2011-11-08 56X BUICK

1956X BUICK CENTURY - Work session; November 8, 2011

Volunteers: Al Batts, Bob Boorsma, Del Carpenter, Dick Chambers, Connie DeJong, Ron Elzinga, Tom Kuhlman, Don Mayton, Dick Saddler, Chuck Snow.

A new development has occurred which required a brief change of direction for this work session. In talking to Larry Faloon, GM Styling Retiree, about the center console which we have no photographs, Larry volunteered to do some design for us for the Buick 1956X. He needs from us some specific dimensions of the interior with all the components in place.

So our order of the day was to place these components back into the car since they had been removed some time ago. I figured it would take two days to get this done but we managed to get it done in one day. I realize Larry might require other measurements to be taken for his design but it was a good exercise for us to do this as it pointed out to us some other things we need to be doing.

Chuck was the lead in this operation as he had disassembled much of the inside originally. He managed to organize and find everything and then directed us where these items are located.

Del also was a big part of this as he was already working on the driver's and right passenger's heal plates combination foot pads.

Our faithful photographer then took photos of everything in place.

Others also worked on their individual components.

Jim has one of the swivel seat mechanisms assembled and was doing electrical testing to see if items worked.

Bob continues to disassemble the instrument panel. He catalogs all components and does repairing and polishing of components as he goes along.

Dick C. and Connie prepared the engine side of the fire wall for the black paint and at the end of the day there was a nice new shiny coat of paint on the fire wall.

Dick S. and Ron started working on the bumper bombs. This is another change that was made at the GM Styling Studio. The bumper bombs (Dagmars to some) were modified to include driving lights. Although we have the original bumper bombs they are badly rusted out. So Dick and Ron selected the best ones we had from two parts cars and started the same modification that was done at the GM Styling Studio. First a discussion took place as to the process to use. Next the selected bumper bomb was cut on the inside diameter so that the internal driving light bezel could be inserted. Some fitting still needs done to this hand.

Next week they will start on the second bumper bomb. We did discover that the original modified bumper frame to bumper brackets do not seem to exist. Since I purchased this car disassembled we will probably have to modifiy as set of bumper brackets from one of the parts cars.

Tom Kuhlman, one of our Futurliner Volunteers, came for 1/2 day as his wife had an appointment in Holland. He pitched in on several jobs and then started removing the rusted clips in the car's aluminum rocker panels. Quite a bit of galvanic corresion has taken place locking in these metal clips to the aluminum. He managed to create a method to start the removal process which will not destroy the aluminum rocker.

Don