I am new to the Nailhead world and I learned something new today, and I was not happy to find out. I just bought a 54 Buick Super and the 322 in it was hurt quite badly so I set out to find another engine. I found one very close to home,a 1953 322, so talked to the owner and he claimed before he pulled the engine, some 5 years ago. he had it running and remembered it had a slight miss but ran good. Well I made a deal and brought it home, I pulled the heads and found that yea it should have had " a slight miss", 4 badly burned exhaust valves, ran good my A. Well I thought no problem pull a few valves from the old engine grind the seats and faces and bingo I'm in, no such luck. It turns out that the 53 engine has a unique piston and combustion chamber design and as such the valves are about 1/4" shorter than my 54 or later heads and I cant put the 54 heads on because the pistons hit the 54 combustion chambers, so I guess now that I am finished ranting what I need to know is where can I find replacement exhaust valves for a 53 322 Nailhead? Any help will be appreciated, I can even live with 4 good used valves that I can resurface so look around and see if you can help a brother out. Thanks
There are a lot of differences between nailheads. I pretty much found out most of the differences between early and late 401 and 425s though trial and many errors. Russ Martin is a nailhead expert and helped me with parts and knowledge. He's a great guy and has forgotten more about nailheads than I know. I'd be surprised if he didn't have the parts you needed or where to get them. Here's his contact details: Russell Martin CENTERVILLE AUTO REPAIR Grass Valley. 530-272-1564 [email protected] WWW.nailheadbuick.com www.centervilleautorepair.com <!-- / message -->
Known Russ for years, he lived in Fremont all his life until recently.That is was one Sick man when it comes to Nailheads..LOL..
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