2015-04-21 56X Buick

Buick 56X Work session for April 21, 2015 -

One of the big operations now is removing the first engine for this special car which is a custom two 4 barrel carburetor and replace that engine with the custom four side draft YH-Carter single barrel carburetors. At first this was not going to happen. However, Larry Faloon who worked directly for VP Bill Mitchell insisted this would have been what Bill Mitchell would have done. There are only one of a kind Buick concept cars that were built with these side single barrel YH Carter carburetors. Those cars were the:

1954 Buick Wildcat a 2 passenger sports running car; a 1955 Buick Wildcat ll that is only shown in photos not known to exist, a 1956 Centurion which is a non-running concept car.

My objection to do this is the fact that I had no means to build the special custom manifold to accommodate this arrangement plus the added expense of another engine- Dynaflow restoration and all the added work for my volunteers. However, if this was really what Bill Mitchell built the original goal was to duplicate the one-of-a-kind 1956X. Bill Mitchell car.

I ended up laying all the obstacles at the feet of the local engine builder; Casey. He put me in contact of a local custom builder of manifolds for folks that had their boat engines restored with the same original engines but with custom manifolds, plus drag racers again trying to get more horsepower out of engines. So off to Flint with this person where he took over 250 photos and numerous notes and sketches. Roughly 9 months later I had a custom manifold. Casey also solved the problem of finding the four YH- Carters. Dean Tryon with Stu Allen working with him restored all four of the YH Carters. We will be following the progress of the engine swap and see how this operation works out. Yes, according to the mechanic at the Buick Gallery in Flint the Wildcat l runs good. Casey did mount the engine on his test stand, ran it and tuned it. His last words were: "Don't take a screw driver to any adjustments !!!" Photos #1 - #4 show the removal of the 2 4 barrel manifold-engine-transmission by Del and Jerry.

The balance of the photos show the rocker side trim attachment methods by Dick Chambers, Ron Elzinga & Connie, They were very creative in the long threaded rods they had to use in some instances. Also some added attachment points had to be added to the long rocker trim pieces.

Jim Baker and Don continue working on the seats. Dick Saddler continues to fill in all the holes in the body with runner plugs. In the two previous emails I failed to mention Bob Boorsma as he works in a different part of the barn and has been working on all the parts tied to the instrument panel which involves some creative work to restore all these individual parts. He has developed some unique ways to restore the felt lining inside a glove box interior. Our glove box is the original and has some of the original over spray that we wanted to preserve.

Bob has also been able to free up the 54" tachometer cable that drives the tachometer.

Don