Dear mid-60s Buick caregiver community,
Don't you hate it when a friend makes a casual comment that ends up ruining your
whole day (and more!)
A friend of mine who has a 1964 Skylark recently bought a nice looking reproduction gas cap. As part of his searches he discovered that there were gas cap listings for 1965 wagons that were different from the other A-bodies. He wondered if the wagon caps might have been vented while the others weren't.
Grumble, grumble, grumble, . . . . Okay I have a digitized copy of the 1972 Buick parts catalog, so I checked. Here is what I found.
GASP!!!! This is extremely bad news because here is the cap that has been on my trusty wagon going back perhaps as much as 48 years:
Nope, definitely no vent in that cap! I ran over to Orinda Motors to talk to their classic car genius Greg. He too was definitely a bit shaken. How on earth my trusty wagon survived without a vented gas cap ? ? ? ? This car has been in blistering hot deserts and extremely cold mountains. Oh well, I've always thought this car had guardian angel or something!
However, it is time to make things right at last. The trouble is that not too surprisingly vented Buick A-body gas tanks are bit rare. I had some success finding caps that might be for Rivera's and Buick full-sized cars, but they two protrusions that won't fit Biquette's gas filling bay. I accidentally bought one of these caps and they don't fit:
You can see why when you look at the gas filler bay:
There just isn't the space to rotate the cap with those protrusions.
I did a search for Buick gas cap that matches the original Buick part number of: 383155. The only hit I got was this NOS cap and it is claimed to fit via interchange numbers:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-GM-1966-1967-1968-FIREBIRD-GTO-GAS-CAP-ANTI-SURGE-VENTED-CHEVELLE-TEMPEST-SS-/302149873339?vxp=mtrI sure hate to spend $50 for a gas cap but I'll pay it if that's all I can be sure would fit. There are vented caps from earlier Buicks that nonetheless don't have these protrusions. Does anybody know by chance what the Buick 583604 gas cap is supposed to look like? According to CARS, the 1961-64 caps do have those protrusions:
http://www.oldbuickparts.com/cart/gas-cap-1961-64-vented-p-4189.htmlIn that case, some of these generics like this eBay item appear that they would fit:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/57-58-59-60-61-62-63-CHEVY-BUICK-CADILLAC-OLDS-PONTIAC-CHRYSLER-DODGE-GAS-CAP/162301825778?_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D38530%26meid%3Da25042c38d9642ed864b248068fdd14b%26pid%3D100011%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D162263696370Here is another vented cap on eBay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMC-Buick-Cadillac-Chevy-Chrysler-DeSoto-G46-Amgauge-Gas-Cap-/281832877502?hash=item419e8c6dbe:g:yq0AAOSwBahVKSsu&vxp=mtrWhat do you folks think? Are any of these reproductions actually going to fit or should I cut my loses and buy the NOS cap which I'm sure will fit?
Any wisdom on this matter would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers, Edouard