engine.

At the end of May, we figured Betty had enough time to catch her breath, so Tim and Steve headed over to Jim's house to get elbow deep in 30 year old grease, grime and anything else that was stuck on that car. I wasn't there to witness this monumental event, but I sent Tim with camera in tow and strict orders to take pictures. -SB





Well, there it is, the grand poobah of them all. I'm not sure what the STR8 and the dynaflow weigh together. It's alot. Splitting the motor and tranny was a pain. Old school torque converters are two-piece, so essentially the front plate of the converter comes off, and until you get it off, they stay together. Inside was brown nasty tranny fluid that interestingly enough has no smell. Pretty much all trans fluid these days stinks even when right out of the bottle. Not this stuff. My bet is it's Dextron I....that's old stuff. The motor went on an engine stand to await rebuilding after the body, brakes, and suspension are done. We had to support the whole front of the engine with a wooden brace just to keep it from ripping the engine stand in half.

The 248 STR8 in stock form is a real dog. 115 HP and about 200LBS of torque, you make everything off of low-end grunt considering the red-line is around 4000 RPM. There were 3 STR8's that Buick made, the 248, 263, and 325. The 263 is the ideal motor, and it's still a mystery why Buick suddenly dropped the STR8 and especially the 263 in 1952 for the new Nailhead motor. Not that nailheads aren't cool as all hell, but still... Stock compression on the 248 is a measly 6.0:1. My intentions are to wait on the engine build until after the body, paint, suspension, and brakes are done. Through different pistons from Egge Machine, and shaving the daylights out of the head and/or block, my hopes are to get the compression into the 8.5:1 to 9.0:1 range. I'm going to probably stick with stock cam since there is nothing out there other than sending your cam out to re-grind. I'll be fabbing up an aluminum intake and a "3-5" header for the exhaust, which essentially makes dual exhaust using one header with 3 exhaust runners, and the other with 5. Why the hell you ask? Because it sounds freakin awesome. At least, that's what everyone tells me. Until then, the engine will wait. -TH

...on the up and up, moving along...

It wasn't until May that the weather here in lovely Holland, Michigan warmed up enough for us to even think about venturing outside. So, once the mercury rose above the freezing point, we called our buddy Jim and asked to borrow his brute strength... and his car hauler... and his pole barn... and... -SB





Some how, some way, Steve also got talked into helping, and since there were now three strong men on the moving force, I could pretty much sit back and watch document. Moving went much quicker this time thanks to the warmer weather and extra hands, and Betty got to rest a bit in the sun. -SB

I'd like to add here that Steve and Jim are two of the awesomist (is that a word?) guys you'll meet. Jim gave up half his pole-barn for Betty, but I'm sure I'll pay him back with work when I can. -TH

And so it begins...

reBuilding Betty on a Budget

At the end of December 2007, I mentioned to Tim that he should take a look at the "old car" for sale on Portage, because it was..well, old. And kinda cool. Little did I know that a few weeks later we would buy this "pretty" little beat up 1950 Buick Eight from a guy named Jim who probably laughed his way to the bank as we white-knuckled our way home with her in tow. -SB

After an hour of chipping away snow and ice, we loaded her onto a borrowed car-hauler, and hauled Betty some 80-odd miles home in freezing cold winter white-out conditions. A couple of hours and more than a few white-knuckle moments later we were home.

The unload was simple enough, we just pushed her off the car hauler, praying she wouldn't have enough momentum to power through the back of the garage and end up in our master bedroom. Happily, there were no major catastrophes to report, although I did slip on the ice and bust ass off the car hauler, then ripped my jacket sleeve. But, she made it home safe and sound, and there we let her nap until the weather broke. -SB

So yeah.... I've always wanted to build an old Hot Rod, Rat Rod, whatever you want to call it. I guess the word Rat Rod is too cliche now, so whatever you want to go by. I prefer Rolling Coffin. At first I had visions of going all out on this car, fabbing in an old 401 nailhead, or simply swapping the body over onto a 71-73 Riviera and having a 455 with a TH400 to boot, but as my research went on and on, I came to the realization that I just wanted the thing to run.

The plate on the car was last registered in 1976...so she had been sitting awhile. A long while. But, we'll take it one step at a time. In this re-build you won't find any fancy concours paint jobs. You won't find any perfectionist body work, no $2,000.00 big brake systems, and no 502 crate motor. Oh, and certainly no sissy cliche-put-in-everything small block Chevy. My plans are to rebuild the tugboat 248 straight 8 (that's STR8 for the old-school Buick crowd) and do some serious, cheap-fab-o-on-the-dime-scavenge and built everything hot-rodding. For now though, Betty would hibernate in the winter. -TH

....Five months later, the weather would finally break enough for us to wake the sleeping beauty and move her to her new, albeit temporary, home at another Jim's house, next to his pole barn. -SB