There is just something about the nailhead .....the angles just make it a piece of art . There is not an engine bay I have seen here that I wouldn’t want. Keep the nail alive
Here's a coupe that never made it to engine bays.... 65 stick motor with Hillborn injection and Zoomies 66 cali emissions 401 with exhaust port injectors....spaghetti tubed street rod headers with an Edelebrock B 262 aluminum 2x4 intake with 500cfm Edelebrock AFB style 4 bbl carbs...and VELOCITY STACKS !! Peace WildBill
Bill here is a Hilborn 8 stack 1964 casting on the Hilborn from two perspectives that did get some track time 9.04 at 154mph
I LOVE it John ! Wish we were getting together in a few weeks......i am so bummed out that the W.O.T. has been delayed a year. Peace WildBill
Thank you. That's so nice of you to say. It's a work in progress. Next up is new suspension and complete redo of the existing but not working A/C. I have a new aluminum radiator shroud and integrated brushless fan from Wizard Cooling who made my radiator and a new condenser from Vintage Air. My fingers are crossed that the existing compressor works. I'm having a shop do it this time. Likewise with the suspension, I'm having it done and going with fully adjustable coilovers front and rear for the suspension. Next up I need the windows redone and then a repaint next year after I leave the money tree to rebloom
While it's not a Buick car, I have a Nailhead just the same in my J. Hope to get more fancy/quality dressings over time.
The main car was a skeleton in my backyard when I was but a wee tyke going up. It was my father's at 16. Had a 283 and packard 3 speed in it. We had the main shell,fenders, doors, hood, grill, and frame. That's me on the left, skeleton in the background, my sister on the right in 1970. At some point it made it under the front pofch where at 11, I started to play with it. I told all my friends I would build that car and they all laughed, What a motivator!
Being that Mass. is "NailHead" country back in the day do you happen to know Buddy George from Wrentham, Mass??? or Jimmy Shiels from Franklin, Mass??? Buddy ALSO has a Henry J he raced at N.E.D. Got it so close to the 10's around 10 or so years ago. Tom T.
Back when I bought your roller rockers for the nailhead in the J. You had mentioned Buddy to me. I never got in touch with him or met either of them. I still have a ways to completion. It is in mid-coat clear and .025 flake currently. I reassembled and run it around as is. Has original front suspension, needs king pin rebuild. But drives well as is. That's were I left off when my youngest was born. She's seven now. Hopefully soon.
Back in the early 80's there was a man who worked at Paul's Clutch and Machine who had a history with racing or building Nailheads. Name I can't remember but chatted a few times. Also wish you had seen the Want Ads around 87 when I put for sale a nice little hoard of Nailhead parts. A complete 66 425 that I broke down but tagged. A 63 or 64 401 which was rebuilt, "not by me" It was never run or broken in but looked good. It had all the right bore cross hatching from the honing stone. It turned over by hand nice. It had a solid lifter cam and setup, adjustable rockers, "can't remember the brand but I think the adj nuts were green"?? 3 separate distributors. Factory 425 dual quad intake, a brand new Offy dual quad intake, a brand set of dual quad 625 AFB's with likage, a Q-jet intake from the 425 which came out of a Riv. matching Q-jet carb, 3 factory 4 barrel intakes, a couple 4G Carters, 3 timing covers. A ST 400, a ST300 .. New .005 over crank and rod bearings, rings, replacement valve springs, new oil pump, 2 sets of steel timing gears and chains, seals, rod and crank bolts, 2 complete gasket kits, etc.. My friend worked at New England speed in the day and I got a nice discount and all came from TRW. I'm missing alot more goodies.. Sold it all for $300. These engines and parts were all in my basement! My father wanted to kill me for almost destroying the floor. Then a complete nice running 66 GS with frame rot for $400. I knew a kid in Natick or Framingham that had a 65 GS with a 12bolt Chevy with 4.11's and a ST400. It got stolen and that was the poor kids 2nd second GS to get stolen. I think his first was a 71 GSX 455?? I have forgotten so many names, places, and thing over the years. Edit: Want to add that I took the complete 425 home from a Cambridge junk yard by taking the trunk off my 66 GS and driving it home in the trunk. A couple 2 x 4's with chains and some friends got it out..
Tom, I'd believe it. I might have to seek those guys out sometime in the near future. Maybe I can carry on the parts hoarding tradition for them. Peter, if only I had been looking at the time. I had just dropped out of engineering school and was working like a dog then. That would have been a heck of a score! Thanks for sharing.
Would have been nice and quite a story if we happened to come across here after getting these parts 30+ years ago..but you working so hard makes you what you are today
