60FlatTop

It reads like someone's creative writing homework assignment. Logically a 10 year old complicated car that the owner takes to the dealer for service was a bad idea to begin with. The imagine the Maserati this guy knew when he was a kid compared to the one he bought. Did he think he was buying a Biturbo? His semi-intellectual style gives me a chuckle. He might be using one of those over the counter brain enhancers. It is possible he saw the two brands on the shelf. One is made from products originally found in jellyfish. The other derived from stem cells of our greatest education institutional leadership. Yeah, he used the same process to pick the enhancer as he did to buy the Maserati. I wouldn't care to meet him. Again.

You're kidding!

$10,000 is about the high end of my collector car range. In the past 25 years I have bought quite a few of them just from conversations with the owner and pictures. That is the range of cars that I tend to like. When distance buying became available to me I figured out what my risks would be. I decided I could take a beating for $3,000 a year without sucking the household into it along with me. So my quest became "Can I buy a $10,000 car that failed to meet my expectations and recover $6,500 of it? Most likely yes. I knew I could make a better sales presentation than most private sellers. And I knew it had to be a pretty good car to tempt me to consummation. I had confidence after concluding that and since making the personal policy have been able to get away without the loss. More often a little ahead in money and knowledge of the brand, particularly Jaguars and BMW's. But haven't learned enough not to try another. 23 years ago I bought a car in Michigan to part out and had it shipped to New York. It arrived and was too good. I kept it. That is my '60 Electra. Without my little risk policy I would not have bothered. I am on the low end of what some of the forum members get into but that has always been my preference. Into the higher spans my risk management would just be proportioned accordingly. Sometimes you need to be a little secretive. My wife used to do the books for my company. Our accountant questioned a withdrawal and a deposit of equal amounts a few weeks apart. My wife thought a bit and then said "Oh, that was for the Jaguar". Boy, did I get a lecture on corporate slush funds! In the name of risk management we figured out a new way of doing that. Anyway, here is my list of questions for a seller. Digest the answers and you should be quite comfortable in your decision. Buyer’s Questions 1. Do you own the car and have legal proof? 2 Is the paperwork clear and free of liens, unbranded? 3. How long have you owned the car? 4. Is the car currently licensed and insured? 5. Can it be driven on the road, legally, today? 6 Is the car in storage? If so, how long has it been stored? 7. How many miles did you drive it during the last 12 months? 8. Have you done any major work on the car since you have owned it? 9. What and when was the most recent service or repair? 10. If you decided to keep the car what improvement would you consider important? 11. Would you feel comfortable handing your wife the keys and sending her out to pick up a gallon of milk? Remember, you will never lose all the money.

Ebay is the usual spot to go. I needed a steering wheel for my 1986 Buick Park Ave. They have an inlay wood grain trim goes into a channel that crumbs in sunlight. I did a search on Ebay after looking at various mid-80s GM interiors and saved the search, tagging it to notify me of listings. I ended up getting a nice one in the correct color. I was the only bidder and got it for $1. As Walt writes, you need to signal it is a K-car. There is a forum for them: https://www.chryslerforum.com/forum/k-cars-20/ Put K-car in there. That will bring this group stampeding to your post.

I am curious. How many of the intake valves we coked up like this and if not all, which ones? I am thinking about the 20 years and 120,000 miles, 6,000 miles per year. I have a firm rule about starting my cars. Except in extreme instances I drive them on a ten mile loop around town to fully heat all the fluids and drive off any contaminates such as condensation or from atmosphere or combustion and excess fuel from the cold start. It is like that Samurai sword thing where you don't draw it unless you are going to use it. I won't move my car over one parking space without the full warm up. A ritual based on a few facts. Your valve or valves have as much crud on them as a 1960s AMOCO unleaded gas commercial. I am wondering how many times you may have driven a short distance with mildly fuel diluted oil due to a fuel bowl worth of percolated gas seeped down the cylinders. It is a possibility. I am looking at the arms on my chair as I make this armchair speculation. A fresh rebuild under the same conditions would probably perform as well but it is a sign something is not right. One more point. When you restored the engine was the 4GC carburetor one that had been in regular use or one that had set dry for a long time. I have suspicions that old dry carbs can corrode and develop porosity between fuel chambers and passages adjacent to vacuum passages that cause fuel to be in unexpected places. I have replaced a couple of carbs that had been rebuilt with old crusty bodies with fresher ones. Lots to think about there. Too bad you are not closer.

I have dealer installed belts in my '60 Electra. A lap belt can hurt you in an accident and not protect you in an accident. I don't use mine.They are only good if you decide to drive with the doors off and don't want to fall out. The original anchor points are ad hoc at best. My fronts are mounted to the near vertical side of the footwell with a bolt and a couple of washers squeezed between the well and the outer frame rail.. Getting serious about a safe and effective installation would really take some engineering. Duplicating the original would just be more of a decoration and possibily harmful in a real accident. If you feel a real need you should look into a well designed three-point system..

What are you filtering out? I haven't had an element in my car for about ten years. I took it out diagnosing another problem. I went to put it back in a thought "Why bother, there is nothing in there." I did have a '56 Olds one time that had set with an empty gas tank for a long time. There was always a very fine mixture of rust in any fuel sample. I had a filter on that one but the stuff was so fine the tips of my spark lugs were always orange. I am not much of a filter advocate for the use collector cars get and the low mileage between annual services.

I am pretty sure Little Giant was also the title of a 1970s history of the Volkswagen company. I thought it was right on the shelf above me here, too much stuff.

When I saw the term mottling I recognized it as as textured appearance similar to that of a blotchy skin condition. Marbled or similar to a 1950s Chrysler dashboard. Seemed common and descriptive to me.

I have never used mail order tempered glass. My experience is with laminated glass cut from patterns. The glass cutter has to cut both sides accurately. Maybe my jobs were done on Saturday morning after the cutter went out on a toot Friday night but they sure have been inaccurate. Enough so the edge of the two glass edges could not be ground smooth at the cut. On a framed window or one hidden in the door they can get away with the sloppy cuts. When there is an arc at the top that fits the surround channel sometimes they are not even close and can't be hidden. The Riviera is unframed and straight. That makes it easier for the cutter. My recommendation would be to keep the job on a face to face basis and use the local person where ever possible just so checking the work does not become a long distance process..

Telephone pole crane.

I always wanted to convert an early 1980s Buick Park Ave myself. H&E was located in Lima, Ohio. I had a 1982 Eldorado Baritz convertible conversion by them. Similar hardware and inner headliner as shown om yours. About 1984-85 the company changed to Car Craft and continued with the convertible conversions as they developed the armored car business. I have a 1986 Buick Park Avenue FWD convertible conversion built by Car Craft that is very similar to the jobs H&E did. A difference I like is a stainless cap across the windshield header in place of the H&E cloth, looks more finished. My Buick is the second generation GM H body. Significant body and structural work was done to make it a convertible. When new the 1986 Park Avenue coupe cost in the $15,000 range. The conversion was between $10,000 and $15,000 making it a pricey car at the time. Mine was leased by the original owner in Round Lake, IL., probably to hide the cost from his wife. My conversion number is 0001. I know of two others. It is hard to find online information of Car Craft because of the similar magazine name. I have been gathering scraps of information on mine since I bought it in 2011 and have been in all the nooks and crannies to see the modifications.

A lot of dealers never even get to meet an informed buyer. And they never even know it. Or care.

If that was one of my uncles he would be out looking for a short piece of chain to break. Like when my Uncle Pat went to see if Uncle Frank had any deer hair.

That would probably depend on if he worked with large farm animals or small pets. The county 30 miles south of me has a greater population of dairy cattle than people. A vet from their wouldn't think twice about handling a Lamborghini.

We call that "minga mint" in this neck of the woods. One thing I know for sure, the older the buyer is the easier the sale if he thinks he is taking advantage of you. It's like their mission after 40.

I have forgotten to click the default button on the Ebay payment page and spent my wife's money on old car things. It is on the left side of the screen and I told her my left eye is not so good since the stroke. She still believes stuff like that... well she lets me think she believes it.

I have bottles of all kinds of stuff. It all seems to work just fine.

Trust me, no disappointments has a similar background to "Trust me".

A roundabout was built at the intersection of my avenue and the main street less that a quarter mile from me. At least one of the signs is knocked down every morning and the nasturtiums in the center are crushed by tire tracks. The approaching timid drivers are more timid and the aggressive drivers are more aggressive. Once in the circle I think something associated with the body's sense of lateral G forces affects the minds. Conditioned for straight line acceleration, this new feeling appears to be something akin to how a dog rides with their head out the window. There is a transformation that is not consistent in every driver. It's a treat. Many years ago our office received a trade magazine. An article I copied and hung on the bulletin board was about the installation of a snap acting door on a John Deere combine plant. The head of maintenance praised the new door and was quoted "The old doors opened so slowly that many times the combine ran into the door before fully opening. The new fast doors have resolved that problem". Something just triggered those thoughts. Some have said I just don't see the big picture.

There is a 63-64 Buick Riviera parked next to the '60 Ambulance. You can tell by the parking lights. Parked sort of like this.

Another thought to share from my history, check the gaskets at the timing chain oil passages, head, and oil pump passages. When I did the 3.8 for my Park Ave convertible we had no oil pressure on start up. We discovered there were two different gaskets and my engine kit came with the wrong on and the gasket was blocking flow. Had it been slightly off and restricting or the oil pressure had blown through the gasket we might not have known, just run at lower pressure for ten years. In another instance with coolant flow instead of oil I had a Terraplane convertible coupe that had always run hot since a professional rebuild. The first time out it severely overheated. When cooled and refilled it was OK but not cooling 100%. The owner bought a new distribution plate for the straight eight figuring it rusted and was bypassing. When I removed the plate I found gasket material hanging like an old curtain in the block. The shop had fabricated a perimeter gasket and not cut out the center. Completely blocked the first time cause steam to blow through the blocking gasket and left remnants to impede the flow. I did put the new plate in to avoid an "I thought" incident. So look through those disassembled parts with that in mind just in case there is something suspicious going on with the oil flow. An put a test gauge on it when you are done.

I like the wire wheel covers I got for my '64 Riviera in 1980. An interesting fact I discovered while considering Buick rally wheels is that the word ubiquitous originally described the universal presence of God.

I was not kidding about repouring on the old backs. I would certainly not rule it out. I looked on Ebay for 322 Buick engine bearings. There are quite a few old stock items. I have used the search notification feature to assemble parts for a project from both keywords and part numbers. With time on your side now is the time to start. I tend to over buy and resell what I did not use or want. I wanted a copy of one of the Richard Sealey Keep Your Volkswagen Alive books from the 1980s to review his writing style. It looks like those are some kind of cult books now, going for up to $100. Search notification got me one for $16 a few days ago. Even a sneaky search like "0.020" would not overwhelm anyone looking for bearings misspelled or some description mistake. Not that many come in.

Here is a little food for thought from the kids with big insert bearings. https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/pouring-main-bearings-for-an-ihc-m-1-1-2-hp.19792/