2012-04-17 56X Buick

56 X BUICK SESSION APRIL 17 2012

VOLUNTEERS - Jim Baker, Al Batts, Bob Boorsma, Jerry Bush, Del Carpenter, Ron Elzinga, Don Feutz, Don Mayton, Art Meidema, Dick Saddler, Chuck Snow.

On April we had a neat event in which Del had the chassis and engine ready for another test ride. The great thing is that Del took several for a ride. The other good thing

is that we discovered that the Dynaflow had no fluid in it and is evidenced by the empty cans on the ground. There are several pictures taken of the test rides. In all Del took about 10 rides down the driveway and onto the street. On course many drives ended up with repairs like a gasoline leak, a leak in the transmission cooling line going into the radiator which is still dripping a little. We also have a bad leak at the transmission to the torque tube. Del also discovered that there is a hesitation when accelerating the car. He did discover that the vacuum advance was not functioning. Later he removed a vacuum advance from another 1956 322 spare engine and it was no good either. The next step it to purchase another vacuum advance.

One photo shows the supports that Chuck Snow built for the bucket rear seats. Another photo shows the plate that will be used to attach the wood and then the fiberglass surround that goes around the bucket seats.

Bob Boorsma is back and dug right in on the instrument panel that he left in the fall.

Jim continues to modify the swivel seat in order to lower it to its standard seating position.

Jerry continued to be the go to man on all the welding, soldering, and brazing.

Art is doing final finishing on the hood, deck lid and body. He really works to get the surface smooth.

Don F. has been finishing up small parts for the chrome plating.

Don M. is drilling and taping the holes for installing the anchor screws for the rear 1/4 side trim.

The photo archive is again the work of Al Batts.

Rick Sorgen gave us a Buick 1956 steering wheel so we could take it to a local plastics coating place that coated a soft compound on various articles of steel. They warned us ahead of time that their process requires high heat. Since none of us knew the melting point of the plastic that is on steering wheels we wanted them to try their process anyways. As you can see their high heat process destroys 1956 Buick steering wheels. So our joint R&D was a failure. The local company did this without any cost to us. Rick, thanks for your donation of the steering wheel that is no longer any good.

When Bob was examing the instrument cluster for the 1956X Buick he discovered that there was some differences on the back of the instrument cluster. The instrument cluster had more holes in it. The instrument cluster also contained the horn relay. The instrument cluster contained a tag that said "AC MODEL SHOP". Now with the SO 90022 number I wonder if anyone out there that worked in the AC Model Shop has any clue about another difference on this 1956X Buick. We have a regular 1956 Buick instrument cluster and it does not exhibit any of the above features.

One photo here displays Chuck's work with the parade boots in place.

Ron working on repairs on one of his fabricated bumper bombs.