Can a bad intake manifold gasket make my exhaust really loud?

What does "open the throttle" mean-push down on the gas pedal? If so I tried that....

 

Not a chance.

 

I mentioned earlier that I pushed hard on it and it wouldn't move at all. The choke cable is not binding with anything. I drove it a little while ago and the engine stalled several times so I tried adjusting the fuel/air mixture screw but that didn't seem to make much of a difference. It bogs out when I try to accelerate....

 

Which is why I hate those things, because they are a "one part fits all" idea that doesn't work worth a tinker's cuss. They are the epitome of a Communist Plot. Make sure that your cable is orientated up, and that it slides from the front of the car to the back. Judging from the fact that it was apart, it is very easy to get the orientation backwards and then have not enough cable to move it all.

So: Looking at the round black thing on the carb from the passenger's side:


Pull to activate Cable <-> / <-Lever
/ <-pivot point, or shaft

The coiled portion of the cable is hard clamped to what ever stand is nearby. Does this make sense? Ensure that it is pushed in all the way before you hook it up, and then get an assistant to activate it while you watch the operation. The butterfly on the top of the carb should just about be fully closed when the cable is pulled out, and then fully open and locked when the cable or knob is pushed in. If the lever free-wheels and doesn't do anything, then what's happened is the pawl for the lever has slipped out of the slot in the carb, and you'll have to take the round thing off and re-align it.

You're better off trying to get another thermostatic coil and heat riser tube (from the exhaust manifold) and hooking up the original rather than playing with that fiddly manual choke, Just sayin...


A Suggestion, if I might be so bold; -

Spend this upcoming winter trying to hunt down the proper carb and choke set up for that car. (Stromberg 2BBl or a Carter 2 BBL with a Buick start switch, 1953-1960 should be about the same.) That will get your floor start activated the way it should be, and the the choke working like it should. In order to start that car on a cold morning, depress the accelerator once with the power off to the ignition, and then turn on the switch, and depress the pedal until the starter engages, crank and wait; - if it was set up right it should light off after a couple of cranks and start running.
IMHO that would be the easiest for drivability and it would correct a flaw in the restoration.

 

Thanks for the long post. Isn't there supposed to be a coiled up piece of metal inside the black choke cover? There isn't one inside mine. The choke cable doesn't move the choke at all when it's pushed in and pulled out from the dash. The choke doesn't move at all when I push it hard with my finger either.

Also, why do you suggest that I wait 6 months to replace the carb? It has a Carter carb on it now. How much does a new one sell for?

My car doesn't have a floor start-it has a button under the dash. Is that going to be a problem?

Once the car is warmed up the choke isn't needed anymore-right? So then why is it running worse now?

 

Ok; First off, the real choke would have a thermostatic coil in it. That would have been removed when that manual kit was installed. Obviously the choke is bound up somehow; - did you have the carb off the manifold? At any rate, I would probably take that choke setup apart and play around with it to see how it wants to work. It obviously did before, so you should be able to make it work again. Might be a simple case of a piece of linkage binding up, I can't tell from here. Things just don't fail for no reason. If the positioning is wrong, sometimes the aircleaner can bind it up as well. Another reason why I hate those things, they're a pain to troubleshoot.

Yes, in theory, the choke is only used to cold-start the car. It has no bearing once the car is warmed up. You indicated in a previous post that you starting turning the idle set screws. Now you've changed the dynamic in the carb; - the idle will be off because it's either too rich or too lean, or not uniform (one rich, one lean) The proper way to set these up is with a vacuum gauge or send it to someone who has an exhaust gas analyzer. Just to help with driveability you're going to have to warm up the car to operating temperature, and then at idle remove the aircleaner and turn those screws in, one at a time, until the engine almost quits, and then back off 1/2 a turn. This should get it close. Test drive it, see if there's an improvement, if not, open it up a bit more. But not too much, otherwise it'll bog down and stumble every time you hit the gas.

Another reason the car may run worse; - did you reuse the old manifold gaskets? (if yes, that could be the problem) Was the manifold properly torqued down? Check the manifold for leaks. First, when the car is running, place your hands over the throat of the carb in an attempt to close off the air. If it dies, you have no leaks, then proceed to readjust the idle screws as above. If the engine stays running or actually sounds better with your hands over the throat, then you have a serious vacuum leak, and chances are it's the manifold leaking. Grab a fire extinguisher, a can of carb cleaner, and start spraying the areas where there's a gasket, around the base of the carb, the manifold to heads, the hoses, etc. The carb cleaner is supposed to kill the motor if it gets into a leak; - that's where it's sucking air from, so that's where your leak probably is. If you use something like ether or WD-40 the engine will speed up if it finds the leak, but , and a big but, your chances of having a fire are increased exponentially. I'd use carb cleaner, which doesn't burn all that well.

The Special of that year never had a manual choke, unless you specifically ordered it. They were all auto-choke. At some point in your car's life the carb failed, the choke failed and what you've got is someone's attempt to solve the problem; probably done back in the 70s or 80s when those Buick-only carbs were harder to find. Not saying they're any easier now though, I haven't seen a starter-switch equiped carb in ages.

I assumed that you had the car running and wanted to drive it; - to return the car back to it's original configuration will take some down-time and I assumed one would do that in winter. However, if you want to do it now, more power to you. The car was originally set up with a gas pedal start. The button under the dash is added on afterwards, probably because the original carb burned out or failed somehow. So now the other problem is that someone has gone and changed the ignition wiring. The fact that the car starts and runs right now indicates that it is not a problem, so if you're happy with this configuration then leave it alone. The advantage is that this now opens up the amount of carbs available to you, you're no longer concerned with looking for one that is exclusive to Buick.

And now the caveat: I'm sitting here looking at a computer screen, I obviously can't see and hear what your car is doing, so take this with a grain of salt; - I'd love to teach you how to troubleshoot and tune a car; but obviously there's a distance issue. Good luck...let us know what happens.

 

First, thanks again for taking the time to give me the long and well thought out response.

I never took the carb off the manifold. There's no air cleaner on it now. It came with an aftermarket generic one with the chrome top but I haven't put it back on since I removed the intake manifold. I did reuse the old gaskets since NAPA said they would have to ship them to me from their warehouse in Tennessee and it would take about a week. I don't have a torque wrench so I just tightened the bolts down pretty good.

I just went out and pressed a rag down on the carb and the engine died immediately. I did it again and the same thing happened. Then I checked the front plug wire on the passenger side and it was pretty loose. My neighbor mentioned that yesterday when he was trying to time it but he couldn't because neither of us had any chalk. Duh. I squeezed the metal part in the coil wire together more so now it stays attached to the plug. When I rev it up it still seems to bog out some. I'm going to take the car for a drive after dinner and see what happens. Thanks again....

 

I took it for a 20 mile drive in 88 degree weather and it ran fine except when I stopped and it bogged out when I tried to accelerate. I feathered the gas and then it ran fine again once I got going but it didn't do that before. I guess I need to adjust the screws on the carb some more....

 

Yeah, it would seem it's running a bit rich on the idle, flooding when going to off-idle. Accelerator pump just washes it out. Crank the screws in a bit more...In a perfect world and at sea level, the screws should only be turned out from their seats by 1 and 1/2 full turns. Used well-worn carbs can be as high as 3 full turns. Take your time, you're on the right track.

 

That was a great tip. I turned both screws all the way closed and then backed each one out 1.5 turns. The one on the driver's side below the idle speed screw (not sure if it's fuel or air) was out about 5 turns. It ran better right away but when I backed it out about one more turn the hesitation when I gave it some gas stopped. I'm not going to worry about the choke for now.

I also need to adjust the parking brake. It goes all the way to the floor and has some effectiveness but not enough when I'm on a hill. The cable under the car by the rear axle is adjusted all the way out so there's no room to tighten it anymore. I have a factory '56 Buick shop manual but there's nothing in it regarding that. Any suggestions? Thanks again for the advice....

 

I'll give that a try tomorrow. Thanks....

 

Good to hear the car is feeling better and running better, - and quietly. Don't sweat the run-around, we've all had those "aha, you idiot!" moments too; some, like myself, have a tendency to over think things, so I've had more than my fair share of them.

Welcome to the Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Buick Floggers, - if you've got greasy cut-up knuckles, you're a member. There's a certain satisfaction to knowing that "Gawdam! I can do this! I can fix my own car! I'm good!" You've taken Step One; you've tackled a job outside your comfort zone and have triumphed. Sure, there's a bit more to learn, and the choke isn't quite there yet, but you've bought yourself time. The car runs and drives and you've improved it by yourself. Congratulations and welcome! :beers2:

 

I put 3 old lug nuts in there with a big washer at the end and now it works great. Thanks again for the advice....

 

Since I'm on a roll now how hard would it be to attach some kind of button to the steering column for the horn? The guy I bought the car from said it would honk occasionally when making turns so he disconnected it (which could very well be BS because several other things he told me about the car before I bought it turned out not to be true). Both horns are still on the front of the car with a wire coming from each one so to hook them up I should run one wire from the horn button to the fuse box (under the dash somewhere?) and the other to both horns? Does it need to be grounded? Any other suggestions? I assume I can buy the button at my local Ace Hardware store-right? Thanks again....

 

The horns draw quite a bit of current so I'm sure there is a relay in there somewhere. Once you locate that you can use the button to activate the relay. Your service manual should have more info in it. HTH
I found this picture and I think this is from a 1956 Buick Special:

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j152/V8PunkRocket/HornRelay.jpg

It's the three terminal relay next to the voltage regulator.

 

When the car was restored a few years ago they made a few changes. You can see that the voltage regulator is mounted differently and there is no horn relay next to it as shown in your photo. However, there is a smaller box near one of the horns which has a horn wire going to it. Could that be it? I assume there's two wires coming from the horn button so should I connect one to the fuse box and the other to the horn relay? Each horn has a heavy yellow wire coming from it that isn't connected to anything so what should I connect them to? I looked in the shop manual but it doesn't show where the horn wires go....

 

I can tell you that isn't the original relay as it looks like the one in the picture I posted. It has 3 terminals. That being said, if your box has a wire going to the horns, there is a very good chance that is the horn relay. I'm sure the original relay was activated when the horn rim was pressed by making contact with a ground. Most circuits like that rely on ground connections to complete the circuit rather than switching hot wires.

See if you can trace where each wire goes on your box to know for sure which one is meant to be the one for the button (or switch if you prefer). It should go to the steering column unless that has been changed also. Hard to say for sure that is how they did it when it was re-wired, but that should give you something to go on. HTH

 

I removed what I believe to be the horn relay and took some pics of it. It has 4 terminals and it also has a wire connected between two of them (black looped wire). On the top it says 12 volts and 30 amps. There are several wires taped together that go to the voltage regulator and some go through the firewall and under the dash. Should I just use the trial and error method of connecting different wires to each terminal until the horn works or is there a more professional way to do it?