430 swap into Wife's 67' Skylark and build.

My wife wants to get her hands dirty and help out where she can. Unfortunately she has not had a lot of time available when I have been in the workshop. I hope to get her out there some more. The 430 did not come with a distributor so I grabbed a HEI I had from another Buick engine and had a look at it. It was kind of rough but all we had. I am not really a big fan of the HEI (mostly the looks with the big cap) but they can work pretty good. We stripped it down, blasted the housing and the advance weight pieces on top the shaft. The posts for the advance weights were worn half way through. I took apart a spare HEI my father In-Law had, robbed the posts from it and pressed them in. I welded the advance slots to reduce the total mechanical advance as well. I like to be able to add plenty of initial advance without having too much total. The kit comes with adjustable vacuum advance so we can reduce the total vacuum advance as well. I sprayed the blasted housing with cast aluminum paint. The kit did not come with a pickup coil so I ordered one from Rockauto along with new O ring. Plug wires were Taylor spiral wound 8mm so we will reuse those. My wife gave them a wipedown and they look new. Good little project to assemble on the kitchen table together. Here is the link to the Summit Racing kit if you are looking for something like that.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-850032
Greg

 

Looking good Greg. Can’t wait for warmer weather and a schedule for street legals at Mission. Would you take both Buick’s out to mission once the 430 is completed?

 

I am sure we will do that eventually. My wife really wants to beat me with here car. She definitely wants to make some runs at Mission. She has wanted to drag race her whole adult life. I am happy I can finally help her achieve her dreams of having a muscle car and making some passes. Hopefully this 430 will perform pretty good for her. It is delaying my fresh 455 build so it may end up being faster than my 66'. We will see. I have a NOS kit at home. Might have to bolt that on to be sure not to get beat by her. LOL.
Greg

 

Best looking Buick valve covers ever made when chromed.

Consider using a hydroboost unit if braking vacuum has you concerned. GMT400 3/4 ton trucks or astro van. More clearance and better, more consistent brakes. Plus the extra room!

 

We have been making slow progress on the engine build and have not looked at the car much at all. We had a nice spring day a couple days back so we pulled the car out of the garage and my wife swapped on the rally wheels I gave to her. I just refinished a fresh set of rally wheels for my 66' and put them on with a fresh set of BFG TAs. These are. my removed set. I think the car look so much better. The 17"s are just not our style and the rubber was way too low of profile. Overall height of those 17"s was barely 25". These rally wheels are 245/60/15" front and 255/60/15" rear on 15x7" painted style rally wheels. (These were never chrome ones) Having 26" and 27" tall wheel/tire combo fills the wheel wells much better. The car has a much more muscle car look. When she gets the 430 in it it will have the power to back that look up too.
Greg

 

I am away working right now but I was scrolling through Marketplace looking for good deals on things as usual. I stumbled across a hood listed as a 65' Buick GS hood. My wife wanted to add a GS hood and grill to this car. I told her it would likely be out of our budget for now as those pieces are rare and difficult to find. Especially where we live in Vancouver BC area. As soon as I seen this hood I was sure it was not a 65' and the scoops were obviously 67'. The picture was not great and I only had my phone to look at it. I contacted my wife and told her to get ahold of the guy right away. She made a deal and went to pick it up with my truck. The guy swore up and down it came off a 65'. She said she was sure it was a 67' GS340/400 hood. Anyway, she took it away for $500. It is nice to get lucky with a find once in a while. Usually I miss deals as I am away working often. We will get this hood painted up and swap it on in the next year or two. Now we need to find a grill. I would be happy with a special grill. We don't need GS badges.
Greg

 

WOW, what a great score that was!! That thing looks like it's in fantastic shape. Hell, the hood scoops alone could bring $400.

P.S. Just a word of caution....You'd be better off storing it on it's side instead of standing straight up like it is with it's corners bearing the weight.

 

The special grill is the same, just the emblem changes. Parts place makes a great repro: https://www.thepartsplaceinc.com/pr...ille-comes-complete-with-mounting-studs/19429
The hard to find parts are the center and the bar, especially the center 'cause they break.

 

Yea. I see there is a pair of scoops for sale on ebay a day or two back that were $900. These things are very rare in my area. I am glad we could get to it first. It is also probably good it was listed incorrectly or more people would have been all over it.
I will mention the storage of the hood on it's side to my wife. I am not at home right now to change it myself.
Greg

 

Soem good ideas here too: https://www.v8buick.com/index.php?t...-hood-on-convertible-top.374126/#post-3262504

 

TPP has that center piece as well! Nice build!

 

Those tires and wheels look great!

 

The wheels and tires fit nice, any idea what back spacing the wheels are ?

 

Greg, tires and wheels look great. Hope to see you and your cars at Poppy High School meet as long as weather cooperates.

 

The wheels and tyres improve an already nice car by about 300 per cent. I'm not a concours guy by any means (mostly cos I cannot afford to be), but for the life of me I can never understand why anyone would run anything other than the Buick rally wheels on these vehicles. Just my view.

 

They are 15x7" with 4.25" backspace. The right rear is a little close to the fender lip. I guess the rear axle is not centred or the quarter is over a little. I think it will be ok but could possibly rub cornering hard.
Greg.

 

Unfortunately Brad I don't think I will be able to make it out to the Poppy car show. I will be out on shift working. It is possible I will have local work though. I suspect my wife and my daughter will go though.
Greg

 

Beautiful project. Love the rim swap away from 17's. You can change upper rear control arms to an aftermarket adjustable version and re-center your rear but I won't attest to what that does to overall alignment. That's what I did to mine to squeeze in my rear wheels and mine drives great.

 

I managed to accomplish another task. Cleaned up the 430 heads. I disassembled them. They were very carboned up so I wire wheeled the valves and cleaned up the chambers. Then I scrubbed the heads down good. I ended up lapping in the valves with some grinding compound and I cut the valve guides for moder Comp Cams positive valve guide seals. I assembled the heads with Comp 910-16 springs and then gave them a coat of red paint. I would have loved to send them out for a multi angle seat and back cut valves but had to stay on a budget. They should work fine for the couple thousand miles a year it will get.
Greg

 

beauty eh. What paint did you use? I'm looking for something close to buick red myself.