I just picked up a 73 Riv for 500$. It's rough, loud, and needs some th400 love.. I'll get some pics when the sun comes up tomorrow.
Last Monday morning I saw an ad in recycler.com for a "73 Riviera runs xlnt needs paint bla bla 650$" I give him a call, and it ends up being an auto shop that has taken a car in, done some work and the guy got a job in N.Y. and had to take off. I was just on my way out to the Swedish consulate to do some bartending and was dressed for that, and time would be real tight to make it to the shop, and then on to work. I think crap, I'll just go for it. The Centurion had to haul its and my ass out to the shop real quick. I take a quick look at it, drive it back and forth in the driveway, check brakes, lights, wipers, horn etc. I notice it slipping in reverse, and I tell the guy. He said yeah, at first it drove fine, but he had also just noticed that. But he assured me it drove fine through all forwad gears. My time was up and I had to leave.. He said, make me an offer I can't refuse. Ok, 500$, I'll pick it up on Friday. Picked it up yesterday, I had to drive it in first all the way home, the transmission story can be found here: http://v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=88277 So now it's siting in the street. It can be moved around which is real good, but it can't really be driven unless absolutely necessary. I haven't really found any interesting options on it, it's loud; got those glass pack mufflers on it, it used to have a vinyl top, paint is real faded, it's missing the chrome part on the driver's door, and the door doesn't close against the fender properly. It has no lock on the passenger side, and the front seats are shot. I don't plan to put any $ into it until it is registered, and the transmission has been sorted out. After that a priority would be seats. Which cars would have a th-400 replacement for this one? In the other post it's unclear if it is a "short tail, ot a long tail, anyone knows? Any other model that could have seats that are similar?
Nice score, I hope its a longshaft TH400 because you should be able to get one for free or darn near free. There is almost no demand for them. I myself have three in the basement that I can't give away! Good luck on the Riv. Always loved the 73 tail lights!
Nice car, Kimson! Couldn't you just have the tranny rebuilt instead of looking for a replacement one? I found that getting my TH-350 rebuilt was a lot cheaper than buying one out of a boneyard/or finding one out of another car. Only 150 bucks for the rebuild, and for the cheapest replacement one I could find was in a totalled '77 cutlass and the trans. was said to be fine and it was 175 bucks. You might find a TH-400 for dirt cheap in your area though. Anywho, that's just my opinion is to have it rebuilt. Looks to be a solid car from the pics!!!!! :TU: I bet the glasspacks sound good on it too! I love glasspacks :3gears: :bglasses:
I agree with you, The transmission isn't hard to get and even having yours rebuilt shouldn't be expensive. I also love the 73's large taillights and it's seats. Nice color too! :TU:. Once the black interior will be redone, you'll be able to buy brand new black Buick floor mats for it too!
Nice score! It's likely a long shaft, I just had mine rebuilt, $150 including parts and reinstall help. Special deal though, in my club we have a transmission guru who works for beer!
I saw that the vacuum line from the carb was totally off, I'm hoping real bad that it has something to do with the situation. fixing it tomorrow. Otherwise it's half price at the yard this coming weekend, maybe I'll try to pull something then. If I could have the tranny rebuilt for 175$, sure I'll go for it. But I think it would be a bit more around here.
Nice Kimson! :TU: Looks like a deal for $500. Wow, talk about a bare bones riv. One of the less optioned rivs for the registry. :laugh: What are your plans? o No: The bench seat can be found in any 71-73 rivs probably, I'd also assume the big buicks from 71-73 too. Im interested to see what becomes of this Riv. Nice center caps BTW. :grin:
Be sure that your vacuum modulator works (and that it gets some vacuum!) If it doesn't, upshifts will come at unacceptable speeds... I once had a bad kickdown switch in my 68 Wildcat (same as in 70's Buicks with a TH400) that did about the same (upshifts at very high speed). Rob, The 73 Riviera Custom notchback seats are similar to the 74 Custom notchback seats but the 72 Custom notchback seats aren't the same (different covering). The 71 Riviera Custom seats are a completely different design (Strato bench type). It's usually easier to have your seats redone than trying to find identical seats in good condition.
I haven't been able to take it back behind the house today to fix the hose, I managed to take it out through the engine compartment, so I at least got the replacement for it. It has a big puddle of fluid under it, so that needs to be looked at too. Picked up 5 qts of fluid so I can go in and get it back together again. It was funny at the DMV on Saturady when they couldn't locate the car in their computer. It ended up being the two last digits were swapped around on the paper, and I'll go back on Monday. The plans for the car are to first get it registered in my name, and try to sort out the transmission situation. After that we'll see, maybe I'l ljust keep it. I'll need something to drive once the Centurion gets its body work started.
Hows the body on that beast any rust holes??? floors trunk? etc?? i'm dying to have a boatail riv in my collection.
The body seems to be good, no rust on panels, doors etc. But it seems to have sat in a grass field or similar, it's rust underneath. The floorpan for one of the passenger sides is thin, and I'm not sure about the trunk yet. Its has that tar carpet or what ever it is still in it. The whole exhaust system hast rust on it, but I don't know how bad it is yet. The bullet style mufflers are all rusty too. I hope I can bring it in tomorrow, and get it up so I can get a better look. It all depends on if the neighbor leaves his spot, cause I'll need to back into it to get it back out again. Monday / Tuesday is street cleaning, so it has to switch sides at 2 pm. Funny that the car is as big as the centurion, and the mad max bumper sure takes up a big chunk of the length of it. In the trunk there was new still in boxes with recepits from '02 a variety of different filters, distributor parts etc. The blue license plates with 1980 stickers on em, a car cover, old fuel pump, and the original air filter box. It has a newish chrome top arrangement put on. There was also a GM casette radio marked 6/6/99 and name with a marker pen. Look like it had been bought at a junk yard or something, and never put in. There was also an 8-track tape in the passenger side storaage compartment down by the right foot. I've never seen one before so that was kind of cool. I'll try to get some pics for you tomorrow when it's back behind the house and I can dig around a bit. Fun to see it when it's washed and cleaned out a bit.
Kimson, congrats..... The 73 is imho the beauty of the Boattails years.... I'm sure lots of people here will disagree on that one p For me it has another advantage; lots of parts are interchangeable with my '75 Riviera Cadillac floormats?? p
At 8am I was back at the DMV today, Showed them the mixup of the last two digits in the vin, and they tell me everything has to be redone, since the lien sale had been for the wrong car then. ahhh.. 30 days wait until the new one would clear etc. I got in contact with the shop I got it from and they contacted the agency that set up the lien sale, and new papers are on their way. We'll see how this goes down on Friday. Back to base and the car is brought in. I start cleaning out what I think is mud/clay/? that's sitting on the frame. Apparently this car hadn't exactly lived its whole life on asphalt. The frame seems to be good, with the only rust that's causing any concern being the passenger side floorboards. I connected the tube for the transmission, and cleaned out the car and vacuumed it. Also fixed some broken lights at the rear. I also threw out what was left of the fan shroud, put back the old air cleaner, and removed the last pieces at the edges of the vinyl roof. It was time to take it back out, but the damn neighbor had snuck in while I was taking the vacuum cleaner back up. So the car is stuck behind the house until he leaves again, and then we'll see how the transmission is doing.
I thought the 73 with its huge bumper wouldn't look as nice as the earlier tails, but I like it, it's a real "mad max" bumper. The car is like the bluesmobile from the blues brothers, it feels very far from having a "new car" feeling. It's really loud and I like it, rUmBlE RumBle RumBLe....
The engine looks just like all the other engines with many years of never seeing any cleaning. New water pump & air filter...
