Great RTV,thanks for responding. Is your car a GS 455 or GS Stage 1? Does your car have manual drum brakes?
I still contend the assembly manual is pretty clear. No power brakes no dipstick tube. It is the big cars in 70 that are the gray area there. Observations tell me that big cars for the most part did not get the tubes. The 71 manual cleared this up by adding "A" series. I know but never say never.
It is entirely possible that a mid-model year change was made. Buick was obviously in a continuous improvement mode with these cars as illustrated by the many other changes/improvements made, some of which you mention. It would also be interesting to see if/how the assembly manuals evolved during the model year to reflect these changes. Personally, having never owned a manual brake GS 455, I can not say with certainty if or when such a change may have occurred. And as I said before, I can't speak in terms of absolutes.
Jim, I know what you mean on the changes in the manuals . I have two versions of the 71 manual and I know there are at least three. I have only one for 70 but no doubt there should be more. The example listed above is March 9 70 so they were still using the no tube type then and we know they started using the tube type on all 71 "A" bodies so what happens between then is anyone's guess. We would need some real late cars to confirm.
Another monkey wrench is the individual assembly lines and plants. We know the engines came from the engine plants with just a plug as there is a note in the manual to remove and disgard plug. It was then up to a human being to install the correct assembly and we all know how that goes. "Hey Fred, did you watch the Lions game yesterday?" Oh crap what dipstick did I just put in that Stage 1? Oh well. Next"
Thanks RTV. So it seems manual brake Big Block GS cars in 1970 received regular big car oil dipstick. Hope some more will chime in if they have a 70 BB GS car with manual brakes.
Rich, I think we are on to something here with the manual brake cars dipsticks. The cars without power brakes have more room to remove the dipstick from the block and don't need a tube, you can pull it straight out without hitting the master cylinder. The cars that have power brakes wouldn't have a lot of room for that dipstick. They would need a tube that turns vertically to help clear the master cylinder much better with power brakes. Thanks Ron
OK Guys, There seems to be some confusion about this, so here is the skinny according to the assembly manuals For A-BODIES with either 400 or 455 Only. 1969 All GS and Sport wagons got the tube, and it had a serious curve towards the front of the motor. This is good thru at least 2/19/69. 1970 Only GS with Power brakes got the tube and the tube is much straighter. I have 2 versions of the 70 assembly manuals but can't read the rev date on the late copy, therefore this is good thru at least 12/8/69. 1971 Again only GS with Power brakes got the tube and the tube was much straighter like the 70. Again I have 2 different assembly manuals and this is at least good thru 8/25/70. (I will also say this, my latest version has revisions until at least 7/7/71, so this info most likely is valid thru the entire 71 model year.) 1972 They started out like the 70 & 71 models with the tube vs non-tube, but do not call out power vs non-power brakes. This would be good thru 3/17/71, which makes sense as that was still in the 71 production year, but............................... later ALL GS got the tubes. There doesn't seem to be any differentiation between power vs non-power brakes, and this started on 7/12/71 thru at least 8/27/71. (That particular 72 assembly manual also has revisions that go all the way to the end of the model year, and came from a Buick Engineer that was supposedly very meticulous with removing old pages and adding the newest revision sheets.) So there you go. Now this is the way we have judged the 69-72 cars, and I imagine will continue doing it this way in the future. I personally would not take into consideration the fact that other production plants "might not have received the memo". (Unless proof of that can be found in the future.) We have to judge the cars the way they were supposed to be built. If you want to put your 70-71 car in a Judged event and it has power brakes with no dip stick tube, then you better be ready to prove it was correct or get ready to get points deducted..............and your "proof" had better be real good. I am not about to bandy back and forth about this small point, that's the way it has to be. We give so many allowances in other areas that this should not be an issue, but if it is, then that would be your problem not mine. .........just like you can't put 15" red lines on your 1970 A-body car............they were simply not available and that's the way it was, regardless of what your name is. Hope this helps. Duane PS. Someone owes me a beer for all the time I spent researching this. PSS. Never use a "parts book" to reference how vehicles were built. Parts books list the parts that were available in the "repair inventory" at the time the books were printed. That is what they were designed to do, nothing more. If you look in some of those books, even up to possibly the 73 book, they were still listing a 68 Convertible frame number as a replacement part. That simply means they still had 68 frames left in inventory when the books were printed. I guess they didn't sell many. Now we all know it would fit, but it certainly would not be/look correct for a 69-72 car, and would need to be altered to fit the newer style brake/fuel line clips. There are many other examples of this. That's 2 beers now.:laugh:
There is another thing to think about with assembly manuals, you will get some "overlap" with the drawings. Say they are in the middle of the 69 model year; The engineers would have been still working on revisions for the 69 model year, while at the same time they were putting together the assembly manual for the 70 model year. Often there is no "overlap", as in they continued to use the same drawing for both model years, and simply continued editing it, but sometimes they would opt to "re-draw" that page and start from fresh. When this happens, and you especially see this toward the end of production years, you might get 2 different versions of the same page going at the same time. You might wonder which design is correct, but the answer is easy. Just because a page was developed on a certain date, does not mean it was implemented on that date. Take the above mentioned early 70 brake "dip stick" page. It was developed during the 69 model year, but would not have been implemented until the start of the 70 model year. This alleviates any misconceptions about what was going on at the end of the 69 model year. (You need to look at the 69 book to see that.) Just a little history here. We, as in the Buick world, have been blessed with a wonderful gift. Years ago an entire group of Buick A-body" assembly manuals were sold on e-bay by one of the auto literature guys. This set, which I believe went from at least 67 thru 72, was from a Buick Engineer's private collection. He worked out of Flint and was very meticulous with making sure to remove each page as it was revised and replace it with the new one. (I think my 66 book is also from him, but have not checked.) This means we have the last revision of every page in each book. By looking at the revision dates on the pages we can literally go "back in time" to any production date and see how any particular car was built. When these books hit e-bay they got split up between a bunch of guys (I ended up with the 69 book), but through a lot of "begging"ray: I got a copy of each one. I have quite a few different versions of these books early & late for 68, 70, & 71, and at least 3 different ones for 72. These give us "snapshots in time" and allow us to see how the cars changed thru the model years. Someday I plan on selling my entire collection. On that day the next guy can start answering all the questions.:laugh: Duane
People have no idea of the amount of research that has been done to Judge their cars correctly. I mean if they are willing to spend years on a resto, plus thousands of dollars, the least we can do is to do our job to the best of our abilities. Even though it is a non-paying job, and the only thing we often hear is grief from some owner, it is still very satisfying. Somebody has to do it, and if anyone out there thinks they would like to learn we could surely welcome the help. Pretty soon some of us will be stepping down, and it will be up to younger people to judge. The nice thing is from having years of resto clinics, we have educated many in the clubs. This alone makes it much easier to "draft" knowledgeable people to help us judge if needed. Duane
great info thanks guys. my issue is i have a 71 gs455 built in 05b it has a tube but when i do a oil change with the right amount of oil it dosent show the level on the dip stick. so my question is how wide is the dipstick and how long should it be. Seems its also tight pulling and pushing the dip in/out. thanks guys daune i would love to buy you a beer canadian stye johnny 71 gs455 69 gs400
Johnny, is there a part number on the dipstick? That will solve your riddle at least half of it. There is a very specific part number that should be stamped on the upper part of the blade. The tube is a different story. No part number is on it. It needs visual Id. Post a picture of it and we can see if it looks close. A 72 and up set up is slightly different as dipsticks and tube different #. Even with that set up it should show oil. Maybe someone used too short stick from who knows what? Also is your oil pan stock? That can change everything.
yes sir thats the number. thanks guys. Took the tube off and straighten it out now seems to be good. Also the tube just sits on the block so its hard to find the hole to slide the dip stick in. is this common? my tube lenght is 9,5 inches is that right also? my 69 gs400 # is 1384609 on the dip stick built 01B oshawa ontario thanks again johnny
Johnny, something sounds wrong. 9 inches sounds too long. The tube should be curved and the bottom of the tube should slide into the hole in the block so it is secure then the screw that is in the heat pipe holders the tab down
