Buicknutty

I'm just picking up on this thread, and what a great find you have! As Neil said all those documents in the car are fabulous , and the kind of history which only rarely goes along with a car. If you start to repair the floor pans by welding them, it will be a long and difficult job. As long as it's allowed, clean up the floors and go with the fibreglass/POR15/ or similar. Where I live in Ontario Canada it is no longer allowed to have a road safety done on a car with fibreglassed floors, but our jurisdiction is typically tougher than most. I will be following your progress with interest! Keith

Sebastian, I have had the same problem with the coil on my '41, it was weak and the car would stall when hot. I have a couple of similar coils but they are all weak, so I used an extra bit of wire to connect to the line from the ignition switch and used a new style of coil. Incidentally the wire from the switch will eventually short out against the metal shield of the Electrolock, as the insulation is rubber and cotton. I had mine repaired by Doug Seybold in Cleveland some years ago. I can show you pictures of mine if you'd like. It's a pretty simple mod, easily undone and though it's right there on the firewall no one seems to notice it. Keith

Yes, and one of the bolts is missing! No sign of it in the pan, so maybe it dropped put years and came out during an oil change. So far nothing has indicated it has ever been apart before.

Great looking work Matt! Keith

The disassembly of the Wildcat engine continues, but it seems like everything has fought us every step of the way. The engine needs to be lifted to be able to got the oil pan off. Those bolts were tough, one oil pan bolt was rusted, etc. Anyway we finally got it off, the centre link dropped, it needs replacing, and the front sway bar off too. I have only the stub of the bolt to get out, and the pan to clean up then we can start to put her back together again. As expected the pan is pretty dirty, and part of the pickup was blocked but nothing that seems to unexpected from such an old engine. By the wear on the timing chain I'm figuring the engine must have 100,000 miles or more on it. A guess only of course.

Well after a bunch of body work it was time to do some mechanical work. This engine (a 70-71 455) is a transplant and we have idea what the mileage is on it though it seems it might be on the high side. Either way I decided it would be prudent to do the timing chain and gears as well as a few other related things. Like the oil pump, distributor, water pump, and since I have to disturb the front part of the oil pan gasket I'll take the pan off and clean it out. I also have new motor mounts and timing chain cover which will go on upon reassembly. The new timing chain cover has a modern type of seal, which tends to be less tricky than the old rope type. Internally the engine seems sound, runs well, doesn't smoke and still has has good compression. The distributor which is going back on is a new HEI type as my wife has seen first hand the issues I've had with points on the Electra and specifically asked me to go for an electronic one on her car. You can see by the slack in the chain, it wouldn't have stood up to much driving, esp the spirited kind. This isn't a show car but I am cleaning it up and will repaint it anyway. Not to show standards, but to make it nicer looking. The rockers are a bit of a sad case, the right side is quite badly pitted, and the left one has some dents in it, which likely I can straighten, but I wouldn't say no to a better set if someone out there has a decent set they would part with. Keith

Awesome looking work Matt!

Great work as always Roger!

Awesome work!

You are quite correct as to the reason I opted for the panel bond. Though my welding skills are good, it's still a toughie to weld a panel like that. I did think about the geography too, though we do often get weather in the mid 90's and sometimes 100F here, it's definitely not as common as in the south. For sure it's not cheaper to use the bonding compound! Thank you very much for the compliments too!

I was concerned about the longevity of a repair like this and talked to a couple of body shop professionals who are friend and they had said it's now a very reliable way to repair. I did discuss that this is a restoration, therefore likely a much longer lived repair than the average collision repair and was assured it will last. Well, I'm in it there now. Thank you for your opinion, nonetheless. No offence, but I hope you are wrong!

As I'm slowly getting through all the bodywork I'm also thinking ahead to other stuff it will need in the (hopefully) near future. One of them being adding AC to it. A few years a friend and I stripped a '68 Electra, he wanted the drive train and I got most of the rest including the dash and all the AC stuff and the cruise control, plus a lot of other spare parts. Including the right side right side of the firewall where it bumps out a bit to accommodate the evaporator, etc. Back to the AC conversion. One of the things is the upper dash panel, it's the wrong colour, and it has cracks at the edges, not terrible but it needs fixing and to be black. So, has anyone had experience recovering these dashes? I've done some searching but so have not come up with anything. The unit was in non operating condition as someone had sabotaged the condenser, and though everything else looks alright who knows it's current condition, so I'm looking into a more modern system which will work without the issues. This is going to be a nice driver, and we do want to keep it as stock looking as possible.

I did get primed last night now it's more or less one colour again, till I start with more filler of course!

Yes, there and on the section in front of it. The structural parts are migged in, but the outer panels I've used the 3M bonding material.

So some more work is done on the Wildcat. All of the outer body on the right side is done, there is still some to do on the inner fender and a few other areas. My repairs certainly look much better than that original stuff! Hopefully I'll prime it in the morning.

Poor sad thing, I just can't give it a "Like", but thank you for sharing the photo.

Love this shot! I wonder if any of these cars have survived? Keith

Yes, they certainly have, though at one time they were common, even the big girls like an Electra.

Now to the older Buicks. I finally got to take one out for cruise late yesterday and I choose the '69 Electra. It started good and ran well on the 15 mile drive I gave it.

John, my wife recently bought a 2018 Regal GS and it is one fine ride, when you put it in GS mode it really tightens things up. She loves it, needless to say. Keith

That's one awesome model Sebastian! Nice group of literature, I have the exact two on the left, but a different shop manual. Lovely brochure, isn't it?

Thanks Gents!

That's what I had been thinking about for ages, this is a relic from poor repairs but with the equipment we have there's no way to push things around. However, a very good friend and a life long body guy did a whole lot of measurements to it and didn't think too much had shifted on the quarter. Though we just can't be sure. I know QC back then wasn't the greatest but this looks pretty poor. As I noted, in the end we decided to just make it look good. Keith Sorry, we won't hijack your thread any more!

I don't seem to update this thread very often but work is slowly progressing in the midst of all of the other things I'm doing. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the fit problem the passenger door has to the quarter panel, and after consulting with a number body pro friends of mine we've come the conclusion it was born very much this way. Also some info from a gent on the forum who worked at GM during some of these years in quality control backs this up. Perhaps it wasn't quite this bad, but nothing seems to have been bent to create this poor fit. However the cause, we are where we are so the only thing is to move forward. So I finally started to weld in filler to make the gap appear better. I didn't really want to do it this way but I'd like the gaps better than this. The other point is door fit, with some adjustment the door closes and latches quite well, plus the fit to the fender and A pillar is good too. In the same garage we have the '68 Wildcat and my '69 Electra and I think I have an example of extremely poor factory fit, ie the Wildcat, and extremely good fit in the Electra which has lovely door fit and near perfect gaps on all panels. Now the quarter panel between the wheel well and door jam is complete, the rocker is welded in, and the door gap has been fudged with steel plate and the liquid filler which comes out of my mig. This weekend's project is to try to fabricate the piece which goes over the wheel well before I get launched into other things on Monday and I won't get a chance to get back to this for a couple of weeks. Keith

Sebastian, I'm just catching up on this, so congratulations to you and your parents for getting such a lovely car! As you've already noticed these are great driving cars, as well as having great styling. As you may or may know I have a '41 as well, a Canadian built Roadmaster, and for a totally manual car it's very easy to drive. Keith