Just want to know what car should i look for to find a 425 Nailhead motor , did they come standard in some cars, and which years should i look for. Just gathering info in case I come across one, I know were a 63-64 Wildcat thats been sitting for a while in a garage thats in bad shaped but may have a decent motor not sure whats in it a 401 or 425 Calvin
425's are somewhat scarce........most of the pre-'65 cars had 401's, but a few built after '62 had the 425. Sad part is there is no way to tell unless you can decode the numbers that are stamped on the front of the block. I have read in another thread about a small "hump" in the casting at the rear of the block which the factory used to indicate whether to bore it for 425 but I never actually looked on mine. I don't know for certain about all '65-'66 full size, but the best bet would be the Rivs. assuming the motor is original to the car. I know for a fact the only motor you could get in a Riv for '66 was a 425. :bglasses:
If I am not mistaken, you will only find the elusive 425 in Rivieras or Wildcats, and maybe Electras. No go for the LeSabre or any of the smaller size cars.
research??? Thanks Joe I also read some info about the 425 on the Buick.Net site which had the same info and was doing some research based on your advise about the engine swap in my 64 Lesabre, I have a nailhead in my 65 Wildcat and wasn't sure what was in it, 425 or 401 im pretty sure its a 401 though cause thats what most of them came with, I remember this old guy not too far from me who's own Buicks all his life and has 2 right now a 64 Lesabre 4dr and a 63 or 64 Wildcat that at the time ( last year) he said he wanted to sell it ( the wildcat), but I dont think he was trying to hard though, im sure that I could convince him to sell it to me for a little of nothing, cause the body needed a lot of work, I havent approached him yet, I wanted to know what to look for and be armed with more info before I talked to him, I mean if I could get the car for a few hundred bucks it would be a good start , then i would have to find some one near me that knows these motors and rebuild it for me, I have a few options and theres no rush.......like i said just doing research just in case... Heres a few pics of the 65 Wildcat:code name :Brow: Black Panther :Brow:
Dude your 65 wildcat rocks!..I've got a dual quad 65 Riv, but have always been a big fan of the 2 door 65 wildcat. Keep up the good work.
Calvin, My heart skipped a beat when I looked at the first pic of your car! Saweeet! :Brow: Good luck on you hunt for an engine. I looked for one back in '86 when the one that was in my '66 Riviera gave up the ghost. I searched everywhere. I belonged to the ROA & the BCA at the time, and constantly searched the ads for an engine. Even placed a wanted ad in the Riview for one to no avail. Then, I came across a Wildcat in a junkyard that had a 425. Talked to the guy at the desk, we went out and got it fired up. It ran perfect! I made a deal with him that I would buy it for $200.00 if I did all the wrenching work to pull it, and told him I would be back on Saturday. Saturday rolls around and I head back out with tools in hand and a big smile on my face. I go into the yard looking for the car but can't find it. WTF?? Then, I look over at this flatbed trailer in the yard that is full of flattened cars to discover that sandwiched in the middle is the Wildcat! :shock: I run over to the area where the guys that are stripping the cars of engines and such before they are flattened, only to see alot of Chevy and Ford engines on the ground. I asked one of them," Where is that engine out of the Wildcat on the trailer?" He replies," Oh, that? we didn't pull that one because we figured no one would want it!" Talk about p*ssed off!!! :rant: I ended up rebuilding the one I had in the end.
This deal doesn't look dab to me but the motor is said to be locked?? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4505335065&category=6142 It's funny but if this car was in my area, it would be advertised as needing some body work and NOT a parts car! Ken
Dale I see you currently own a 70 Riv. I kind of like them too I found mines locally. I always like Rivieras and if i was going to buy one it would have been the 68 or 69 , well one day i looked in a local trader mag and saw a 70 listed, I wasnt in the market to buy and was just being nosy, well they want 4k for the car has 42k og miles on it and was pertty much un-used the girl I bought it from said she her late aunt left it for her and that she didnt want it. I offered her 2500, and she said that she wouldnt take know less than 3k cause she was a student and needed the money for school, well I looked the car over again and drove it, it had a few dings and needed a muffler but nothing even minor and she showed me the title with her aunts name on it with the 42k miles on it so i gave her, her money and drove it home and right away joined ROA in search of the short skirts to make my 70 look like a 69, havent found any that aint over priced but I always got my eye open in case they pop up some were at a decent price, any way heres a pic of the car when i bought it and a few at the body shop getting a b/c paint job its in full primer at this moment and should be ready real soon :Brow: :laugh:
Calvin-yes very nice cat. I also have a Midnight Blue '65-with ironing board console/buckets and 52k miles. The diff is mine is a Minnesota original with all the rust! Tim Mc helped me weld in some angle to stabilize the frame and I had to do some sheet metal work to the trunk floors. Dale-what yard was that?
Too early-forgot the main thing. As Joe said, the best source is a '66 Riv, but also the 425 was an option with cats and 225s. I have a '66 225 with the 425. The '66 425s were all red and was the first year for the qjet carb. You can also look at '64-5 cars, but '63 was the dynaflow trans and a different crank/fly/convertor setup. I run some 401s- they are more available and you may not really notice the 24 cube diff-
Dan I live in NE Indiana and I swear that im the only guy in the city thats into Buicks except for those real old guys, they show me alot of love ( Im 37) I mean i see them all over the place every body else wants a chevy, I try to stay low key about them cause i dont want my passion to catch on then every body would want one then i wont be able to get at all the good deals I seem to find ..... so 64 thru 67 Riv. and 225's and Wildcats got it now let see if i can get lucky :laugh:
64 and 66 Rivs came standard with the 425. The 65 Riv had the 425 as an option. Wildcats and Electras had them as an option from 64-66. 66 was the last year for the Nailhead, so forget 67. The engine codes (on the front passenger side of the valley pan rail of the block) you want are: KW - 64 425 4bbl KX - 64 425 2x4bbl LW - 65 425 4bbl LX - 65 425 2x4bbl MW - 66 425 bbbl MZ - 66 425 2x4BBL The only other 425 was the 63 JW 4bbl, but ,as stated, it has the earlier crank and flywheel combination for the Dynaflow. Cheryl
Thanks Cheryl ( Babeola) I was typing too fast and didnt catch that, 67 thru 69 Rivieras had the 430 in them.
Thanks Cheryl........now I finally understand those codes.......displayed this way you can see the pattern. :TU:
'70 Riv. Calvin, Looks like a nice car. Did you strip the chrome trim yourself? Or, did the body shop do it? I ask, because It appears the the chrome spear on the front fenders was removed without removing the fenders. I found that on the doors & quarters, it was held on by a couple of nuts at each end and simple push clips in the middle. But the front fenders had nuts running the entire length that were not accessable by any means. At least that I could see. Those skirts are hard to come by that's for sure! It took me well over a year just to find rust free full skirts. I swear they were designed to rust. My car spent it's life in Texas and South Dakota, and they still had hidden rust! I am looking for some short skirts also, just to have depending on my mood. I have toyed with the idea of adding a '68 or '69 front clip. I also don't think it would be that difficult to add hidden headlights off of an earlier model. In thinking about it I would use the headlight mechanism off a '66 or '67 since they were electric and not the cursed vacuum system. I have already bought a couple of extra grilles to use if I decide to try it. Here are a couple of pics of mine, as I bought it and as it sits today. Take care!
:Comp: Hi guys! Never know where you are going to find a 425! Dan Lapham and I went looking at a 64 Wildcat last Saturday that had been in a flood. It was a 401 car, but the 1956 GMC 42 Passenger school bus converted to a camper sitting next to it had a Wildcat 465 under the hood! The owner told us that the nailhead would smoke the tires pretty well! They drive the bus from western Wisconsin to Brainerd, MN for the drag races every year! Keep looking, 425's are out there, but I agree with Dan, I don't know how much you will notice the additional 24 cubic inches.IMHO! Tim
Dale Yes.. I took all the chrome off my self and when i got to the front fenders i took all the ones off that i could reach with some new ratchet type tools I cant rememeber the make and the ones i couldnt reach i took a long screw driver and welded the tool to it and the owners of the shop, his girlfriend had really skinny arms got the last two bolt off it was hell and i dont know how im going to get them back on i'll prolly have to buy some extra long rachet type tool to get it back on but if you take a flash light and look down the inside of the fender from the door you can see or feel all the bolts/ screws after i got the ones in the front and the ones near the door it left me with one on each finder and i didnt want to take the fenders off at this point so i got creative, now the hard part will be getting them back on, my friend the owner of the shop broke up with his girl friend and now has a new one, lets just say not as skinny as his last one ..........i even took all the paint off the chrome and polished them up real nice and when the cars done ill put back on without the the paint , it will look really sharp i took the paint off the chrome before i took them off the car to see what it would looks like, and liked that look so i wont repaint them ill post pics when it get done
Yeah, There was no way I was getting my arm in there far enough to reach the center. I had thought about getting a hacksaw blade between the trim and the fender and just cutting those few in the center off. But, that would have been really poor craftsmanship on my part. :spank: I am thinking of finding some push type trim retainers that will replace all the nuts in the areas I can't reach, then just use nuts on the ends were I can reach them. That way, I can put the fenders and my replacement hood back on the car and get everything aligned before painting without having to go through the whole process again, and risk damaging the fresh paint.
