Thanks for the encouragement it helps allot, I wasn't sure there was any interest in this but its kind of therapeutic and if I'm really screwing up hopefully some one will point it out before I kill my car. Tom I'm coming up there next week end for sure, I've been wanting to check out Zepherhills for years now I've got a excuse to go up there. I'll give you a call Thursday to get directions
I wanted to do a quick update, I've got quite a bit done. The bottom end of motor is done, I'm just waiting on some new stronger valve springs from TA and I'll be able to get the rest of the motor together to start her up. That's all I've been wanting for the last 3 years is to hear this thing run again and it finally is going to happen god I hope I don't grenade it first thing. I have most of the sheet metal from the 66 donor car mounted on the 67, the car doesn't look any better but there is no rust from the rear wheels forward with the exception of the roof behind the rear vent window. That's going to be a new adventure that I'm not quite ready to tackle at the moment. I showed my wife the car and proudly told her there was no rust from the doors forward, she immediately pointed to some surface rust on the top corner of the roof, I told her to go inside and leave my car alone. Here's some pictures of the car now, I know it looks like its ready to be taken apart but really its going back together I swear.- Now for a couple of the rear window aria as you'll see the donor piece was mostly solid but the channel for the window was like Swiss cheese and the sides were not there- But the whole piece was solid and turned out OK, it was near impossable to figure the curves at the lower corners to match the crome molding, I had noting to go by but pictures so it was all guess work. I hope it comes out all right.- I was even able to save the right trunk seal aria- I'm hoping to have it running in a couple of weeks and I can do the body work as time and money allows I seem to be running out of both. Thanks
I've taken the fork out and dove in Well a couple weeks has turned into a couple of months not much of a surprise there. I do have the motor and most of the front end back together so at least it closely resembles a car that still needs a ton of work. I kind of hit a snag with the door to fender gap especially the divers side everything lines up good but that gap goes from about 3/8" on top to almost 3/4" at the bottom, it doesn't look bad but annoys the heck out of me but I'll get it some how. The motor is almost ready to go, I decided to change the distributor to a HEI and it kind of delayed things but with the help of BrunoD I've got it back and ready to install. That wont happen till I get back from my 3 month pilgrimage to Houston. Then I will have no excuses left and the motor will ether run or give me some other kind of surprise, I'm hoping for the 1st option. I finished redoing the front grill and I think it came out OK it wont win any awards but it will look good. I even took the time to painstakingly mask off the grill "GS" emblem and painted it up, it came out great. I put it some place safe waiting for me to finish the grill, only problem is I can't remember that safe place so no emblem for now but that too is a long ways off. My hood is a rusty mess the whole leading edge is gone so I worked out a good deal with Tom (elliet) for a good 67 hood but my money tree died and I regrettably had to say good by to the easy fix. So it's the hard fix I have to take, I looked at the "1 1/4 angle iron I used for the bottom channel of the rear window, thought hey if I turn it over it will look like the nose on the hood and tried to make the leading edge of the hood out of "1 angle, many hours later I have a hood that is kind of acceptable at least till I hit the lottery. So its starting to come together oh so slowly, I'll try to keep every one up on it just for laughs. Here's some pic of the motor w/o my new HEI and the Grill w/o my lost "GS" emblem Some before and after pic's of my hood its a work in progress And finally pic's of my car as a storage shelf Thanks for looking in I forgot one fun suprise I found, I had to take the A/C box off to get the last push rod in. What fun I relly need to fix everything in there anyway so off it goes.
I've been putting this off for weeks, the moment of truth will the motor start and not make a bunch of grinding and knocking sounds. I finally got the guts to give it a try, I don't have anything hooked up like the radiator or exhaust or anything like that. All I wanted to do was see if it would run, build oil pressure and not make any strange or disastrous noises. I had the fuel pump running from a 5 gallon gas can because when I was draining the old gas out of the tank I noticed a whole bunch of pin holes in the top of the tank so it was junk, no point in waisting any more time on it. That was not going to stop me from my goal so the gas can did the trick, I wasn't going to let it run for more than a few seconds anyway. I filled the carb with fuel and just guessed on the timing, I had the luxury of having BrunoD set up my HEI and run it in his car so I knew all I had to do was run a 12 volt power supply to it and I was good to go. I really have to thank Bruno for going the extra mile for me it was one thing I knew I didn't have to worry about and it worked flawlessly. I hooked up the 12 volt supply and cranked the engine over and nothing, I thought oh boy here we go, I looked at the distributor and noticed it might work better if I plugged in the control module so I gave it another try and got some popping and burping out of it. I turned the timing back a little and it fired right up, no horrible noises and got some oil pressure on a cheap gage I had. The thing only ran for a few seconds before I shut it down but it was the best sound I have heard in a long long time. This is a long winded way of saying I started my car today but its a mile stone that I've been working at for a long time. What I at first thought was going to be a simple changing a head gasket turned out to be a whole big ugly can of worms. Now I can Finnish putting this motor back together and at least have a drivable rust bucket and that is all I've been looking for. I can fix things as I go but the gas tank was some thing I wasn't expecting so cruising around might be a little further on down the road, slow going thats for sure. Just a quick shot of my motor that still needs lots of cleaning & wiring ect. ect.....
Hey Pete, I never saw your thread before and I just read the whole thing. I must say this whole deal is absolutely awesome, a man with a limited amount of money and skills but plenty of common sense, ambition and desire to have an old car to drive gettin 'er done. Hats off to you my man and I wish you the best, also the fact that you are saving a piece of American history is great. If you need any parts(I have 3 67 Skylarks for parts) I will give you a REAL good deal just to help make this happen and to see pics of you and this 67 at a carshow, just pm me if you need anything. I think I'm the boardmember who sold you a piston last winter. Best of luck!:bglasses:
Nice work stay at it. I know how you feel. Second guessing yourself, Congrats on all the progress!! Tony
Thanks for the encouragement I need all the motivation I can get. Ryan you did help me out with a piston, that was one of the surprises I got when I was doing a simple head gasket change. Its surprising how hard it is to find a stock 400 piston but with the help of this board and members like you I've been able to get the seemingly imposable done, I love these GS's but with rare cars come even rarer parts so with out this forum I'd be toast. You can be assured I'll take you up on the parts offer Ryan.
Pete I've been following along for awhile and admire your willingness to jump in and tackle the job even if it seems daunting at times. I wish you luck in getting it back on the road. I don't have a ton of spare parts for a '67 but I'll keep my eyes open and see if I might have some things that might help you with your project.
Hi Gary; Its great to have you check in on my car every now and then you might help prevent a disaster of some kind from time to time, who knows. I've copied every pic from your Kokomo build it's a great step by step how to and been very helpful to me. It actually was a big reason I cut into this car as much as I did, at first all I wanted to do was get it running and worry about the rest later. I've received so much help from different members of this forum that I've achieved much more than I really had the ambition to do when first I started this project. Thanks to all
My car has been sitting for a long time, not good for the electric component's. When I changed out the Passenger side door with the 66's I got a look at the power window motor or what was left of it as it was rusted through. This was some bad new for me so I did what I do best, I ignored it. Well not entirely I planned for the worst and looked for deals on the motors, I picked one up off a board member here for $30 and I found 3 untested motors on Ebay for $30 including shipping and to my surprise all of them work. So I started checking the switches out and nothing. I didn't panic because I knew I had 4 good motors so I got a wiring digram for the power windows. I haven't pinpointed why yet but the main power line is dead at the fuse block so thats on my to do list. I did plug the main power line into a good circuit and to my joy the driver window went down and back up slowly but it works. I'm going to have to take all them apart and grease them but knowing I have working power windows really brings a smile to my face, I really thought things were shot. Now all I have to do is figure out why the power is dead at the fuse block, I hate wiring problems, If I can't figure it out I know I can use a open plug on the block. Its not fixed yet but I at least have a handle on it and I know I'll be able to roll my windows down which is important as I don't see getting my AC going for a long long time and it gets really hot down here for a while
I have 67 GS400 frontbumper with the bumperlights, and 67 Skylark/Special steel grill, and a complete Chrome dasboard that has been cut in the radio area. Is there any interest in these pieces have them for a long time now.
I got the Orange w/black stripe power line to the fuse block ok but the circuit at the fuse block is dead, if I plug the orange/black wire into another plug with power the windows work. I just have to find why the circuit is dead at the fuse block, If I cant figure out whats wrong I guess I'll just use a different power source at the block but its probably not a good idea just to ignore dead circuits as they have a habit of spreading. Opa; Thanks for the offer but my bumper, grill and dash are some of the fue parts on the car that are actually in fair shape. I had to do a lot of repairs on my GS Grill but it came out looking pretty good.
I finally got around to installing the exhaust manifolds and the passenger side went right in from the top even, way too easy. Now came the time to install the driver's side manifold this was naturally a little bit more of a challenge. I took the head and manifold off as one piece, it seemed to make sense at the time. well after a small wrestling match whit the heads I finally prevailed but in the proses I broke off one of the tail pipe connector ears. This was early on in my Buick experience, I wasn't yet a member here and I foolishly thought all BBB were basically the same on the outside. So off to Fleabay and pay way to much for a 70 manifold that I thought would fit my 67 block. Well come to find out the 70 manifolds don't work on 67 blocks, Gary "BUQUICK" helped confirm this fact thanks Gary. So I was stuck with 3 options, one to do as Gary did and grind the ear obstructing the manifold off. With the motor still in the car this was not easily accomplished. Two was to try and find a one year only 67 drivers side manifold that some one might just happen to have laying around, might be a long wait. Or three I could try to repair the manifold by brazing it some thing I've never attempted to do. Naturally #3 wins out what the heck got to learn it some time, so I went for it. I think I lucked out, I wont boor you with a blow by blow but I read some, a couple YouTube videos and I was good to go. The repair actually seems like it is going to work. I beat the heck out of it with a ball peen hammer and it all held, not bits flying off or cracks formed so I think I'm good. So a small milestone has been achieved and I'll soon be getting the car off those jack stands that with all the rain lately not a moment too soon, I'll leave you all with a few pictures of my torch work.- First how they looked all broke up My crappy brazing skills And Painted
Not much of a mile stone but I've had this car up on jack stands for so long I guess I just got use to working with the car chest high. I finally got to the point that I don't need to go under the car so much so I put the front tires on and dropped it to the ground. What a change, I have to bend over to work on the motor thats new to me. I feel like the car's in a hole it's kind of funny but I'll get use to it. Of corse the back is still on jack stands with the whole rust thing I got going on in the trunk. I dropped the gas tank and found all kinds of pinholes on the top, I thought I could solder them over and fill them with no problem. Well a little wire brushing with my 4 1/2 grinder and the "pinholes" got a lot bigger. Then I took the torch to it and the holes got huge so it's new fuel tank time for me, yow I didn't plan on that one. No pictures or anything just thought it was funny how low the car sits now.
Hey opa/ robert, i would be interested in your bumper if in decent shape. I suppose it is in europe,nl? Pls send pics. patrick
i am building a 66 skylark GS so everything you are doing or going threw i have been thier. i did a frame off so i know the ins and outs of my car pretty well. i have a factory manual for mine and yours so if you need anything let me know and i can copy and send it to you. to power your fuse box thier is a single wire with a male end on it that bolts into the outside of the fuse box in the engine compartment firewall side above the engine harnees plug and the headlight harness plug. make sure thier isnt a fuseable link that is blown. Paul 1966 Buick Skylark GS Turbo 401 Buick Nailhead Building the Badest Buick possiable on a automotive shop teachers budget Build Thread http://www.pro-touring.com/showthrea...uild&highlight=
