63 Rivi

Jayson - I ended up doing a complete front end job: upper and lower control arm bushings, front wheel bearings, idler & pitman arm, sway bar bushings, upper and lower ball joints, front shocks, etc. It rides and drives like a dream now. Front end alignments is one of the few things I will leave to a garage to do but I know I got it very close. Did you see the post of the parts I am looking for?

Another shot: After a good cleaning and prepping for paint:

One of my major projects that needed fixing was the front suspension. Visual inspection first thing that jumped out was that the front axles were leaking grease all over the place. Once I took the wheels off and checked everything else out, I found that it needed an idler arm, front wheel bearing, lower control arm bushings and sway bar bushings. Most everything else was still ok but since I had everything off, it was a good idea to replace it all for a tight suspension.

Thanks Jayson. It did really clean up well and looks good in the picture but it is far from perfect. I have done a lot to it already and will put up more pics of my progress. Still going through everything on this car because, in all honesty, it has been really neglected. Small things i am missing right now: 1. thick rubber hood support on the cowl(missing the one on the driver's side - it screws onto the bolt and locks the hood in place close to the hinge.) Can take a picture if your not sure what I mean. 2. Need the alignment wedges for a convertible (one set) for a door. Someone took them off and they are missing. 3. Lower door hinge roller assembly - do you know of a replacement roller that fits or do you have a good lower driver's door hinge setup? 4. Missing the antenna extension that goes from the radio to the cable that goes through the firewall. Do you have a good one or know what size I need? i.e. GM-10, GM-40,GM-7? I think I need the 10 but just double checking. All I can think of right now, thanks for any help or advice.

Hi all. Been in the ROA since 1987 but really have not been on this board that much. (Just kind of lurking around.) I own a 63 Riv since high school and later bought a low mileage (25k) 85 White Convertible in 1990. The 85 became my DD and drove it everyday for 12 years and racked up over 200k on it. It was extremely dependable and an overall great car to drive. I had to retire it when I got a company car and ended up selling it due to a lack of space. (Don't we all wish we could keep most of our cars? ) Ten years passed and I convinced my wife that we should get another. After wearing her down, ha ha, I started looking in the Riview, ebay and craigslist. I found a red one on the ROA website where the owner was moving and decided to sell it. It had high miles on it (158K), but it was described as being in really good condition and the price was within my budget. He sent lots of photos, and described it as a good running car that did not use any oil but needed a little attention here and there. New front brakes, rebuilt trans, new lower ball joints and pitman arm with fairly new Michelin radials on it. The only things he said it needed was a good compounding, a new top and just some minor cleaning up. Well, we agreed on a price and I bought it sight unseen. The car was about a 12 hour drive from me and I decided it was probably best to pay someone to trailer it back here. After a couple of weeks, the transporter called me to let me know it would arrive in two days. Well, he could not get the trailer to fit down my block so he asked me to meet him down by the highway. It was nighttime, and we (my wife and kids) were excited to go get it. We pulled up behind the trailer and he already had it running. I could tell because it was smoking up a storm. Nice blue clouds of smoke coming out the tailpipe and a strong smell of gas. I managed to limp it home. The next morning, I went out to go over everything and that is when the fun began. The good: solid straight body(AZ car most of its life), excellent chrome and trim. The bad: engine smoking, m/c solenoid on carb not working, fuel pump ruptured, alternator and smog pump bearings squealing, p/s pump pulley misalignment, brake light on w/ soft pedal, digital dash indicator lights mostly out and badly dry rotted tires. The car was really dirty, the interior well beyond a simple cleaning. I tried to reach out to the owner to ask him about all these things he failed to mention but he had already turned off his phone and email. Shocking that he never called me to see how I liked the car. I figured that since it was a fellow ROA member, that was good enough for me. Lesson learned, don't buy something unseen. So too late now, I guess I have a really big project on my hands. After making my list of things to fix, I started by replacing the fuel pump and rebuilding the carb. Also replaced the alternator and smog pump. I had to get another p/s pump assembly because the belt misalignment was caused by someone removing the adjusting bolt and they lost the thick washer. When the pump was tightened down, it drove the pulley into the alternator belt and bent the bracket. Who worked on this car??? After getting it driveable, I took out the interior and cleaned the carpeting with Meguiar's carpet cleaner. After about 3 hours and several brown buckets of water, the carpeting was burgundy again. I was amazed that it came out looking new, even the one piece front mat looks good. Spent about 10 hours on the interior and several more wet sanding, polishing and buffing the exterior. The result: It arrived in Mar of 2012 and this is how it looked in late spring. Came out really nice but I still could not use it due to other mechanical issues. The front end is loose and making strange sounds, among other driveability issues. More info coming.

Just went through this thread, nice restoration job! Any updates on the badging or what the appraiser said the value was?

We are planning on going to. Will try to make it there for the gathering to meet everyone.

Got my 63 from my Grandmother when I was 15. Still have it today. Bought an 85 Convertible in 1990 and sold it in 02. Bought another last year. My wife says I have a problem. LOL. I am 41.

x2 Welcome!

Welcome aboard! A nice set of twins you have there. Looks like the first one is pretty mint, congrats on a nice find. Post more pics when you can.

Welcome to the ROA! It is a great organization to be a part of.

I agree with Ed, always good to have one that looks nice but is not a #1 trailer queen so you can still have fun with it.

The listing was removed, unfortunately I could not see it. Never saw one before, Silverarrow is the 1st I've seen.

I have owned my 63 since 1986. At that point, it had a little over 50k on it and still wore some its original engine paint. It was a very dull silver, most likely due to age. I bought Silver engine paint from CARS around 1990, and at that point, their Silver seemed to be dead on. A few years later, I needed to touch it up again and called CARS for another can. It turned out to be a much brighter colored aluminum and obviously was incorrect. I spoke to Glen at that time and he informed me that his original source was gone and this was the closest match he could find. (I peeled the label off and it did say aluminum and not silver, way to brite.) I had a can of Eastwood's Argent Silver Rally Wheel paint and tried it on the oil pan. Pretty darn close so I sprayed the rest of the engine. It has been on there now for 3 years (about 4,000) miles and is still holding up great.

To answer your original question, I drove my 63 Riv yesterday on a 75 degree day and got stuck in a lot of traffic in NYC. After 1 hour, the temp gauge made it up to 235 and then shortly thereafter the idiot light went on. I have run it up to 240 without any issues although I admit that makes me pretty nervous. I spoke to Dennis Manner about this issue and he assured me that these engines where run on dynos back in the day at that temp for quite some time without any problems. BTW, this is an Auto Meter temperature gauge and I installed it where the ash tray used to be. Nice and stealth, no one knows it's there. I tapped into the head on the left side of the engine for the installation of the sending unit. (There is a pipe plug there so it can be fairly easily removed) I still have the stock temperature sending unit in the right side of the engine so my idiot light still lights up when I crank the engine and works properly.