Saw this at Ace Hardware this morning

MFDAC

Tractorologist
Member
A former co-worker used to own this '62 Buick. It had a bad smoking 215 all aluminum nailhead V-8, and the drivers door was bashed in badly. He found another freshly overhauled 215 and put in it and did a great job straightening out that door. He did all that while we were still working. Last summer he sold it and evidently the new owner works at Ace. The current owner put the stickers on it.
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DAC
 
Apparently those little V8's were more popular than one thinks.
Not many aluminum blocks back then . Not sure if they used aluminum heads too..?
Something must have killed them..
 
Interesting history on those 215's.
Were only made 3? years as they had problems with aluminum engine block castings. Didn't hold up well.
Buick, Pontiac and Olds all used a version of that engine with Olds using a different head designs.
Also from what I'm reading it wasn't a true " nailhead" in the sense of what the 364 ,401 and 425's were.
 
Yeah there were 3 different versions of that little V-8 like Bill said. The Buick ones had the head design with the horizontal mount valve covers that made them look like nail heads if they were not actual ones.

The guy that used to own that Buick also has an Olds version he built for display. It is a running engine but he gets into building unusual engines and showing them.
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The engine wasn't finished yet when he took this pic. That is a turbocharger on it.

Another engine of interest he built recently is this Model A 4 cylinder with a period correct aftermarket supercharger. It is now complete too.
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He had both of them in a local car show this weekend. The Model A engine will be put in a hot rod sometime in the future.

DAC
 
They are really cool motors DAC..
Sometimes you don't get to appreciate and look at them when they're stuffed in a car..
Jerry, the guy who did these engines and owned that Buick, does a great job restoring engines and showing folks what they look like before they go into some ride. Sometimes hot rods, sometimes original. His dad was a hot rodder so he got a head start on figuring this stuff out! I learned to appreciate the looks of just the engine by itself seeing my boss run them on a dyno clear back in 1973. One of my jobs was hot tanking iron and steel parts and cold tanking aluminum parts, then washing them after they came out. Every piece of metal had a certain beauty! Took a lot of years before I figured out others besides a small block and big block chevy looked like! Still learning thanks to old school guys like Jerry who is 10 years younger than me!

Remember when you could lift the hood, check the engine and see the ground beneath on either side? I can, most of you can, but the kids today will never have that pleasure.
I still have 2 trucks like that Lorna, both still run great but I have to come up with the money for tires for one of them to drive it more---LOL!

DAC
 
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