My Wife's 1968 Wildcat convt

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

  My condolences, Keith and Missus.  94 and living alone!!  What a woman!  Most of us can only hope to achieve that.  May she rest in peace.

 

  Ben 

[Buicknutty]

Thanks to you too, Ben.

[Buicknutty]

I'm putting the project on hold after I get a bit more done on it till the Fall. With the passing of my Mother in Law, life will get busier than before. My wife, Glenda, grew up in the house her Mom lived in till just before her death, and her Dad built it in the 50's, so she has a strong emotional attachment to it, but she realizes that she will need to sell it. Fortunately, it was well cared for, and kept in good order, so it should be quite marketable as is. But there is all the furniture and other usual stuff in the house that we will need to deal with. I'm not rushing her, as she needs to come to grips with this, and she is doing very well.

 Anyway, sorry for the long sad story.

 I will post some real updates on the car when I get a chance. I have got the front end sheet metal back from being sandblasted and epoxy primed, and yesterday I finally got the time to finish some welding the frame needed. Awkward, and a bit tough working on the floor with the mig sparks flying around me. I had lots of protective gear on though, and metal sheets covering the floor, etc., so no burns on me, or anything else.

[Buicknutty]

I hope that everyone had a Happy Easter Weekend.

I got to do a bit of work on the Wildcat after dinner tonight. I took the small piece off that the front fender mounts onto, by drilling out the spot welds, its' near the bottom of the body. During some clean up of the rust in the area, a couple of holes became obvious, one in the mount it self, and one in behind it on the body, level with the rocker panel. I have the small area cut out that is rusted, the surrounding area is still solid, and will make up the patches for them next. Then I'll clean it up with the sandblaster, and weld it back in place.

 Also, you can see one of the areas of the frame that has been repaired. That was quite a small area which was weak, at the bottom of the elbow area. It seemed to collect dirt and moisture, which I suspect is why it suffered. It was quite a complex little area to fix, due to the bends and such. The 1/8" plate does not bend too well! I had to make four pieces, and while holding everything with some strong magnets, got them tacked in, and then mig welded them in solid.

Keith

 

Edited March 28, 2016 by Buicknutty (see edit history)

[Buicknutty]

Sorry for not keeping this thread up to date, but today I got it back down on its' feet, started it up, and it ran great, to move it from the main garage to the storage shelter.

It looks almost worse than before, as it is rather multicoloured. Black, red, blue, white and primer! But it is actually better than before. All of the front clip sheet metal, except for the hood and left fender, has been sandblasted and epoxy primed. We have a very nice replacement left front fender from Bud's salvage in Oklahoma now. So that will be going to be metal cleaned and epoxy primed in the near future. The undersides of the inner fenders are now clean of rust and painted, instead of being all rusty!

Keith

 

 

Edited June 4, 2016 by Buicknutty (see edit history)

[dei]

Progress Keith, it's all about progress (ask me how I know). I'll bet it felt good to fire her up!

 

NICE shot of your collection! 

[Buicknutty]

Thanks, Doug. You're right, it felt like a treat to get in it and start it up and drive it, if only for a 100 feet or so. I will post a some pictures of the fender we got later, but for now, it will be waiting till Fall for some more serious work to be done. That is why the grille and lights aren't in it, as I will have to take some of the front clip back off again. I had hoped to get all of the section done, but unfortunately other life events got in the way.

 I guess that's why we have winter, so I can work on the cars, instead of driving them!

 Keith

[Buicknutty]

As promised, but later than ever, here are a few pictures of the used fender we got from Bud's salvage in Oklahoma. I contacted them as a direct result of the story about them that was published in the Bugle, and they had a couple of things that I needed. The biggie, pun intended was the left front fender. A very original, rust free, dent free fender with most the trim still on it. The grille piece on ours was seriously decayed due to many winters, and some poor storage over the years, and the used one on the fender is nearly perfect.

The car is on hold till the winter and then I will put it back in the heated garage to try to get some more work done.

Keith

 

 

[dei]

Nice score Keith!

I have picked up fenders and such from parts guys out west over the years (not usually from around here in Canada because of the rust) and are always amazed what there is to work with as basically a bolt on part. Well worth the money when you consider the expertise and time it would take to restore some of our rusted out metal here. 

Sorry to hear about the Electra issues. Hope it can be sorted out before the Allentown Meet. 

 

I'm sending you a PM about next weekend.

 

 

[sebastienbuick]

hello, beautiful buick and very good work;).
I also am in full restoration of my buick electra 225 1969 and I have the same rear trunk that your and also the same problem of rust in the trunk at the checkout stand

[sebastienbuick]

you weld with what?
I am forced to point to point and grind (up everything to be welded)

[Buicknutty]

 I use a mig welder, with gas, not flux. I used to use oxy/act a lot, but when doing the '41 a friend lent me his mig for a time then I went and bought my own. The one I have is a Lincoln brand, and it has infinitly variable power and speed control which is much better for working with the light gauge steel in car bodies.

 It is sometimes a messy right after welding, then I grind it out.

 Keith

[sebastienbuick]

Hello, ok thank you for this information;).
keep up the good work

[cjp69]

Keith, we are overdue for an update!

[Buicknutty]

 You are of course correct, except there has not been much to report on it. I was intending to start on it sometime this winter, as I have heat in the shop now, but then last year my son got the '55. My feeling was that the '68 had been put off several times for one good reason or another, that my son's car would have to wait its' turn. However, my wife being the Good Mom she is said to me, go ahead and work on Graham's, and after some discussion, I did.

 Naturally that car required a lot more then was previously thought. Don't they always?

 I start the Wildcat from time to time, and it always runs great.

 So, that's the update!

 There is a thread here about my son's car, the 1955 Buick Special.

 Keith

[Buicknutty]

 I suppose I should add a bit more info about this project.

 We have been collecting many of the parts we need for it, and have quite a few things now.

As you will know, on the previous page, I had mentioned my Mother in Law passed away in the winter of 2016. So then there was all of that to get sorted out, then when we got that done, we decided it was time to say goodbye to the city, and after a long search we found a nice, much larger place out in the country. Read, more garage space! Then I had a new one built last year, with a lift and gas heat. We are fortunate here that all the tobacco farmers use natural gas to cure the tobacco leaves, so we have that as fuel here.

 I did a thread on the new garage on the forum as well, if you care to look.

 Right now, the poor Wildcat gets used as a bit of a shelf.

 Keith

Edited June 29, 2020 by Buicknutty (see edit history)

[sebastienbuick]

Just for fun I looked once more at the three pages of this subject, and it is a superb project and I congratulate you for this superb work  

[cjp69]

On 6/29/2020 at 3:55 PM, Buicknutty said:

 I suppose I should add a bit more info about this project.

 We have been collecting many of the parts we need for it, and have quite a few things now.

As you will know, on the previous page, I had mentioned my Mother in Law passed away in the winter of 2016. So then there was all of that to get sorted out, then when we got that done, we decided it was time to say goodbye to the city, and after a long search we found a nice, much larger place out in the country. Read, more garage space! Then I had a new one built last year, with a lift and gas heat. We are fortunate here that all the tobacco farmers use natural gas to cure the tobacco leaves, so we have that as fuel here.

 I did a thread on the new garage on the forum as well, if you care to look.

 Right now, the poor Wildcat gets used as a bit of a shelf.

 Keith

 

Keith, I have some 68 parts I got with the purchase of my Wildcat convertible, if there things you still need, let me know, I can check and see if I have them.  Or you can just buy my Wildcat, and then your project will be done, lol!

 

https://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/pts/d/kent-1968-buick-wildcat-door-panels/7142766761.html

 

[Buicknutty]

On 6/30/2020 at 2:53 PM, sebastienbuick said:

Just for fun I looked once more at the three pages of this subject, and it is a superb project and I congratulate you for this superb work  

Thank you very much! I am very anxious to get back to it, but it will be a little while yet. Hopefully in the Fall.

Keith

[sebastienbuick]

7 hours ago, Buicknutty said:

Thank you very much! I am very anxious to get back to it, but it will be a little while yet. Hopefully in the Fall.

Keith

 

I can't wait to see more  

[Buicknutty]

 I'm just bringing this thread back up. Though not much has been done to the car, we have been collecting parts for it in the meantime, and the deal I have with my son about the '55, is that we get as much done as we can on it, hopefully all of the body work, then the Wildcat gets moved into the repair garage for the winter so I can try to get it moving forward again.

 However I did start it up a couple of weeks ago, and it settled down to a nice smooth, smoke free idle.

 Keith

[Buicknutty]

 So after a very long hiatus I finally got back to work on the Wildcat. It is now on the lift so I can get to work under it, and one of the first things was to clean out a lot of the stuff which had got pushed into it over the time it's been sitting around.

Then I have to get my brain up to date on where I was when I left off back in 2016. As I said previously we have collected some of the things we will need for the car, and a former owner of it found a piece of trim in his basement which he bought for it but never installed, so he gifted it to us.

 

 One of the issues was the door fit, as back when it had body work in the past the body mounting pads had rusted out, the ones under the forward section of the trunk, however they just nicely patched over the holes in the trunk without repairing the actual support. So the body had sagged and to the point where the top would not close.

 The other good thing was it didn't sag very much when the lift picked it up, something I was concerned about.

 Due to time and conditions back in 2016 I didn't have the body shimmed properly, so we (my son and I) got that sorted out, and then the door gaps were a bit better. We also conducted a number of chassis measurements and determined that the frame is in good alignment.

Then with the car on the ground and sitting evenly I did some door adjustments and got them fitting pretty well. The passenger side still is just a shell without even the latch, and the drivers side is still the original, rusty and has been fixed already. I have a good rust free one to go on, but at least I know I can get doors that fit well now.

 I started on an area of the inner fender near where I left off, cut some of that out, then got curious about what was under all that body filler. So a lot of it came off with a chisel, then used the sander to strip a bunch more.

 This showed some evidence of impact damage, as well as rust repair. The wheel well section has been replaced and nicely brazed in way back when and still doesn't look too bad. There was a scrape starting just back of the door and I can see the weld marks where rods had been attached to pull the sheet metal out. However it was still nearly a half an inch deep. The balance of the front part of the quarter wasn't too terrible, some is savable, but the rocker doesn't look so good.

 So here are a few pictures of my work tonight. It's a pretty ugly quarter panel that's for sure!

 Keith

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Buicknutty (see edit history)

[sebastienbuick]

Great the restoration of your Wildcat continues ! 
Good luck for the future, you are doing a good job ! 

[JohnD1956]

Looks like a lot of repairs are needed there Keith.  Do you think it's going to wind up a "body off" restoration job?

[Buicknutty]

4 hours ago, JohnD1956 said:

Do you think it's going to wind up a "body off" restoration job?

I'm trying to avoid doing that, to be honest, though it could be argued the car might need it. The original goal was to make a nice driver out of it, as the value of these cars doesn't warrant the expense of a full blown body off project.

 To do that I'd be better off starting with a better car, and using this one as a parts car, but my wife liked this specific car as she remembers it in the area where she lived before we were married and admired back then.

 Of course a never seems to be as good as one would hope for, my experience is it always seems to be worse! The engine runs very nicely, but I will change the timing chain and sprockets too before doing any amount of driving with it.

 Thanks John.

 Keith

[JohnD1956]

39 minutes ago, Buicknutty said:

I'm trying to avoid doing that, to be honest, though it could be argued the car might need it. The original goal was to make a nice driver out of it, as the value of these cars doesn't warrant the expense of a full blown body off project.

 To do that I'd be better off starting with a better car, and using this one as a parts car, but my wife liked this specific car as she remembers it in the area where she lived before we were married and admired back then.

 Of course a never seems to be as good as one would hope for, my experience is it always seems to be worse! The engine runs very nicely, but I will change the timing chain and sprockets too before doing any amount of driving with it.

 Thanks John.

 Keith

It's understandable to just make it a nice driver Keith. Especially if Glenda has her heart set on that particular car.  It would be tough to maintain equity in it if you went for a full restoration even though it appears that would bump its value quite a bit.  Better to just enjoy it now while you can. 

[Buicknutty]

 Work is progressing slowly on the 'Cat, but progressing it is. My son and I have spent quite a bit of time working the old dent in right the side from a previous accident.

To facilitate this I removed the quarter window and channels, what a job on this car! More difficult than the older ones I'm used to working on.

One issue I had was though I could push dent it out it would pop back in without too much pressure, but with the window and related parts out I could properly dolly the actual scrape out and shrink that small part of the panel back into shape, well close to it anyway. This really doesn't show in photography, and it doesn't look so different but it has had many hours of work done since. Now the panel is stable again and will hold it's shape.

 

 I also made up a hardwood form and dollied the patch panel, and the form was shaped for the gentle curve on the outside, as well as the wheel well. Of course there are quite a few dings to fix in the are once it gets welded into place. I've cleaned out the old body filler from the holes which were punched in the panel for the previous dent repair. I think my best bet is to clean them out with a slightly larger drill then carefully plug weld the holes.

 

 There is a reinforcing brace which runs from the door jam to the inside of the wheel well, which was rusted out. That is now partly made up as well, so I'm nearly at the point where I can start piecing it back together again.

 

 I have a fairly well equipted wood shop as well, an older gent in the area was selling off a planer and associated stuff, which I bought up. So this little panel brought most of that into play. From the chainsaw to rough cut the wood into planks, the planer to smooth them out, table saw to cut to size, the hand planer the get the gentle curve, sander to smooth things out, and jig saw to cut the shape. 

 I do like wood working, so all of that just wasn't for the sake of the car, but it is what I used. We have a large lot which had many Ash trees which became infected and died of the beetle. So I cut a few into planks for use in some projects, so this piece was from some of that.

 Just in case you want to know!

 Keith

 

 

 

[Buicknutty]

 I don't seem to update this thread very often but work is slowly progressing in the midst of all of the other things I'm doing.

 I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the fit problem the passenger door has to the quarter panel, and after consulting with a number body pro friends of mine we've come the conclusion it was born very much this way. Also some info from a gent on the forum who worked at GM during some of these years in quality control backs this up. Perhaps it wasn't quite this bad, but nothing seems to have been bent to create this poor fit.

 However the cause, we are where we are so the only thing is to move forward.

 

 So I finally started to weld in filler to make the gap appear better. I didn't really want to do it this way but I'd like the gaps better than this.

The other point is door fit, with some adjustment the door closes and latches quite well, plus the fit to the fender and A pillar is good too.

 

 In the same garage we have the '68 Wildcat and my '69 Electra and I think I have an example of extremely poor factory fit, ie the Wildcat, and extremely good fit in the Electra which has lovely door fit and near perfect gaps on all panels.

 

 Now the quarter panel between the wheel well and door jam is complete, the rocker is welded in, and the door gap has been fudged with steel plate and the liquid filler which comes out of my mig.

 

 This weekend's project is to try to fabricate the piece which goes over the wheel well before I get launched into other things on Monday and I won't get a chance to get back to this for a couple of weeks.

Keith

 

[sebastienbuick]

Very good job !  

[usnavystgc]

Very nice indeed.

[Buicknutty]

 Thanks Gents!

[Buicknutty]

So some more work is done on the Wildcat. All of the outer body on the right side is done, there is still some to do on the inner fender and a few other areas.

 My repairs certainly look much better than that original stuff!

Hopefully I'll prime it in the morning.

 

[Smartin]

Is that panel bond you used on the patch panel?

[Buicknutty]

16 hours ago, Smartin said:

Is that panel bond you used on the patch panel?

Yes, there and on the section in front of it. The structural parts are migged in, but the outer panels I've used the 3M bonding material.

 

[Buicknutty]

I did get primed last night now it's more or less one colour again, till I start with more filler of course!

[Buicknutty]

 As I'm slowly getting through all the bodywork I'm also thinking ahead to other stuff it will need in the (hopefully) near future. One of them being adding AC to it.

A few years a friend and I stripped a '68 Electra, he wanted the drive train and I got most of the rest including the dash and all the AC stuff and the cruise control, plus a lot of other spare parts. Including the right side right side of the firewall where it bumps out a bit to accommodate the evaporator, etc.

 Back to the AC conversion. One of the things is the upper dash panel, it's the wrong colour, and it has cracks at the edges, not terrible but it needs fixing and to be black.

 So, has anyone had experience recovering these dashes? I've done some searching but so have not come up with anything.

 

The unit was in non operating condition as someone had sabotaged the condenser, and though everything else looks alright who knows it's current condition, so I'm looking into a more modern system which will work without the issues.

 

 This is going to be a nice driver, and we do want to keep it as stock looking as possible.

[Smartin]

I am going to offer my two cents even though you may not want to hear it...sorry...

 

Using panel bond for a patch repair like that will come back to haunt you once the car gets in the sun.  The line will "ghost" and never go away.  In the sun (heat), it will appear worse.  This is known in the body repair world now, and I also know from personal experience on a car I did a couple years ago.  I cringe every time I see it.

 

The patch looks great, though

[Buicknutty]

16 hours ago, Smartin said:

I am going to offer my two cents even though you may not want to hear it...sorry...

 

Using panel bond for a patch repair like that will come back to haunt you once the car gets in the sun.  The line will "ghost" and never go away.  In the sun (heat), it will appear worse.  This is known in the body repair world now, and I also know from personal experience on a car I did a couple years ago.  I cringe every time I see it.

 

The patch looks great, though

 I was concerned about the longevity of a repair like this and talked to a couple of body shop professionals who are friend and they had said it's now a very reliable way to repair. I did discuss that this is a restoration, therefore likely a much longer lived repair than the average collision repair and was assured it will last.

Well, I'm in it there now.

Thank you for your opinion, nonetheless.

 No offence, but I hope you are wrong!

[Smartin]

LOL!  Me too...carry on.

[EmTee]

On 2/1/2023 at 8:41 PM, Smartin said:

In the sun (heat), it will appear worse.

Is this because the bonding material expands (gets thicker) as it gets hot?  Probably not as big an issue in Canada as it would be in Arizona.  Like everything else, there's a tradeoff involved.  I'm guessing that Keith used the adhesive to avoid distorting the big, flat panel with excessive heat.  Nice progress on the 'Cat!