1964 Buick Skylark Convertible mild custom project

yeah , ive been looking at a building in logan the the old logan coach horse trailer co use to be in .. i worked there when i was a teen as a painters helper ... lots of cleaning,de-greasing and caulking .. .. but lots of guys want me to stay here in the northwest .. tacoma washington is a pretty place and lots of rides and shows .. im heading out the door in a minute to go to the early bire muscle car swap-meet at the fair grounds .. gotta love car swap-meets
keep up the progress on the vert

 

This is a great project. I came across it accidentally, while trawling the web for 64 Skylark resources, and had to register with this forum just to subscribe to this thread.

I also have a 64 'Lark convertible, it looks remarkably like this one did at the beginning of your build (just red interior instead of black). I have the same motor you do, but after 20 years or so, it is time for a rebuild. I have been tossing around the idea of throwing in a Nailhead motor, a la 65 GS. Was yours difficult to build? It looks like it is making more power than it used to, which is really all I am after.

Nice work, I can't wait to see it complete!

Cheers,
Bryan

 

Welcome to v8Buick. Thanks for the nice comments on my car. I was lucky and found an Old Buick engine building in my area and he did some good work as well as guide me into doing lots of my own work with porting and other tricks. It should be a great little power plant thanks to the lighter materials and help from the gearing. All old Buick engines are harder to build and find parts for but much better than planting in a chevy (lots of pure Buick power on this site). I'm glad I kept mine mostly Buick for good conversation and high torque.

I will post some misc photos soon. I've been doing odds and ends while waiting for warmth and a paint booth. Ordering the interior and top soon so things will start happening again.

PS, poke around on this site and you will find that many of the 64 Skylarks are owned by Brian's.

 

The tail lights in my car have always been dull or not working. I found a set of ultra cheep LED trailer lights so I pulled them apart, ground off some plastic and they work pretty good.

The original gaskets shrunk and hardened so I made some new ones out of cork. Don't know how good it works yet but better than nothing.

 

The car is ready for paint but I have been driving the car while setting on a bucket or box or whatever else I could grab. To drive in and out of a booth I need better control of the steering and pedals so I rigged up a seat.

Keeping with the low budget idea I will use a set of 67 Impala SS bucket seats I found a few years ago. The seat tracks for the old Chev will not work on the A-body so I sold them on eBay for almost the price I paid for the seats. The foam and covers were shot but the frames, springs, metal backs and bases are all very nice. I blasted all the paint off the bases and backs then coated them with black paint. I had two sets of seat tracks from bench seats but they are a little short for the bucket seat frames. Not a problem that a little angle iron and a welder can't fix.

The drivers side seat track release worked fine but the passenger side release is on the wrong side so I cut it off and rigged it up backward. Once finished up no one will ever know.

 

I have one as well but not as rough.needs restore but nice solid S Cal car.I like the o/a weight of the car.aluminum motor really helps a bunch and you were smart to keep the driveability good.with some of your mod's,I'd have to give you Kudos and a big thumbs up
as being a "Hot Rodder"

 

Thanks for the thumbs up. I like to think of myself as a "Hot Rodder" but I don't know if others would go that far.

You quoted my words from a few years ago. It's nice to see some are still reading all my blah blah blah. The EFI is gone (couldn't get it tuned, and outdated). The "over 300 horse" is a stretch but that is yet to be seen.

Your car with red interior sounds very nice. If mine was red and white I may have gone stock. A big block nail head would be cool. Like they say "there's no replacement for displacement".

---------- Post added at 09:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:55 PM ----------

I am ready to paint... the car is ready to paint... I must paint...

If I can't paint the car then I will paint other stuff. The grille, headlight bezels and tail panel will do.

The original grille and other trim came silver / grey. I wanted to got black but that was to much like a rattle can project. So I mixed up some dark grey metallic. The chrome shop left the parts rough so I sanded and epoxy primed them to seal and smooth.

The tail panel has an odd low spot that can be seen in the photo so I had to give that panel a few coats of primer surfacer and I set that aside for sanding tomorrow.

The photos don't show just how aw-some the chrome and dark grey look together.

 

The tail panel gave me fits but after many hours... Perfection







Since I had the paint and clear out I decided to try tinting the tail lights. Not an exact match to the tail panel due to the red and the transparency, but it's a nice custom touch.





I was lucky to have very nice chrome center tail parts but the plastic part looked terrible. The blue and white was there but flaky, the red was mostly flaked off. I delicately scraped off the rest of the red, hit all three color areas with clear to seal in the white and blue then sprayed in transparent red then silver background. The topside of the plastic is recessed and impossible to polish so I used steel wool to scuff it up and clean the edges then coated it with clear to make it shine.

 

I agree with you on the black. I love using dark metallic and med charcoal grey for the accent colors. I am doing my grille and front and rear bezels dark charcoal instead of black. That car just gets better each time you post. Great job!

 

Thank you for the kind works 19richie66.

I don't want anyone to think I'm against black rattle cans because I have used cases of them over the years (and on this car). With this car I am after a look that is different from the norm with trim colors, body mods and soon to be interior. Changes that will stand out but look like GM could have done it (of course GM didn't do air bags in the 60s).

 

As always looking good Brian! I like the rear LED idea. Keep the inspiring post coming.

 

Brian,

Always something amazing! The grill and headlight bezels look sweet. I bet that treatment would look nice on the wide body side moldings instead of the silver from the factory. And the restoration on the rear center emblem is beautiful :TU: I can't wait to see what you do with the front center grill emblem. Keep up the nice work, and thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks guys.

The trim and tail lights turned out better than I had hoped. The body side moldings would look great in the dark grey but I don't like how wide the originals are. I am working on an alternative but it's top secret for now (and may stay that way if it doesn't work out as planned). The grille center will have the dark gray background too. I don't know if it will always be in the grille though, I like it with and without so it may come and go with my mood.

 

I struck out on finding a paint booth. One moved and is not back together, one went out of business, and the other will not rent anymore.

So, since I work for a box plant, I brought home a stack of white sheets and built my own booth in the garage. I picked up a handful of lights, fans and filters and taped it all together. I ordered all my paint from Summit and I finally spent the big bucks and bought me a new DeVilbus gun.

I spent the day getting the car taped up then cleaned the car and booth top to bottom. Tomorrow is paint day. Wish me luck.

 

:beer

Finally all the same color.

Now back to sanding. 1000 grit, 2000 grit, 3000 grit, buff and hand rub. ou:

 

Beautiful!!

Mike

 

Wow gorgeous! Congratulations! I can only imagine what the work was like, great job.

 

Thanks guys!

It was loads of work putting up the booth just to take it down. It was great to be able to do it all at home though.

 

Car's looking better all the time! I've had to convert my garage a few times for paint. It is a lot of work but when it's done and you can say you did it at home it makes it well worth the trouble.

 

Thanks and Yep, there is some pride in being able to say that I did the paint and body in my garage.

---------- Post added at 08:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:32 PM ----------

I wanted to hang the lights and pop in the glass so I could start driving it while I finish it but one tail light was goofed up at the chrome shop so it will not hold the lens. No biggy, still lots I should do before I drive it.

Got some photos in the sun to show off the paint and some chrome.