Continue Work on the 68 GTO. Friday tore instrument panel down, cleaned it all up, polished lense and all knobs and escutcheons, rebuilt a rallaey clock and installed that in place of the dummy plate. Reassembled and ready to intstall when to that point. Saturday pulled the cracked but original windshield, prepped and first coated the entire metal dash and top of cowl. Pulled inner fenders and replaced the 14 body bushings. Gonna wet sand first coat on dash and finish coat it today. Core support, inner fenders, and metal radiator top panel are heading next off to Sandblast and phosphor-coat.
Finished cleaning the fuel system in the T. I had to tow it home last weekend. The fuel screen was plugged, the fuel line looked like it was recovered from the Titanic (on the inside), and I actually used a chipping hammer to clean the crud out of the carburetor fuel bowl. I love the T, but I have never had a car with so many fuel contamination issues. I have been draining the fuel strainer bowl weekly, but now will also drain the carburetor float bowl. It's an updraft carburetor, and the float bowl is the low point in the fuel system. And yes, it does have a drain petcock. I ran the T's engine for 25 minutes with no problems.
Then today I pulled out the seats to have them recovered. Think it’s about time. 50+ years in the California sun take there toll on things.
To close out the weekend, I installed a kit in a spare carb I recently purchased. Might install it on the car next weekend to see if I did it right.
On the "1964-Buick-Skylark-Pervertible-GS-Prototype-Wannabe™", finished up Gear Vendors OD and took the car out to play. Got me an 8 Speed! Painted EB24 2x4 intake and valley cover, for the 2x4 FiTech install next. On the 1968 "Bad Buick" Skylark 430 build, I knocked out the cam bearings the machine shop put in backwards and clocked 5 and 9, (so, all the driver's side bearings holes were blocked, defeating the extra oil where it really needs to be delivered) " and they used 20-50 oil when they installed them. I made it specific that they needed to all be clocked 3 and 7 and gave him the TA instructions. (Since I did not have the bearing tool and the shop was decking the block and balancing the rotating, I figured I would have them install the bearings...) So, now I have a cam bearing tool and another new set of TV coated/grooved bearings. Going to clean the block with WD40 and coffee filters to make sure it is whistle clean and start assembly.
Dont forget to run a gun brush through all the oil passages. If they couldnt clock the bearings right, I wouldn't trust the high school wash kid either!
Yep. "wash kid" and all. (looked to be about 16 or 17). I have a pile of gun cleaning stuff. Various bore snakes, jags, patches, bore brushes, they are "use and toss". I am a bit on the CDO side of doing stuff and detail work. (Grew up around dragster, motorcycles, hot rods, aircraft) and career in aviation and aircraft maintenance. All plugs are out, oil mods done, deburred, threads chased, chamfered any and all edges.
My Mom is back down from Alaska taking care of my grandpa until they can get him into a home, so I drove to Boulder, MT 3 hours away Friday night and just got back. My one cool uncle, his daughter, and son (My cousins) also live there so spent a lot of the weekend hanging out with my Mom and eating real home cooking, going to the 2 local bars, and bowling. Was -40 wind chill, so everything indoors. I'm not a good bowler, if I break 100 I'm happy. Last game I was in the low 70s going into the 10th frame. Rolled 3 strikes in a row, which to say the least was a shock and a first for me, so I blew by 100 points again, so a good night. Spent the rest of that night getting drunk enough to make me sick for the first time in 15 years and meeting the locals. Drove back today and spent the last couple hours shoveling my drifted/frozen over sidewalks and now going to go have a beer. It's 6 degrees outside and it feels downright pleasant after what I went through over on that side of the pass.......
No internet yesterday. Saturday we went to another funeral. Debbie was a longtime friend of mine from back in my teen years. I was, at 16-17, madly 'in love' with her cousin until she broke up with me. Her loss . I didn't see Debbie, and her many siblings, very often but we always cared. She served in the Navy for years as well. Sunday, we woke up to a non-functioning furnace. My Friend Eric (Horsepower Innovations) came over. We diagnosed and repaired the problem.
So just an FYI- 2019 Challenger Scat packs do massive smoke shows with the traction control off. Its always bad when the headlights are pointing in a different direction than the car is going. Yeah, without traction control this thing would get out of shape in the blink of an eye. Gobs of power on tap. Its actually ridiculous. Gas mileage as you would expect isn't great but then again, I wasn't driving it like an old lady either. It had heated seats and steering wheel. The seats are cooled also. That's probably nice when its 100 degrees out. I never realized how big they are. Jen hates that about it. I like it, it reminds me of the GS. Trunk is big too. Thing handled like it was on rails. The ride was pretty harsh but your really not buying one of these things for ride quality. The only thing is the front spoiler is way too low. Being a car guy, I was cognizant of that fact and made sure I parked it a little shallower than I normally would do in my Escape. But I managed to whack the spoiler on a curb anyway. All it takes is one time where you not thinking about that spoiler. I was pissed and it wasn't even my car. Overall its a great car. Checks all the boxes for me. I want one even more now.
I really like them for the fact that they're a "fullsize" 2 door, also. A buddy of mine has a 2010 R/T, and we took it on a pretty long road trip with his two boys. It's the only modern muscle car that can sit 4 people comfortably. If I had to use it as an actual car, there's no doubt I'd get a Challenger over a Mustang or Camaro.
I went to the garage to pick up { I had it out already }the rear plate bracket.To my surprise,it was not there.Looked all over,could not find it.Called Jason,asked if he had one,I'll look,he said.A day later,talking to a Buick car guy in town,he states that he might have one.I got me a NOS which I exchanged for some of my parts.By the way,I don't know if I just put it somewhere or maybe somebody did think it was theirs.I do sell some parts locally.Bruno.
