The Old Buick Runs!

After discovering a badly corroded coil wire the other day, it was decided to go ahead and replace the components which comprise the ignition system on my Buick, primarily consisting of the contact points, condenser, rotor button, distributor cap, spark plugs and plug wires. The ignition coil was tested and found to be good, so no need to replace it.

I went online to Autozone, O'Reilly's and NAPA last night and printed up lists with the required parts. Turned out that Autozone had the best price for most everything except the rotor button and plug wires, but O'Reilly's just down the street had both of those items at a good price.

A local friend (Kevin) and I went down to get the parts this morning and returned shortly after noon with all of the required parts. I decided to just replace the bad coil wire first to make sure it would produce a spark at the plug, which it did.

The contact points were installed next as this was a fairly easy operation. Turned out that the point set I got contained an integrated condenser, so I bought the separate one for nothing. Next the rotor button was attached and we were then ready for the plugs and wires.

This operation requires some care to make sure you put the new wires on the distributor cap in the same order as they were installed on the old cap and just hope the previous owner knew what he was doing and had them in the correct order. Once this was accomplished it was time for another startup attempt.

We first tried pouring gas directly into the throat of the carburetor which did produce the results we were looking for. Basically the motor would start and just run for a short period of time until the gas was gone. This was very exciting to actually here the old car fire up and run, even if for just a short burst each time.

Once we saw that the car would run, we decided to invest a little more money and purchase 5 gallons of premium fuel to pour directly into the gas tank. The tank was basically bone dry so we figured if there was a few splashes of old gas in there, mixing with that much fresh gas would offset any harmful qualities.

We headed off to the local Shell station and returned shortly with the 5 gallons of V-Power gas. Once this was poured into the tank we tried next to get it to pump up to the carb, but it was quickly evident that this was not going to happen.

It was then decided to remove a section of the rubber fuel line and put that directly into our smaller gas can. I first filled the rubber line which ran directly to the fuel pump to help prime the pump. Once that was done, we repeatedly tried to start the motor, but each time a violent backfire through the carburetor was seen in the form a fireball! Something was wrong.

During the plug wire transfer Kevin had temporarily lost track of where he was at, but thought he had the wires in the correct position. A check of a few web sites later we had the firing order and cylinder numbering order for the old 364 Nailhead. We found two of the wires were reversed so figured that was our problem.

Once the wires were in the correct order, the backfires mostly subsided and slowly the old gas in the fuel bowl of the carb and in the lines was burned and the car began to run a little better. At this time we decided it was time to see if the radiator would hold water and the bottom radiator hose was unloosened to the point where anti-freeze started to run out. I tightened that back up and we set out to fill up the radiator with water.

I could only get water out of my shower in the bathroom, so Kevin took jugs over to his place nearby and the radiator and block was filled 3 jugs later. The motor was run until it was sufficiently warmed up, plus we had a leaky gas connection and we decided that was enough for now. The Buick runs and that was what we set out to discover.

More work to be done as we never could get the engine to idle at all. Not holding pressure on the gas pedal would quickly cause the engine to die. I figure a carb rebuild is in order and we need to get the gas feeding as it should from the tank. That will require a new rubber line with proper hose clamps and clips to hold it to the inner fender as it should have been in the first place. When we got it, the rubber line was running along the frame very close to the extremely hot exhaust manifold! Not the best of situations.

Also I had no meter to set the dwell angle of the points, so I'm sure they are off somewhat as I just installed them and didn't even try to adjust them at all. A dwell/tach will have to be purchased as I no longer have one any more. Been a long, long time since I needed one!

Jim says he will be down next weekend to hook the driveshaft back up and bring me some more tires. Hopefully by the time he gets here I can get the motor running off the gas tank as it should so we can see if the old Dynaflow transmission will actually move the car. We won't go far as the brakes are not working. Old cars are so much fun!!!

I would also like to inform everyone at this time that I will be doing another series of posts shortly on all of the vehicles I have owned over the years (well over 100!).  I've always wanted to write a book or something detailing all of these and this seems to be a great way to do it.  As with the series on automotive history, there will be no schedule, just whenever I feel like posting another chapter of the saga I will.  Thanks for coming along for the ride.