Despite my absence from this blog, I am making good progress on the Buick. There's still no way I can fully list what I've done, but here are some of the highlights.
I have finished all of the woodwork in the rear of the car. This includes both quarter panels as well as the package shelf and piece across the bottom of the rear window. All in all it turned out pretty good. The curved bottom pieces along the wheel well are far from perfect, but they seem to be good enough. I've started work on the wood for one of the rear doors, but it has been slow going.
 Ready for upholstery. |
The next thing completed has been restoration of the dash. I disassembled the instrument panel and cleaned it up. I also painted the background of the panel. Amazingly that's all that it really needed. I then repainted the dash. I have seen several different opinions regarding the original painting on the dash. many of them seem to have been wood grained. However, I read somewhere that in 1936 the dash was painted black on the Specials. I opted for the simpler task and just painted it black. It may not be totally correct but it looks good with the original clock and instrument panel colors.
 Freshened up dash. |
 Restored instrument panel. |
I also spent some time cleaning up the trunk area. This is the one place that is going to need a bunch of patching. My next big project will be to start replacing the panels in the trunk that are bad. Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to make them up myself.
Of course, I have saved the most exciting part for last. The engine was finished at the end of May!!!! It ended up being groung 0.030" over in the cylinders and 0.020" under on the crank shaft. I also had the rods remachined so that they will accept modern insert bearings. In addition, the guy said that it has a later head on it that allowed him to use domed pistons. This will raise the compression a bit a give a little better performance. So most of my work over the summer has been to reinstall the engine, clutch, transmission, etc. I also painted the radiator shroud/grill support. This allowed me reinstall the radiator. With everything back in place I ran some temporary wiring and tried to fire her up. The engine was really tight, so the starter wouldn't even turn it over. We pushed it out into the alley and tried to push start it. Unfortunately that didn't work either. Finally, I hooked it up to our Suburban and towed it. After about 20 feet of towing it fired right up! At first it ran a little rough, but very quickly smoothed out.
It was really killing me to just let it sit there running. So, I turned an old wash bucket upside down and used it as a seat. I put my son and his friend on the passenger side floor. One holding the temporary gas tank and the other a fire extinguisher. Then we were off. We made several passes up and down the street with no muffler, doors, windows, interior, etc. It was quite a sight. I was fully expecting to get a ticket, but we lucked out. Most importantly it runs really great, very smooth and alot more power than it used to have.
 Freshly installed engine. |
 Wired up and ready to roll. |
Finally, I also picked up some competition to the Buick at the end of July. I've been thinking for some time that it would be fun to build a little Model T speedster. I don't need a whole car for this just a good running chassis. I've been keeping my eye out for possibilities, but never really saw any. Then in July I saw an ad on Craigslist in Albuquerque for a 90% comple 1922 Model T. I called the guy up and it turns out that it was just a running gear plus a whole bunch of extra parts. Most importantly it came with a rebuilt, never run, engine an dthe price for the whole lot was about half the cost of rebuilding the engine. I couldn't pass it up. It turned out to be a whole 6' by 10' trailer full of stuff. I've spent the last little while working on both. My immediate goal was to get it put together into a rolling chassis, just to make it easier to move out of the way.
 Some of the Model T project as bought (new motor not shown). |
 Partially painted and assembled chassis. |