I have it wired to run off a momentary switch at the moment. So I don't this is my problem. I am not using any of the original wiring at this moment Ryland
Is there a chance you don't have them hooked up right? They need to be arranged like 2 flashlight batteries; the negative of the first battery is hooked to the positive of the second battery. The connection in between can't be a normal car jumper cable, it needs to be heavy and short, like the cable in the car now. So, the positive car cable gets hooked to batt #1 positive post, then the neg car cable gets hooked to the neg post on batt #2.
You say you bought a battery year ago.I don,t know if that car had one of those long batterys,I wouldn,t buy one like that, but get and fit one with lot of cranking power bigger the better. If your starter is any good take all plugs out and put in first gear and see if you can move the car 10 feet.Standard shift i guess. A little toyota battery to small.Make sure its neg ground, being backwards is not right ,just checking.One thing at time.
Personally, I would take a good look at that starter before I spent money on new plugs or a compression tester. F&J is correct that with your finger you can tell if you have compression. Model T's ran with something like 4:1 compression. You don't need much for the motor to fire. Pulling a trailer uphill at highway speeds is another thing all together. We are not at that point yet. It is telling that you did not see much difference in cranking speed when you tried 24v. That tells me one or two or all of the following is/are at fault: 1. The starter is toast. 2. The cables are too slim shady. 3. The batteries are just not up to the task. Your battery should not be spent after 5 minutes of cranking unless you are never getting it fully recharged, or if the starter is sucking it dry because of an internal short or other problem. Yank the starter, take it apart. If it looks perfect, get some better batteries/cables. If it looks funky, repair or replace it. I am not aware of any late-model interchange. Any automotive electric rebuilder will have the brushes you need in an old, musty drawer. Also the commutated should be shiny and the armature commutator slots should be slightly undercut. You can do that yourself with the tip of a broken hacksaw blade. That's the nice thing about these old DC motors. Good old blacksmithing tools and techniques work just fine. A growler will tell you if the armature has a short. The electric shop/rebuilder will have one. But if your starter is working I doubt the armature has a short. Most likely it is gunked up/bearings dirty/commutator dirty and not undercut and brushes worn. Sometimes you can get away with worn brushes by increasing the spring tension and adding a spacer between the brush and the spring. This is a field expedient, but it can quickly help you get going without spending mo money. John
Worn bushings will seriously degrade the efficiency of a starter. Bushings are easy to replace and will bring the starter up to full power.
I agree the starter may have problems, should probably be looked at, but I stand by doing a compression test, and then repeat after adding a teaspoon of oil and rolling it over and testing again, it would tell so much about the condition of the engine, and just would not take that long to do. The finger test will tell you nothing, except an open hole or some unknown amount of compression. I did not mention the starter earlier because in the video it was spinning fast enough at first to start if other factors had been right.
I bought a cheap compression tester so I will check compression, then I will pull the starter and inspect it. I know I did the 24V correctly. At first I was confused on the concept but I get it now; I put the battery of my Ford inline between the positive terminal of the Buick's battery and the big post on the starter. Ryland
If you get in trouble with the starter re-assembly, I have a same age Olds starter out, and I don't know if it's the same, but I can do pics on how it goes together.
I've found even with new spark plugs if you get them wet with fuel too often they simply will not fire under compression. Get a new set of plugs.
I just tried the old points after I ran some sand paper through them, I am getting the same spark. When swapping the points out I noticed I had been wrong about having a new wire from the points to the distributor; its the original one but it looks to be in okay condition. I am about to find TDC as you suggested then I will try the other coil. If the plugs were not firing under compression would I be getting smoke out the exhaust and breathers? Could the spark just be too weak to promote good combustion? Thanks, Ryland
A few days ago when you tried running the buick plugs in your Toyota, one at a time, you said some of them skipped before smoothing out. So imagine trying to start the Buick on those fouled plugs. If you could get that car to fire a few times for a second or two, heat will build, and it will get easier.
I've never done it before, but I wonder if getting the intake good and hot with a heat gun before you crank it up will help. A heat gun, not an open flame.
Not that strange of an idea. In really cold climates, a contractor business sometimes will have a shop truck with quick dissconnects coming off the heater hoses, and mating connectors on their dozer or backhoe, etc. Drive along side, hook them up with jumper hoses and heat the diesel motor. Man, some guys here must be wondering why not just pull that motor instead, and rebuild it
I am having the same issues with my 56 Buick Special with the 322. It ran until two weeks ago when I had it shipped across the province. Now it won't start and it seems to turn over slow. I replaced the battery and it does not see, to make a difference.
I wonder if because the starter/battery keeps crapping out if any heat that is built up is lost before the next starting attempt.
I checked the compression and the left bank (cyls 1,3,5,7) all had around 60psi compression and the right bank (2,4,6,8) had around 90psi compression. I'm not sure how Dameon (lamplighter) got over 100 psi when he tested one of the cylinders. I added a pump of 10-30W from a oil can to each cylinder, turned it over for a bit and checked compression again and on the left bank I got around 95 psi and the left I got around 100psi. I threw the plugs back in and got a good kick on gas. I then tried it on ether and got another good kick. At this point the battery was run down (I had done all the compression testing with it) so I pulled the plugs and cleaned them and left the battery to charge. So it looks like I am just not getting good enough compression. Should have checked earlier.... If I am right I really hope I can get it to start once the battery charges up. How long do you think the oil I put down the cylinders will keep the compression up for? Should I add more before my next attempt? I assume the poor compression is due to stuck/gummed up rings; should that clear up once the engine is running? I feel pretty stupid for not testing compression sooner and just ASSuming it was good. Thanks, Ryland
Any long sleeping motor will be down on compression. Once that thing fires and heats up, then it should be fine. For whatever reason, you are not able to crank much without recharge. So, I'd oil them again, then hit it with ether. ether will raise the combustion pressure and burn hotter. If that gets some good kicks, try the accel pump a bit. Try different throttle openings, sometimes full open won't start.
That is plenty of compression and I slightly disagree with F&J on this one as you should have enough oil in the cylinders. You are running out of electricity is all.
Where will it go? The film will persist for quite some time. Each of the rings is cool and loose: plenty of surface area to hold on to what is there. JMHO
Awesome!!! Glad to hear you making some forward progress! Keep us posted! ...if you get impatient, you could always try the ford's battery, or jump it from the ford at high idle (2000 rpm or so). Sent from my iPhone using TJJ!!!
I had this problem recently on our Corvair... replacement engine that had been sitting for years. It dawned on me that with things set to factory specs, the choke is CLOSED while cold-cranking, not wide open like we always seem to do when first starting an engine. I had the chokes wired open, because that's how I ran them on the other engine. Closed the chokes on the two primary carbs, and it fired up. -Brad
"I checked the compression and the left bank (cyls 1,3,5,7) all had around 60psi compression and the right bank (2,4,6,8)... " Are you aware that Buick numbered it's cylinders differently? #1 is passanger-side front! And I hate to say but 60 PSI is really low for a nailhead. the 1954 FSM calls for 145 at cranking speed as acceptable. Good luck, Nailheads are great engines!
This may sound like a stupid suggestion, but how are the lifters in this thing? The 322 had hydraulics IIRC, in which case the lifters could be stuck, or maybe someone "adjusted" the valves in the past, and they are tight, but when the lifters pump up they are being held open? I once tried to start a rebuilt 350 that had tight valves and we scratched our heads for a week attempting to figure out why it would keep popping like it had an ignition timing issue before I discovered the tight valves. Just a thought.
I checked the compression on my 322 last night as well and all cylinders were around 100 psi. What gets me is that it started up easy as could be when we where loading it up on the transport, but would not start once it arrived here. From what I can see, the engine does not seem to be turning over very fast. It is almost like the starter is dragging. I am thinking that it is time to pull the starter and have a look at it and probably rebuild it if need be. Is it hard to get the parts for the starter?
been following the thread since my last post that 60 lbs won't do it the rings must be part of the problem not sealing with the oil you picked up more psi that's good, wet plugs not good with the valves & rings not seating properly that cutting down your compression this combo could be the gremlin sounds like she should fire soon with things loosening up when your cranking give the starter a rest once and a while so it cools down one other thing that can happened if there are any opening in the motor while it sat critters can carry thing inside maybe not as bad as my Olds motor doesn't look bad in the truck but critters can bring in seat cotton build nests & pee inside causing corrosion and blockages like with the Olds 303 motor i opened up looked like a hotel inside with the nests hope the photo doesn't get any one sick unlike yours the motor was stuck solid
I don't know enough about Dynaflows to know if they had both front and rear oil pumps; if they do, you can drag/push it to about 30mph and pull it into gear with the key on and attempt to start it that way.......does it have any brakes?
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