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71 LeSabre, 2 door convertible


Guest Caribou

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Guest Caribou

Took the dash off, and now I know where mice go when they die.

Hopefully once I've got everything cleaned up and the "new" harness in I can actually get it all back together again. :)

Edited by Caribou (see edit history)
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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest Caribou
Caribou: How's the wiring harness installation coming along?

Oh it's coming along. It's mostly in, with just a few stray ends left to chase. It's a big job, and doubly so without proper instructions, so I'm trying to be patient.

Thanks for asking. I doubt I'd have got far at all on this car without community support.

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Guest Caribou
Glad to hear it's coming along. Is/has it been very difficult so far?

Mostly it's just been patience and determination, and I enjoy working with my hands. Taking small bites keeps me from getting frustrated.

This wiring harness though, it's testing my skill and resources. I'm going to get someone in that knows what they're doing and get some guidance on it, when I get in over my head I get pretty frustrated sometimes. I'm still confident that I'll figure it out, but my timeline keeps getting longer. :)

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Caribou

Well I got the under dash wiring harness installed. Tracing each individual wire forced me to learn a lot. The good news is that the new harness is a huge improvement over the last one, and things are starting to run like I'd expect them to.

The bad news is that the rest of the wiring is still crap, and the previous owner did a hack job replacing some of the compartment lights and all of the stereo wiring. On to that next.

The worse news is that the further I get on this, the more rust I find. I'm having doubts about how much money I want to invest in something with so much rust. It clearly sat with wet carpets, and pretty much anything with a carpet over it rusted. Gross. It might be that once this thing is done, I call it a learning experience and go buy something less rusty for the next project.

Still, all doubts aside, I'm learning a lot and getting a long way toward finishing this beast.

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Caribou

Alright it's high time for an update. Under-dash wiring harness is in place, which feels pretty good. I labelled every wire with a strip of masking tape and a sharpie, so if anything is wrong it'll be a quick fix later.

Meanwhile, I've begun to strip rust. I went through about four or five wire brushes and burned out a Makita drill. Jeeze, maybe I should do my grinding with a grinder, and save the drill for drilling. Anyway it feels pretty good to see gleaming steel coming out from beneath the rust, tar and debris. I've found a couple patches from previous owners inside the passenger compartment, one a weld job, and the other riveted aluminum sheeting. That'll probably all come out, I found some replacement floor pans, so I can always use those instead.

I just need to find the courage to actually cut out the old floor, god knows what the ribs and underside look like. For now, everything is starting to look like steel again, and it's a good feeling. This is taking a lot longer than I thought, so it's nice to see some real progress.

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Guest Caribou

On the plus side, we've had a few days in the 30-35 Celsius range (Over 90F) which makes it really easy to get glue, tar and rubber off of things!

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Guest Rob McDonald

CARIBOU, I'm glad someone around here had a good use for last week's heat. I really can't take it, especially with the forest fire smoke hanging around.

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Caribou, The heat is your helper and friend. Last summer in the short heat wave we had in Michigan (90+) for about two weeks, I lost 10 lbs...just sweating while working on the Buick..good luck on the scraping and de-rusting. I used an air grinder with multiple wire brushes to do the underside of my Buick..watch out for flying wires. Those things are nasty.

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Guest Caribou
Caribou, The heat is your helper and friend. Last summer in the short heat wave we had in Michigan (90+) for about two weeks, I lost 10 lbs...just sweating while working on the Buick..good luck on the scraping and de-rusting. I used an air grinder with multiple wire brushes to do the underside of my Buick..watch out for flying wires. Those things are nasty.

Goggles and a particulate filter help, but I've pulled a few of those sharp little buggers out of the armpits and backside of my coveralls. ;) I'm back at it tonight with a genuine angle grinder this time, then it's time to get out the kickstands, pick her up, and take a look at the rust on the underside.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest WEASEL

I don't know if you are currently looking for any parts but, I just listed a 71 Lesabre for parts in the "for sale" section. It is a 4 door but I know a lot of parts interchange. It has a very nice black dash. It is a barn find that I just pulled out of the garage where is has sat for the last 20 years. Let me know, I will sell parts cheap and ship to Canada as long as you pay shipping.

f9a2261e.jpg

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Guest WEASEL
Weasel, does that car have the stainless moldings along the lip of the trunk lid and quarter extensions? If so, I would like to buy them.

Let me look tonight and I will let you know if it has the trunk lip molding. When you say "quarter extensions" are you talking about the molding at the bottom of the rear quarter panel behind the rear wheel? Let me know.

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Guest Caribou
No, they are body color and are on the upper rear corners of the quarter panels...kind of like a cap on each side of the trunk lid.

Caribou, sorry for the thread hijack!

Ha, no problem. I'm not going to be using it much for a couple weeks here anyway. :) Girl's been diagnosed with cancer, dog has an injured paw, and the daily driver could stand some overhauling. (Holy crap, I sound like a country song.) I'm off for vacation and getting life back in order before I get back into the wire brushes and the part swaps. Still aiming to have this damn thing on the road by spring 2013 though!

Edited by Caribou (see edit history)
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  • 5 months later...
Guest Caribou

Just wanted to add a note to say that I'm still here, and that the damn car is still not on the road, but inching closer every day.

I had to take a break to deal with family health issues (ongoing) and to wire, insulate, drywall and heat my garage. Now that I've got a bench, some power, and a good work place, things should go a lot quicker. The things I'll do to procrastinate.

I hope to have an update soon to show the damn thing in closer to running shape. I've basically finished with dash, lights and wiring issues. Once that's done I can tune up the engine a bit. Checking the spark plugs, and I think they're carbon fouled, the ceramic tips were pretty black. That figures. Other than that it'll be a matter of cleaning up the upholestry and getting a cover on her.

Meanwhile, I put in for an official BCA number, and it's good to be getting back into this.

Edited by Caribou (see edit history)
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...I had to take a break to deal with family health issues (ongoing)... Meanwhile, I put in for an official BCA number, and it's good to be getting back into this.

Caribou, good to see you back. I just noticed your post in July. How is the girl doing? Hope she is on the mend...

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Guest Caribou
Caribou, good to see you back. I just noticed your post in July. How is the girl doing? Hope she is on the mend...

Much better actually. These things are always a bit rocky, but the worst is behind us. Thanks for asking.

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Guest Rob McDonald

GEOFF, we can both be very glad that we live within the catchment area of one of North America's best cancer hospitals, the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton. Leading-edge treatments are developed and practiced at the Cross and no one living here has to decide if they can afford this exceptional care.

Of course, I wish you luck but it's great to know that world-class technology is on your side, too.

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Guest Caribou
GEOFF, we can both be very glad that we live within the catchment area of one of North America's best cancer hospitals, the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton. Leading-edge treatments are developed and practiced at the Cross and no one living here has to decide if they can afford this exceptional care.

Of course, I wish you luck but it's great to know that world-class technology is on your side, too.

I can't tell you how grateful I've been for that. Sure, nothing is ever perfect and there's little things that could be better, but that's not even worth getting started on. The staff at the Cross have all been amazing, and we'd be totally lost without them. It's been a really humbling experience in a lot of ways. And yeah, without the healthcare system we'd be homeless and bankrupt, so there's that to be thankful for too; I certainly wouldn't be griping about wiring harnesses again already. It's been a terrible experience, yeah, but I've got a lot to be grateful for right now and that's worth remembering.

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  • 1 year later...
Guest Caribou

It only took me two years to sort out the wiring harness!

...

...

...

Okay well, really, I found all the bad grounds, and the lights all work. I'll take my victories.

Since then I polished up some new ralleye rims for the front, and learned to mig weld so that I could patch the floor up, and rebuild the side posts and some small patches on the body. My welds aren't great, and it took me a lot more work to find weld points in the body... bondo bondo bondo... there's a lesson in there somewhere.

This poor car is a learning experience for me, and it's going to be a "driver" when I'm done. My fixes aren't all approved, and I wish they could be better... but they'll work, and they'll see this car on the road soon now. I have a really hard time deciding not to do everything perfectly, it goes against the way I want to work, but the deeper I look the more money the car wants, and I just want her running.

Maybe this summer I'll be on the road. From here I need to toss in a carpet, bolt the seats back down, rebuild the dash and the stereo system.... and then with some minor engine tuning I might be done. (Avoiding unforseen circumstances)

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Guest Rob McDonald

GEOFF the CARIBOU, welcome back to these Buick forums. I'm with you on re-setting one's restoration targets. I've decided what I'm building is a replica of a five-year old used car, not a brand-new '57 Buick. Some storage dings and the inevitable deterioration of finishes that I applied more than 20 years ago are making my car "nice for its age", instead of "good as new". I'm also with you on making drivability my first goal. Hopefully, our two Buicks will share the Alberta roads this summer and maybe we'll get to meet somewhere.

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Guest Caribou
Thanks for the update! Have you finished the outer sheet metal work? Hopefully, you learned to weld on the floor pans, and then graduated to the body shell ;) That's what I did on my Limited when I learned...on the fly!

Once I realized how extensive the bondo work was I decided to limit the scope of my exterior shell work. I'm patching some of the more "structural" bits like posts, but I'm trying to stay away from anything too visible. I'd love to go further with that work, but it'll take time and money I don't have right now, and can largely be done at a later date if I find the resources I need.

But yeah, I did the floor pans before I did anything visible. And thank god, it turns out I'm not a very good welder yet. ;)

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Guest Caribou
welcome back Geoff. Glad you are progressing. Are you going to try for Portland this summer?

Well, I'd like to, but that sounds awfully optimistic. We'll see how it goes.

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