This has been a fun car to do. A friend of mine delivers parts for a Mazda dealership. He called me and said he had found a car I might want for sale in North Carolina. Long story short it came home with me. The seller was a body shop owner that was a former mechanic. When young he worked on this for the owners doing regular maintenance. He really knew the history of it. After the owners died he purchased it from their estate but never got around to building it. The owners had bought it new and never sold the car. They retired it in the 80's. It sat until we bought it in 2009. I planned on packing it away while the other projects were getting finished. I told him to deliver it to our shop so I could see if it would run. Once it was in the shop I had to start on it so the build got started ahead of plans. It was amazing under the hood. I don't think they replaced almost anything in the 90k miles it was driven. Stock radiator, alternator, master cylinder, hoses/clamps, carb, wires ............ The car still wore the original paint and had original interior. The tires were ancient too. Most of you know the correct shades and colors of original cars. However there are still questions posted on here about factory shades and what items are painted and what aren't. This car also appeared to have the correct clamps and other items under the hood. So I took many photos of it. I am going to post them here. For those that don't know all the answers these photos might help you out if you study them.
Fenders had a small amount of rust on the bottoms behind the wheel openings. Quarters were solid with only surface rust. Rear inner wheel wells had 2 small holes on each side that required patches. Some body pics the day it arrived:
No trunk mat and that was good because if it was there the floor would have been toast. This trunk floor was very solid. Trunk related:
The seats were not ripped or torn but the material was brittle. The carpet was faded and smelled like rats. The headliner was good other than stains and mold. They were eventually replaced with Legendary items. Floors were solid as a rock. Rat's nest on top of glove box liner caused some rust on the dash that required work. Interior:
Found the sheet on the gas tank. It was in very good shape. Original T3's and very old tires. Core support was gone under batter so it required a patch panel.
Now it's starting to go back. This is going to be a nice driver. I left the body on. The car was fully undercoated many years back so it was cleaned and a fresh coat applied. Rear end and all components were detailed along with a new gas tank. Cowl forward is detailed. Blasted steel wheels and NOS dog dishes. Original colors being used. I copied the green paint dab that was originally on the T350. More copied paint dabs: Patch attatched: Copied the writing I found: Patch finished: New internals along with a Comp cam:
Nice work John! , that thing was hammered. I believe that the numbers you see on the DS saddle bags were the line #.
Yikes! Although my car now has a 455 in it, I'd give my left one for a non-air GS-350. Only thing better would be a 4speed on top of that. Instant schwiiiing! With the price of gas continually going up maybe now the 350 cars will start getting a little more respect. Kudos to you for not instantly throwing a big block in it. The Buick 350 can make an awesome daily driver powerplant. I used my car for years before I instantly removed it's daily driver status witha a rowdy BBB and a little converter. 70's rule.
