My first 1963 Buick Riviera

Hi,
my name is Frank and since a few month I own a 1963 Buick Riviera.
The car was imported from California in 2007 to the Netherlands an rest there until I purchased it end of 2013.
Since then I'm working on the car to get it thru the technical inspection in Germany for licensing it to puplic traffic.
Requirements are high here and first inspection was not succsessfully.
The Car looked great, but it is obviously harassed by underbody corrosion. It seams, that it was not driven in sun dry California it's whole life.

So I need to do a bit of work to make it safe to drive and to make the body fit for the next inspection.
This car looks so beautiful and always is a head turner with great attention on the German Roads.

Best Regards,
Frank

Very NICE!

What are some of the issues you need to address B4 the inspection?

Love YOUR car,

Dale in Indy

Very NICE!

What are some of the issues you need to address B4 the inspection?

Love YOUR car,

Hi Dale,

some requirements are:

- there must be no body corrosion

- speedometer need to have a full km/h scale

- head lights to be exchanged to meet ECE regulations

- warning flash lights need to be installed

- tires to be exchanged to meet european standards

- in my case steering linkage is worn out, no clearance allowed

- a pair of red reflectors according to ECE standard need to be added close to the tail lights

- light indicator for head light switched on need to be installed to the dash

- .....

Except of fixing the corrosion damages, it is not a big deal.

Unfortunately there are no floor pan braces offered for the Riviera. Need to replace braces in front and rear each side.

I did not expect this when bying the car it looked in a pretty good shape, but all the holes in the body where covered by roofing felt and bitumen.

Regards,

Frank

Frank, willkommen im forum. Did I get that correct?

Nice car. I ran into the same thing with a car I bought from Arizona. Arizona is supposed to be dry with rust free cars. Ha! My car must have spent quite some time in Minnesota before going to Arizona. But, I finally have a solid body that will out last me. It's just about ready for paint now.

If you scroll down the last of the Buick forums, you'll find a separate forum dedicated to Riviera Owners. Many of the contributors are also member of the Riviera Owner's Assn. Last year at out meet in Colorado Springs, Colorado we had a number of our European members in attendance. Check out the website dedicated to the Buick Riviera. There's a link in my signature line.

Ed

Frank,

Here are some links to information and pictures on how another Riviera owner made repairs to the same rusted areas of the trunk that your car has.

http://forums.aaca.org/f177/63-riviera-trunk-body-mounts-361455.html

http://forums.aaca.org/f177/63-riviera-trunk-body-mounts-part-361609.html

It is always disappointing to find a car you have purchased has serious rust issues that were not disclosed by the seller. Many of us have been in the same situation as you. Hopefully, your car will have some positive features that will make up for the rust problems. Good luck with your repairs.

Thank you Mike.

Nice to see that threads with similar problems and challenges.

I will post some pictures, when i have cleaned up all corroded areas and after welding in new sheet metal.

I should have seen this when purchasing the car, but I was blinded by the light of a the beautiful overall appearance of the Riviera.

Thanks,

Frank

Thank you Mike.

I should have seen this when purchasing the car, but I was blinded by the light of a the beautiful overall appearance of the Riviera.

Thanks,

Frank

Frank,

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on the great looking 63. If it makes you feel any better you are not the first and won't be the last to buy a car while looking through rose colored glasses. Very difficult sometimes for us humans to separate out the emotional part of an old car purchase. Almost like subconsciously we don't want to look too close for fear of finding something that would prevent the purchase.

Good luck and we look forward to seeing your progress.

Here is some (slow ) progress of my project.

The Buick body was high pressure ice cleaned to get rid of all the bitumen.

Some new corrosion holes became visible.

The gas tank was removed to get access to the trunk floor to cut out and weld in new metal sheets.

Will keep you posted on the upcoming body work.

The body mounts dome replacement will be challenging.

Regards, Frank

Body works is proceeding slowly.

Did not find a lot of time to work on the floor pans and trunk.

Frank

It may be slow, but it looks like you are doing it right.  That makes a lot of good sense to me. 

Did some work yesterday for a few hours. 

Not a lot of progress, but ready to weld in floor pans on driver side.

Keep you posted,

Frank

I'm sure you know to STITCH weld, an jump around with your welds.  A good seam filler is needed too.

Looking good, been there, done that, but on a 41 Limited.

Dale in Indy

Nice prep  work.  I'm watching this with interest. 

It took a while, but some Progress on the Driver side floor.

New sheet metal welded in, made a new brace and welded it under the floor.

Not as robust as the original, but it should be stiff enough to avoid droning.

That was just the Driver side finished. Now I Need to start doing the same on passenger side.

Hope I get i done quicker with the experience from the Driver side.

Will Keep you posted.

Frank

nice fabrication and welding!

I spent last Saturday  to repair the inner lower tails.  

Cutted out the corroded areas and made new sheet metals.

This work consumes a lot of time, and is just a Little step Forward.

 Nice looking work. I had to do a similar replacement on my '41 Roadmaster, only we had to fabricate all of the floor pans. Those are nice looking repro floor sections you got.

 I takes a lot of work, but it will be worth it when it's done.

 Keith

There are only a few replacement floor pans available in the market produced by C2C-fabrications.

They are not perfect, but better to start with them, than from from the scratch.

The Driver side floor pan fits very well, as well as the trunk floor pan.

I found a 1/2 Inch borehole drilled in the floor pan, close to the gas pedal. This hole is located above the Frame. There is a hole in the Frame in the same area from the Top.  Does anybody know why it is there ?   See pictures

Was it made by Buick, to gain access to something during assembly ?

A big progress in my 1963 Riviera project.

A professional body shop with a ton of super tools cut out all the old rotten areas and welded in new solid sheet metal.

I have just a few pictures taken today with my smartphone. Better pictures will follow.

Attached some before and after pictures. I could not take pictures under the car. 

They will follow.

A lot of old pieces of corroded body in the trunk.

Frank 

Nice fabricating!  Looking forward to the other pictures.

Today, the car came back from body shop and I had the chance to take some more pictures under the car.

They did a good job in there work. I'm glad it is finished and I can continue with the list of to do's.

Frank

Yesterday evening it was one of those nights in the garage.

I'm currently cleaning the bottom of the floor pans to prepare it for a rust protection treatment.

The body floor was already cleaned by ice blasting. Now I applied a rust converter FERTAN.

It needs to dry for at least 24h, to have enough time to convert the rust.

After this, it needs cleaning with water and than a antirust primer.

I did the same on the parcel self.  After removing the cover, I was surprised by the amount of corrosion.

The rear window seal was leaky over decades.  A commonly known trouble

I could do some rust protection on the visible surfaces, but there are so many layers of sheet metal hided behind.

This is terrible for further anti rust protection.

So I will spray all the cavities with FERTAN as well.

It leaves a black, dry surface which can be primered or sprayed with cavity wax.

The trunk is now ready, the gas tank can be assembled now.

Some major progress is done now and I'm working constantly on the endless todo list.

Greatings from overseas,

Frank

I found a 1/2 Inch borehole drilled in the floor pan, close to the gas pedal. This hole is located above the Frame. There is a hole in the Frame in the same area from the Top.  Does anybody know why it is there ?   See pictures

Was it made by Buick, to gain access to something during assembly ?

Interesting observation. My 66 also has a hole in about the same location only its closer to 1" in diameter. There is also a hole in frame. The hole was not plugged while all other holes were. Can't figure out what this was for. 

Nice work on all the rust repair. Everything else will be easy after that! 

Hi Frank,

I came across your post unexpectedly as I am usually in the Riviera Forum side. Had not seen this section.

Really impressed with what you are doing and amazed at what you guys need to do in Europe to register a classic. I am in Australia and apart from two outside mirrors and headlamps that dip to the left, everything else is ok.

Am also the owner of 1963 Riviera, Arctic white with red leather interior, imported from the USA in December 2014.

Mine has similar custom interior, wood trim on doors but black vinyl on centre console.

I really like the wood on yours, it really lifts the interior being a lighter colour. Do you know if this is how it came from Buick factory or has someone added the wood in the centre.

I also like the mag wheels, can you let me know what they are, size etc.

Please let me know,

Rodney

Hi Rodney,

thank you, I like the wood on the center console as well. 

I seems to me it is factory original, but I have no history of the car. 

Maybe the experts in this forum know, whether you could choose the interior configuration from the option list or not.

My Buick has an older restoration in the USA, maybe 10 years back.

The complete interior was rebuild with new vinyl, new white paint, but no under body repairs. That was hided by tons of bitumen.

The rims are True Spoke Supreme  15" x 7"  -10mm Offset

This are chrome plated steel wheels, made from two pieces. It requires MAG style lock nuts and fits two bolt circles ( 4 3/4" & 5") 

They do fit with 1/4" spacers.

They look fine but I would prefer single piece alloy wheels, like American Racing Torque Thrust.

Not easy to find a rim for that wheel hub style. 

Your car looks very fine.

I like the real leather seat covers.

Sorry for my late response, I'm in Austria for skiing this week.

Frank

Some progress during the last weeks.

I've cleaned the underbody, flushed the body cavities with high pressure water( there were tons of dust, dirt and debris in it) and sprayed in FERTAN rust converter. Finally I sprayed the underbody with satin black chassis paint.

Next step will be to protect the underbody and all the cavities with wax fluid.

Frank

In the last couple of weeks I had some fun with replacing the heater core.

Luckily, I found the work procedure here in the forum (unfortunately I did not remember the name of the guy who donates it. Many thanks to him !!!! ).

I’ve printed the procedure and took it with me into the car and had a good guidance for the heater core disassembly.

A local radiator shop replaced the rotten heater core. So I had no trouble with finding a replacement in the right size. Cost of repair was about 250,- €.

In the same time he checked the heater valve and found some cracks which were soldered.

I decided to remove the non functional air condition from the car. I took out the evaporator and replaced it by a pollen filter. I still want to use the air condition levers to operate the blower, but now just with fresh and filtered air.

While the evaporator housing was out, I had access to refurbish the air vents in the kick panel. Somebody cut the operating cables.

How have they been operated in A/C cars ?  There are no levers in the dash for the Vents (only on non AC cars ).  I will use a choke cable each side to operate them manually and will locate them under the dash.

After doing some derust and repainting of the heater core body  and other pieces I could do the assembly.

I needed to removed most of the firewall insulation, because it fell apart itself and is a hell of a dust trap.

To have a bit of firewall insulation and sealing I used a 4mm self adhesive soft rubber and stick it from the inside to the firewall and cut out all the required openings.

Next challenge will be to bring all the operating cables and vacuum controls back to life.

This is an interesting concept but it brings up a few questions:

#1 how easy is it to change this filter?

#2 is that a paper filter, cause if it gets damp, which it will undoubtedly do in the first rain storm,  and cannot dry out properly, might it create a mold condition?

#3 What benefit will there be for filtered air here, if you open the kick vents which will be unfiltered?  Not to mention that without A/C I imagine you' would be driving with open windows.

#1  I will Need to Remove the filtere box from under the glove box with 4 screws and Need to Open the box lid. I think this Filter will last a few years, if not wet....

#2. this is a OEM Volkswagen replacement under dash pollen filter. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the evaporator box should not become wet, even in heavy Rain. There are still the drain tubes connected, required to let out the condense water.

#3 the benefit is questionable. I thought it could be good to have an additional source for filtered air if required, and iwould like to keep the air vents functioning in the dash, Even without air conditioning.

But you are right, this filters were invented for air conditioned cars, where Windows keept close.

thanks 

frank.

Thursday last week, 2016 Sept. 22^nd. My 1963 Riviera was back on the road first time since I bought it in Dec. 2013.

 It passed the technical inspection by the German TÜV without any deficiency  and I got a historic vehicle license plate.

 I drove it over the weekend at beautiful September weather and visited the first car meeting at Old School Custom Works close to Stuttgart.

 It was great fun, the car rans smooth and it was a pleasure to drive it the first time since it was overhauled.

 The Buick is not finished. There is still a lot of things to do, but now I’m much more relaxed to work on the ToDo list step by step.

 I would like to thank you all for the valuable help on any question I had in the past to fix this or that problem.

This forum is great !

Frank

Looks GREAT!  Frank!  Congrats on passing the tech inspection and looking forward to some fall pictures from your neck of the world.

Before the Riviera get through technical inspection, I had to fix the break system, which had a difference in front break performance between left and right, as well as a weak park breaking.

I've installed new break liner at the front and rear axle and cleaned the inside of the brake drums.  A new brake cable was already installed a wihle ago, because I broke it during adjustment.

When I tried to adjust the park brake cable with the new liners installed, the center cable broke again at the same spot. 

The wire came out off it's press fit in the threaded rod. 

So I ordered a new one, but it stucks in customs clearance for about 3 weeks :-(

Therefore I've asked a colleague at work if he could solder both pieces together. It worked despite inital doubts.

After study of the park break adjustment procedure, I tried it a third time with the soldered cable, and it worked as well. 

But adjusting a little bit to strong can lead to a cable break. I recommend to do this very carefully and to follow the instructions layed out in the Buick Service Manual.

Did anyone made the same bad experience withe the foot operated parking brake cable adjustment ?

Frank

Today at MOPARS & COFFEE Season Closer in Stuttgart, Germany.

Fine autumn weather. 

www.moparsandcoffee.de

Frank