| As you already
know, I'd
rather include pictures to support the story. But to be quite honest,
most
times I work on several things in parallel, and would have a
variety
of "semi-finished goods" at hand, but nothing to shoot pictures of. For
instance, I have finally fixed some gas and coolant leaks (just to find
more coolant leaks). I also discovered that the steering box leaks
badly.
But whadda ya know - no motor oil leaks - yet!
To add insult to injury, the starter got moody, too. One time it cranks fine, other times it seems that the overrun clutch fails. I have adjusted the pinion travel per specs, so that's not the cure. I also fixed and installed the non-original gas tank that was included in the purchase of the car. It's supposedly a GM tank since the fuel gauge sender shares the same ohm values as the original Buick tank, but the support straps run diagonally. It's got a cork float and a drain plug, so it fits the time period. It came without a gas cap but a contemporary Ford USA/Opel cap works. The sender needed light sand blasting to get a good contact and start working again. I also poured some acid into the tank to remove rust - seemed to work. Then I also had to resahape the filler neck and fabricate a new vent tube (gooseneck), and new straps. A lot of work for something that only the annual safety inspector is going to see. My workmate Juha Telen built me a voltage regulator to drop the 12 volts to 6 volts for the fuel gauge & clock - thanks! |
 Tuula
says the grille reminds her of the mask of Darth Vader (of
StarWars)
! All customized cars should have a name, right? I wonder if we
just
found the name for our Buick, although I had something less sinister in
mind. We'll see.
I decided to install some of the frontal sheetmetal since I got tired of stumbling on all those loose parts (there's still too many), and to protect the radiator...and to give you the false illusion that I'm making progress ;-) |
| Below: Maybe I got carried away, but the Buick is a heavy full-size car, a tall one, and the original, skinny stabilizer bar looked so marginal that I just had to let a local shop Vallilan Takomo manufacture a heftier one. It is actually the same diameter (24 mm) as the 1989 Trans-Am rear stabilizer bar, so I used the leftover brackets and rubber bushings from my rear axle swap. I'm also using an inexpensive fullsize GM end-link kit to complement. |
 |