Hello all, my name's Jeff, I'm 34 and live in Central Alberta, Canada. This is my first '50's GM, have been heavy into late '50's Chrysler products the past few years. A friend told me about this Buick that was dragged out of his father-in-law's barn where she had sat for at least 15 years, and wanted to get rid of it. $700 later, it was in my yard, last week. The engine was seized, so I took out the plugs and poured diesel in the cylinders, and let her sit for a day...apparently it wasn't seized badly, because I put a snipe on the crank bolt and after a bit of defiance, it moved! I was excited. I worked it back and forth until I could make a full revolution, tried it with the starter but it wasn't working...pulled it apart, cleaned it up, put a different solonoid on, and back in. Touched up the points with emery cloth, rigged a tank of premium up to the fuel pump, water in the rad, hotwired the ignition (no key) and cranked away...slowly it started firing more and more, til it ran on the starter for a couple seconds then ran on it's own after about a minute! Massive clouds of smoke! (had to burn the diesel out of the cylinders) I put it into gear and slowly she lurched her way out of my shop...the longer she ran, the better she ran. After 10 minutes she stopped blowing smoke, and would fire up and idle without touching the carb, I was impressed!
I have always been the "hard luck" guy who buys cars with either extremely seized or ultra-low compression engines, or no engine at all...this car must be good Karma This was last weekend, now she's in my shop so I can fix her brakes, axle seals, and transmission...she has no Drive, only low and reverse. I just ordered a transmission rebuild kit from Ebay,this will be my first tranny rebuild. another area needing attention is the dash, that barn must have been very damp as the dash is heavily rusted and all the switches are seized!
This is all I have for pics so far, more to come...the car is still wearing the original black paint (which polishes up to a hell of a shine I see
One thing I noticed is this car has a factory underseat heater, looks just like a baseboard heater from a house...is this common for these cars? (will get pic of that too)
Thanks for checking her out! I'm sure this forum will be very helpful as I get her fixed. I tried uploading a pic of her with tires up, etc, but file was too big. Not sure how to get around that.