For some reason I have never been able to post pics on v8buick but I came across some old "before" pics of the Skylark so I thought I'd try again with the new board. Whether or not they post you can check out my progress here. http://hotrodders.com/forums/journal.php?action=view&journalid=21077
some progress I've made a little progress on the 'lark. Here's a pic of the rebuilt and detailed front end. Get all the details here: http://hotrodders.com/forums/journal.php?action=view&journalid=21077
core support painted Finally got the core support painted today. The pic is of the battery area where I had to do a bit of metal work. Looks good huh? Can see the work on the support done here http://hotrodders.com/forums/journal.php?action=view&journalid=21077
Thanks guys. A little encouragment really helps. I so want this car drivable by spring but I can never get time to work on it. I'm sure many out there feel my pain.
The motor's in! Finally put the motor in Saturday. The guy in the plaid shirt is Tom (BOOST!) Willisford, in the white shirt is my friend Brian and the odd looking chap is of course me. What a tight fit. I'm going to have to remove the prop valve and lines and grind some off the header flange just to get the dip stick in and the aftermarket frame pads and the headers were a major PITA. Check my journal here for details and more pics especially if you're going to do this swap. http://hotrodders.com/forums/journal.php?action=view&journalid=21077
a little more progress Almost ready to fire. About another week I hope. Here's a pic of the motor coming together. Check out my journal for pics and info on moving the crossmember mounts and modifications to the trans tunnel for the new shifter. http://hotrodders.com/forums/journal.php?action=view&journalid=21077
It moves! Well, I fired the motor for the first time about a month ago and have been doing nothing but working out problems ever since. Oil leaks, fuel leaks, timing issues ect. The biggest problem is that it will only run with 30 - 40 degrees initial advance. This led me to re-degree the cam and I discovered (after much hair pulling) that I had a bad 9 key way crank gear. I found this out after JW sent me another gear set to try and it degreed right the first time. This, however did not fix the ignition timing issue. After talking to everyone from JW to Jim Burek to Dave Ray and trying everything we could think of (see my posts about this in the street/strip 455 section) I gave up, timed it by ear and moved on to bodywork again. I put the front clip on to line everything up and have resumed block sanding. In the pic below I pulled it out of the carport for the first time under its own power in over a year. Its starting to look like a real car again. To bad the clip has to come back off to be cut in but hey, I'm making progress.
Heater, A/C block off plates Since I'm gonna run an aftermarket heater/AC unit I had to fab some plates to cover the holes in the firewall. Check out my journal for more updates http://hotrodders.com/forum/journal.php?action=view&journalid=21077 I'm getting really close to paint!
been a while Man, its been some time since I posted here. Here's the Reader's Digest version of what I've been up to. I painted my car at the end of August. Here's a pic of my make-shift paint booth and one of the car fresh out of the booth.
more or less? Since then I've sanded and buffed it out. Been putzing with moldings and weatherstrip. Trying to get the windows and top adjusted and working on the interior. I got all the upholstery from Postons and its still waiting to go in. Here's a pic of the proccess of gutting dash.
currently The dash is all painted and the new column is restored and installed. Here's a pic of what I'm working on right now. Its a Classic Auto Air heat & a/c system. See all the details of my project and follow the installation of the A/C unit here: http://hotrodders.com/forum/journal.php?action=view&journalid=21077&page=1&perpage=5&reverse=
Mike, You are doing some great work. I love reading these car blogs and seeing a car change and all the ingenuity that goes into it. The Vintage Air install will be really neat to see.
Yeh. I don't know if that's the name. I took the paint code to the DuPont store but they didn't have a chip for it. The cowl panel where it wraps under the hood still had the original paint on it so I rubbed it out and took it for them to custom match it. The color really looks good in the base coat clear coat. It kinda glows. Here's a pic after sanding and buffing.
what is it? Can anyone guess what the thing in the picture is? To find out go to my journal. http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/journal.php?s=&journalid=21077&action=view
