Project Nailhead Log

DEERSLAYER LINKS including vendor sites for parts and tools as well as sites for old truck and hot rod organizations

TINKERING WITH DEERSLAYER chronicles the day-by-day maintenance and improvements episodes for Deerslayer, a '37 Chevy farm truck hot rod.

CRUISIN' WITH DEERSLAYER Roadtrips, cruise-in's and truck show stories and tall tales.

TONY'S DUNGEON Tony Pascarella's forum entries at OldGMCtrucks.com regarding Deerslayer, particularly the 302 GMC engine build in his farmhouse basement.

DEERSLAYER MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for Deerslayer, including required tools, materials and procedures.

PROJECT NAILHEAD Chronicles the rebuild of a 1954 Buick Roadmaster 322 nailhead engine as a future replacement for Deerslayer's Jimmy 302.

1. Research

January 6^th 2012  Because it has to be done and it doesn't cost much.

Web Resources

One of the first interesting articles I came across was from the August 1954 issue of Hot Rod Magazine. "Big bore and short stroke are just made for a supercharger" was found on the "Buicks.net" website. The nailhead was in it's second year of production at the time and besides describing one of the first blower motor builds, it gives numerous specs, pros and cons of hotrodding the engine and describes engineering improvements to eliminate detonation problems experienced with the '53 nailhead.

January 20^th 2012  A regular visitor to the BillyBob site, David Edwards, emailed a link to webbrodder about nailheads. I've been to webrodder in the past but hadn't thought about checking out their nailhead articles. They've got several pages of them and I'm still reading thru the wealth of info there. Many thanx, David.

February 3^rd 2012  Found an article, "Nailing Down The Buick Nailhead", at Engine Builder that I'd seen sometime in the past and lost track off. Glad I found it again. It has a lot of info regarding the differences between the various nailheads.

February 7^th 2012  Started to visit v8Buick.com on a daily basis. With over 29,000 forum members, there is lots of good info to be gained there. It has a subforum devoted to nailhead engines and I spend most of my time at the site there.

February 10^th 2012  Came across a history article, Automotive History: The Legendary Buick Nailhead V8 And The Source Of Its Unusual Valve Arrangement, by Paul Niedermeyer at CurbsideClassic.com.

July 20^th 2012  In the past few months, I have picked up a couple of books from Amazon to help me with the nailhead and have been scanning the first few chapters of each.

You can email me at  webmaster@laroke.com

Issued Monday January 16, 2012

Updated Friday June 29, 2018

copyright © 2012-2018 Larry Robert Kephart all rights reserved