The car is about 90% done right now. I will fast-track the build process from the beginning until where it stands right now. I found this 1970 GS 350 on Craigslist about 3 years ago. It was someone else's project that got stalled out - three kids in school with all the activities/sports etc. left no time for the Buick. 1970, for me, was the pinnacle year muscle cars. I like all of them - Chevelle SS, Road Runner, GTO, 442, Cuda, Mach 1, Charger - they all pretty much peaked in 1970 for both looks and power. So when I stumbled across this old GS I started looking into them and decided to make an offer. The car appeared solid with very little signs of rusting out anywhere. But you never know for sure until you find whats under the paint. It was obvious that the right side front fender was eaten away where it drops down behind the wheel. Also, being a former vinyl roof car, it had some worrisome bubbles in the paint on top of the car. The rear deck filler was rusted, and so it was a victom of a prior ghetto fix attempt that has some sheet metal scabbed over it. But it did run good! Even with the dash out of the car, it could be started and driven. This made it easy to get it onto my trailer. Plans for the car: Definitely a Restomod build with a few nods to pro-touring. Stage 1 clone. I love the look of the GS so I wanted to preserve that look and not get very far away from the factory appearance. Replace drums with disk brakes all around Take out the 350 and replace with 455 Replace TH350 with an overdrive auto - 700R4 or 200r New interior - old was shot on all accounts Minimal chrome trim - wanted to remove chrome strip from edge of trunk lid, do away with chrome strip along the top of the doors that extended under the rear window. Aftermarket wheels and tires - wanted bigger and better gripping rubber Update suspension Get it painted!
Here are some pics of when I first brought it home......You can see the rust on the front fender and rear deck. Later I found that both front floor pans needed replacing, as well as the trunk floor.
Floors and trunk floor replacement. The front floors suffered from a previous bad attempt to fix using bondo! What a mess to grind and cut out. Pretty much the entire trunk floor was replaced, and the places where the trunk floor met the wheel well needed some rusty metal cut out and new pieces fabbed up and seam welded in.
Here is the "after" picture of the trunk repair....and what the rear deck looked like before I cut out and welded in the replacement rear deck segment.....
Pics of the floor pans replaced, and then I cleaned and painted the entire floor with black gloss. After that (although the pic does not show all of it) I installed Rattle Trap (DynoMat) on the entire floor from under the dash to under the rear package tray. The same pic shows the mylar door moisture barriers installed.
Nice ride man. Any specs in the 455 and did you go with the 200r4 or 700r4? If it's a built 455 how did you build your chosen tranny and how is it holding up. Heck even a stockish 455 can destroy a stock 700 or 200 just curious. Might go thay way soon enough. What part of Texas are you in?
Moving to the front....the inner fender wells were cleaned, blasted and painted gloss black (less stuff sticks to gloss). Of course on the left battery side, the wheel well was rusted in the front, so a new front section was welded in to replace the rusty part. Also installed complete new front suspension with tubular arms, delalum bearings and Moog ball joints all around. All new Bilstien shocks front and back. Installed shorter but stiffer new front springs to get ride height like I wanted it. Pressed out all old wheel bearings on front hubs and replaced with new ones. Disk brakes come later.
Never mind saw Dallas. Maybe I'll see you at a Buick gathering locally. I'm right up the street in Mckinney.
This is as close to a "frame off" restoration as you can get without actually taking the frame out. All new body bushings were installed, and the frame was boxed all the way to the rear bumper. The actual frame had only surface rust in a few places. Zero pitting anywhere. The front radiator support was removed and had some rust areas cut out and replaced with new metal. The rusty areas were where the mounts meet the frame. Since a big block is going in, and I live in Texas, the car got a new 4 row aluminum radiator, the very largest that would fit. Along with the new radiator, twin electric fans and shroud were installed. One fan is set to come on at 160 degrees, the other is manual operated from a switch under the dash. When the automatic fan comes on, a small indicator light comes on in the dash. Another indicator light comes on when the manual fan is turned on.
Engine - Found a 1975 block with std. bore, so it was bored .030 and new pistons/rings installed. Kim Barr Racing Engines of Garland, TX did the engine machine work. Block was align honed, rotating assembly was balanced. Deck was milled, and new piston deck height added another .025 over stock, so they are set up with zero deck. Added valley pan from AMP. Crank was ground .010. Small valve heads received pocket port and general casting mark removal, shaved .020 to be sure they are flat, three angle valve job. Compression is 9.5 to 1. Cam is TA212, new double roller chain, new HEI distributor, Edelbrock intake. At some point I hope to upgrade to aluminum heads, but this should be fun for a while. Transmission is a 700r4, so the driveshaft was shortened and upgraded to solid u-joints. This means they are not drilled for grease channels so are a little stronger. Completely rebuilt tranny has alto red clutch plates, Corvette servo. Rear gears are 3.42, but rear wheels are 295/45/18 so they are a bit over 28" tall. The lower first gear in the 700r4 should come in handy vs. the taller first in the 2004r. Converter is stock stall, but I wish it had just another 200 more stall, it kinda tries to pull a little at stop lights. Oh well.
Hi Jesse, on the 700r4 it is too early to tell how it will hold up. I'm not drag racing it so it should last a while it. It is one of the later model units. If not I will beef up whatever parts failed and go from there.
All sounds pretty good man. I have even wondered a out building a 6l80e to work for my Skylark. Right now I just have a built turbo 400 but it will get me from A to B for now. Any videos of your running, doing any burnouts?
Under the hood - I don't like the cluttered look of all the hoses and wires that come stock. So to clean up the appearance under the hood I went with the smooth firewall, and replaced the stock windshield wiper motor (more on that later). Since they don't make a direct fit for Buicks, I used the 1970 Chevelle A/C kit from Vintage Air. I later learned that the 1970 Cutlass kit might be a bit closer, but it was not a big problem. I ended up fabbing up a custom compressor mount, and routed all the hoses through the top part of the left fender. So to recap: - Smoothed firewall - Compact wiper motor from Cadillac - Vintage Air with custom compressor mount - New windshield washer with pump Here are the before and after pictures of the engine bay:
The Cadillac wiper motor idea was not mine. While perusing the site at Pro-Touring, I found that a guy named John Hunter had engineered an upgraded solution for older cars. I bought the kit from him. He designed a new wiper control that has the following: New Switch that includes: 1 - Off 2 - Mist - 20 second pause between wipes 3 - Delay 1 - 8 second pause 4 - Delay 2 - 4 second pause 5 - Delay 3 - 2 second pause 6 - Delay 4 - 1 second pause 7 - Low (continuous) 8 - High (continuous) It will also cycle the windshield wipers automatically when the washer button is pressed. What I did was modify the existing wiper control to work with his controller. His controller uses a knob vs. the stock slider. I used an extra cigarette lighter knob so that it all matches. I also modified the dash to fit the Vintage Air controls. VA offers a wide variety of knobs. The ones (polished billet) that most closely matched the stock ones were like $35.00 each! Here are some pics of the dash mods, along with Jim Hunters diagram:
Off to prep and paint: I hauled the car to my friend Jerrod, who is a professional paint and body man, and a perfectionist. A lot of things I would be happy with on the paint results would not be acceptable to Jerrod. Jerrod began by taking all of the car down to bare metal. He ground off two gallons of paint and bondo before sand blasting everything. Turns out a previous painter did not realize that the subtle concave areas of the lower fenders are meant to be that way, so he filled them with bondo to make them flat! The only surprise on the sheet metal is the lip on the rear wheel well left side had been repaired before so that was fixed. Another picture is the hood after prep and primed.
As far as the rear suspension, I added a 1" roll bar and boxed lower control arms. Right now it is an open differential but I have a newly rebuilt posi (from Monzaz) that I will install later. Attached are some pics right after painting. Had a new front windshield installed. The rear was ok, just a few small scratches but no cracks so I had the window guy reinstall it. All of the chrome on the car was replated - front and rear bumpers, headlight bezels, hood trim etc. For the stainless trim around the windows I bought a Harbor Freight set up and polished every piece with the two spinning pads of different grits. The Q-Jet is a refurbished one from Ken at Everyday Performance. For brakes, I used two-piston calipers on the front, the same as from LS1 Camaros and C5 Corvettes. It just takes some grinding of the spindle and an adapter kit for mounting the calipers. The rears are GM metric calipers with built in e-brake. Fronts are 12" drilled and slotted, rear are 11.5. They stop the car real fast. I will get a better pic later, but in the pic where the rear window is being installed you can kinda see the new steering wheel. It looks very similar to the Buick "Sport" wheels except it is leather wrapped and 13".
Okay all the Buick purists should maybe should click on past this post :eek2: The rear bumper on this 70 GS is a 71. The car came with it, and I originally planned to replace it with the proper year bumper. But it kinda grew on me and now I actually think it is better looking than the 70. Flows better, looks more integrated to the body style. Let me know if you agree/disagree. I also attached a photo of the Buick GS I found that inspired my build plans. If you recognize it let me know whose it is. It is a stunning photo.
