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Me and my beautiful 1956 Buick


Beemon

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Yep! I told them to follow the holes and handed them the trim. They literally connected the dots, even while having the trim in their possession. It's fixed ho now, but just a bit annoying. 

 

Also here's the weatherstrip and a happy young man. 

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I'll just bet there are a flood of memories coming back with the car looking so good!

 

Now,

Keep those fender covers handy so you don't scratch that beautiful paint while doing the usual "keeping her running" things one has to do. ? 

Edited by dei (see edit history)
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I installed the weatherstrip that goes between the door window and rear quarter window. What a pain in the butt

 

Beemon  - how did you get the old seals out of the quarter window frame and what did you use to facilitate getting the new ones in?  Have heard to try that juice electricians use to facilitate pulling house wiring.  Any advice?

 

Car looks great. I remember the excitement of new paint and taking pics of the car back in my college days.  Enjoy!   And x2 on a good fender cover. Hold off that first scratch as long as possible.

Edited by KAD36 (see edit history)
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Ken, I took the plastic end of a screw driver and pounded the top down until it cleared the pinch. Then I used soap and water and needle nosed pliers to pull it up. The old piece slid out without issue once it was clear of the pinch. I did not replace the actual window seal, just the strip. 

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A little update: I am beyond livid. First the cowl to hood gasket is too long and the holes do not line up and now I've just discovered, after trying to attach the trunk weatherstrip, that it's too short. I'm not sure how these restoration vendors justify selling you the wrong product when they ask for year/make/model on their websites. I literally have no words. This is truly going to be my first and last classic car because I really hate this hobby. I like the idea of this hobby and I like driving and owning the car, but I have just been screwed over too many times. "Sorry, but our records show that this is correct for your car. Sorry for the inconvenience." Yeah... I'm sorry, too.

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I was assured there would be enough to trim to 1/2" excess to butt the ends together. Shame on me

 

Also I've never heard of pulling any type of weatherstrip tight. It needs to flex and bend and stretching it is just going to make it want to rebound. In fact in my time of need I stretched it out as far as I could get it and ran it under hot water to soften it up and before I could work it around the other side, it shrank up again and pulled itself off the trunk lid. I'm going to try one more time, this time removing the trunk lid from the car, and hope to get it all the way around (though doubtful). If it were 1 foot longer it would be perfect. 

 

As for the hood to cowl gasket, I guess I'm going to have to trim it and try to drill holes in it. It must be for a roadmaster or something. 

Edited by Beemon (see edit history)
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So new plan: I picked up 20 feet of 3M red adhesive tape. I'm going to run the tape all the way around the trunk instead of gluing it and try to make up those six inches. I can't really get 16 feet of trunk strip for free and I don't want to wait another week and a half to drive the car... so going to make the best of a bad situation. 

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1 hour ago, Beemon said:

Thanks for the link Willie. Unfortunately I'm at a point where I can't spend anymore money if I plan to pay this off with internship money. I will not recommend Steele to anyone after this. 

Steele has some good products, but for door and trunk weatherstrip there is a better choice.  Would you like for me to look for some remnants to send to you?

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2 minutes ago, Beemon said:

Its alright for now. I need to get the car moving by Friday so I'm going to tape the two ends together and just stretch the seal around. I think 6 inches will be safe to stretch out of ~15 feet. 

Do the stretching in the long runs; not the corners=it will leak!  (just pay attention to how the seal interacts with the lip on the trunk opening and you will see what I mean)

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A little late for you now but Steele did the same to me with a trunk strip. I called and they asked how short it was. I said "a foot". They said we'll send you a one  foot longer piece and they did. Any weather strip you need to glue on wash it good in warm soapy water to remove any possible mold release. Don't ask how I learned this. Also don't be too discouraged with repro stuff. Just accept that it likely will not be exactly correct and will likely need to be "massaged" a bit...............Bob

Edited by Bhigdog (see edit history)
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Who needs a rivet or stapler gun when this red backed 3M tape exists? Seriously, I just taped the mohair into the vent window channel and it's solid. Did the same for the straight strips on the front doors. Now I just need to bend the rears and I can set my windows and be done with this ordeal.  :P

 

I'm shooting for Friday as rear seat install day. 

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45 minutes ago, Bloo said:

 

Is that just mohair you speak of, or does it have metal attached?

 

 

They're metal inserts that I taped to the window channel. Set time was pretty quick. I even did the doors tonight, tomorrow I tackle the rear quarter window. I have adhesive mohair to reline the stainless corner pieces, too.

 

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28 minutes ago, Beemon said:

I have adhesive mohair to reline the stainless corner pieces, too.

 

I don't know exactly what pieces you are talking about, but is this just fuzzy tape? If so, how wide is it and where do i get some?

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5 hours ago, Bloo said:

 

I don't know exactly what pieces you are talking about, but is this just fuzzy tape? If so, how wide is it and where do i get some?

 

All of my weatherstrip is from Steele. Its an inch thick so I can just cut out the shape to work. 

 

The pieces in question are where the rear quarter window top meets the rear quarter window bottom and there's an almost triangle piece of stainless that connects the rear window trim to the rear quarter trim. 

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Well I finally got some answers today regarding my overheating problem and timing issues. I found an old guy with a sun distributor machine and we put the 322 distributor out of the engine and my 401 distributor both on it. The 322 distributor had a Max advance of 45 degrees at 2000 RPM with 10 degrees from the vacuum advance. That's pretty insane to think that I'm getting 90° full advance at the flywheel at 2000 RPM... no wonder the engine was overheating. The 401 distributor had max advance come in around 2500 RPM at about 12 degrees with the vacuum advance around 8 degrees. That's in the range of operation. Going to tear apart the old distributor once I'm done with the car,  I'm curious to see what's going on under the breaker plate. 

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I ran the gauntlet and I've reached the end. 

 

You'll notice the antenna is missing... the nylon cord came out again so I'm going to try JB weld and see if I can't get it to stay in.

 

I think I may actually be screwed on the trunk seal.. I'm going to contact some local shops and see if they have spools on inventory before ordering more. 

 

And I gotta say, red 3M dual sided sticky tape is pretty awesome.. after the trunk lid fiasco and getting black goop all over the place, I used the tape for anything you can think of and it came out great. And if I ever need to get it off, instead of scraping up weatherstrip glue, I just need to break the tape seal. 

 

Still waiting on that first car wash. 

 

Oh and I never got back the dash pad ends and the dash pad center trim piece from the shop so that's cool. Gotta go back Monday and see what's up. I opened up a ball of bubble tape that was supposed to be them and it was empty. 

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3 hours ago, dei said:

Now that will shut some comments up like, "When are you going to restore her?"

You have do her proud.

Keep on enjoying the ride!

 

Haha more like "if it were my car I'd clear coat the patina" comments. Next year it's hopefully interior then engine again then chrome. 

 

Getting a lot more looks now. I'm really happy with how the paint turned out. In direct light the metallic sheen makes it a lighter blue but in indirect light the paint is almost a perfect match. People give Maaco a bad rep but if you pay for the quality OEM job and not the 600 job, it turns out great. Granted, its all in the shop and who works there.

 

Tonight I put on the new hood insulation. Every old tattered thing I take off to replace just makes the car all the more crisp. 

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Ben...the car is looking sharp!  Exciting thing is you haven't even done a full restoration yet.  Can you post some pictures from the rear?  Looking foward to more updates.  Also, glad you got to the end of the tunnel with the engine ordeal.  

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