fully bled. Turns out the pedal is hitting on the top of the left side exhaust pipe coming down from the manifold. I'm not sure how I am going to cure that problem since there is such limited space to run the pipe. It has to turn 90 degrees out through the frame as soon as it gets down to the X member and then almost immediately turn 90 degrees back along the frame. (I will take some pictures later). Unfortunately the pedal is hitting the top of the pipe right between the two 90's. It's the only place I can put the exhaust so I may have to rethink the pedal location.

 

Time to get that Buick on the road, Walt! I used a hanging pedal/mc setup on mine.

 

I also went with hanging pedal/mc setup, booster on mine.

 

Thanks Rock and BJR. I may have to go to that design.

 

You are not going to enjoy putting this in after the fact. I am sure it can be done but you will likely cuss quite a bit during the process.





 

Turning 81 in two weeks and I am beginning to slow down. That and my good friend Max, retired body man and constant helper and advisor on the Buick project, died in February. Miss him more as a person than as a great helper. So, working out the bugs on this project has slowed way down.

Since the AC was not charged yet, I unhooked the cooler from in front of the radiator and removed it to see if I could get the engine temperature down. It did drop about 15 degrees but still is running about 220 with a shop fan blowing in front of the grill, simulating air flow while moving. I also added a spacer to get the engine fan out closer to the radiator (now about a 1/2 inch from blades to radiator). Appears that I am going to have to add a pusher in front of the radiator and move the AC cooler out and maybe slant it 45 degrees in front of the radiator. Luckily there is a ton of room in these Buicks between the grill and the radiator.

Will try heating the exhaust pipe and indenting it where the brake pedal is hitting to get more pedal clearance and see if that cures that problem.

Tranny is still leaking a lot so I am going to replace O rings on speedo and shift arm and probably try another pan gasket before I pull it.

Noticed that the shocks are hitting on the spring perches so I will either have to move the shock mount or put a stiffer or bigger coil spring in which will raise up the back end and give the shock more room. I really like the way the car sits now but I may have to raise it back up a couple of inches.

No updates on upholstery. I have located a couple possibilities and need to visit the shops to see if that might work out. Maybe I just need to get the car running and drive it down south and have Lloyd's wife take a crack at it.

In the meantime, I am getting some work done on the 50 Ford Chop top project . Stuff I can do by myself.

 

Good luck, Walt. The root problem with cooling these cars is getting the hot air out. The hood is a big dome that collects heat and since hot air rises, it wants to stay there. I installed a couple of small pushers at the rear of the inner fenders and have them set to come on at 220. I built a shroud for my mechanical fan and now it cools just fine on the road. The temp will rise when sitting still, however and then the pushers come on and help out. I have my condensor mounted right in front of the radiator.

Sorry about the loss of your friend. Take care.

 

Something else to look at is fitting a piece of sheet metal above the radiator shaped like the inside of the hood. I believe that if that is not blocked off, the hot air gets pulled back above the radiator to the front and sucked back through. I don't have a fan shroud on my 49 with the 472 Cad. I cools fine, but with the air on, if I am not moving, it gets too hot for the air conditioner to cool the inside. If I am moving it cools the inside fine. The engine never overheats, even sitting. I will be adding a fan shroud, and block off the air coming back over the top of my radiator also. Good luck, these are very cool cars when done.

 

Walt, I may have those two pieces that go on either side of the radiator to help seal the outside air from the inside air. Let me know if you need them and I will try to round them up. Since I converted to front tilt on my hood, I had to make my own.

 

(More) Nice Work, Rock!

Ray

 

Fat47 sorry to hear about loosing your friend. You can’t replace old friends.

 

Rock,
I have the two side pieces next to the radiator already installed. Don't have the one directly over the radiator and may look into making that one. Installing some smaller pushers on the inner fender panels back by the firewall is a great idea. I am going to try a pusher in front of the radiator first and then, if that doesn't help I will go the small pushers on the inner fender wells.

Brian,
Thanks for the thought on Max and the other cooling thoughts.

I did discover an air leak on the bottom of the Quadrajet. Will pull the carb and try a new base gasket and see if that helps with the idle problem.

 

Update: Slowly working on the bugs with the Buick build. I replaced the seals in the shift lever and speedo housing and installed a new tranny pan, gasket and filter. Slowly adding fluid to the tranny and checking for leaks. Since I am not driving it yet I will leave the fluid level low for a while. I am now in the process of redesigning the emergency brake set up. Next is moving the rear shock mounts so they won't hit the coil springs.

 

I had a transmission pan leak that a new gasket didn't fix. My transmission guy suggested I get an aluminum pan for the transmission. I did and that stopped the leak.

 

Leaking pan gasket was only part of the issue. The stock pan didn't have a drain plug so as long as I had to remove it to change the gasket I replaced the pan with an aftermarket one that had a plug in case I ever needed to drain the tranny.
I've been in Texas for three months so no work on the Buick. Lots of thinking about it which is probably bad.

 

The aluminum one I got has a drain plug in it also. Been working on replacing all the tack strips in mine ahead of the headliner install. Going to try and do it myself with my daughters help. The shops wanted $1500 just for labor, and I already had the headliner and the windlass.

 

My upholsterer said, "I have now done 2 headliners for a 49 Buick sedanette.....may first and my last. " it's a job.

 

UPDATE or more frustration. I have been working on the various small problems with the drive train and not gaining at all. Fix one engine issue and another one pops up. Fix one tranny leak and another one appears. Backed the Buick out of the shop so I could put the 33 Dodge coupe on the lift to service it (another thread here on the coup's HEI problem which I think I have now fixed).
The 400 turbo dropped a couple of qts. of tranny fluid on the drive. Problems got even worse when I went to put it back on the shop lift. Rear end dropped down and caused a bind with the drive shaft. Got it back on the lift and walked away. Thought about selling the project as is, I was so pissed. Luckily, one of the few, and I do mean few, lessons I have learned with age is not to make any snap decisions when it comes to car builds.
So, I am going to pull the engine and tranny and "carefully" rebuilt them both. And, redo the rear end set-up.
NOTE TO READERS: This is my own doing. I should have rebuilt both before I installed them but, since they came out of a running car and I had made these types of switches before I went ahead, against better judgement, and used them. I am going to walk away from this project for a while. Concentrate on the 50 Ford chop top project for now ( I will start a new thread on that later) and let the Buick sit for a bit.
Thanks to all who have followed this thread so far. I WILL GET BACK ON IT once the frustration lever subsides.

 

I feel your frustration, Walt. On my recent trip to Louisville, I broke the panhard bar mount on my 49. Also, someone pointed out I am still getting some smoke out of the right side of my exhaust. I have had that engine out twice now and may have another problem with the heads. On top of that, my AC quit on the way home and I've had a roaring noise when I go around right hand sweeper curves...,and the WVA turnpike is full of them.

I got the panhard problem solved and am waiting on parts for the AC. Meanwhile, the roaring noise continues to baffle me. I will get it sooner or later. Sometimes, you have to walk away for a while. This car has been the hardest to sort out of any I've ever built.

 

My sympathies to both you. I fully understand, after having the th400 transmission in my 49 rebuilt and having it fail after 6 miles. It's fixed now but it was a bummer.

 

Here's what I finally determined the roaring noise to be. On the PS, my exhaust pipe is about 1/2" away from the frame rail. I used the stock Buick 455 motor mounts and apparently they have a lot of compliance. The engine block torques in that direction and when going through a right hand turn, the exhaust pipe touches the frame. Yesterday, I removed the DS motor mount and drilled 2 - 1/4" holes in it. I installed two grade 8 bolts with nylock nuts and left about 1/8" slack. Hopefully, this will limit the travel and eliminate the Roar. I have always used the Chassis Engineering style motor mounts and never had this problem before. I will be going back to CE style on all future builds.