1971 Buick Electra 225 Limited -freshening up

Erik, I will post a wanted ad on the AACA board to see if someone has one. I've been browsing all over and there are plenty 2dr quarters out there like Rob mentioned.

Rob, The Electra will be coming to BPG 2013! Booked my room last night. I have not decided if I will drive the Electra or trailer it, I'm leaning more towards driving! I hope to have a ton more pictures of the Electra up here to show everyone.

 

Most of the major work on the quarter panel is complete. The primer was applied last night.

 

Nice work Rob :TU:
Can't wait to see the car when it's finished

 

Adam,

I got a 2dr quarter panel from David (wixom61) who was building that 2dr Estate Wagon. That is where I found out that the bodyline "drops" at a faster rate on the 2dr than the 4dr. Also, the bodyline is "deeper" on the 4dr than the 2dr. It could also have been the tooling wore out more on the 2dr and thus the line was shallower? Here are a few pics of it in the sunlight!

 

If the bodyline drops at a faster rate on a 2dr quarter, and you used a 2dr quarter, did you compensate for the faster drop in the body line? Or just leave it be?

Looking great. Can't wait to see it in Ohio.

I always retorque heads after one or two heat cycles. I'm funny that way...

 

Nice Work!

 

And back down again. Missed a ding here and there. Needed to lay some primer down to evaluate where everything was at.

 

Looks good. Prime it, mask it off and take it to Maaco.
They will squirt it OK for what you pay. Unless you know a body shop that is willing to just squirt it.

 

Took the Electra out for a couple short rides, fueled up. Voltage regulator is suspect and drained the battery down while I was driving. Possible wiring issue since all four headlights are on at the same time.

 

The wiring issue isn't a problem with the harness, if I remember correctly it was made for a 1972 Buick LeSabre with a 455 and cornering lamps. So I may send my original into M&H to have a correct one duplicated. In the meantime I just disconnected the brights.

The quarter was painted on Friday. Turned out good, I am pleased. Just need to tie up some loose ends. A little seam sealer here and clean up some overspray on the frame and trunklid.

This weekend I picked up the car and proceeded to give it a thorough bath to strip all of the built up grime, dust, dirt, overspray, you name it off the car. Then I proceeded to claybar all of the car except the freshly painted quarter panel. I was amazed at how much a difference a claybar made and how little effort it takes. In the coming weeks I think I will give wet sanding a shot. The new paint could definitely use it.

Treated the top with Vinylex twice, its already wearing off. I'm going to try to make it a point to treat it at least once a week. The top should soften up a bit. I have yet to really clean the interior, thats for another time.

Cleaned out the trunk of dust and dirt from bodywork. I forgot it still has the original dual stripe whitewall spare tire, neat!

Sprayed some paint on one of the rear body mounts that was replaced.

Removed the bumper and replaced it with a good used core. The bumper still needs some final tweaking but I will save that for another weekend. The bumper needs to come off again because it was never drilled for rear bumper guards, the car looks odd without them. Cleaner but odd. And I think the driver's side bracket is a bit tweaked.

Started replacing the window sweeps. Took one day for the driver's front door, passenger door is going on two. The passenger front door one is on but I'm not happy with how its overlapping the trim on the outside of the door. More tweaking there, and I need to re-adjust the passenger front glass. It was nice to see none of the doors had been touched or abused before, all of the vapor barriers were still in place. The rear doors I know have been touched.

Need to figure out why the fuel gauge still isn't working. Dash gauge works, wiring to dash gauge from trunk works. Sender is new. Going to test the wiring from the trunk to the sender next.

Going to drive the car to and from work this week since its supposed to be nice weather.

 

Made some progress this weekend. Removed the old hodgepodge of pipes and mufflers that someone called an exhaust system. Installed a new system from Classic Exhaust. I bought a 2 1/4" exhaust system with long case mufflers and resonators. It is quiet and really need to get use to that. Its difficult to tell if the engine is running at times! All of the pipes, mufflers and resonators are made here in the USA. The drivers side of the exhaust system was a piece of cake to install, maybe took 2-3 hours to hang and adjust where I wanted it. The passenger side was another story. I probably have 8 hours into the passenger side. The downpipe's drop from the manifold isnt long enough so it hits the crossmember. I tried everything to get it to sit away. Something i'll keep on the to-do list. Its a nice system, plenty of clearance around the fuel tank, suspension, body etc. Just that one pipe isnt right. Oh, did I mention that its mandrel bent? Might track down some correct or NOS hangers for a '72 instead of the universal one the exhaust came with.

Also installed the driver's side exhaust manifold heat shield and elbow to the air cleaner.

And I begun tear down of the spare TH400 for the car. My pump to case gasket is leaking. But as long as I keep driving the car every couple days it won't leak a lot.

 

Finished the rebuild on the TH400, just need to coat it with something and swap it in at some point. Pulled the car out of storage on Friday so I could start on it first thing Saturday morning. I managed to install both rear door window sweeps. Driver's side was the one I learned the tricks on. Passenger side went very smoothly. Here are some tips for the rear doors. I'll post later about the fronts.

-There are two window "stops" that prevent the glass from going up too far, no need to touch these. Unlike the front doors (where you can remove the bottom stops and drop the glass below window sweep) the rear glass bottom stop is part of the window regulator. I elected to remove the glass. But you need to mark a few things before you begin removing components.
-The first two things you need to mark are what I would call, the inside/outside guides. These ride against the inside of the glass and will determine where the glass ends up. There is a small guide on the inside portion of the roof that helps guide the glass to meet the weatherstripping. Fourth picture shows the guide I'm talking about.

-Next, I unbolt the glass from the regulator. However, this is another adjustment point so we need to mark the glass in relation to the regulator. There are three nuts you need to remove, lower the glass so its 2/3 of the way up. This provides the best access through the inside of the door. Pick the best height for accessing these three nuts and leave it there. (Note: if you have the glass all the way up, you can use a ratcheting wrench to remove the nuts BUT the regulator will want to lean away from the glass and make reassembly a paint) Pictures one and two are of two adjustment nuts. There is a third nut above the one in the first picture. I marked mine with a paint marker, worked very well. I also ran a line of tape on the outside of the glass right along where the old window sweep rode. Its just an additional reference. Once you have marked and removed the adjustment nuts, you can pull the glass by sliding the glass towards the inside of the car, there is one slot in the top of the door skin that is there so you can remove the glass with the "bolt stops" in place.

-Since both rear doors have curved edges, I had better luck if I started from the curved section. I ordered window sweeps from Steele rubber and they drop shipped window sweeps from Top CatWhiskers. The curve doesn't match with the door so the beginning of the curve will be tight, halfway through the curve the sweep will want to sit above the door, and at the end of the curve (beginning of the flat portion of the door) it will be tight again. I did have to drill one hole, second one in from the curve.

-Also, I used a hand seamer for HVAC work to bend the window sweeps. The main thing that I would bend is the lip that rides on the outside stainless of the door. If you don't bend it, you will be fighting it for hours. It is simply too tight a bend. I would also use a pair of sheet metal locking pliers to hold a section to the door.

-Take your time, if you feel like you're not making progress. Walk away and take a break.

Only took four doors to learn this. Gotta readjust the front door glass, but that will wait till after the new weatherstripping.

 

There is quite a bit of numbering/documentation on the door panels regarding what body style they fit and what plant. Thought it was interesting. Amazing the amount of craftsmanship they put into this car's interior.

 

I've made a little progress.

-Replaced radiator with an original Harrison unit that I had re-cored
-flushed the cooling system and replaced with fresh coolant
-repaired a leaking brass plug on the driver's side of the engine block
-replaced sticky thermostat and gasket
-replaced tail lamp harness with new one from M&H. Sent the original in for them to use as a pattern. Part # 43518
-tracked down and installed the remaining horn for the four-note horn setup. The little harness was also available from M&H #43519
-replaced the thermo vacuum switch on the intake manifold. Oddly enough the old one caused the blower motor to stop working, and the Auto Climate Controller programmer to click constantly with the key on.
-pulled the gas tank straps back down to anti-seize bolts
-organized all the spare Electra hardware into two different stanley organizers. I've been hoarding all the '71 specific pieces too.
-repaired the driver's side door panel pull strap by installing a missing metal plate on the upper door panel

I still need to finish replacing the shock absorbers. Two are completely in. The front have given me the most trouble. Looking forward to a better ride now that the original spiral shock absorbers are off. Also ditched the original T3 headlamps and put halogen lamps in. But for some reason, all four headlamps are always on. The high beams switch does not change anything so I will look into that.

 

That is a LOT of freshening up- great to see a 71 big Buick get the attention it deserves.
:TU:

 

Guess this thread is due for an update. Bought my first house in May and by November I was able to park the Electra in it's very own home. (foreclosure) No more shuffling between garages to keep her out of the elements. No longer driving 20 miles to attempt to fix the little things. This weekend I replaced the front brake hoses due to age and flushed the entire brake system since it has sat for so long. Also cleaned up the original ball joints while I was in there. Even took it on a short drive. The car has had exactly 40 miles put on it in the past 27 months.

Installed the original TH400 (rebuilt) due to a leaking from pump gasket. Took awhile to track down a correct transmission mount. Nothing listed for the car was even remotely correct. I ended up using one from a '75 Fleetwood, fit perfect. Also finished installing the new shock absorbers.

 

So that's what took you so long :bglasses:

Good to see you here again.

 

Welcome back! Good to see you're still at it! It's a gorgeous car!