Seafoam65

Ed, your post has me confused.......it sounds like you are referring to the car as a 64 model, not a 63. The title of the post is my 63 project, which means it would have come from the factory with a two speed automatic.

I think actually he was peddling overpriced buggy whips!

Steve, although I'm a purist, I would enjoy a thread on how you installed an air suspension on your car.....please post up some pics!

Jason, when I click on the link it says that this operation is not available.

thanks for sharing the pics........I wish shows in Texas featured several early Rivieras in attendance.....that would be fun!

Never had any issues with Cars, but the industry standard on backorders is to ship what you do have in stock, then ship the backordered parts when they are available. As for billing, usually you have to request that your card not get charged for the backordered parts until the backordered parts are shipped . I always order on the phone if I know I don't want to be billed ahead of time for backorders, as usually on the phone they will tell you which parts are on backorder, and then I tell the salesperson that I don't want to pay for the backorders yet. If you order online, most companies just charge your card for everything, including the backorders right away.

Ditto on the group hug! Now about those wood kits........!

A full set of hangers for an A-body Pontiac is about 130.00 and this is a car which has a huge market to absorb tooling costs. How many people are going to buy a set of hangers for an early Riviera? There are very few of these cars left and the market is very small. Somebody has to pay for the tooling, they are not going to absorb it. Why isn't anyone complaining about the high price of 65 Riviera console wood kits? They are very expensive, yet you can go down and buy the wood yourself for thirty bucks at Home Depot. Personally, I don't care if you guys rant about the price with a thousand posts, I have no stake in this, and I don't need any hangers right now. What disturbs me is that people who might be willing to tool up to provide needed parts for this tiny sliver of the marketplace will read these rants and decide that the Riviera market is not worth hassling with, and that would indeed be a shame. For those of you who aren't in the business of manufacturing parts or who skipped Economics class in high school, when you tool up to make a new part you take the cost of the tooling plus the cost of making the parts after the tooling is completed and divide into that total cash outlay how many widgets you think you can sell, allowing yourself a reasonable profit. If the numbers don't jive, you may very well decide that there isn't a market there to justify the expense and drop the project. If you think you can sell enough widgets to pay for the tooling then you go ahead and make them for the computed price. If you misjudged the marketplace, then you get burned with some widgets you can't sell, you lower the price to get rid of them and you don't ever make anymore of them. If Waldron's can't sell any of their hanger sets, they may lower the price and settle for very little profit or they may just not offer them anymore. That's how business works.

Tailpipe hangers for a 1970 GTO, of which there are ten times the market there is for an early Riviera, are 99.00 pair. For those of you who think there is nothing involved in tooling and making these parts, whip me up a set and I'll buy them for the 50.00 you think they are worth. Shouldn't take you more than a couple hundred hours....no sweat! Please just go to the Auto Supply....they have rolls of bailing wire for you just waiting to be purchased......don't pollute this thread with price complaints. If you don't want them or you think they cost too much, make your own from scratch or buy some bailing wire or use universal hangers from your local muffler shop. News flash.......restoring and maintaining old cars is an expensive hobby.....it is not like collecting butterflies. Nobody is commanding you to buy the hangers. They are available for those who want them. A guy in the GTO hobby who used to send out a newsletter with rare GTO parts for sale back in the 80's had a saying for the rare hard to find parts for sale......BUY THESE PARTS ONLY IF YOUR MARRIAGE IS ON SOLID GROUND!

What I have always done on the kind of emblems that are on the front fenders when I go back with them rather than install barrel clips is to put a little dab of yellow 3M weatherstrip adhesive on each pin on the emblem and put it in the fender with no clips or fasteners. They stay on just fine and are very easy to remove next time. My GTO emblems on the front fenders of my 69 GTO have been held on this way for 40 years and have been off and on several times for repaints with no problems whatsoever in removing or reinstalling

I nominate the infamous aluminum timing gear with the plastic teeth!

In the picture I see an upper gear that is aluminum with yellow plastic teeth and the chain is very loose. You need to change out the upper and lower gears and the chain. When you install them be very careful that the timing marks are lined up correctly. A double roller chain is best but as I stated I never found any offered for a nailhead engine. If someone on the forum knows where the double roller setup can be sourced, go with that. Once the chain gets loose it can rip off the plastic teeth from the chain whipping around. It looks to me like you are doing this just in time.

What you can't see in that photo is that the car has the deluxe Dark Green interior like my car. I believe that Dick changed the color of the car from white with green interior to bamboo cream with green interior and he added the vinyl top. I think that is an awesome color combo, and I would be extremely tempted to do the same with my car if I ever did an exterior repaint. Dick, do you have any pictures shot looking through the window that shows the bamboo cream exterior and the dark green interior in the same photo? I would love to see how they look together. The picture I would like to see would be something like these.....

You don't need to drop the oil pan. The balancer slides right off once you remove the balancer bolt. The hard part is going to be breaking the balancer bolt loose. Since I'm in the car repair business I had my car on a lift and one of my techs held a backup on the flywheel with a flywheel tool while I broke the bolt loose with a very long breaker bar. When I went back with the bolt we did it the same way except with a torque wrench on the bolt while holding a backup on the flywheel. I don't recall the exact spec on the bolt torque but it was very high....something like 250 ft lbs. You could probably break it loose with a high powered impact wrench as well.....I didn't pull my radiator out so I didn't have room to get a wrench in there and do it that way. If you put anti-seize on the threads when you go back you won't have a problem in the future with seized and broken bolts. I installed my original bolts back in the water pump with anti-seize on them. Be sure to replace the front crank seal while you have the cover off, and use the right stuff silicone sealer from permatex on the water passage holes in the timing cover gasket, and in the corners where the front oil pan gasket meets the timing cover gasket. I like Ed's suggestion of the double roller timing chain.I wanted to use one but I was unable to find anyone who had one for a nailhead engine. If there is one available I would definitely recommend using it....they are much better about not stretching.

I don't see any pitting at all.....it looks in better shape than mine was.....looks to me like you can use the timing cover that you have. Now that you've come this far, keep going till you get to the timing chain and gears if you don't know if they have ever been changed. Also hang a new fuel pump on there while you are in there. Even if the pump that is on there has low mileage on it, pumps from a few years ago were not made with a diaphragm designed to cope with alcohol laced fuel.

A set of 4 shipped cost me 900.00. There is no place else that you can get a 225-75-15 redline other than Diamondback tires, and that is the closest size to the original tires on these cars. they are actually TOYO radials, which is a very high quality tire. They are smooth as silk at 80 miles per hour, they handle fantastic and ride very smooth. Personally I like redlines on these cars, but if you are going to go with whitewalls then the only way to go in my opinion is with these Diamondback Toyo tires with a triple whitewall.

I've never understood how Ford managed to sell so many T-birds after the Riviera came out. In 64 and 65 the 40,000 unit limit hadn't been reached for the Riviera and they were available for sale. The Riviera was 10 times better looking, with a much higher level of trim and 10 times nicer driving, yet the T-bird sold about 65-70 thousand cars each of those two years......I'm totally baffled by this. This is not even mentioning the difference in quality between a Buick and a Ford.

My experience with my Riviera has been just the opposite so far. It seems to get a lot more attention at cruise nights and shows than my 69 GTO convertible or 70 Chevelle SS396 hardtop that are 100 point restos. The Riviera has a crowd around it everywhere it goes, and more thumbs up out on the road than my musclecars. I attribute this to the fact that you just don't see them anymore.

If you can't special order from your local auto supply, Kanter Auto Parts in Boonton N.J should have it. I've had a lot of front end parts on 50's and 60's cars where they were the only ones that had what I needed.

Ed, prior to 1963 there were many small companies manufacturing seat belts for the aftermarket. When they became mandatory in January of 1964 there weren't any vendors with the capacity to provide all the seat belts for GM, so in the early years GM used quite a few different suppliers. Some suppliers only did standard or deluxe belts and some offered both, but the latching mechanism on the belts varied with each vendor, while the buckle exterior style was dictated by GM. Some of the suppliers in 1964 for GM seat belts were Hamill, General Safety, Bay Trim,DAAL, and Robbins, as well as a few others. In some cases the vendor only provided the belts for a single auto plant.

The pertinent question here is are the wife and kids at a healthy weight or could they stand to lose a few pounds. If they are a little heavy, what a great opportunity to get the family in shape and drag home another Riviera! As for clothes, there should be a Salvation Army nearby!

I put redlines on my car recently. They are 225-75-15 Toyo radials from Diamondback Tires. I've had a lot of nice comments on them at car shows. Diamondback can also do the triple whitewalls that are correct for these cars. Back in 1970 when I was going to the University of Texas at Austin, there was a lady who worked in the state capitol building who drove a 65 Riviera GS in Bamboo Cream with a black vinyl top and Road Wheels with redline tires. I never forgot how great that car looked and it was the inspiration for putting them on my car. Here they are on my car.....

Ed, that car is one of those dragged from the warehouse near Jerry World and hauled up to Ohio to be put for sale. As pointed out previously, all the Texas Riviera's are in Ohio....Go Figure! Why are all the solid Southern cars for sale located in the Rust belt?

If my car had one of those I doubt I would ever use it.......but damn it looks so cool sitting there on the top of the dash......it looks like it could be the tractor beam on the the Enterprise on the the Star Trek tv show,,,,,Beam me up Scotty!

These hangers are not overpriced......they are a much needed item at a fair price. I would hate to think that I had to tool up to make these and sell them for less than the asking price. For those who think these cost too much there is always universal muffler shop hangers or bailing wire. Thanks again for tooling up to make these.