58 Limited takes first meaningful trip in many years!

After buying this car in the fall from the original family, it spent most of the time in storage while I cleared out my old garage and built a new one this spring. It is an unresored original and it drove when I got it, but had not been driven any real distance or at regular intervals for many years.

I finally got it moved into its new home recently, and was able to install new exhaust and brake lines, drain and replace trans fluid and replace pan gasket (fluid and pan looked terrible!), install the rebuilt radio, install new hood insulation, and 3 newly chromed pieces in the back (that had rusted through slightly). The rest of the chrome and the paint are original.

I still have a lot of things planned to do to it, but it will take awhile to get them completed and get everything working properly. For now though, at least it looks pretty nice and drives fairly well!

I was working hard to get it serviceable enough to use in a professional photo shoot for a couple friends that are getting married. Here is a non-professional picture taken by my phone of the shoot taking place...

Lance,

I'M SOOOOO JEALOUS !!!!

More Pictures! More pictures of your GREAT CAR! I LOVE A BLACK CAR!

I hope to be there with you some day soon.

Awesome! are you planning on going to South Bend?

Awesome! are you planning on going to South Bend?

I do plan to bring the 58 to South Bend, and have registered it for the Archival judging. Is that the class you registered in? I see you just mailed the check. I would love to have these original beauties side by side! Of course I'd love to see ALL the 58's side by side, but that is another topic...

I do plan to bring the 58 to South Bend, and have registered it for the Archival judging. Is that the class you registered in? I see you just mailed the check. I would love to have these original beauties side by side! Of course I'd love to see ALL the 58's side by side, but that is another topic...

Well, speak with each of the '58 owners, pick a time and place and just do it. Will not hairlip the county!! Evan if just for a few hours on Fri.

Ben

Well, speak with each of the '58 owners, pick a time and place and just do it. Will not hairlip the county!! Evan if just for a few hours on Fri.

Ben

Sounds like a fine idea...anyone have a "58 Buick Parking Only" sign?

Originally Posted by lancemb   I  do plan to bring the 58 to South Bend, and have registered it for the  Archival judging.  Is that the class you registered in?  I see you just  mailed the check.  I would love to have these original beauties side by  side!  Of course I'd love to see ALL the 58's side by side, but that is  another topic...

Actually, The Centenial Meet in Flint, being a non Judged Show, was held like that.

The photo below is what was parked on the Thursday. Someone captured this shot and posted it with many other years on the past Buick Nationals. That's me & my youngest son standing there. On Saturday there had to be another 12 more fill in the space.

It WAS A THRILL to have my red Special parked among those magnificent 58's!

I will be in the 400 point lot. My car is not as original as I once thought it was...plus, I've completely redone the engine compartment. It is still a very nice example of a fairly unmolested car.

My '58 will be in the Archival lot if all goes right. It's a shame we can't park them all together on Saturday.

I will be in the 400 point lot

Now that's a pretty bold statement! I assume what you mean is that your car will be judged among other cars that are competing within the 400 point framework. That would be in contrast with whatever judging tally is used to rank unrestored survivor cars. I've never paid much attention to judging at the handful of "big time" car I've attended but I might offer to serve as a judge-trainee at Portland in 2014. There, that's another commitment for me to get my danged Buick roadworthy before next summer.

So today I had the whole afternoon freed up to try and get the steering coupling replaced finally, as I do not want to drive to SB with wonkey steering. So, the first thing I went to do was back the car out and pull it back in farther to the right on the rack, in order to better be able to access the parts.

What grand surprise indeed was waiting for me! After several attempts at long cranking and pumping the gas pedal, it was clear it wasn't starting. Heck, wasn't even trying to.

Now bear in mind that among the long list of items that I have for this car was a full ignition system tune up, and rebuilding and installing an original style fuel pump and new filter. However, I realized that I would not be able to get evrything done before South Bend since I have limited time (no pun intended) to work on it. Therefore I had to prioritize, and since it seemed to be running pretty well (heck I drove it 100+ miles to get to that photo shoot a couple weeks ago) I thought the tune up could wait, and I would drive to South Bend with a trunk full of parts just in case.

So anyway, I popped the hood and just stared for a few moments. Before long I noticed a wispy smoke coming from near the cowl; at first I thought I was imagining things but I looked closeer and it was there! I could not tell where it was coming from though, so I started touching things (I have a very primitive troubleshooting approach sometimes). Warmer, warmer, and AHA! The coil resistor was lighting up like a toaster! I went around and quickly shut of the ignition. After realizing that this was a pretty simple circuit, I theorized that the ignition coil had shorted . I could not remember what the correct resistance was supposed to read to do a sense check that way so I just jumped in the car and went and bought one. I figured, even if this does not solve it I may as well eliminate one more point of failure since I so not know the history of any of these components, and this coil looked pretty old.

So, I got back with the coil, installed it was gave it a try. Ta-da! It worked! Hmmm...well at this point I had already wasted a couple hours almost and was not sure I would be able to finish the steering coupling before my date that evening. I also now had a swelling desire to go through the rest of the ignition system and perhaps tackle the fuel pump. However, this would almost certainly mean I would have to forego something else from my list of necessities, or outsource something. Thinking back to my Economics 101 course, I deduced that of things remaining that I want to complete on this car before South Bend, that which somebody else besides myself could do more quickly at a reasonable cost would be the steering coupling. The other stuff, much of which is more specialized to this particular car, would be better done by me.

So, I decided I would go forth with the tune-up and find somebody next week to do the steering coupling. There is a place only about a mile away that buys, sells, and works on classice Corvettes and also will work on other vintage cars (the place right across the street doesn't even want to touch them) so I think that will be my first consideration. So, since I already had a box of parts just waiting, I dove in. The first thing I decided to tackle was the fuel pump. I had purchased an old remanufactured pump of the original style, and a rebuild kit to rebuild it with components using modern materials. Following the service manual and having a bit of luck on my side, I finished the rebuild pretty quicly and installed the new pump. Next, I removed the fuel bowl and the old filter (holy smokes this thing was old and partially disintegrated) and replaced it with a new paper type, and reinstalled it. I thought I'd start it up now before I approaced the ignition system any further to see how much difference it made - and was pleasantly surprised! Wow, that new pump with clean filter filled that empty bowl and fuel lines in a flash and fired right up. I could tell right away that the fuel pressure was greatly improved.

Next, I removed the distributor cap and rotor and found them both to be pretty burned up, and VERY old looking original DELCO, judging by the style of the insignia. Next, I replaced the points with an electronic ignition set up (yes I know some hate these, but I have had too many bad experiences with points, and this is the ONLY modernization I am making to the car and a pretty unobtrusive one at that). I installed the new rotor and cap, and decided to check out the plugs to see if they needed changing. I was happy to see AC plugs, which by a sampling appeared to be in excellent condition! So, all that was left was replacing the ignition wires, which was quick and painless.

So, in the end, I didn't get done what I set out to do, but I got a lot done that needed to be done, and will feel a lot better about driving the car now! Tomorrow I should have just enough time to finish fixing up the new exhaust (except for muffler brackets, which are coming next week) per another thread I started.

Getting closer...South Bend here I come!

Cool...which electronic ignition did you install?

Wow! A shorted out coil you say? Interesting.

Back in the day when I was running my Special in High School, tried to start her and suddenly it just quit during cranking, nothing. By the time I went under the hood there was plenty of smoke everywhere and in panic mode never thought to take off the battery cable. Banged on a door to ask someone to PLEASE call the fire department and I heard the car trying to start on its own! Something had indeed shorted and the whole under the hood harness was toast! Maybe that coil?

Fortunately, there were no gas leaks and the car never burned but.... that was my everyday wheels and I was out of commision for about two weeks getting a new wiring harness both under the hood and dash. Back then (early 70's) there were still Auto Wrecking yards around here with 58 Buick's still in them. The shop got one harness from one yard and the other from somewhere else, took them apart to check condition, cleaned all the connection points, re-taped them and it is still in the car today.

Guess I should be buying a spare coil just in case? (and a wrench for that battery cable)

Looking forward to seeing your Limited and you in South Bend.

It is normal for the resistor to get hot with the ignition on and if the points happen to be closed, but maybe not that hot. Anyhow it is a good thing you replaced the points with 'something' since they were probably burned real bad from the shorted coil.

Willie

Cool...which electronic ignition did you install?

Pertronix with lobe sensor...have it in my 57 too

It is normal for the resistor to get hot with the ignition on and if the points happen to be closed, but maybe not that hot. Anyhow it is a good thing you replaced the points with 'something' since they were probably burned real bad from the shorted coil.

Willie

Yeah, I checked after I installed the coil and the resistor was warm, but never got smokin' hot. It is funny how things like this happen so suddenly...I am just glad it happened in my garage!

Wow! A shorted out coil you say? Interesting. ...

Guess I should be buying a spare coil just in case? (and a wrench for that battery cable)

If you have an old coil, I'd definitely carry a spare in your "emergency kit". This is the second time a coil has crapped out like this without notice, and both times on cars that had recently come off a hibernation, and luckily both times in my garage! But, it could happen anywhere!