Resources for restoration

[Saminy]

My son in law and I have had a couple old Buicks fall into our hands. He owns a garage that we plan on dedicating one bay simply for the restoration of these vehicles. My question, what books would anyone reccommend to get us pointed in the right direction? We have joined the Buick COA and have gotten some info from those good people. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

Sam

[DizzyDale]

Dear Saminy,I can't help you with any Buick research material,that being said buy a cheap camera and plan on taking many,many pics while taking the car apart along with a notebook.All this is priceless upon reassembly.Take care and remember it's supposed to be FUN.diz

[ex98thdrill]

Are you the one who stopped into our shop looking to get someone to paint some fenders the other day???

In either case, to add to Dizzy's post, get a digital camera where you can load the pictures onto your computer. The digital cameras can be enlarged on the computer so you can see closer in than you can with taking regular pictures and getting developed. Plus if the pictures don't turn out, you'll know it right away and will have to opportunity to reshoot the picture.

When it comes time to show your car to get it point judged, we have bought a 3-ring binder, put sheet protectors in the 3-ring binder and printed 8x10 pictures showing the pertainent points that the judges may question pertaining to authenticity. The larger pictures allow the judges a better chance to see that you've done something right.

This works very well. I happen to know of a guy who had pictures on a laptop, and when it came time for a guy to come in and restripe the car, he had all of those pictures right in the shop so he could zoom in for reference points.

As for Buicks, Earl Beauchamp is a past national president, and a Buick nut, so if you got in touch with him, he could also point you in the right direction as well.

[Bhigdog]

Samminy, What you need at the bare minimum is a shop manual for the year car. Paint chips and brochures help. A parts book is also a fantastic source of information. Before I start a restoration the very FIRST thing I do is buy a manual and parts book. The next thing you will need is a subscription to Hemmings motor news. The prior info about pix and notes is very important also. BTW, if you do buy a parts book always get it for a few years later than the year you are working on......Bob

[Peter J.Heizmann]

Saminy, Welcome to the AACA Forum.

The folks here are offering great advise.

Please click on "Library" on the home page. The AACA Library retains an enormous amount of restoration info to include Buick. Do yourself a favor and check us out.

Regards,

PJH

[A by the sea]

Not to sound pessimistic, but start with your bank account.

What are the cars worth when done? Look up how much to it will cost you to restore the car. Kind of silly to spend $20,000 on a car you can sell for $12,000.

Are you going to restore the car or just make it look nice? How far are you really going to go. Are you going to properly restore the drive line so the car is good to go for another lifetime?

It is rare to do a mediocre restoration for less than $8000. It is much more common to spend $12,000 and up. Even more if you start farming out work.

Then there is the time involved do not forget to add that value.

A lot of common cars you can find restorations on nice rust free bodies for much less than the cost of restoring what you have.

Things to keep in mind.

[mrpushbutton]

Go buy some (a lot) Ziploc bags and some heavy paper tags with reinforced holes and wire. Tag and bag (and date) should become your mantra. Take a part off of the firewall?

Tag it, bag it and put the date down, it will help you triangulate what you were doing when.

Get a spiral bound note book at Staples or Office Max. There are going to be occasions where a photo will not tell you the whole story but a simple drawing will. For example: the arrangement of shims, fasteners and washers to hold on front fenders. A simple drawing of how all of that was originally sandwiched together will come in real handy after everything is painted and ready to go together again.

Get a cheap plastic ruler to measure fasteners as they are removed.

You pull the engine fasteners to the bell housing and eight are one length and two are shorter--make a simple sketch in your book showing the view of the block and bell housing, simple circles to indicate the hole locations and you note where the two short fasteners came from. These notes become very important as a lot of other minutia goes in and out of your brain while you are waiting on body work or other suppliers/contractors. Get a good cordless phone in the garage; you'll spend as much time calling suppliers/subs as you will turning a wrench.

If you send pot metal (or steel) out for chrome plating, lay all of the pieces out on a blanket and take lots of group and individual photos of your pieces. Make a detailed inventory with descriptions of your chrome to take to the platers, if they will get them to sign a copy you keep, leave a copy to be attached to their paperwork. Some guys have made metal tags stamped with their name and wired them to the parts--some platers will honor this, some will just cut them off. The idea here is to impress the plater that you want to get back everything that you send.

If you are having someone else do the body and paint allow twice as much money as you have in your head right now--I have seen many a budget consumed just in body work "you want it right, don't you?"

Don't buy a reproduction wiring harness out of a catalog--send the vendor yours and tell them to replicate that, with any additions you want, like turn signals.

Good luck