I’ve had the car home now for about 3 weeks. I’m dying to start tearing into it and do something, but I promised I’d get the flooring installed first. I’ve been installing flooring for the last three weekends and I can’t stand it anymore. I got off work early today plus I have tomorrow off, so I thought I’d sneak in a little bit of work on the Buick.

I removed the air cleaner assembly. This is the heavy duty type because the car was sold in Arizona. I don’t think the oil bath had been changed in over 40 years. There was about an inch of thick sludge at the bottom. Otherwise the assembly seems to be in great shape. The sheet metal on the inside is like new with absolutely no rust.

I next turned to the spare tires. I had tried once before to get them off so that I could have better access to the engine. However, I couldn’t figure out how to remove them. The bolt assembly holding them in appeared to be stuck (or I was too dumb to figure it out). I didn’t want to force it in case it was the latter. Today I looked further and decided that they were indeed rusted up, but the whole assembly was held to the fender with two bolts. The bolts looked pretty rusty as they are on the road side of the fender, so I prepared for the worst. To my surprise they came right off just like they were new. I hope this is an omen of things to come…

With the bolt assembly removed I was able to lift the spares right out. I think they may be the original tires that came with the car! They are rock hard and would probably shatter if I hit them hard with a hammer. Now that the tires are out I can get a look at the wheel wells. They are filled with 40+ years of dirt and leaves. Unfortunately, this has plugged the drain holes at the bottom of the wells and they have rusted out. I knew from my initial inspection that there was some rot, but now it looks pretty significant. The entire wheel wells will have to be replaced.

Right wheel well shows some rust through,

but the left side is really bad.

Next I had a closer look at the interior. It had made a nice nesting place for mice for the last 40 years. There are droppings everywhere and at least an inch of dust on everything. I started with just a good old cleaning by removing the front seat cushion and vacuuming everything out. I gave the dash a quick wash with a wet rag and cleaned the floorboards with a mild bleach solution. I am somewhat worried about the hanta virus that is carried by rodents in this part of the country. Their droppings are one way to contract the virus, even after they are long gone. No big surprises here. The upholstery is pretty rotted out and there is some surface rust on the dash but nothing significant. The floorboards are pretty solid although the top layers of the plywood are beginning to loosen up. The speedometer face looks to be in good condition now that I can actually see it. The door frames will need to be rebuilt, but the metal on them is in excellent shape.

The inside before the cleanup.

Is there a speedometer in there?

That’s all I had time for today. It wasn’t much but felt good to be able to tinker around a bit. Now its back to flooring for another few weeks…

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