Our new 1955 Special

[Rusty Heaps]

20 hours ago, Buicknutty said:

 Thanks everyone for their input.

What I have done on my other cars with small right hand mirrors is to add a small stick on wide one which gives a a wide field of view.

Yes, a friend turned me on to installing a wide view mirror of the same size onto the passenger side mirror. I have to say that it’s some of the best advice I’ve received for an older car. You’ll love it and no one else will notice the difference.

[Buicknutty]

 On the road at last! I got the safety yesterday, she passed without any issues and I got plates this morning. So we took it out for a drive around the block, a country block that is which is about 6-7 miles.

 It drove just fine and I had it up to about 50 mph and it drove fine and rode smooth like a Buick should.

 However I was leaving more of a "vapour trail" than I expected. There was a lot of smoke coming out of the road draft tube. We know it has blow by as well as a bad cylinder so it's not going to be perfect. We are hoping that it will free up a bit.

 So to that end we got home checked things on the car and headed out again for another cruise. However the car had different ideas as it died at the end of the driveway.

 Turned out it was the fuel pump. Fortunately I had a spare which I carry in the trunk of the '56 and once installed the '55 fired up and ran just fine.

The ironic thing is I had the decades old one which still worked rebuilt last year, for reliability!

 

[Buicknutty]

 After the fuel pump change all seemed well so we decided to take it out again this morning.

First we did a short drive and all was well so we took it for a longer loop. All told we drove it about 25 miles today.

 The mileage displayed is what it is reading now after our driving today, and it is interesting as you can clearly see the fade on the numbers which have been in the same position for decades. I should have done a shot before we took it out the first time, but I forgot.

Here is a picture of us changing drivers, so my son Graham can drive it for the first time on the road rather than just around our place. He did just fine, and the car is smoking much less than the day before so the rings have come back a bit at least.

 Keith

 

[lancemb]

Looks like a great original car!  I feel your pain with the fuel pumps.  After swapping rebuilt ones in and out about 3 times this spring I put an NOS one in and it's doing great.

[Buicknutty]

 After some debate between me and my son I decided to get some paint custom mixed to get as close a match as possible to the paint which is on the car and spray the rear sections which are still in primer from the body work we did over the winter.

 The debate was about whether or not to leave it as is till we are able to do the whole car but I wanted to get it looking better and not so much like a patchwork quilt.

 I believe it was painted in the 80's or so, a single stage and what's on it would seem to be a mistint of the original colour. We do want to return to the correct colour but to do a nice job it will take quite a lot of work to correct all the little issues.

 There was an upcoming show on last weekend (Oct 16) and I thought it would be cool to have it painted by then to drive it there. This is pretty much the last outdoor event in the area till next year.

 It took a couple of tries to get a good match but we did in the end.

 Over I'm extremely pleased with the outcome. I also buffed the old paint which brought the shine and colour back up to be closer to the new stuff. Honestly was not trying for a show car shine so I wouldn't make the new section look too much out of place. They also mixed in a ready to spray format and it worked great. In this case I didn't use hardener to avoid potential problems with blending the new to old.

 I had run out of masking paper so I had to improvise with newspapers etc. The only other thing we need are the emblems, new ones are on their way from the US as the old ones came off in pieces. The originals had been stuck on by the previous folks.

Keith

 

 

 

[JohnD1956]

@Buicknutty  How did it do at the show?

[sebastienbuick]

Beautiful work !! 

[Buicknutty]

22 hours ago, JohnD1956 said:

@Buicknutty  How did it do at the show?

 It got a fair bit of attention, but it wasn't a judged show so other than door prize draws no awards were handed out.

 

[EmTee]

Wow - looks great, Keith!  I wouldn't be in any hurry whatsoever to do a whole-car re-spray... 

[Buicknutty]

31 minutes ago, EmTee said:

Wow - looks great, Keith!  I wouldn't be in any hurry whatsoever to do a whole-car re-spray... 

Thanks, yes, I'm very pleased with the look of it too. I feel much the same the same way about it as well.

Keith

[Kosage Chavis]

Could have fooled me.  Colors matched up very well.  You all did an awesome job.

[Buicknutty]

19 hours ago, Kosage Chavis said:

Could have fooled me.  Colors matched up very well.  You all did an awesome job.

Thank you very much! We do our best.

[usnavystgc]

Looking great.