Black River

Honestly, my car was one of these ebay derelicts when I got it.....I'm sure most of you have seen pics of the interior and engine compartment, along with the wheel falling off because of the balljoint situation it had. The new exhaust was falling off, the steering and suspension were all shot, the brakes were gone, the whole car was loosely bolted together, etc. The paint was just done, but I had to cut and buff it myself. I've undone and redone so much of the car because it was unsafe to drive, it was literally a death trap waiting to burst into flames. But underneath, it is a good car, and I'm coming to the end of the long road of fixing the previous owner's sins. I got it for $7400 with a mostly new interior and new paint, and the engine turned out to be fresh. I've got a few thousand more into it now because I do all my own work, but it's now something that I'd take to any car show and be fairly certain I could take home a trophy. I think if I didn't know how to do just about everything, a guy would have paid another $20k to get all the wrong things righted, so take that for what it's worth. It was a cheap way for me to get into a Riv, but if someone else was to pay to get it done, it'd be cheaper to start with a good, clean, proper car in the first place.

Thanks. It was a 340 car originally, then the 440, now is a 505 stroker. The two fastest cars in the brother's and my dad's fleet are my Dad's Skylark and my older brother's Demon was running 9.9s in the quarter, but he put a new alcohol engine in it, so hoping low 9s/high 8s this year. Little brother's '87 GN is a 10 second car, and he and I are trading places with who's quickest between that and my Mach 1 right now haha......We all street drive our cars, but the GN will still get 20 mpg, where my Mach 1 is lucky to pull 8 mpg if I just cruise at 65 or 70 mph....I guess a turbo 3.8L has some advantages over a naturally aspirated 9.3L hahahaha

Wow that green interior is beautiful! I'd still go black but I understand what you're saying.

I had a side post in it (I thought the exact same thing), but the cable was too close the to the power steering pump pulley and inner fender for my taste. I don't have a voltage regulator (I've rewired the whole damn car because of the previous owner and have a 1 wire alternator now), but if it was still there the post would be super close to it, too. But, a great idea, it just didn't work out.

I'd go black. I think if you paint them body color, it'll make it appear that they are wheel covers, when I think the whole goal is to try to make them look as much like real spoke wheels as possible. I used to paint my drum brakes colors, too, then I realized I was just advertising my cars didn't come with better discs (aluminum Riviera drums do not apply).

A picture is worth a thousand words, so trust us, as we won't tell you anything about the car (because we don't know anything), but there's at least a whole chapter of a book worth of info in these pics. Check out the sweet overload springs on the shocks!

I should add that my mufflers are at the very back of the car.....the exhaust tips are actually welded right to them. If they were underneath I may have a whole different set of issues. You can kind of see them in these pics.

No worries, glad people are checking the engine out. I'm going to fab a finned aluminum battery cover, as it's driving me nuts looking at it just sitting there out of place. When I look at the engine compartment in person, it looks super clean and well put together. When I look at these pics, I see more I can do haha....

Hey, now Ed, I resemble that remark Hey, now Ed, I resemble that remark :)....Haha....

Thanks! I just masked and painted everything. I masked off the block and firewalls then painted the headers with ceramic header paint, then masked off those and painted the engine. I pulled all the brackets, alternator, distributor, etc. before painting, then sand blasted and painted those separate. I knew I was pulling the intake to do the dual plane mod and to put on the new valley pan, so I just painted the engine with the old covers and pan on, then pulled those and replaced them. I rerouted a bunch of wires and cleaned up all the wiring and whatnot, then covered the whole engine and painted the firewalls, radiator mount, and everything else. Done a few cars like this. It sounds time consuming, but if you go one step at a time and just try to get one section done a night, it goes pretty smoothly.

I've got specs posted elsewhere, but they're Ridler 695s, 20x10 with 5.5 BS and 20x8.5 with 4.5 BS. The car is lowered over 3" (I cut my own coils), and the fronts would rub the inside on full crank, so I put on 5/16" spacers and all good now. I could actually put the 10" wide rears on the front and they'd fit (I tried it this weekend while doing all 4 brakes), and the rears I believe a guy can fit 12" or 14" wide without too much trouble if he wanted. My tires right now are 275/40 on the back and 245/40 on the front. I'll end up getting some custom 12" wide rears with some 335 section tires and put the 10" wide fronts eventually, but I'm happy with it for now.

You can pop it out and take it to a plastic shop. I've had lenses made from lexan before for a couple of bucks. Then take the old one or a photo of one to a decal place and have them make you new letters. $15-$25 later you're good to go. Lucas

It's done. Finally got to take it out for the first time and make sure all is well, after a fixing a few small leaks all good to go. Love the smell of burning header paint......

Out in the world for the first time this year....finished the engine compartment and interior over the weekend.

Well, it still has a Nailhead and not a small block Chevy (which is what I was expecting), so there's that......

Installed and done. Super happy. Need to change my armrests to black I feel.....

Leatherette installed. Couldn't be happier. Thanks Bob!

Somewhere in America there's some skinned albino cheetahs and a Mercury without it's taillights.......

Avert your eyes, children, for evil takes on many forms........ http://www.ebay.com/itm/1964-Buick-Riviera-Coupe-/282448515663?hash=item41c33e524f:g:xjEAAOSwmCVZAMKJ&vxp=mtr Lots of work done at some point in time. When this would've looked good, I have no idea.

Change the interior and wheels, and it'd be alright. I almost bought this car http://www.ebay.com/itm/1961-Chevrolet-Other-Dynamic-88-Custom-Coupe-/381949624586?hash=item58edf8c10a:g:lBwAAOSwXeJYFNhC&vxp=mtr at Barrett Jackson last year (for $16,500 by the way), but the purple in the interior was just too much. Was beautiful looking otherwise, but the rear quarters behind the wheels are almost completely glass and filler. In the end I decided it wasn't worth the pain and cost of the interior change, and the rear quarters would have eventually needed to be redone properly. The color and the wheels together were very nice in person, and the purple looks similar to the Riviera listed.

And especially with him stating over and over how everything is factory correct.

That's a good looking convertible. I'm no 70s or 80s Riviera expert, and cars from that era are hard to put a value on, but you'll get the "it's worth what someone's willing to pay for it" line. I think on cars of that vintage, that line holds truer than any other. Their market hasn't been set yet, because they aren't truly classics to most people. I look at it this way: You could buy that car for $7k, or a 2005 Honda Accord. I know what I'd do Lucas

Dang.....and here I thought it was just some guy driving two women in a space car body.......

Well, technically, they're in space with no air, so they'd be dead in the first place, an engine wouldn't run, and even if it did it wouldn't provide any propulsion because of the no air density thing......but a super cool ad from the past

Chris, I know I already told you on the V8Buick site, but it bears repeating...... that LeSabre is just awesome!