1964 Buick Skylark Convertible mild custom project

In the photo you can also see the ovaled out hole on the edge of the fender. I had to move the trim down about 3/8 of an inch. I welded over the holes along the top and bottom and redrilled them. I forgot about the hole on the fender edge so I filed it to fit but the trim will cover this one up so it will stay that way. Good indicator of how far I had to move the trim.



Straight bumper, straight trim, straight tail light, good gaps... much better.

 

With the 1/2 inch metal bar added to the lower edge of the trunk lid to close up that ugly gap this makes for possible chips when the lid gets dropped or slammed. Since I also filled the key hole I needed to pop open the trunk so I came up with a great way to pop and drop.

The power pull down and realease from a mid 1990's Buick luxury sedan is the perfect fix for both problems. Push the button to release and it pops open like a normal trunk release and you lift the lid. Close the lid back down gently to a click and it powers itself down the last little bit to a tight close.

If you pull one for your car make sure you get all the wires and the release button. Took me a while to figure out that the release button is a Positive charge not negative like most. You will need all the wires to make the trip sensors work. The sensors are built into the latch and power pull down motor. Also comes with a wire for a warning light. I will use this wire for the alarm system warnng.

 

Hi Brian,
I saw your posts on Lou's site.. I was looking around to see if anyone has posted some work on the early cars.

My project is a 67 Skylark Vert, which when running a search, picked up Lou's older project (bummer on that one)

Anyhow great posts with all the pics!!.., and the struggles are not unknown to us.. I was sure the car I bought was good from the front to the usual rust in the 1/4's, for a convertible, but NO!!!

Tight lines, low and wide stance and all the other little fixes are the way to go for some cars :TU:

Pete

 

Hi Pete,

I had been following Lou, aka Luckin Fou, on his customers Skylark as well. I keep hoping it will pop back up for a finish. I started my post on his sight and then found him again on this one. I love this sight so I followed his lead and starter another post here. There's lots of great tips and people on this sight to help a guy get a sad car happy again.

I'd love to see your vert. Just don't see enough of them Buicks. Hope you find all the stuff you need to keep yours alive and well.

 

I struggled to get the rear bumper to fit the way I wanted. I slotted out the bracket holes, took a large hammer to it, bolted it to the car and pulled it with a cable come-a-long, took a grinder to it but nothing made me happy. The bumper appeared to be shaped correct but I couldnt pull the ends in far enough. I decided I would need to get tough with the brackets and frame ends but I didnt want to ruin the original bumper so I grabbed the bumper from my parts car. Stupid parts car bumper was a perfect fit. :af: I dont know what the h*ll is wrong with the original one, it looks fine.

The parts car bumper has lots of dents but it is repairable (thank goodness for extra parts).
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com<o></o>
The bumper sticks out a little on the bottom ends but not the top. I tapped the bottom of the bumper in to contour the body better. The body had larger radiuses than the bumper so I sliced the quarters open and tapped the sheet metal over to be snug with the bumper. I also cut the back panel below the tail lights to bring that area down and flat. I smoothed the body dimple out at the ends for a smooth transition similar to the fender well lips.

 

I little grinding and a little filler and finally all the metal work is done. :beer

 

Time to cover up those cracks! :moonu: :eek2:

Even with the body panels perfectly in line you can see the tooling from the good old days didn't make a flat transition. I spent many hours making all the joints 3/16" wide so a little skim of fill over all the joints will make them vanish in those bright show room lights.

 

I was sanding what was left of the paint off from the trunk lid and the panel between the lid and rear top well. Looked like some idiot must have climbed on the back of the car to put on the top boot or? They left knee imprints along the trunk lid and smashed in the panel at the back window. It didnt look like the person that did the last paint job even tried to pull this area back out, it had a good of filler slapped over it. Once I removed all the filler luckily my stud welding allowed me to pull all the dents out with little effort. (I love those studs for areas like this.) There is no way to get to the back of these panels so no wonder it had so much filler in it and luckily they didnt poke a million holes in it for the old style screw puller.

Dip this car in primer, it is ready for... ou: lots of hours of priming and sanding, then prime and sand some more. I hope I can get everything primed before it gets too cold. I would like to get the first round of sanding going during the winter months.

 

I'm currently in the process of putting my 64 convt back together and was wondering about the motor mounts. I ordered a set from opg but they are
taller and the mount flanges are wider ... my original ones are 4 1/4 " between the engine mount holes and 2 3/8 between the flanges and from
the inside to the bottom of the flange is 2 1/2" . Do you know if yours are the same. I saw one picture that shows the pssg side and I think they are and was wondering if your replacing them and where you might get a set. I've read up on the internet and it seems 64 was a special (no pun
intended) year and everyone has replacements for 65 and up but it's a larger mount. I tried to find frame pads to match but everything seems to come back to changing the mounts when you (AHEM) change it out for a 350 or a big block. Any help would be appreciated..... Alex

 

I went the same rout. I purchase a set from OPGI and then sent them back.

The only place I have found lists them as 64 only and fit both V6 and V8. You can find them at Kanter.com BUT, they only rebuild your old mounts. Their part number is 26821n. They charge $166.00 for both and it takes 3 weeks. My old mounts are fair so I ended up putting them back in. I keep hoping I will find a set so I can replace them but I may have to send mine out to be on the safe side.

 

Since the car lays the frame on the pavement I needed the exhaust to tuck into the belly as much as possible. I purchased a Flowmaster 2.5 inch header flange to tail pipe kit to get me started. The kit was set up for long tube headers so I purchased a U bend and header flanges to tie into my shorty headers.

Its not fun to do an exhaust on your back with jack stands but I am so picky that I have to do my own work (and I'm stretching my :dollar: ). Since the car is so low I had to tack weld everything together then lower the car flat to check to make sure both sides not only clear but clear by the same amount.


I used two jacks and jacked two boards up against the frame and set all the parts onto the boards with wedges to set the pipes where they would be above the lowest point of the car. To my surprise the pipes fit nicely between the low point and the belly parts and cross members.

I had to put it together and take it apart many times to get everything the way I wanted before I welded the entire set. The shorty tubes and the long tube kit didnt quite fit together so I had to add two small sections of pipe. Just my luck, the last time I need to take it apart to finish it up I broke a stud off in the header flange. :af: I took them off many times and now one locks up and snaps?o No:



After replacing the stud, and welding all the joints, I painted over the welds with silver paint to prevent rust but I didnt like the looks of the silver pipes and black mufflers. I also didnt like the silver pipes that can be seen behind the rear wheels so I painted the full exhaust black.

 

The kit came with pipe dumps for the tail, but I dont like those, so I bought a pair of Cherry Bomb stainless steel tips that I will cut through the bottom edge of the rear bumper, but thats another project. This is how it will stay for now (no tail pipes sound great:Brow: )

 

I was going to put the hood back on to do all the final body adjusments and alignment but I decided that I would get her running better.

Everytime I would start it up it was very hard to start but then I couldn't keep it idleing to move it. I put it in gear and it would stall.

I hooked up a computer to the Holley control module again and started playing with the numbers. Long story short, (after about 20 hours of plalying with numbers that are very hard to wrap my Old School brain around,) I finally have it running very strong. I'm not finished tuning because it is still hard to start when cold but I'm happy with it for now. I will post a link to a new thread under the new tech for old iron posts.

I drove it around the block a few times and wow is this thing going to be fun. All the upgrades made a huge difference. I couldn't spin the big 18s before but now it spins them unexpectedly. (yes she's missing a few pounds but she's really jumpy now and she wants to be openned up)

With winter around the garage I will be playing with electronics, dash and the top for the next few months. I purchased a set of used power windows from a 66 chevelle and some door pops. I will Finish up the inside of the trunk and back seat area and hopefully get it to a buddies shop that will let me borrow his booth to get her in primer.

 

I posted this thread when I was at my wits end on getting it started.
http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=216139

 

I have been burning up brain cells trying to get the EFI tuned so I am moving on to the interior for a while. I mentioned earlier that I picked up a set of 67 GTO seats with locking backs. Well I didn’t look close enough at them since they were all apart. The seat back parts are both left sides. To make these work I needed a right back. I also picked up a set of 66 Chevelle covers but then changed my mind on those being in my Buick. I found another set of 67 buckets in an Impalla SS so I used the GTO seats as practice and finished them up with 66 steel backs and sold them on eBay to a guy with an ElCamino.

Great practice, but I may have to go custom to get the look I am after. The $900 bucks I got from these will help pay for the new stuff. p

 

The dash had been painted blue twice. The second time was over the cracked, dirty original paint. I stripped it bare, primed it and painted it with semi gloss black. I put in a new glove box and new screws.



The background panel for the speedo was sratched behind the plexy cover, o No: so I pulled everything apart and cleaned and tested every peice. The gas level didn't work but it tested out so that must be the sending units problem. My parts car had a great dash so I used all the best parts. I turned the odometer back to 00000.0 since the speedo hadn't worked in years (bad cable) and everything on this car will be new. The plastic clear lens was very scratched so I polished it clear again. The chrome on the dash inserts was in great shape but the painted areas had come off. I repainted over the chrome areas the way Buick did with silver and metalic gray like original. I don't need the gear select window so I it and put the alarm warning light in there. The green turn signal lens was faded to a yellow haze but they are round in the back and perfectly off center so I just flipped them over and they look new again.



Someone used pliers and ruined the original knobs and mounts :af: . The parts car had great knobs but no power top knob. I have searched for 5 years and I haven't been able to find a good power top knob mounting plate so I ended up putting the buggered up one back on. :ball: This car had a clock and to my surprize when I blew out the dust it worked great but I found a small tach from a Nova that fits perfect in the clock hole so the clock will get stored away.



The automatic shift lever had locked up years ago so you would have to force it through the gears and that wore the selector stops off. The steering wheel mount scraped on the turn signal mount and made a horrible noise. The turn signal return parts didn't work for years and I had to jiggle the turn handle to make the signals work. My parts car had a great column and everything worked. I didn't want the shift lever anymore so I pulled the two columns apart and stripped out the shift parts then put all the best parts back on with fresh semi gloss black paint. I ground off the shifter mount and filled it with fiber reforced epoxy. I had a GS sport wheel and I found a 66 Chevelle mounting hub. The 66 hub is bigger around than the 64 but with a turn on a laithe I was able to make a factory looking wheel mount. Now I need to replace the blue sport wheel with a black one and adjust the gaps.



I customized the ash tray door and mounts so I could hide the air suspension controller in the ash tray.

 

Wow.
Your attention to detail, and perseverance to get everything just right is commendable.
OUTSTANDING work!!:TU:

 

Wow! I wish I had the time to do half of the customizin that you have done to the conv. Maybe I shouldn't try to do 4 cars at once....I guess its an addiction huh

 

Very, very addictive... very time consuming and very expensive. With addictions it is very hard to stay forcused without help. My wife does a pretty good job with that. She keeps me from working all night, filling the back yard with cars and spending all our money. But like I remind her, it could be worse, I could be a Golfer. At least she knows where I am and who I'm with. I can always get most of the money back (IF I sell :Smarty: ) and I never come home drunk :beer (but I do smell bad sometimes)

 

Love the updates on the car. What year nova is the tach for? Do you have the dimensions of the dash housing opening?