Seafoam65

Ed, I can tell you are a fan of the Batman TV show by the way you spelled the Ridler award as Riddler! LOL! Holy Spellcheck Batman!

Ed, actually CTC Auto Ranch is quite a ways north of Denton......in Sanger ,TX. just south of Gainesville.

Ed can chime in here, but I believe on these nailhead engines it is very easy to install the flywheel incorrectly, which would result in the symptom you describe because it throws the crank out of balance. Also, when you worked on the engine did you torque the harmonic balancer bolt properly? I think the spec is something like 225 foot lbs. If the balancer comes loose it will do what your car is doing until it finally flies apart. Just want to cover all the bases.

The service A/C light comes on because the the computer sees the low pressure going too low, usually caused by being low on freon or a stopped up orifice tube. The pressures on the system need to be checked. It's probably just low on freon.

Update.......After removing the pillar molding, the new drip rail molding went right on and looks beautiful.Tthose of you doing the drip moldings be sure to grease the drip rails on sides and bottom before putting the drip rail molding on.....it makes the job a lot easier. Now that my car has new door edge guards and a new right drip rail molding, all the exterior trim is perfect now. The most surprising thing is that the roof rail weatherstrip wasn't glued in and never had been. I was able to remove it and reinstall it with no problem. It is still soft and supple although it is fifty years old. Thanks to all who helped out with pictures and advice!

I agree on SMS.....I was able to buy enough code 620 dark green vinyl from them to redo my interior if I ever need to. It is original 50 year old fabric......nobody else had any of the material and it is not reproduced. It was not cheap, I paid a thousand dollars for enough to redo my seats and door panels. Also, if you want to see what the saddle interior looked like when the cars were new, there is a very good picture in the 1965 Buick sales brochure......a giant blow up picture of the deluxe saddle interior in the Riviera.

Very cool pictures.......if you go to 1967, there are pictures of McCormick hall burned to the ground a few weeks before the show after only being open for 6 years. They had to move the show back to it's original venue until it was rebuilt a few years later.

Wow Alex, I looked at your blog and it's amazing what you have accomplished already......great work!

thanks Bernie!

Those jack stands do not look safe to me.....spend the money to buy some heavy duty jack stands......I always use jack stands that are rated way way higher than what I'm working on......you just can't take a chance on a failure. also, I always put a floor jack under the car somewhere and raise it up till it is just touching the bottom of the car so that if a jack stand fails, I have a backup....kind of like a belt........and suspenders.

OPGI has them, but the problem is, the knobs on them are black and not color keyed to the interior. They also carry tilt levers with black knobs as well.

Bernie, at some point in the future I am going to probably replace my windshield.......how do you remove the trim from the rear of the fenders as I assume you must have to do?

I am using a group 24F battery, the posts are in the right place(positive next to radiator) and the topper goes right on and looks great and the factory hold down works great after trimming the radiator support side of the hold down to go over the topper. The topper is labeled incorrectly on the plus and minus, but you can't see that when the cables are on the posts.

Welcome Alex! Good luck with your project, and we will do our best to help you.

I sold Interstate batteries for 36 years.......had them removed from my facility a year ago because they were all going bad in 12 months. Interstate is not the same company they used to be.....prices went way up and quality went way down. The best battery I have found that I sell now is the Super Start batteries that O'reilly auto parts sells. Put one of those in along with a battery topper from OPGI and it will look like a 1964 Delco battery. That's what I have in my Riviera.

Hang in there David......the problem with doing a frame-off on a Nova is that you would be driving a Nova when the project is finished instead of a rolling work of art by Bill Mitchell!

Thanks, David.......the two piece molding makes sense. Great pics! David if I were you i would put back the seam sealer.....it is there to keep water from running behind the molding and creating a constant pocket of water at the bottom that will cause an eventual rust out situation. Of course if you never intend for the car to ever get wet like I do with mine, I guess it wouldn't matter.

David, I think that I get the picture......I suspect that the weatherstrip will have a lot of glue on it and being 50 years old will tear when I pull it off. I think I'll order new roof rail weatherstrip and wait till it comes in to finish the job. I was shocked to discover that the windshield pillar molding was in the way of removing and installing the roof rail molding. A wham bam job turned out to be a pain in the arse that I wasn't expecting. I can't understand why they didn't make the weatherstrip molding a two piece affair, it would have been much more logical to do. Also, if it is all one piece, what is the purpose of the triangular trim splice in the upper front corner of the weatherstrip molding?

Ed, I assume you mean that once the weatherstrip molding is removed, I can remove the two screws and remove the pillar molding? It looks to me like the weatherstrip molding is a two piece affair that has a separate piece in the front of the vent window. Surely it is not that time consuming to remove that short piece of trim to get to the screws? What do you mean by EVERYTHING? It's hard to imagine that they would make it take a long time to swap out the windshield. One question I have is am I going to be able to get the weatherstrip out of the channel without tearing it up? It looks to be in nice shape although it is 50 years old.This car still has it's original windshield so none of this stuff has ever been removed before.

I am swapping out the right side front drip rail molding on my 65 Riviera for a nice piece without a dent in it, and I was able to mostly roll the old one off till I got to the front of the molding, when I discovered that it was tucked behind the A-pillar molding and that the A-pillar molding must be removed first. Can someone who has done this on one of these cars tell me what all is holding the A-pillar molding on? I can see that it appears to be tucked behind the roof rail weatherstrip molding so I assume that must be removed completely? Does the pillar molding have the conventional clips holding it on over the windshield like an A-body GM hardtop? This molding looks similar to the molding on my 69 GTO convertible which doesn't have any clips under it where it goes over the windshield glass. Can I remove the A-pillar molding without disturbing the fender molding that it butts into on the bottom end? Thanks in advance for your help.:mad:

The bedliner material is far superior to rubber undercoating both in appearance and durability, but unlike rubber undercoating, it must be applied over a pristine clean surface or you will have adhesion problems later. You can't spray it over old rubberized undercoating or it will peel on you a few months later. Another thing I like about the bedliner material is that is truly black, while rubberized undercoating is actually dark brown.

I'm glad to hear that the noise is getting better.....If it's quieting down that would indicate that it was something with the brake work. I wouldn't be surprised if it goes away completely in another hundred miles of driving.

In case anyone needs some, there is an amazing pair of front door panels on ebay right now that were removed from a 63 Riviera with crank windows 35 years ago and kept indoors. They are for the red interior but you could probably dye them a different color if need be. They look to be in mint condition.

I just met Pete Saturday and eyeballed his Riviera, and if you think the trunk looks good, you ought to see the exterior of the car! Unbelievably flawless paint , trim and bumpers. When he gets the interior done it will be a show stopper! Kudos for a job well done Pete!

Thanks to everyone for the pictures and advice.......Winston