I went to Ft Wayne, IN over the weekend (saturday to be exact) and picked up the 70 LeSabre that one of the other board members had for sale/parting out. It's by no means perfect, but it's worlds above my current driver/project, and has a solid frame. Plus, the interior is just about perfect, so with some sheet metal work, it'll be good. I'm going to put the engine from my driver into this one, as well as the front clip, decklid, and rear bumper. I'll post the only pics I have of it at the moment, but I'll take more as I progress with this stuff...
got photoshop to work first i had to make it 800 x 600...then less than 156Kb or whatever...pain in da bum
What! No deck lid or rear bumper?!? Romy: You bought a car without a deck lid or a rear bumper? How'd that happen? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: That car looks pretty good to me! Let me know if I can help you in any way. Paul
thats funny,we are about to go retreive a motor from a 70 Lesabre that the guy is junking in a week or two its a 4 door though but most interior tuff is there.
Looks restorable Romy. What did you tell U-haul you were towing, a geo? p Im interested to see how this car comes along its restoration path after being saved from being parted out. :TU:
Looks good! Does that change your parts needed? I still dunno when my friend from Chicago is making the round trip so I still have nothing going on concerning that.
Paul, Yeah, I have no clue what happened to the decklid and trunk! :spank: I guess somebody stole it! Dan, Actually, It doesn't change what I need too much. The quarters are semi-crappy on this one, but not too bad. I could definately use the d/s quarter as that side is in worse shape than the p/s. And the trunk floor would be great too, if the other guy doesn't need it. Let me know if I'd be able to get either of those sometime w/in the next few weeks, cos I'm leaving to Europe on 6/21, and need to have the car semi-done by then. :3gears: I'm kinda thinking of doing what fatchuk did with the trunk floor, and just getting a replacement floor pan or trunk floor for another type of car, and making it work I pulled the rear seat yesterday and checked out the floor underneath it...not bad. The rear window leaks and water sits under the seat, but the metal there is still really solid. I cleaned it up with a wire brush on a grinder, and it looks pretty ok...going to have to put some caulk or something around the window for the time being so it doesn't leak anymore. Front window leaks on the p/s too...kinda sucks. I ground off all the bondo and really sh*ty patch job that was done on the quarters on each side. On the d/s, there's a brace bar that runs from the door stop area, back to the wheel well. Well, that thing is totally screwed. It was all wobbly, and getting into the way of the window crank, so I manuvered it out. Think I need it? o No: Oh, Paul, one other thing...can you take pics of the d/s and p/s quarters up around the wheel well for me. They're rotted on the front of the wheel well, and I'm going to have to kinda fab up the p/s side, so I want to know what it looks like. Unfortunately, my fiance took my digital camera with her to FL, so I can't take pics yet. And, this friday I leave for PLDC (army training stuff) for two weeks, so the car'll just be sitting.
glad you made it home safe Romy Glad to see you made it home safe, and make sure you post some pics of your progress, also ref PLDC I did it years ago and it s a pretty tough coures make sure you can read a map and that your in pretty good shape other than that you should be ok, good luck
Pics of quarters Romy: I'm in Buffalo, NY right now, leaving Friday afternoon to meet Calvin in Ft. Wayne to pick up the deck lid and rear bumper (thanks again!). I'll get some pics for you as soon as I get back home. Glad to help any way I can. :TU: There's another board member restoring a 69 or 70 LeSabre Convertable from Canada who found new quarter panels. The Canadian parts distributor is called Cross Canada Parts and the quarters are listed on their web site, you can search the site to find them. I sent him a message a while back asking hiim to give me the part numbers and the manufacturer so I could attempt to locate a source here in the US but he never answered me. I can't remember who that was right now. So, someone out there makes new quarter sheet metal (mine are starting to rust also), I just haven't been able to find out the company. I'll keep searching. Also, you'll probably want to keep that brace in place if you can. I believe it strengthens that area and also cuts down on vibrations and noise. If you can't attach it right now because of rusted out areas, don't discard it in case you complete repairs in the future. Paul
Paul, I checked out cross canada, and it looks good, but they only sell the quarter patch panels, not the whole panel. They also don't have a trunk floor for it, but fatchuk (the guy from canada) just used a Skylark floor to make it. It got really cold and crappy here yesterday and today, and I leave tomorrow morning, so I guess I won't be doing anything til I get back. o No: Oh well, gotta finish packing now...
Dan, I'd gladly pay for shipping if you'd be willing to ship it. I think UPS will do it if you can find a box big enough. Let me know. I (or somebody) should put up a poll to see how many people are in or were in the military...seems to be a large amount. :TU:
Romy: Sent you a PM. I got my deck lid and the rear bumper yesterday. Over 13 hour drive, each way! Thanks for working with me so I could get the parts I needed. Calvin's a great guy, very helpful. Love some of the other Buicks he has at that shop! Paul
Paul, Yeah, I can't wait to get back and actually start work on that car/finish up my ACTUAL project. I was going to pay to get a nice paint job, but I think I'll just drop the money on a good air compressor, and a decent gun...and some air tools. PLDC sucks my...you know what. It's so redundant and easy, it shouldn't even be a school. I guess you do learn a bit about leadership, but I doesn't need to be two weeks. I think the reg. army's is a month, and I could see that if you were to be doing it everyday, but come on, this is just silly. Ok, sorry, didn't mean to go on a tangent. I should be back next sunday night, so I'm hoping to start the car on monday. I ground all the bondo off the quarters before I left, and they have some major holes, but it's cool. I go to the field tomorrow for the next day or two, so I probably won't check this for a few days at least. Fun for all! :spank:
and so it begins... Today I finally got started on this project; but not til about 1pm. Then it rained at 3 or so. Damn it. Then it rained again at about 8. So that ended it for today. However when it wasn't raining, it was pretty productive. I had two of my friends helping me out, and we managed to pull the engine out of my driver, and drop it into my soon to be driver. It took pics, but left the camera locking in one of the cars. Go me! I got the bumpers, decklid, and hood off of my driver, and will pull the rest of the front clip tomorrow and swap it over. I must say, I'm sad to see my driver go. It just looks so damn nice :ball: . But...I took off the rear bumper not by crawling under the car, but by going through the trunk. There is just about no floor whatsoever. It's really really bad. And crawling around underneath taking off the trans linkages, driveshaft, exhaust, etc, I noticed a few other defects. The frame is also cracked up front on both sides, and my floor boards are in way worse shape then I thought. So I guess it's justifiable to part it and use what I can for the new project. But even without a front end, the damn car still looks way better than the new one. . Anyhow, I'll be finishing some more up tomorrow, and will post the pics. I still have to hook up the starter, exhaust (I'm so tempted to get headers), power steering pump, fuel pump, cooling system...the list goes on. But the hardest part is done, and now I get to go solo on this. Apparently all my friends have lives... o No: who knew? So time frame here: Monday night - drivable / boozin' Tuesday - hook up all remaining electrical / start body work Wednsday - pick up air compressor :TU: and get crazy with the cutoff wheel. Wednsday night - boozin' :beer Thurday - more body work...I really have no clue how long this is going to take, so I'll stop here. Any input or advice on how to do body work would be great...I'm kinda just planning on winging it and letting the body filler fix my sure-to-be imperfect patching. Gotta learn somehow. :grin:
Ok, so this is what I started with, and you can see the area I'm working in too...not the best, but better than dirt.
By the way, in the pic above, the brown thing behind the car is a huge friggin boat. This be the brown car (daily driver) with the engine ready to be popped.
