1976 Buick Skylark

[Guest]

It ran well 3 years ago when my brother stowed it in mom's garage and disconnected the battery. It has a V8--70,000 miles on the odometer. Is i worth much, will parts be hard to find--is it "classic" enough to tak to car shows?

[Guest brh]

I have seen 1991 Reattas at car shows. This hobby is all about enjoying your car and the great friends you will make. As for parts I don't see that as being a problem. All of us have many sources I'm sure we can help. Enjoy. In the meantime take the spark plugs out and put some oil in those cylinders before you crank it.

[NTX5467]

Those were some very nice cars! However, they just don't have the name recognition of the Chevy Nova of those years. The Buicks were incredibly nice on the inside compared to the other GM rear wheel drive X-body cars too! Plus you got a Buick motor in the mix too, typically.

I concur with the suggestion of putting some light oil in the cylinders before you try to restart it. I might also add that the shelf life of modern gasoline has, in your case, long since expired. Therefore, before you even crank the motor with the starter, you will probably need to get the fuel out of the tank and the tank cleaned out and leak checked. If you try to start it with the "dead" gas in it, the varnish and stuff in the old gas will really gum things up! At the present time, you could probalby get away with just an oil change but if you try to use the old gas, you'll probably HAVE to have a carb overhaul/rebuild and other assorted problems fixed. Take a little time now to save time and money later!

Also, you might put a floor jack under the rear axle (first to elevate one side only so that lube will flow down the axle tube to the rear wheel bearings on each side, doing one side at a time) and then jacking it up under the center section (carefully) and with the jackstands under the rear axle ends, rotate the driveshaft to get the ring gear coated with lube again. Another little precaution that might save a good deal of money later.

When you do get it running again, drive it slowly for the first 10 miles or so to let things get used to being operational again, also being sure to turn some corners too.

Those cars can be made into really neat cars. All of the Police Nova sway bars and such will bolt on to improve the handling a good bit. Put some KONI shocks with that and some good performance radials and it can be one great car that is powerful (if it's got the Buick V-8), luxurious, and fun to drive.

Key thing is to do all of the prep work before you get the engine fired off and roll it around again.

As for collectible value, not just yet, but as fewer of those cars are around, if you have a nice one, it'll always be worth something (not necessarily a gold mine, though).

Enjoy!

NTX5467

[Guest]

Actually the Skylark was an A-body and the Apollo an X-body.

Although they have little value as a classic, if I saw one at a car show I would check it out just out of curiousity.

[Guest]

I'll agree that THAT year Skylark was an A-body and Apollo was the X-body, but one more thing that gave many parts guys fits, dealership and otherwise, was that one year Skylark was an A-body and the next year that name was on a fwd car. YIKES! Lots of parts were sent out wrong when the customer/garage didn't check the VIN for the correct year of the vehicle.

Please replace my references to Nova Police Cars with "any intermediate GM performance car of that year", but there might already be a rear sway bar on the car as GM was using that as part of their "Radial Tuned Suspension" of those years anyway. Adding the polyurethane link bolt grommets is a valid deal anyway, as are the KONIs or similar. Comments on collectibility and such still apply, though.

Looks like the "Anonymous" gremlin (not AMC) has struck again . . . Didn't want to login this time, though.

Enjoy!

NTX5467

[Guest John Chapman]

Here's a link or two on the subject:

http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/showflat....=true#Post76564

http://www.buickapollo.com/

Here's a link to the Nova webring. Same car, different trim.

http://www.novaresource.com/novaring.htm

Good luck!

JMC