Posts Tagged ‘Riviera’

But wait, there’s more…

Posted: November 20, 2018 in Buick, Riviera
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I was having trouble with the idea of hiding the beautiful headlight nacelle’s behind the (admittedly graceful) front bumper.  I toyed with the idea of cutting the bumper ends off and grafting them to the center, so it “floated” between the fender tips, but that seemed like it’d still hide the lines Bill Mitchell laid out for the car 55 years ago.  What to do?  A little masking paper gave me an idea…

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Why do I even need the bumper?  It’s strictly an ornament, in fact it bolts to not only frame, but the sheet metal fenders, AND, the fragile die cast bottoms of the headlight tower grills. Even a tiny bump would take out the whole front end.  Not only that, the soft curve of the thin bumper clashes with, and mostly hides, the crisp, sharp lines every where else on the front end.  Why not just eliminate it, and let the design of the that front end stand on it’s own?

So, a couple of hours later, the paper pattern turned into:

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The bottom valance panel, the part of the bumper that bolts to the fenders and headlamp tower grills, remains as a “rolled pan”.  I made a simple filler panel, from the valance panel under the grill, that’ll bolt (it’s clamped on for now with Vice-Grips) to that.  It was a very easy panel to make, all straight bends (which I did over the edge of the bench with a couple sticks of 1/4″ 2×2 angle, some Vice-Grips and a rubber mallet as a brake).  That chrome piece will get painted body color, which will let me fix the little dent where one of the original bumper guards got tweaked.  I have some extra door stainless trim pieces that’ll make a nice trim over the little “flat” I added to the valance panel extension were it meets the Riviera’s original part.

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I’m pretty proud (obviously) of my design, which focuses the eye to the headlamp nacelle’s and the wide ’65 grill.  The bright Halogen headlamps will be fine behind the grills and plastic lenses, as the grills are so close the bulbs.  Shining on the shop wall, they look like they’ll be more than adequate for actual night-time driving.

The only drawback to this modification is that now I don’t think the original pale blue color, which I’d decided I’d use, won’t look right with this new, rather sinister look.  Which means, I guess, that the door jambs and cowl will now have to painted some other, suitably menacing, color.  Maybe gunmetal grey, satin?

I can’t believe I just said that, but it would look great with the black leather interior I have for the car…

Thanksgiving, a Rivieras progress.

Posted: November 18, 2018 in Riviera, transportation
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I’m approaching my 64th birthday in a couple of weeks, Thanksgiving is coming right up, and I’m pretty thankful for my wonderful family,  beautiful grandson, great home with a (semi) warm shop, a collection of some pretty neat cars, a couple of fun projects, time to devote to them, and a wife who supports this obsession of mine.

The Riviera is coming along pretty well, the brake conversion is done.  I got the correct pins, and the spindles and brakes are on the car for good.  Lines are next, and the new master cylinder needs to go in.  I pulled the original gas tank, and have the poly ’93 Cadillac tank that was under our old ’48 Pontiac convertible to replace the original.  A new sending unit and Walbro fuel pump compatible with the pressure requirements of the LS is an easy swap, then lines for that, and the car will be, hopefully, a runner.  It turns over with the key, all the systems are “hot”, so I think I’m getting close.

I’m very happy with the headlight installation behind the parking lamp towers in the fenders, it’s a HUGE improvement of the clunky, last minute botch the factory did with them in the grill.  The ’65 finally got the clamshell lights, and the clean grill (I used a ’65 grill), but this will be a good, low dollar substitute for that one year only, complicated and hard to find conversion.

I used the headlight buckets that came out of the ’59 Thunderbird (which were replaced by ’63 Cadillac units), the were on the shelf, complete with the Halogen bulbs.  I’d originally thought of new projector style bulbs, but they ‘re expensive, they’d be hard to adapt and make the adjusters for, and might look odd behind the lenses.  This seems to be a more sensible approach to what’s going to be a period style car.

Happy Holidays everyone, get out in the shop and make something!

 

Name that part…

Posted: November 3, 2018 in Riviera, Uncategorized
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More specifically, name what vehicle it came from, so as to be able to obtain the missing caliper pin, and maybe a set of shoes in the future.

I’d had these on the shelf, saved for who knows how long, from what I remembered as being an ’83 Chevy conversion van that I’d bought for it’s 350 engine.  It turned out I didn’t use that part of it, but I did use a bunch of other stuff from it for the Diamond T, the front suspension, the gas tank, the master cylinder and power booster, steering box and and so on.  I remembered saving the front spindles and brakes, having swapped the 5 bolt, 1/2 ton parts for heavier, 8 lug 3/4 ton pickup items when I put the suspension in the Diamond T.

They’d  been sandblasted, the spindles primed with epoxy, I kept them thinking I’d use them someday, on something.

Evidently my memory is unreliable, as when I went to O’Reilly’s to get a replacement caliper pin (one had gone AWOL in the shop during the 10 years or so I’d been shuffling them around), and we couldn’t match it with what I thought they were.  A set of oversized GM pins were ordered as they were the correct length overall, but when they came they didn’t work due to difference in the head and length of the threaded shank.

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A trip back to the store today and a VERY patient counter-man revealed they are really mid 70’s full size Cadillac parts.  The pins are available, the calipers themselves are not, at least from O’Reilley’s,  For the life of me I don’t know where I got these, what I intended them for nor why I saved them.  I do remember, vaguely, deciding the set of van spindles and brakes weren’t worth saving, and taking them on a scrap run, thinking these were the same parts.

They aren’t.

They DO fit the Buick ball joints, and I CAN get the missing pins I need, they have a brand new set of shoes and the pistons are free and don’t leak, so I’m  using them.  I’ve got the spindles mounted and the right side all assembled, the left I’m now waiting for the pins.

The moral here is twofold: 1.  Don’t use what you have on hand just because you may have it on hand, and, 2.  If you save something, label it to identify what it is and put it away carefully so as to not lose difficult to find bits.

Of course, I won’t heed my own advice, and I still don’t remember how I got those…

 

Bagging the Riv.

Posted: April 17, 2015 in Classic Cars, HAMB, Riviera, Tin Can Tourists, Traditional Custom Cars, transportation, travel
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With help from my friend Jake who made spring spacers for another ‘ 63 Riviera he was bagging, I got started on the air suspension for Kim ‘a Riviera today.

Front is together, I hope to get the rear done tomorrow and get lines run . The goal is infinitely adjustable suspension for ride height, static display and trailer towing duty.

Just fix it.

Posted: March 1, 2015 in Gilmore Car Museum, HAMB, Riviera, Traditional Custom Cars, transportation, vintage car
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The restoration (or “fixing up”) of an old car is a matter of repairing and refurbishing all of the worn out and/or broken parts, making them work like they should, and then, depending on your own taste, making them look like new, or as close to new as makes you happy, again.  It’s one step at a time.  Today I made several big steps forward.

The Riviera I’m building for my wife had an issue with the passenger door glass, it flopped inwards when the door closed, didn’t fit right, and the power window motor was shot.  Happily, I have an extra pair of doors, and robbed the spare door of the parts I needed.  The window motor works fine, but sadly, the die-cast arm on the window regulator that was the cause of this floppy-ness was also broken on the donor door.  Since I had an entire extra regulator, I cut one of the steel arms off it that happen to be exactly the same length as the broken die cast one, managed to save the shouldered rivet that makes the hinge pin that it pivots as the window goes up and down, and put it all back together.  It works fine, and cost ZERO dollars.

I got the new “Southern-Air” A/C-heat unit mounted on the inside of the firewall too, and adapted the shiny new dash vents to the Riviera’s original housings, on each side of the dash, and the long narrow  original one in the center of the console.  The defroster tubes are also mounted temporarily, so I’ve go all done that I can do until I get the new console (sourced from the guy who bought the parts Riviera I sold) and start permanently putting the car together.

Next up, put some butyl duct-insulation (same stuff as “Dyna-Mat” but about a quarter of the price), on the floor and insulation on top of that.  A buddy uses shiny mylar bubble wrap insulation in all his builds, so I’m going to use the same thing, with maybe a second layer of butyl duct insulation on top of that.  I want the car quiet and cool.

After that, I spent some time sorting out the wiring harness, as I need to sort out the switched and constant hot feeds to wire the new ECM for the LS engine, and I got all the windows to go up and down.  The drivers power seat needs some work to free up the mechanism, but the motor runs, so it should be repairable.  The headlight, tail-light and wiper circuits all work, so I won’t have too much wiring to do, as the original wiring is in good shape.

I’m very happy with this afternoons work, I got a lot done, and made progress on several aspects of the build.  As soon as I get my re-shaped oil pan and the air suspension stuff, the car can start going back together and get ready for paint!

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The defroster plenum will get the tubes sealed in with my second favorite thing, duct tape.

The defroster plenum will get the tubes sealed in with my second favorite thing, duct tape.

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from the firewall

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It’s a FLUID plan.

Posted: September 7, 2014 in Classic Cars, Traditional Custom Cars
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Plans change.

Plans change.

When I bought the Rivera home, I’d initially planned on using it as a home for the 454 from the motorhome which I’d drug home, getting the car running and driving, and then flip it, letting the happy new owner finish it. That plan changed when Kim surprised me by saying she liked the car (actually, she was looking at the parts car, which I’ve already sold) and wanted me to build it for her.

I got excited about that, and the rush then to pull the motorhomes engine/trans seemed not so urgent, and I immediately decided an LS engine and 4L60 would make the car much more enjoyable if we were going to actually DRIVE it, so the plan morphed again. My pal Brad at Morris Rose Auto Parts here in Kalamazoo scored a 5.3 from an ’04 Avalanche for the cause, and it’ll be united with a 4L60 trans, along with the complete under hood wiring harness, fuse panel and PCM from the Avalanche. With a minimum of effort, that gets us a stand-alone harness to make the engine/trans work in the Riviera, with money left over from the parts car sale.

I also decided right away that the car would get a ’65 grill and hidden headlights. The ’63, with its clunky headlights plunked in the grill were a stop-gap design from Buick originally, and since the car is a custom, I didn’t care to use ’65 clamshell lights, which means a complete front sheet metal swap, or tons of work. I saved the headlamp buckets from the Thunderbird, which is now wearing ’63 Caddy lights and bezels, and these fit perfectly in the Rivi fenders, simply stood on end. The lights are visible behind the grill and lens, but no more so than the original park lamp reflectors, so it’s a natural.

Headlamp behind the park lamp grill/lens.

Headlamp behind the park lamp grill/lens.

The ’65 grill, which I got from the guy who bought the other car as a direct swap for an extra ’63 grill/headlamp assembly, doesn’t quite fit in the ’63 front, but a few minutes with a cut off tool to open up the fenders, and some whittling on the lower corner of the new grill with a flap disk (it hit the core support) let it slide right into place. I have to make a new lip on the fenders to fit the grill, but it won’t take long at all, and the difference is dramatic.

This is what the Riv SHOULD have looked like to begin with.

This is what the Riv SHOULD have looked like to begin with.

To say I’m enthused about the project is an understatement, I’m excited, and eager to get going. The ‘bird again has taken a back seat, but I’ll make myself do the little remaining body work on that along with the Riv. It’ll be fine, I’ll get them both done, and, what’s the rush, anyway?

The only drawback thus far is that now that we have the car, every event I now go, there are ’63 Riveras! Why is it that I never noticed them before we had one?

Marketing 101. Will we sell one of the two Riviera’s?

Posted: August 9, 2014 in Uncategorized
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Today we listed the yellow Riv on eBay, Craigs list, and the HAMB classifieds in the hope it’ll disappear quickly.  Yesterday the crew here spent the afternoon sifting through the truck load of extra parts that came with the car, and it’s quite a pile.  We’ll keep enough stuff to replace any damaged bits, like the rear bumper, of the blue one (the one we’ve decided is a “builder”), and the rest can go with the yellow one, or be sold separately.

There was a complete set of 4 Guide “T-3” original headlamps, and they all worked, at least until I tested them a second time, when one of the low beam ones called it quits.  Dang.   Supposedly they’re pretty desirable with the classic Corvette guys,  like $50-60 apiece, so we’ll see if they’ll help move the iron.

I’ve already had offers to trade for stuff I don’t want, which I expect, but nobody has raised their hand and said they’d swap for a ’26-’27 Ford Roadster body, which is what I want.  Oh well…

The pile of parts included enough to replace all the damaged pieces on both cars, minus the missing left front fender of the yellow car.  There is however, two right fronts, so maybe to rights will make a left?  We’ll see…

Meanwhile, now the fun of watching the sale on eBay.  Lots of hits on the car, and several people watching, but no bids yet.  I’m also taking it to the “Relix Riot” next weekend, on the trailer, and would even deliver, to the happy new owner.

As long as they were fairly close, and on the way to return my buddy’s trailer…

Here’s some more photos of the “pile”.

Parts is parts.

Parts is parts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at this yard, filled with fabulous prizes!

Look at this yard, filled with fabulous prizes!