1950 4 door project.....suggestions wanted

[dawger]

I have come into possession of a 1950 Buick Eight 4 door with the Dynaflow transmission.

I know very little about Buicks and nothing about the straight 8.

I've never done any work on a car this old or any restoration but have done automotive work as an amateur for many years and I am comfortable tackling anything.

The owner of the car wants to use it as a daily driver and isn't too concerned with keeping it original or producing a show car.

My first thought is to take the car down to the frame and start over from there. There are oil leaks and a transmission leak.

So here is my list of questions.

Is it worth taking the car down to the frame and building back up or it is more trouble than the possible benefit? My thought is to clean, repair/replace everything.

Should I re-wire the car or just repair as needed?

Conversion to Disk Brakes?

Conversion to electronic ignition? Possible? Desirable?

This is my short list of questions. I'm sure I will have more. looking forward to the project and any suggestions I get from folks here.

Thanks in advance

[Straight Eight]

My first question is why replace all these items. When they were new all these parts functioned perfectly well.

Parts? no problems
try
www.bobsautomobilia.com
or
TERRILL MACHINE INC. De Leon, TX (254) 893-2610 for internal engine parts

Kanter.com for a lot of stuff including engine parts

Egge.com Engine parts

Rareparts.com Chassis parts.

Napaonline.com (type your make, model and year to find a lot of different things)

motors.ebay.com Valve cover?

buickfarm.com


classicbuicks.com

bobsclassicautoglass.com

steelerubber.com

[Muley Gil]

Going down to the frame can get expensive.

IMHO, for a daily driver, I would rebuild the transmission, fix the engine oil leaks, replace the wiring harness (if necessary), go over the brake system COMPLETELY, and install a dual master cylinder.

Brakes were weak in the early '50s Buicks and whoever is going to using this vehicle needs to know this and drive according.

[dawger]

Going down to the frame can get expensive.

IMHO, for a daily driver, I would rebuild the transmission, fix the engine oil leaks, replace the wiring harness (if necessary), go over the brake system COMPLETELY, and install a dual master cylinder.

Brakes were weak in the early '50s Buicks and whoever is going to using this vehicle needs to know this and drive according.

Tell what the expensive areas are going to be. I've pulled the front bumper off and the right front quarter panel off the car. What I plan to do is pull the rest of the body off the frame and clean the frame and take a look at the plumbing under the car. To me it seems easier to pull the body off to get a good look at it but that may not be the case.

If getting the main body off is too much I could stick with just getting the front end off and gaining access to the firewall forward.

From what I can see getting the body off the frame seems fairly straight forward. The entire front panel was off the car in less than 3 hours after the bumper came off.

I am probably missing something.

I can see the fuel line running along the frame and it looks like it is original. I'm assuming I should probably plan on new fuel and brake lines. The electrical is mostly original with lots of new 6 inch pigtails with crimp on connections to the old wire. Again I am assuming I should re-work the wiring with new wire.

The paint on the car is a fairly recent spray that damages easily. All four corners of the hood have made many dings in the two front fenders, removing paint from folks removing the hood.

[jmfrazier1]

I have also just came into possession of a 1950 Buick Super 8 Dynaflow. I think mine is in better shape than the one you are working on but still seems to have similar problems. The electrical system is failing due to the age of the components and I am trying to rebuild each one of them as I can. Does anyone know the best way to get the headlight switch off of these cars?

Good luck to the OP on getting you '50 up and running.

[sconnors]

Having purchased a 1950 Buick Special 41D last year and having done quite a bit to it, I'll weigh in with my two cents and experience thus far.

I replaced the wiring harness. It was expensive, but worth it. You don't want to have a fire and I was fixing one problem and creating three others. I researched quite a bit and went to two or three wiring harness manufacturers. Got prices (they were all pretty close) and got input from other Buick enthusiasts. I ended up going with YnZ's Yesterdays Parts: http://www.ynzyesterdaysparts.com/ Great company, great service and very helpful throughout the process. Once the new wiring harness was in it solved a ton of issues I was having and the car ran incredible. I kept the car 6volt as I wanted to keep everything original. It starts and runs fine as a 6volt. After all that's what it was built for.

Also had a mechanic go through the car and check it all out. Had some brake issues, and ended up putting wheel cylinders and a master cylinder in it. One issue we found through a lot of trial and error is to make sure the compensating port in the master cylinder is clean or you WILL have brake issues.

Have gotten most of my parts from Cars Inc: http://oldbuickparts.com/ great place, very helpful and fast delivery if you're on the east coast.

Replaced the vent window seals as they were shot. Got them from Steele Rubber: http://www.steelerubber.com/ they were a bit hard to put in but I heard their products were much superior and lasted longer than other cheaper ones. Sealed the windshield and back window with Permatex adhesive sealer: http://www.permatex.com/products/Aut..._Sealant_b.htm rather than pulling the windshield and rear windows out. After researching I found that pulling the windshield and back window out to replace the seals was labor intensive and expensive. So some day I may do that but for now there are no leaks.

Other than the above I obviously cleaned, detailed, replaced the windlace, etc, but that's just cosmetics.

My opinion is to concentrate on big money items first - wiring, engine, transmission, paint, then concentrate on the little things. Otherwise you can go broke pouring money into the little things.

Hope that helps....

[dawger]

Thanks for the replies.

The car is going to be a daily driver in the deep south.

Right now I have the front fenders off and just finished cleaning the engine compartment and front suspension enough to work on it. Apparently the car was driven for many years with an oil leak near the front of the engine.

Project one is conversion to front disk brakes and a dual master cylinder. Anyone have any ideas on converting to a dual cylinder? I'm using the Scarebird adapters for the front discs.

Once I get front discs and a new master cylinder I plan to run all new brakes to the rear as well and work the rear brakes into shape.

After the brakes are complete I need to fix the engine oil leak and the major leak from the rear of the dynaflow.

At that point I'll be doing a new wiring harness and a conversion to 12 volts. The 12 volts is in preparation for air conditioning.

Of course, I'm in the wrong forum for all this non-original work but I'm looking for suggestions everywhere.

[49 Special]

I'd be interested in hearing what you've been doing to the car for the last three months. If you've been taking pics as you go feel free to post a few.

My '49 Special has an oil leak in the engine somewhere but I keep driving it anyway since I don't know where it's coming from....

[dawger]

I'd be interested in hearing what you've been doing to the car for the last three months. If you've been taking pics as you go feel free to post a few.

My '49 Special has an oil leak in the engine somewhere but I keep driving it anyway since I don't know where it's coming from....

The last three months I have made some progress but not as much as I hoped. I removed the front end body parts and put the car in the garage to start on the conversion to disc brakes.

Of course it didn't take much disassembly to discover that I needed to do more than just brakes to the front suspension.

So off came everything from the steering box downstream to the wheels.

I spent several hours wire brushing 60 years of oil leaks and dirt off the frame and sent out all of the front suspension for sandblasting and primer.

The steering knuckles were in poor shape so I decided to rebuild those. Driving out the kingpins was beyond my capability so I found a guy who claimed to know what he was doing. I had reservations but let him give it a go.

Needless to say it was a disaster. He destroyed the bushings and the end result was two knuckles that didn't steer.

So I found machine shop with about 6 40's and 50's era cars in the yard and spent some time with the owner. He kept my knuckles for over a month but when he finally got around to them they were perfect.

That is basically where the car is now. I have all of the front end parts ready for reassembly. I had the machine shop press new bearing races in the rotors. I'm glad I did. He did it in 10 minutes and it would have taken me a lot longer as I do not have an assortment of race drivers. I'm a big believer in the right tool for the job and over the years have collected a huge assortment but race drivers aren't in the cards.

The front end of the frame is painted but only in the areas I have been working on. Its hard to stop cleaning and painting but short of a frame off you have to set limits on yourself. I pulled the front of the motor to replace the front leak. it was obvious the front crankshaft seal was the culprit. That has not be reinstalled. I'll wait until the car is on four wheels to put the front of the motor back on.

I have rebuilt front shocks from Apple Hydraulics on the car and plan to reassemble the front suspension this weekend and get the wheels back on before monday.

I have a million pictures. Pictures are a godsend. They have already saved my bacon a few times. The best tool in a project like this is a digital camera. I'll get some posted and linked here sometime today.

[49 Special]

Thanks for the update. It sounds like you're making some progress on it. Do you think you'll be driving it by next summer? Feel free to post some pics when you get a chance....