Greg Wane
THE worst component of the 1923 Buick Roadster is the brakes, according to Roy Cook.
“They’re only rear wheel drum brakes that are external-grabbing. It circles the drum and just squeezes mechanically,” the St Leonards’ resident explained.
“But you’re not doing any real speed. Top speed is around 30mp/h [60 km/h] and after that it wobbles and shakes a bit – they can be very tiring to drive.
“The car’s got three forward and one reverse gear. The gears are so low I can go through first, second and third very quick.
“If I go through the gears quickly it feels like synchromesh but if I let it rev out I’ll have to try matching the revs and double clutch to try getting it into gear.”
Roy said he used unleaded fuel in the old car but occasionally put in an additive product.
“The car has to be lubricated each time before it can be driven,” he said.
“There are a couple of holes at the top of the rocker cover and I have to slide across a chute and it reveals a hole in the top of the rocker shaft. I introduce oil from the oil can onto a piece of soft felt that runs down the inside of the rocker shaft and that lets all the oil weep out onto the rockers.
“It runs well as long as you keep plenty of oil in it. The excess oil just runs down the side of the motor and onto the ground but it doesn’t leak too much at all.”
The motor is a three-litre, four-cylinder overhead valve.
Roy said the car had quite a substantial gearbox, with a big floor shift.
“The car has a multi-disc clutch with all these flat discs in it. They separate as the clutch is depressed.
“When I first got the car going the clutch discs all stuck together and I couldn’t get them to separate.
“I contacted the secretary of the Buick car club and he told me to spray them with kerosene.
“I thought ‘Kero on clutches is not the usual thing’ but it worked well and they separate every time.
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Roy was inspired by the many beautifully restored old cars that passed his front door in Bendigo on their way to the city’s famous swap meet. This fueled his ambition to restore and drive an old car of his own.
Roy bought the old Buick in Bendigo as a pile of bits and pieces about 25 years ago.
“I decided to buy the car because it was a Buick – I thought it would be better value than a Chev,” he said.
“I was living in Bendigo at the time and I bought it from this bloke who had found it rusting in a paddock near St Arnaud.
“This bloke had every intention of restoring it but all he did was pull it all to pieces and realised it was too hard, so he advertised it for sale.
“I had a big shed in the backyard in Bendigo and I bought all the bits home in four trailer loads.
“He should have left it the way he found it in the paddock – at least that way it would have made it easier for me to restore.”
Fortunately, among the bits and pieces of the old Buick was a manual and a parts book. This helped Roy, who was a fitter and turner at the time, start the restoration.
“But it still took me 15 years to restore it working on it at weekends and at night after work,” he admitted.
“It was also about finding the time and the money.
“I did about 60 per cent of the restoration and got a bodywork specialist in Chewton near Bendigo to do the body repairs. No one in Bendigo wanted to touch the panels – they preferred to do just modern stuff.”
“I did all the mechanical work and the chassis restoration. It’s got a big, conventional chassis that goes right through from front to back.”
The body frame was all softwood timber but Roy was advised to restore all the woodwork using hardwood.
“I had to copy the framing for the doors. The doors had meranti softwood in them but it was recommended that I should use hardwood throughout.
“This proved to be a major job just trying to get the angles right. The old cars were all built from a timber frame.
“They were true craftsmen the old coachbuilders in those days. The biggest job was trying to get the angles right before I put the skin over them.”
Roy soon discovered it was more difficult than it appeared.
“When you are trying to do a door and it slopes and curves all different ways and angles, it’s very hard.
“A lot of the woodwork was done for me by a bloke with a band saw. He cut it approximately but the timber work still took me hours and hours to finish to get it right.”
To make the restoration even more complex, the two-seater Buick had been cut down the back and converted into a utility at some stage in its life.
“I had a pile of original timber shapes but I didn’t have the original back on it so we had to rebuild it from pictures and spec sheets,” Roy remembered.
the mudguards and the hardwood timber running boards were rebuilt and new rubber added, while vents were cut in new panels.
The Buick is a roadster version – a two-seater with a boot. The boot lid opens towards the front but in later models it was swapped so it opened to the rear and offered as an optional “dickie” seat.
When Roy moved to St Leonards a few years ago he drove the car all the way from Bendigo.
“The wife followed me all the way in her car at 60km/h and, although they’re not meant to be a long-distance car, the Buick made the trip well.”
Roy is still a member of Buick Car Club of Australia.
