| A lot has been going on, yet no matter how much I work on the car, it doesn't seem to progress! Spring is coming, the roads are dry, and the fever to get Buick running is getting BAAAD! |
 The
previous owner of the Buick had already fabricated new front fender
extensions
that mount between the door and rear fender. To my disappointment, they
didn't align well enough. It was easier to make new ones than to modify
the existing ones. These are made of mild steel since I want to be able
to use lead for filling the seams. The aperture, visible when the door
is open, is covered by a stainless wire mesh to add some custom
touch. |
 |
| Although I
spent a few months
trying to recover the original fender skirts a couple of years ago, I
decided
to fabricate completely new ones out of scratch, since I think
the
horizontal lines of the OE skirts fight against the sweeping, sloping
line
of the front fender extensions as well as the shape of rear fenders. I
started by outlining the desired shape on a cardboard, then traced the
lines on the fender, followed by fabricating a skeleton out
of
6 mm steel wire. Believe me it sounds easier than it is, and
what's
even harder is to replicate everything on the other side!
My plan was to cut pieces of curved sheetmetal from the roof of a wrecked 79 Malibu (the donor car of my replica Shelby Cobra), but it turned out the panel is not curved enough. Now I am building an English Wheel to be able to shape whatever compound curved panels needed now and in the future. This new skirt also extends lower than the OE piece to make the car appear lower. |
 They
say that a 6 volt horn works allright with 12 volts, so let's give it a
try. And the original horns look rather nice I think, when treated
properly.
The housing is painted with matching colors to the car, maroon and
white
pearl. But the dome is a new one. The original painted steel domes were
so pitted and thin that they couldn't be chromed. So I gave the trophy
maker an order to spin new ones out of copper. I just had to buff and
polish
them and punch a countersunk hole for the screw. It took amazingly lot
of grinding to remove the waves left from spinning. The horn internals
were disassembled and cleaned. So far I haven't tested them. |